Media Videogame Thread

picked up mbtl over the weekend. it's a lot different from its predecessor game on account of the fact most characters have actual high-low mixups and good characters aren't determined by the ability to choose whether or not they respect your ability to hold down-right until your opponent fumbles the blockstring.

fun game though, akiha is a really fun character to play
 
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Yeah, I'm thinking new favorite game contender. 11 hours in and aside from the occasional mostly skill issue-induced hiccup (I had to look up how to proceed once) it's been an amazing ride filled with fun, flashy combat open to experimentation, insanely cool movement with rooms and puzzles built to make full use of it and absolutely generational environment design (Raging Sea filters your favorite water area in terms of level theming it is the rawest shit ever). I don't know what's more shameful: This not being a goty nominee or Ubisoft keeping their Montpelier studio chained up like a wretched homunculus when the three times they've been allowed to make an actual game the past decade they've pumped out nothing but masterpieces
 
The Steam Payout for December 2024 Winter sale.

My steam library grows...View attachment 696096
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I'll be getting these 4 games after I do my AP Calculus Exam. Which I'm guarantee to shit the bed at!
tf2 peak...
btw there's this pretty cool game called library of ruina that goes on sale during the summer more or less every year since release. if you're up for a challenge you should pick it up.
you can play its predecessor game (lobotomy corporation) but that game plays completely differently (incredibly difficult management simulator) compared to library of ruina ("incredibly difficult" deck builder rpg) on top of being a genuninely torturous experience.

they also have a gacha game which is free and has basically zero p2w stuff on account of 1 mdh netting you a 10-pull (which respectfully you should have zero problem with if you're anywhere past like canto 4)
 
i finally beat ff7 Rebirth on Monday (work too much) and now starting Metaphor: ReFantazio - right up my alley, still only like 2-3 hours in so cant give a "full indorsement" but so far the presentation has been incredible. ATLUS dont miss.

edit* yes ill prob make my avi a Metaphor character before long that's my gimmick afterall - unless the Knicks make me happy (throw in the rando wrestler avis as a Russo swerve) lol

only gripe going from ff7rebirth to metaphor is "why cant we still save in dungeons if we tired?" i know its persona/smt but as i post this at damn near 4:30am eastern i wanted to do the dungeon cus im enjoying the story then seen the time lol smh
 
i finally beat ff7 Rebirth on Monday (work too much) and now starting Metaphor: ReFantazio - right up my alley, still only like 2-3 hours in so cant give a "full indorsement" but so far the presentation has been incredible. ATLUS dont miss.

edit* yes ill prob make my avi a Metaphor character before long that's my gimmick afterall - unless the Knicks make me happy (throw in the rando wrestler avis as a Russo swerve) lol

only gripe going from ff7rebirth to metaphor is "why cant we still save in dungeons if we tired?" i know its persona/smt but as i post this at damn near 4:30am eastern i wanted to do the dungeon cus im enjoying the story then seen the time lol smh
im about 25 hours into metaphor. its pretty good! and ive never played an atlus game before, i just had 10k yen in my steam account and saw the game awards nom. the UI might be a little too much lol but i like that the plot is basically the 2020 US election
 
im about 25 hours into metaphor. its pretty good! and ive never played an atlus game before, i just had 10k yen in my steam account and saw the game awards nom. the UI might be a little too much lol but i like that the plot is basically the 2020 US election

i was joking at work metaphor feels like varying degrees of inception, cus they tell you it's fantasy --- ask you YOUR NAME (as a pokemon kid i thought duh main character i control name but then got asked the main character name and was like..... just add another letter to same name (Yuri (my legit nickname) to Yurei (the actual spelling/root of where it came from lol) - i know not awfully creative but its a name that stuck with me lol - even my name badge at work is Yuri even tho my name is Josh cus I dont like ppl i dont know calling me by name -OCD lol sorry.) The mentor; no spoilers, but who More really is; etc - but as i dived slowly deeper i felt the mental math. It's def brain twisting. I'm making sense of it now too lol.
not to mention the whole dimensional breakdown and understanding of "Humans" being the most feared/worst enemies lol. Elda being most "human in our sense like but hated" etc.
i had an ex that was SUPER into Persona & Shin Megami Tensei, and she always made me curious (sidenote ATLUS soundtracks are top tier) hope Metaphor is a new face/franchise (i legit only just beat the first dragon lol) i find this story incredible and am eager for more,
 
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havent played a game in the "days to do stuff" realm for awhile so Metaphor: ReFantazio been an adjusting period, but im thoroughly enjoying, incredible story. Though the added stress of days and how to work the times can be annoying it's a good challenging mechanic lol. obv offers replay value.
 
metaphor made me feel like a noob today cus i got mp stuck in a dungeon and when i realized breaking the crystal was wrong(and just killing mobs with mage to restore was it- THANKFULLY SAVED PRIOR) was the reason after about 20 minutes my lady goes "that was probably your source cus they keeping coming at you" (for easier MP replenish - 1MP for each kill) and i just looked at her like "then why aint you say it then?"
her: "cus i find this funny"

*deep breath* .... thank you i love you
and *IM* the RPG head, she likes sims/animal crossing (*love her* but the "COME TO MY ISLAND" burnt me out on that game) or left for dead (i know polar opposites but hey, thats her - 14 years later lol)

in my defense im new to the game but ill totally give her that one lol.

Edit: PSA: This why you go to sleep even if you wanna play ya game and think you got it but ya dont cus you just so tired from the work week lol.
 
