#1: Grim Dawn (1/10/21) Ashes of Malmouth (1/29/21) Forgotten Gods (1/30/21)
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I spent a pretty significant chunk of the first month of 2021 playing Grim Dawn, a gothic action RPG in the vein of Diablo and perhaps more importantly, Titan Quest. I tend to get burned out on action RPGs like these pretty easily these days due to spending countless hours on Diablo II, III, and a ton of Path of Exile. I really enjoy all those games, but the loot systems become exhausting to me. Grim Dawn in particular fascinates me because, like Titan Quest, it gives you a tremendous amount of freedom in how you build your character. Combining classes to make your own builds is endlessly entertaining and those experiments made up the bulk of the time I spent with the game and its expansions.
#2: Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin (1/18/21)
Crown of the Sunken King (1/20/21)
Crown of the Old Iron King (1/24/21)
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In retrospect, I think I regret playing the Scholar of the First Sin version of Dark Souls II since a lot of stalwarts are vocal about their dislike for it compared to the original. For me, it was the most easily accessible version of the game, and my gremlin brain needed to play some version of Dark Souls II before moving on to the third game. Although the formula is as solid as ever, the annoying level design, hordes of unnecessary enemies, and frankly boring bosses drag it down significantly. There are Dark Souls II apologists out there and I haven’t yet heard any compelling reasons for why they feel it measures up beyond for lore purposes that I don’t care much about. Having said that, the expansion content is generally a lot better—and a lot harder too! By the time I dove into Crown of the Ivory King, I stopped not because I disliked it, but because I was pretty burned out on a game on which I’d spent double the time of OG Dark Souls and liked about half as much.
#3: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game (1/25/21)
This game was a blast from the past for me. I’d played the demo for it on PS3 more than ten years ago and still found it resonated with me today, due in no small part to the incredible Anamanaguchi soundtrack. The beat-em-up gameplay is still not my favorite, but I found it entertaining enough to finally play through it all these years later. For what it’s worth, I still really enjoy the Scott Pilgrim movie despite some aspects of it aging a bit poorly.
#4: Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales (1/28/21)
The Spider-Man game was incredible. There’s very little about it that I would consider a weak point, aside from the game as a whole being a fairly sanitized AAA experience. One of its strengths as an open-world game is how confident it is about what content is included. It’s not a massive, overstuffed world like an Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and I think it excels because of it. There’s very little in the game that feels superfluous. Miles Morales is even more in this vein with what I would consider to be even more interesting gameplay. It’s also just really oozing with style and MIles himself is really likable. I definitely was left wanting more after 8 hours and I’m really looking forward to Spider-Man 2 as a result.
#5: Monster Sanctuary (2/4/21)
I would describe this game as a Metroidvania with strategic turn-based battles influenced by Pokemon. It’s a strange concept, but it really works! Each monster you catch has a unique set of skills as well as a robust skill tree. Most fights are tactical affairs in which you have to pay careful attention to buffs and weaknesses. Monsters tend to be geared toward support, defense, or offense, but each has a significant amount of leeway based on how you develop their skill tree. This is not to mention how each monster has an ability outside combat used for traditional Metroidvania exploration. It’s all really great. I hope they make another one.
#6: Monster Train (2/10/21)
The Last Divinity (4/8/21)
Although I finished the base game in February and the expansion in April, I spent significantly more time on the game after I’d finished it. This may well be my favorite of the “card-based roguelike” genre that has become popular in the wake of Slay the Spire. It has an incredible sense of style, an excellent soundtrack, and endless replayability. Each of the game’s six tribes has a very unique playstyle and synergizes with the other tribes in a ton of interesting ways. Even writing about it now makes me want to go back and play it more. Most roguelikes have an enhanced difficulty mode for future replays. Monster Train is the only one that I’ve experimented with extensively. I’ve done many, many Covenant Rank 25 runs with several different modifiers. This is something I don’t often have the patience for, which really speaks to Monster Train’s quality. I couldn’t recommend this game enough.