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im playing metaphor: refantazio rn as i said prior and i thought to myself "a speedrun of this would be a chore on hard mode without some grind" then it see all the youtube videos and im like..... welp...

i may not ever wanna speedrun a game (no judge, even re-playing games i fall back into it like a cloud of the experience again) its all about the in depth experience for me. but i respect the people that research it enough to know every right step to power through mad fast lol.

tbf i think i beat pokemon silver in like 2 days as kid (story not pokedex) at like 9-10 (red and all) on a summer vacation - the sleep i had the next 2 days after felt heaven sent.
i still dont know why i did that, i just wanted to see how long i could play - there was like a 4 hour nap in between - and obv the "have to turn off cus mom want me/dinner/etc time" but i wasnt ever thinking speed i was thinking "this is the team i wanna use now" lol

Edit* I was (I'm sure) one of many kids that tried to beat the Elite Four in Pokemon yellow with Ash's anime team. I did it a few times but that itself was a bit of a challenge lol (usually Pikachu, Charizard, Bulbasaur, Squirtle, Snorlax, Muk - or Pidgeot if I wanted to finesse the rules - really didnt need that since Charizard learned fly tho. would be interesting trying that in OG Red/Blue) - i'd even do my own variations and make like.. Wartortle my ace since that's my guy just as the kid who played it enough and wants a challenge now so it gotta be self imposed back then.
 
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Ahem ahem. Time for my Big Review Of Everything I Played In 2024 post
(past posts: 2020 2021 2022 2023)

Going to split the year in three because I stayed true to my promise of playing a lot of new games.

A quick scoring guide:
9+: This game is incredible, I keep thinking about it for months, I wish I could experience it all over again from the start.
8.5: This game is really good, and I very much enjoyed it, but it doesn't quite excel and stick with me after I'm done in a way other games have done.
8: Unequivocally positive experience, but I don't think about it much after I'm done, I don't particularly wish to replay, and I only actively recommend playing to people who are the target audience
7-7.5: Some flaws held me back from fully enjoying the game, but I overall still appreciate the game more than I dislike it.
6.5 or under: The flaws were too much to ignore and I straight up did not have a good time

Chants of Sennaar: Baby's first language decryption game. As a moderately big fan of language games I'd already checked out games like Heaven's Vault as well as some obscure shorter stuff like Sethian, and after those experiences going back to Chants of Sennaar feels like swimming in a pool for children. But it has to be said the game is very polished from a technical standpoint and it's a great experience for newcomers to the genre, which is probably a requirement to sell a lot of copies in this space. And sell a lot of copies they did - I'm happy for them. It just wasn't all that great for me because of the low difficulty. 7/10 for me, but 9/10 for most people. (playtime: 9 hours)

The Roottrees are Dead: So this one is curious - it was originally available on itch.io with AI-generated art (the game is made by a solo dev on very low budget), but given the attention it received, they have commissioned hand-drawn art and the game is now rereleasing on Steam (in two weeks from the date of making this post). As for the game itself - it's an Obra Dinn-like, but your deductions are about rebuilding a vast family tree rather than solving a bunch of murders. The personal stories of the various family members are interesting, it's fun to learn about all these people and piece together how they felt about each other based on scraps here and there, maybe there's even a little bit of Her Story inspiration with the way you have to unearth some of the information. All-around very creative, well executed, and strongly recommended to anyone with an interest in the genre. 8/10 (playtime: not tracked)

Rogue Legacy 2: Other genres have had 'definitive' roguelikes - Hades for isometric hack-and-slash, Slay the Spire for card games, and so on - Rogue Legacy 2 is a solid attempt to be that game for the 2D action platformer genre. Unfortunately for me, I suck at 2D action platformers, so I was never really able to dig too deep into this, or Dead Cells, or Risk of Rain 1 (or RoR Returns for that matter), or even Rogue Legacy 1 - I hit a skill ceiling way too quick and these games get frustrating. Even still, Rogue Legacy 2 felt pretty strong. It's not close to the near-perfection of games like Hades or Slay the Spire, but if I reckon it's the best of those 2D action platformers by a decent margin - especially if you're good enough to delve into the deeper difficulties without getting frustrated. (If you're struggling you can also turn down the difficulty at will from the menu, which I honestly recommend if you want to try this out but you're not too hot at the genre - don't get yourself into frustration loops, this game is too good to be stuck down there). If you know your way around a 2D platformer, give this a shot! It's missing that special spice that makes games truly legendary, but I think it hits home on all the fundamentals of the genre in a great, cohesive, very entertaining way, and I could easily see this be the kind of game that the right people dump hundreds if not thousands of hours on if they get hooked. 8/10, though my skill issues lowered my personal enjoyment a couple notches below that. (playtime: 45 hours)

King of the Bridge: A short game about chess where none of the rules are the same and also both players cheat all the time. Funny, charming, tickles the brain, you can get it for pocket change, it's a solid 7/10 for me. (playtime: 90 minutes)

Backpack Battles: This is a fun and complex autobattler with unique spacial reasoning mechanics, the core design ideas are super strong and the game is fairly well polished. I played it early last year, and it's still in Early Access, with a lot of patches since I've played it and even more patches coming until full release in 2025. But I liked it plenty at the time, and I have to imagine it's only gotten better - I gave it a tentative 8/10 at the time and I'm sure I'll sit down to give the full release a proper shake when the time comes (should be in 2025!). (playtime: 23 hours)

Cross Blitz: If Backpack Battles was a fine fun game in spite of the Early Access polish, I'd say Cross Blitz really suffered for it. The game is extremely ambitious in its structure, presenting a mixture of Slay the Spire and Hearthstone and other such iconic digital card games; but only having access to some of it just isn't very fun. The patches have been steadily flowing for the rest of 2024, but I honestly have a hard time recommending this game until it's properly completed. It was a 7/10 at the time, and that's for a big digital card game guy like me, probably pretty unplayable for people who aren't particularly huge fans of the genre. (playtime: 13 hours)