#7: Hades (2/21/21)
Speaking of roguelikes, Hades is the most straightforwardly popular example of that genre in recent memory. It’s truly an excellent game not just from a gameplay perspective, but because of its excellent writing, dialogue, and lore, as well. Like any roguelike, it does get repetitive with time, though, and it has the kind of button-mashy combat that I eventually find tiring. I may not have liked it as much as some other folks, but I love Supergiant Games and still really enjoyed it overall.
#8: Katana Zero (3/11/21)
I’d put off playing this game for quite a while, though I’d been interested in it ever since seeing it in a Nintendo Direct from a couple years ago. The primary concept of this game is that you essentially can’t get hit a single time while you systematically assassinate all enemies on screen. This sounds frustrating, but in practice is quite satisfying, especially since you have the extremely handy ability to manipulate time to ensure your mission is successful. Like Celeste, failure is less frustrating due in no small part to smart checkpoints and very little downtime between death and your next try. This would make the game a fun ride on its own, but what makes it especially memorable is a grim and often genuinely disturbing noir plot. There’s a surprising emphasis on the plot for what I would normally consider to be a type of game much more driven by its gameplay.
#9: Carrion (3/16/21)
Whenever I finish a game using Xbox Game Pass, I tend to like to try out groups of games in batches. After all, they’re free, and you never know when they’re going to leave the service. Carrion is another example of one of these games and another game I’d had my eye on due to a presentation of some kind (it may have even been that same Nintendo Direct). Carrion is a game for which I’m struggling to define a genre, but suffice to say, you assume the role of a grotesque monster escaping from the depths of some sort of research facility. On your way out, you’ll massacre scientists and other denizens with your noodly appendages and gnashing teeth. Most of the gameplay is in how this alien creature moves, all sinuous and slimy. You can’t help but compare this game to the latter half of a critically acclaimed indie game I won’t name here. It’s as if that sequence was expanded into an entire game—and it really works.
#10: Loop Hero (3/16/21)
Although the hype has long since died down, there was a period of time where it seemed like everyone online was talking about Loop Hero—and for good reason! I don’t think I’ve ever played a game like Loop Hero, although I acknowledge it borrows elements from idle games. What makes it so interesting is how it takes such a simplistic concept and gradually expands on it to make an addictive experience. The entire experience of playing the game is watching your character (one of three classes) round a loop of cobblestones while automatically battling enemies. As these enemies are defeated, you acquire tiles, weapons, and armor. You can use the tiles to construct things alongside the road and the area outside of it. Each of these tiles interacts with its surroundings in interesting ways as well as augment the stats of your character. Building out your map smartly and equipping your character have a huge influence on how long your hero can survive and whether or not they will be capable of taking down the inevitable boss. Come to think of it, I really need to try this game again since I heard they introduced some more tile types.
#11: Persona 5 Strikers (3/17/21)
Although I don’t find musou games to have particularly engaging gameplay, I couldn’t pass up the chance to spend more time with the Persona 5 cast. Although I’m sure Atlus had a big hand in it, I’m always impressed at how much Omega Force nails the tone and style of the properties they adapt and Persona 5 Strikers is absolutely no exception. Although there are returning tunes from Persona 5, the game does sport some excellent new pieces of music that almost warrant the price of addition alone. The combat isn’t just standard musou fare either, since elemental weakness and All-Out Attacks play an important part. This is definitely my favorite of the genre I’ve played.
#12: Yakuza 3 Remastered (4/8/21)
I am very, very slowly making my way through the Yakuza series. It’s always a comforting thought to know I have several solid games to fall back on at any time there’s a lull of games for me to play. This just doesn’t happen that often, so this is still the farthest I’ve gotten. It’s also not necessarily my favorite, especially since it lacks some of the sheen of newer remarks. Having said that, though, it’s still a fantastic game with a ton of humor and great side quests. The combat isn’t great, though, and feels like a barrier to playing the game. The rest of it honestly does make it worth it, though, which means I will definitely keep playing through the series in the future.
#13: Resident Evil 3 (4/10/21)
My gremlin brain sometimes likes to play games in specific orders as part of some kind of running theme. The running theme in this case is returning to a series I’ve been gradually playing through. It just so happened that this is also the third game of a series. Instead of a remaster, we’ve got a full-blown remake on our hands this time! I wasn’t a survival horror fan when I was younger, so of course, I never played the original, which fans are quick to assure me is far superior to this version. I’ll agree this is not as stellar as the RE2 remake, but for what it’s worth, I still really enjoyed it. I was particularly a fan of how focused it was. I never had time to get bored and the gameplay was still really solid. It wasn’t particularly scary, though, and I could see how the action elements were starting to creep in, as I knew even at the time would continue to happen later in the Resident Evil series.
#14: Dark Souls III (4/22/21)
Ashes of Ariandel (4/24/21)
The Ringed City (4/26/21)
Speaking of gremlin brains, Dark Souls III was next on the list for me. I’d played through Dark Souls II earlier in the year so it was at this time that I felt enough time had passed to move on. My early impression of the game is that it just felt a lot faster, which certainly wasn’t an unwelcome feeling after the sludgy Scholar of the First Sin. My second impression was being blindsided to dying to the very first boss—and this wasn’t one of those tutorial bosses you’re supposed to die to, either. It took some time to get accustomed to the faster pace, but after I got into it, I found I really enjoyed the gameplay a lot. This was the first time I’d ever really done a Dex build in Dark Souls and found I enjoyed the Sellsword Twinblades a lot. Much later on, I became enamored of Friede’s Great Scythe, but by that point I’d already conquered the toughest content in the game. Dark Souls III genuinely has some of the toughest bosses in the series. This is especially true of the DLC, but I managed to finish it all, aside from one annoying dragon boss, Midir, who joined the likes of Laurence from Bloodborne and Demon of Hatred from Sekiro as an optional boss for which I just don’t have the patience.
#15: Forza Horizon 4 (4/28/21)
Hey, look, I’m not a car guy. I actually hate driving and know nothing about cars in general. Having said that, Forza Horizon 4 is still a joy to play casually. Zooming around the game’s gorgeous European open world is a real treat. It has the same appeal as an open-world RPG in that you tend to come across all sorts of interesting things to do, except instead of riding a horse, I’m driving some kind of fancy car which I know nothing about. Perhaps most importantly, Forza is playable through Xbox Game Pass, so it gives me a great opportunity to play a game I would have never bought for myself.
16: Resident Evil 4 (5/2/21)
It was at this point that I got ambitious about really finishing up a lot of the games I’d nabbed on various sales over the years. I was always interested in catching up on Resident Evil not only because I’d really enjoyed the games I’d played so far but because they’re just extremely relevant culturally. Resident Evil 4 strikes me as the Final Fantasy VII of the Resident Evil series in that it’s a game that received enormous acclaim upon release and was absurdly influential on the series going forward. Like, Final Fantasy VII, though, I’m not sure it’s aged that well. The shooting—which is much more front-and-center than ever before—doesn’t feel great. The giant red laser sight also feels a little weird from a modern perspective. Granted, I’m a bit spoiled. I didn’t grow up playing shooters, so the ones I’ve enjoyed really have the gameplay nailed. The Resident Evil 2 remake felt great, for instance, so going back to this gently remastered Resident Evil 4 was pretty rough for me. It also has much more of an arcade feel, since so much of the gameplay is mowing down zombies or shooting them in the knee so you can suplex them. As a result, the game really isn’t scary at all. There’s definitely some surface-level appeal in mowing down zombies, but because of its survival horror roots, those controls that were successful in the earlier games at heightening tension now just create frustration. Combine all this with the fact that you spend half the game on a glorified escort mission and I find myself a little puzzled as to why the game is as acclaimed as it is. I guess you just had to be there. It’s also possible this game just isn’t for me and that’s fine.