COCOON: One of Annapurna's last big hits before they got killed by internal disputes (RIP). A very smooth experience, game is absolutely stunning graphically, the ambiance and the aesthetics are just phenomenal. The puzzles are not that complex, mostly there to keep you entertained and give you an excuse to enjoy the amazing sceneries. It's really gorgeous, but ultimately I think it's let down by the lack of concrete gameplay challenges and short length. Even with that, it's still an 8/10 for sure. (playtime: 5 hours)

The Artful Escape: This is a pretty incredible experience. The plot is classic "young man learning to carve his own space in the world" stuff - but it's delivered through art and music in a way that is just Very Cool. A lot of guitars and psychedelic stuff and aesthetics that I wouldn't say are normally up my alley, but they're so well executed I just had to sit down and enjoy. The gameplay isn't exactly thrilling, but it's also extremely unintrusive - be aware that this is basically a movie with interactive elements more than a proper game I guess. All in all, well executed piece of art - 8.5/10 and it only goes higher if you're a fan of guitars and stuff. (playtime: 6 hours)

Lingo: Lingo is one of my favorite 3D puzzle games I've played in recent memory. An endless array of satisfying word puzzles, cleverly integrated into a 3D world with Antichamber-esque navigation - which I've heard was confusing and unenjoyable for some, but I loved slowly building my mental map of the insane noneuclidean space this game takes place in. If you're a fan of English-language word puzzles (which I am) and you can wrap your head around confusing, hard-to-navigate 3D spaces (which I can) Lingo will absolutely deliver for you. 8.5/10 and i didn't even explore everything the game has to offer in my (playtime: 14 hours)

Balatro: You already know this game, you don't need my review. I grinded it for a while and I've recently come back to it for the occasional "I've done a good day of work and I can afford one run before bed" type of game - to my surprise Balatro is excellent in that way as well. Every single bone in my hipster body wants to find reasons why Balatro is actually not that good, but I'm afraid it just is - 9/10 and I will be back for more. (playtime: 100 hours)

Slice and Dice: a cool little roguelike. I would say its main draw is the extremely granular and customizable difficulty - you can shape your experience to be whatever the hell you want it to be, taking on the challenges you find appropriate for your current ability and energy levels, while avoiding the others. All-around good time - 8/10 - though I do have to say I got bored and moved on reeelatively quickly. (playtime: 24 hours)

Dance of Cards: An interesting little game that fuses Mystery Visual Novel with RPG with Card game with 'Choices Matter' narrative. The blend is clearly inspired and the result is quite entertaining, though I'm afraid the small size of the team ends up holding this game back in some areas - the writing quality occasionally dips to pretty low levels, the gameplay systems have some abusable flaws and such. It's a rough gem, 7.5/10 - a bigger team with a bigger budget could have made a masterpiece out of the ideas in this game though. (playtime: 7 hours)

Esports Godfather: This is a MOBA esports manager/simulation type game. Honestly the management game (which is what I was excited about) is not very well refined at the moment, but the "MOBA" itself (which is actually a card game emulating a MOBA) is extremely sick lol. They've been polishing this game up quite a lot throughout 2024 and I think development will be complete in 2025 - jury remains out on whether they manage to tweak the numbers to be just right for great gameplay on the 'sports management' side of things, but even if they fail to do that, just the card game itself is truly just a ton of fun. 8.5/10 - extremely niche game, but I'm in that niche. (playtime: 68 hours)

BOOK OF HOURS: From the authors behind Cultist Simulator, another game with truly immaculate writing. You could spend forever trying to understand the secrets of the world they have built and you will still only scratch the surface. Kick back, take plenty of notes, enjoy the little bit of optimization-based gameplay provided, and allow it to guide your dive through this absolutely stunning worldbuilding for hours on hours on hours on end. These guys got me still thinking about Skolekosophy months later. 8.5/10 if only because the gameplay sometimes gets tedious. (playtime: 62 hours)

Aviary Attorney: Cult classic from 9 years ago, I knew I had to get around to it eventually and 2024 was the year finally. Completely hilarious setting and writing, some genuinely great ideas for plot structure, and fun enough mystery-solving. If you're into detective games at all, you should wait for this to go on sale (it's on a big sale right now!) and just play it - it's nothing too revolutionary, but it's just a ton of fun. 8/10 I think. (playtime: 3 hours)

Before Your Eyes: This game is supposedly good but it's built on a gimmick of controlling the scenes with your blinking, and my eyes are pretty sensitive so trying to stress them to control this game was absolute misery. It was just uninterrupted pain for me unfortunately. Do not play this game unless you have strong ass eyes, whatever nice things you can find here are not worth the pain you put yourself through. I withhold my vote because I don't think I was able to give this game a fair chance, despite trying my best and getting to the end. (playtime: 100 minutes)

Void Stranger: This is one of those games that tries 50000 original ideas, and chances are you will really love a few, and really hate a few, and all in all it will probably be worth playing. It starts reasonable (but a bit tedious), then there's a sudden shift and gets ridiculously tough to a point that I feel comfortable saying that any sane human being should expect to use walkthroughs to get through it; there is a lot of pain, but there is also a lot to appreciate, both plot wise and mechanics wise. This is a game that really cannot be condensed down to a single number, but if I had to quantify it, it's probably an 8.5/10 - most people will like many parts of it, but you also are guaranteed signing up for pain, which is not everybody's idea of a good time. Still if you can swallow your pride and use walkthroughs to help with the stuff that would otherwise make you want to slam your head on a wall, then you're in for a good time and there's a lot of really clever things that I vastly appreciated. Very weird game, I was both glad and sad to be done with it. If you do buy, take plenty of notes. (playtime: 34 hours)

Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers: A love letter to many many card games, the game tosses out references to all the classics and a lot of obscure things too. Very funny and enjoyable, though the questionable balance eventually takes over and the game doesn't have enough mechanical depth to stay interesting. Still, very much a fun time for a good while, heartily recommended to all card game enthusiasts - 8/10 for me in spite of many clear shortcomings. (playtime: 13 hours)


Dome Keeper: This game is fun! It can be relaxing or hectic depending on what you want it to be, a lot of different playstyles in a mining game is pretty crazy. It's like if you took optimized strip mining from Minecraft and added a billion little mechanics, anyone who grew up on that cave life like I did is sure to have a good time. Lots of different things to try, a nice game for people who just want to relax and dig, and also a nice game for people who want to get pumped up and dig optimally. There are some issues I'd consider objective flaws, but the game is still getting worked on and expanded on slowly, and it already feels like a very complete package to begin with. I had lots of fun, 8/10 and I may return here in the future if I'm in the mood. (playtime: 26 hours)

Chrono Ark: Anime game is good I'm afraid. The fanservicey art style really isn't for me, but the way the narrative and VN elements are intertwined witth the roguelike mechanics is really unique, the card game is fun enough, and importantly it is just a very good narrative. For me it was "only" an 8.5/10, if you appreciate everything that this game does to its fullest (including the artstyle and the nitty gritty of the gameplay mechanics) it could probably rise even more for you. (playtime: 26 hours)

Leap Year: This year's Linelith - a puzzle game that is short and sweet, with a fun innovative core idea and lots of very clever little twists even though the game is so short. If you're playing any puzzle platformers, you should be playing Leap Year - it's just really clever, short and sweet. 9/10 though it's probably only that high because I'm a big puzzlehead. (playtime: 2.5 hours)

Roboquest: This game kicks ass! Not much of an FPS guy but this game is just SO good, every run feels like you're running some new unique broken combination of weapons and upgrades. I'd say the one drawback is that one class is clearly way stronger than all the others (and it happens to be the one with the least skill expression) - I'm thankful for this as someone who is Bad At FPS Games, but it just feels a bit cheesy. If they fix that issue any time soon this game is just perfect, it's a ton of fun going through it and discovering secrets and slowly powering up until you get that first win. And then you keep going because the gameplay is just so much fun. Really good game, 8.5/10 but an even stronger rec for anyone who likes FPS games. (playtime: 24 hours)

The Rise of the Golden Idol: The sequel to one of the better mystery games in recent memory, the new chapter in the Golden Idol storyline is just as good as the first. They toyed with the systems and the narratives quite a bit, some things were improvements, some things not as much, all in all the experience is about as good as the first one imo. Which is to say: quite good! The mystery solving is a highlight, I think the game would have benefitted from better exposition of the characters - especially because personal motivations of each character are very often key to understanding the scenarios, but overall a solid experience, and I'm happy the Golden Idol series seems to be alive and well. 8.5/10 despite my complaints, definitely a good game. (playtime: 10 hours)

Can of Wormholes: My personal favorite out of all the games I played this year, this is a SENSATIONAL puzzle game. The absolute best hint system I've seen in any puzzle game, Can of Wormholes isn't afraid to challenge you but it also gives you a helping hand if you're not seeing things. It's so rare to find a puzzle game that respects both the experienced and the novice player experience SO highly. It's clear tons of care went into making the player experience as nice as possible, which is a really big breath of fresh air in the puzzle genre. A lot of designers settle for a narrow skill level target and simply don't care about you if you're outside the target, but it's clear Can of Wormholes tries to accomodate people at literally any skill level. Hint system aside, a lot of the puzzles are just extremely fun and well-designed, and it feels like this game is flinging a new The Witness-level secret mechanic twist on you every hour or two, which is just unreal. Absolutely fantastic game, and proof that there is so much more to do in the puzzle game space compared to what is being done right now. 9.5/10, if you are not completely terrible at spacial reasoning give this a shot and try to get through it, I promise it rules. (playtime: 14 hours)

Beastieball: Finally, monster collector designed for pvp x sports game rpg, with vn elements. It's like they saw inside my heart's innermost desires and designed a game around them. The game is still in early access, with a lot yet to be developed, but it very much rules and I am hoping both the game and the competitive community develop healthily so I can jump back in in the future. 8.5/10 because it's straight up unfinished at the moment, praying that I can raise this vote by a lot more in the future. (playtime: 28 hours)

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes: Like a giant escape room that spans an entire manor. Find codes, find where to place the codes, over and over and over until you earn access to every nook and cranny, and you then use your accumulated knowledge to "win". The puzzles really aren't complicated - it's really a stretch to even call a lot of the obstacles here puzzles, more of just keys-and-lock systems - but the important thing is that they keep your mind busy while you soak in the plot and the OUTSTANDING aesthetic (the entire game is in grayscale with the addition of some red - extremely bold choice and yet it works). The escape room stuff is mostly filler/backdrop: the real core of this game is the experience of trying to make sense of the situation from heaps of scattered and contradictory information, and enjoying the faultless artistic choices. In the moment I was a bit annoyed by the tedium, but with a little bit of time behind me it's a clear 9/10, and I am definitely hoping for more games to follow the blueprint set by this game. (playtime: 24 hours)
Metaphor: ReFantazio: I'm sorry Metaphor diehards I'm afraid I'm of the stance that this game is Worse Persona 5. Luckily for you Persona 5 is an absolute masterpiece and being a cheap knockoff in a different setting still means you're amazing. When I compare the two games I just cannot overlook how rushed some sections of Metaphor feel (basically everything after the midpoint of the game honestly), it's a huge objective flaw. The one thing you CAN unequivocally give to Metaphor above P5 is the quality of the character writing, especially the villains are very good (the allies are still hit or miss much like P5), but that's not enough if I'm trying to make an objective judgement. The worldbuilding is somewhat shallow and it feels like it's only built as a shell for the big hero versus villain plotline, too, so it's not like Metaphor's writing is even superior all-around. But uh this game is obviously fantastic in spite of these shortcomings, 9/10 and you didn't need me to tell you. Persona 5 clears though. (playtime: 106 hours)

Arctic Eggs: This game has the same vibe as How Fish is Made but only like 1/5th of the graphic nasty stuff. It only alludes to graphic nasty stuff with its words most of the time. No surprise at all this comes from the same publisher, though I am surprised a different dev was able to reproduce the same surreal vibe and add genuinely interesting gameplay to it. It is a bit expensive for how short it is though, which knocks it down a notch in my books. Still very glad I bought it though, 9/10 only slightly brought down by the expensive pricetag. (playtime: 100 minutes)

Thank Goodness You're Here: This game is one giant piece of classic self-deprecating British humour and I'm here for it. You need to be in tune with the culture a bit to really appreciate it, but man it's really funny. It is also outrageously expensive for such a short game though, so it gets the same rating nerf as Arctic Eggs I'm afraid. 8/10 is a good representation of how satisfied I am with my purchase, the experience is a little better but the price was way high. (playtime: 2.5 hours)

If you don't want to read everything, my top 5 games I played in 2024:
1. Can of Wormholes - just brilliant, one of the best puzzle games I've ever played. The puzzles are great, the attention to the player experience is fantastic, I wish every puzzle game with great puzzles in it had this level of polish and care poured into it.
2. Balatro - the music, the visuals, the gameplay, everything is optimized to make you feel like a capital W Winner. and it never gets old. masterfully executed design, deserves all the praise
3. Lorelei and the Laser Eyes - for innovating with gameplay/narrative integration structures, for a great plot, for high artistic value, and for being overall extremely cool
4. Metaphor: ReFantazio - for being a slightly worse copy of one of the greatest games ever made
5. Arctic Eggs - something about cooking eggs on mount everest i think

bonuses:

green = i was excited and it delivered
yellow = i'm still excited, but i'm waiting for more patches / further stages of development
red = something went bad and i was probably wrong to be excited

Balatro - Played it, was excellent
Hades II - Decided to wait for it to exit early access
Aethermancer - Still waiting for it to release at all
Windblown - Decided to wait for it to exit early access
The Rise of the Golden Idol - Played it, was great
Read Only Memories: NEURODIVER - Game released but judging by the reviews it's pretty bad :(
Pikmin 4 - Too used to playing on PC to go out of my way and buy on Switch, but I totally should
13 Sentinels - Too used to playing on PC to go out of my way and buy on Switch, but I totally should
Not For Broadcast - This game has a slow start and I sometimes struggle pushing through slow starts. I bought it but I cannot get past it, I need to force myself to stick with this one some time soon
The Roottrees Are Dead - Played it, was great
Paquerette Down the Bunburrows - Waiting for a few more promised patches before diving in
Chants of Sennaar - Played it, was ok
BOOK OF HOURS - Played it, was great
Void Stranger - Played it, was great

Already bought, going to play ASAP:
1000xResist
Slay the Princess
Epigraph
Children of the Sun
Not for Broadcast (i WILL get you off my backlog this is the year)

Waiting for releases, definitely playing ASAP:
Wanderstop (March 11th)
The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy- (April 23rd)
Blue Prince (Spring)
Slay the Spire 2
The Bazaar

Waiting for more patches or development completion:
Cross Blitz
Esports Godfather
Beastieball
Hades II
Windblown
Paquerette down the Bunburrows
Backpack Battles

+ very many other things honestly, the list of things I need to play is getting a little big

And one last reminder for the road that I released a game I worked on with a friend of mine in 2024, called The Specter's Desire. Mystery Visual Novel inspired by Kaiji and Liar's Dice and other such works. Would mean a lot if anyone checked it out, we will have another game coming in 2025 :heart:
 
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Brothership is way closer to a 5/10 than a 10/10. In pursuit of being a good-looking, premium, accessible HD game, it makes small, insidious concessions and changes to the formula that left me wondering if the series was ever good until I tried Partners in Time again and realized just what went wrong. Everything that defines the series is present, but diluted to the point where the fun is almost lost.

Battles are a slog. Jumping and hammering take one more input than before each and have substantial animations, ruining the basic flow. Unlike past games, jumps aren't even ended early if you KO with the first one. Health bars are a nice addition in the abstract, but so many enemies will be left with an infuriating sliver that means you have to spend another boring 10 seconds finishing it off. Battles playing out on a widescreen TV means much more dead space for characters to traverse as they get into place for attacks. It's a parade of walking back and forth and one-at-a-time attacks that reminds me too much of Pokemon's antiquated battle pacing and NPC animations. The enemies in the game are fine, but there are far too few types. You fight Snaptors for hours and hours, and insufficiently different recolors galore. Considering some of said enemies are also ported from Dream Team instead of wholly original, the repetition reeks of budgetary compromise. Bad pacing and no variety on top of awkwardly long load screens meant I was avoiding as many battles as I thought I could get away with. If an enemy I didn't want caught me, I groaned. I never groan! I ended up dropping the game over a gimmicky miniboss fight that exacerbates these battle issues.

As for overworld traversal, it's the most decent game element, but it doesn't do anything to break new ground. I don't mind the Luigi changes as much as I feared, but I hate the constant glowing and L button prompts on breakable objects. The game encouraging me to autopilot it makes it feel unconfident in itself and its players. Luigi Logic is a marketing gimmick to make the game seem more exciting, but it's just an umbrella for the usual M&L antics and mini-mechanics. Load screens are everywhere and often last just a hair too long, giving my mind time to wander and question how I'm spending the hours.

The story gets a lot of praise, and I don't understand. Past M&L dialogue has a certain... snappiness to it. Characters aren't afraid to get sassy, and points are made in a speech bubble or two. That's all gone here. Characters have no sense of personality, just superficial quirks and jobs. Scenes are too long for the ideas they're getting across. The Extension Corps pop up way too often for how little you get to fight them. Starlow feels like a completely different, vapid, and redundant character. I like what they did with Peach, though I stopped just short of reaching Bowser so can't comment on him.

The game looks good, and ticks every M&L box, but only does the bare minimum, most likely in the name of getting it out the door and offering the least resistance to less invested players.
 
Brothership is way closer to a 5/10 than a 10/10. In pursuit of being a good-looking, premium, accessible HD game, it makes small, insidious concessions and changes to the formula that left me wondering if the series was ever good until I tried Partners in Time again and realized just what went wrong. Everything that defines the series is present, but diluted to the point where the fun is almost lost.

Battles are a slog. Jumping and hammering take one more input than before each and have substantial animations, ruining the basic flow. Unlike past games, jumps aren't even ended early if you KO with the first one. Health bars are a nice addition in the abstract, but so many enemies will be left with an infuriating sliver that means you have to spend another boring 10 seconds finishing it off. Battles playing out on a widescreen TV means much more dead space for characters to traverse as they get into place for attacks. It's a parade of walking back and forth and one-at-a-time attacks that reminds me too much of Pokemon's antiquated battle pacing and NPC animations. The enemies in the game are fine, but there are far too few types. You fight Snaptors for hours and hours, and insufficiently different recolors galore. Considering some of said enemies are also ported from Dream Team instead of wholly original, the repetition reeks of budgetary compromise. Bad pacing and no variety on top of awkwardly long load screens meant I was avoiding as many battles as I thought I could get away with. If an enemy I didn't want caught me, I groaned. I never groan! I ended up dropping the game over a gimmicky miniboss fight that exacerbates these battle issues.

As for overworld traversal, it's the most decent game element, but it doesn't do anything to break new ground. I don't mind the Luigi changes as much as I feared, but I hate the constant glowing and L button prompts on breakable objects. The game encouraging me to autopilot it makes it feel unconfident in itself and its players. Luigi Logic is a marketing gimmick to make the game seem more exciting, but it's just an umbrella for the usual M&L antics and mini-mechanics. Load screens are everywhere and often last just a hair too long, giving my mind time to wander and question how I'm spending the hours.

The story gets a lot of praise, and I don't understand. Past M&L dialogue has a certain... snappiness to it. Characters aren't afraid to get sassy, and points are made in a speech bubble or two. That's all gone here. Characters have no sense of personality, just superficial quirks and jobs. Scenes are too long for the ideas they're getting across. The Extension Corps pop up way too often for how little you get to fight them. Starlow feels like a completely different, vapid, and redundant character. I like what they did with Peach, though I stopped just short of reaching Bowser so can't comment on him.

The game looks good, and ticks every M&L box, but only does the bare minimum, most likely in the name of getting it out the door and offering the least resistance to less invested players.
Brothership came out to be the second best M&L game I played, beating out Superstar Saga. Please finish the game, it gets incredible just after where you stopped. Anyways:

The battle animations are incredible, and really sell the power of the blows like no other past game. Also, for the "annoying sliver of health part", just do a weak attack, and it will stop sooner. But I stopped doing that because the attack animations were that cool.

As for the story part, it gets a lot better just short of where you stop. Also, if the gimmicky mini boss was what I think it was, first of all, sorry to say but you aren't as close to meeting Bowser as you think you are, and second of all, you can beat them by hitting them individually to get them down to low health, then hitting them all with a bros move.
 
The Indiana Jones game has blown my mind. Sound design, lighting, and voice acting all make me on the edge of my seat. The combat has a surprising amount of depth and there's nothing like beating up a bunch of nazis. I really like history and this game isn't short of constant references. I guess my biggest complaints would be that some of the NPCs are stuck in a time loop repeating the same voice lines because you're supposed to take photos of them doing a specific thing. Like once you take a picture maybe you'll see them leave or in a different place. Also the fact the enemies can't see anyone other than Indiana Jones (people with you for the mission) is pretty stupid.
 
The Indiana Jones game has blown my mind. Sound design, lighting, and voice acting all make me on the edge of my seat. The combat has a surprising amount of depth and there's nothing like beating up a bunch of nazis. I really like history and this game isn't short of constant references. I guess my biggest complaints would be that some of the NPCs are stuck in a time loop repeating the same voice lines because you're supposed to take photos of them doing a specific thing. Like once you take a picture maybe you'll see them leave or in a different place. Also the fact the enemies can't see anyone other than Indiana Jones (people with you for the mission) is pretty stupid.

I have really been considering getting this after I finish my first playthrough of Metaphor: ReFantazio and Final Fantasy 16, but been being lazy dreading the "I been on ps5 for most the last year, xbox gunna ask me to identify myself again like i or it went anywhere" lol.
hell me and my friend been talking bout it at work, it does look fun, i might have to hope back on my xbox in a few months and grab that.
 
hi! like last year i wanted to talk about the games i played since i have nowhere else to do this and it's fun lol.

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this is less games than i wanted to play because the two ds games took up like 4-5 months of my time cause i procrastinated on them, but my mind tricked me into thinking i was still playing them so i didn't want to start anything else at the same time as i was "playing them". also cause nothing that came out during the times i played them (march-may and then july-november) didn't really interest me.

like last time my bar for liking a game is very low so a game near or at the bottom of the list isn't necessarily one i didn't like, it's just worse compared to the others.

earthbound

i played this game a lot with my brother when i was younger (we always took turns after every battle which made for some fun arguments), but for some reason we never got past threed. playing it now i see why, the game kinda frontloads all the interesting stuff in the first two towns before tapering off a lot. i really liked the dq1-esque system of controlling only one character in the first two towns while the game still gave you enough tools between equipment and psi and even teddy bear items, which i felt were a really cool addition to gameplay that i haven't seen many rpgs copy for some reason, and even after getting paula the game was still paced pretty well and the world had a charm to it...but after you get trapped threed the game grinds to a halt because you need to spend an hour grabbing jeff who fits very poorly into the established ness-paula dynamic, and then you have to make another detour to do mr. belch stuff which takes another 2 hours and then you have to walk through a very boring desert immediately after to get to the next place and by the time you get to foruside, inbetween the constant backtracking and getting stuck in moonside, who's whole gimmick is being weird, the game has lost me. what doesn't help is that after fourside it completely forgoes its theme of parodying 80s america and instead now we're in england? then egypt? then a swamp? and then dinosaur land??? there's no real cohesion or reason as to why i'm exploring these places and because they lack the cohesion of the first 4 worlds i'm not interested in them. the final nail in the coffin was the sword of kings; i don't know who thought it was a good idea to lock exclusive collectibles behind a limited time enemy's rng drops, especially at a 1/128 rate, but i spent 15 hours trying to get one and having to reset back to the start of the grind not once, but twice because i was at level 99 and didn't want to steamroll the rest of the game. atp i just wanted to get the game over and done with. still interested in playing mother 3 eventually but between this and beginnings (which was also a slog), i don't really have high hopes for it.

paper mario

i'm giving this game the benefit of doubt cause i only got through 5 hours before dropping it, but honestly i preferred sticker star to this. the combat system is just so dull and has aged poorly; it's like this weird mix between dragon quest, mario and luigi, and later games where you can't avoid hits but it has a block button timed via action commands anyway...but since you can't dodge anything there's no point in using it bar boss fights or timed fights where you can't just spam healing items. this makes most encounters very formulaic and boring, you're just trading hp for level ups which btw don't level up your attack power so level 5 encounters are just as slow and tedious as level 6, which directly counters the point of leveling up in the first place if you can't make fights faster/easier. the partner system is nice but effectively just exists to give you an extra turn and they have no hp to speak of, which makes them less of a partner and more of a worse escort mission. the partners themselves also have no personality to speak of, the ones i encountered were just a few lines of introduction and then you have a new field ability, which makes it hard to stay attached to any specific one. story's not too bad, a bit basic and the environments are nothing special (the first two worlds are plains and desert levels? i never would've seen that coming), and i did like what they were doing with peach, but i'm not too keen on picking this game back up anytime soon.

i have nothing interesting to say about shadow dragon and new mystery of the emblem, they're good and solid games that i liked but are a bit basic. people overhate avatar praise in new mystery though, it's mostly centered on your combat which makes sense because kris is arguably the best unit in the game and you're probably going to be using them constantly barring challenge runs. draug and palla are the true king and queen or archanea btw (as in, the most useful units).

persona 3 reload

people seem to give tartarus flack even in this remake and i don't see it, the dungeon crawling is my favorite part of the game. i was always hyped and ready to do a tartarus run and would spend 3-4 hours running through all the floors, grabbing all the items, fusing up my persona...hell, if this game was just dungeon crawling with no story i'd probably still play it, the gameplay loop is just that good. the story is fine but i find issues with the characters, mainly the main cast; they're not bad (akihiko is my favorite character in the game and junpei is also the classic persona case of "make the player hate this characters for 20+ hours and then make them really good"), but they have this problem where they're more interesting than makoto and yet the game seems to think i'm the protagonist when there are parts of the story where it seems like yukari is the protagionist, and i feel like the game would be better if she were the protagionist instead, mainly so they could stop doing tell-don't-show with makoto's development. it's an issue the other persona games suffer with as well but feels more pronounced here because there's another character i'd assign the role of "the protagionist" to without it feeling shoehorned in. the pacing also feels unnecessarily backloaded, it's not like you're doing nothing for the first 50 hours and i love the gameplay loop but a lot of the character development and story takes place near the end of the game, and if you can't stomach the first 50 hours i can see why someone would dislike it. this is what sinks the answer's story for me too, the dlc spends 20-30 hours telling you that makoto was just so important to everyone on sees that they're willing to doom the world for him and i just can't buy it (except misturu, girl's down bad). also the elizabeth fight is horribly designed who thought it was ok to make a bunch of arbitrary rules for the fight that completely go against everything you've been taught throughout the game and then insert rng into the mix by adding a 75% chance to just lose every 7 turns that's completely out of your control.

brothership

the best way i like to describe brothership is to imagine a valley situated between two peaks. i really liked the first sea of the game and absolutely loved the last sea + latter half of the 4th sea (as well as the boss fights for each lighthouse), and imo that's enough for me to enjoy the game, but in-between those parts it's pretty boring. ign game this a 5 and people were going crazy about the "low" rating (idk why people think 5 is low now, that means it's perfectly average, or at least it's supposed to) but a lot of their points make sense, like how the midgame pacing is really slow and how luigi is a hinderace at times due to his autojumps and lack of being able to use the b button in combat, since bbbab for attacks is much smoother than aabab. i'm high on it rn cause it's my most recent game and it does have really good peaks but i wouldn't be surprised if it went down later on.

i actually kinda lost steam writing these up after brothership so let me just say the rest of the games are really good and very enjoyable. if pressed i could probably talk about why i love them but idk don't feel like it rn.

edit: you know someone could've told me the list wasn't working. well it's fixed now anyway
 
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Brothership is way closer to a 5/10 than a 10/10. In pursuit of being a good-looking, premium, accessible HD game, it makes small, insidious concessions and changes to the formula that left me wondering if the series was ever good until I tried Partners in Time again and realized just what went wrong. Everything that defines the series is present, but diluted to the point where the fun is almost lost.

I half agree-half disagree with this. I anticipated beforehand that the change of developer team was going to affect the experience in some way or another, and it sure did, although it still managed to deliver an enjoyable enough experience. But considering that this was the big return of M&L, I cannot blame anyone for feeling disappointed. The TTYD remake dropped the same year, and if I were to recommend only 1 of these 2 to someone who hasn't played Mario RPGs before, I'd pick TTYD and it's not even close...
 
Reckon I'll go through and rank some of the games i've played through this year. Should be fun.

Side note is that a 9/10 for me in most situations would be a 10/10 to most other people. I only hand out a 10 if it's a game that had a lasting and genuine impact on me specifically

I feel like Gen 7 were the best mainline games. Apparently this is a hot take, but in my opinion the only real competition this game has for the #1 spot is gen 5 so... yknow.

Totem battles are a really good alternative to the traditional gym battle style and the fights actually wind up pretty difficult sometimes. The kahuna fights are piss easy (on account of none of them really having a ton of pokemon) but if you're not prepared to cheese a totem fight you probably will need to have actual skill to win. I'd also be lying if I said that the final lusamine fight wasn't a decently hard boss fight (at least compared to fights in this franchise)

The story is definitely in the upper echelon of pokemon stories. Lillie's character arc is one of the best parts of the franchise and it's nice that the box legendaries are part of our plans instead of "here's how the evil team will fuck up the world lol".

Too many cutscenes though, and by proxy of being pokemon it's a pain in the ass to go through

I should have played this earlier but I didn't have a 3ds until recently. USUM is next on the chopping block so be excited.

Final Rating: 8/10

Story-wise this game is a masterpiece. Unfortunately the gameplay might as well be genuine torture. Every character is extremely well-written even if they don't grow much outside of their sephirah meltdowns, and the worldbuilding is genuinely immaculate.

The gamplay is more or less an SCP management game with abnormalities ranging from the antichrist (does nothing except let you win against whitenight), a dumbass baby, 3 different characters from german fairy tales, an orchestra, and god. Every part of this is going to be one of the worst experiences you've had and you should expect to fully restart your progress multiple times if you want to 100% the game.

Final Rating: 8/10

This game is a genuine masterpiece. I would go as far as to call it the best game I've ever played. The game takes the beautiful storytelling of its predecessor and makes the gameplay actually bearable. There are some difficult fights, but as long as you read the enemies passives (this is the big one, 70% of players apparently lack this skill) and you actually build good decks you *should* be fine (yes you will be skillcliffed by queen of hatred)

While lobotomy corporation focuses on storytelling with a single broad storyline spanning all the characters, Ruina instead opts to show you a series of short stories that go through a series of 4 longer short stories, coming together with the overarching plotline regarding the main characters. There's a heavy focus on the cycle of revenge, and the game often tries to discuss when self-sacrifice is okay. No amount of simplifying can describe the story. The game is a work of art and I feel like everyone should experience this game at least once in their life.

Final Rating: 10/10

Fun little visual novel I picked up. Only took ~5 hours to go through, had it on the backburner for nearly 2 years and I was bored. Not exactly the deepest story in the world but it's cool. It has lesbians if that's something that can sell you on a VN. The gameplay is distinctly unique for the genre and there's really nothing like it.

Final Rating: 8/10

I had another game i'd put on here but repping a 2001 visual novel feels like a pretty good way to get my signature changed
 
Reckon I'll go through and rank some of the games i've played through this year. Should be fun.

Side note is that a 9/10 for me in most situations would be a 10/10 to most other people. I only hand out a 10 if it's a game that had a lasting and genuine impact on me specifically

I feel like Gen 7 were the best mainline games. Apparently this is a hot take, but in my opinion the only real competition this game has for the #1 spot is gen 5 so... yknow.

Totem battles are a really good alternative to the traditional gym battle style and the fights actually wind up pretty difficult sometimes. The kahuna fights are piss easy (on account of none of them really having a ton of pokemon) but if you're not prepared to cheese a totem fight you probably will need to have actual skill to win. I'd also be lying if I said that the final lusamine fight wasn't a decently hard boss fight (at least compared to fights in this franchise)

The story is definitely in the upper echelon of pokemon stories. Lillie's character arc is one of the best parts of the franchise and it's nice that the box legendaries are part of our plans instead of "here's how the evil team will fuck up the world lol".

Too many cutscenes though, and by proxy of being pokemon it's a pain in the ass to go through

I should have played this earlier but I didn't have a 3ds until recently. USUM is next on the chopping block so be excited.

Final Rating: 8/10

Story-wise this game is a masterpiece. Unfortunately the gameplay might as well be genuine torture. Every character is extremely well-written even if they don't grow much outside of their sephirah meltdowns, and the worldbuilding is genuinely immaculate.

The gamplay is more or less an SCP management game with abnormalities ranging from the antichrist (does nothing except let you win against whitenight), a dumbass baby, 3 different characters from german fairy tales, an orchestra, and god. Every part of this is going to be one of the worst experiences you've had and you should expect to fully restart your progress multiple times if you want to 100% the game.

Final Rating: 8/10

This game is a genuine masterpiece. I would go as far as to call it the best game I've ever played. The game takes the beautiful storytelling of its predecessor and makes the gameplay actually bearable. There are some difficult fights, but as long as you read the enemies passives (this is the big one, 70% of players apparently lack this skill) and you actually build good decks you *should* be fine (yes you will be skillcliffed by queen of hatred)

While lobotomy corporation focuses on storytelling with a single broad storyline spanning all the characters, Ruina instead opts to show you a series of short stories that go through a series of 4 longer short stories, coming together with the overarching plotline regarding the main characters. There's a heavy focus on the cycle of revenge, and the game often tries to discuss when self-sacrifice is okay. No amount of simplifying can describe the story. The game is a work of art and I feel like everyone should experience this game at least once in their life.

Final Rating: 10/10

Fun little visual novel I picked up. Only took ~5 hours to go through, had it on the backburner for nearly 2 years and I was bored. Not exactly the deepest story in the world but it's cool. It has lesbians if that's something that can sell you on a VN. The gameplay is distinctly unique for the genre and there's really nothing like it.

Final Rating: 8/10

I had another game i'd put on here but repping a 2001 visual novel feels like a pretty good way to get my signature changed
Common Alola W
 
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