#17: Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire (5/24/21)
While we’re talking about Xbox Game Pass games, let’s take a look at this absolutely beefy follow-up to Pillars of Eternity, which I also loved and played to death. Although the reviews for this sequel were a little uneven, I found I quite enjoyed it—enough to get every single achievement, in fact. I think I might have enjoyed the classic “real time with pause” combat just fine, but I did play through the game in turn-based mode since I’d heard good things about it. It’s mostly fine, even though the pace was a little slow for my taste. The story, world, and characters are what I care about more, though, and Deadfire really delivers on that front. I don’t want to ever fail to mention that both of these games have a level of polish to the writing that I don’t see in a lot of other RPGs like this. Both of the recent Divinity games, as stellar as they are, just don’t compete on that front. Pillars makes me care about lore and worldbuilding much more than most other games, which allows me to overlook some slow-paced combat or mostly irrelevant ship battles.
#18: Returnal (5/24/21)
Although I haven’t played a ton of PS5-exclusive titles, their level of quality has been pretty exceptional. This is definitely Housemarque’s most ambitious title yet, since they’re primarily known for arcade-style bullet hell games. Influences from their past can certainly be felt in Returnal, which is ostensibly a roguelike third-person shooter. Many of the enemies are colorful aliens that fire off a hail of projectiles in unpredictable patterns, while others are more akin to a Dark Souls beast with hard-hitting but projected strikes. It can be tremendously difficult to dodge aggressive enemies like these especially when the screen is filled up with projectiles from every angle. Fortunately, the game gives you tools to help, particularly your ability to pull off a quick dash with invincibility frames. Your ability to perceive the game world around you is crucial, especially in the later levels. I found this game extremely difficult, but like any roguelike, some runs are definitely easier than others. Getting that perfectly overpowered build is the carrot dangling in front of you that makes you want to keep playing.
#19: Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun (6/13/21)
I have an interesting relationship with stealth games. I really enjoy the feel of successfully infiltrating enemy lines and assassinating foes without attracting enemy attention. When I’m doing well, I’m having a lot of fun. What I don’t like as much is the tedium of repeating the same actions over and over, moving extremely slowly, and doing things like dragging bodies into the brush at a snail’s pace. There is some enjoyable tension there, yes, but it does start to grate on me after a while. Shadow Tactics can be a very enjoyable tactical stealth game, but it can also be a very time-consuming and tedious one. At first, I really wanted to move on to Desperados III right after, but I was so burned out by this game, I had to take a break. I may do so one day if it’s still on Game Pass.
#20: SaGa Frontier Remastered (6/15/21)
Man, there’s just something about the SaGa series that is endlessly appealing to me. Each of the games has absolutely batshit crazy mechanics like a scaling up of difficulty based on the number of combat encounters you have, ambitious narratives that tackle a story from multiple eras and/or characters, and, perhaps most importantly, a skill system that is heavily randomized. Most abilities are learned in the middle of battle. Sometimes you’ll get very rare and powerful skills and sometimes you won’t. There are things you can do to influence the likelihood of getting these skills, but you never know when you’re going to get them or how it might influence the outcome of a boss battle, for instance. There’s something really exciting about this system. SaGa Frontier in particular is interesting because it’s one of those games like Dragon Quest IV in which characters have their own separate stories but can team up later in the game, a format I have repeatedly expressed my love for. Having said that, though, SaGa Frontier is easily the most mixed bag of a game I’ve played in the series so far. The dialogue, story, and characters are more flat than ever before. The graphics, at least, look slightly more polished in the remastered version.
#21: Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony (6/26/21)
I’m surprised I didn’t play this one in my “third game of a series” marathon earlier on because V3 is definitely a game I’d been putting off playing for a while as well. I have a love/hate relationship with Danganronpa because I feel the games are very laboriously written, full of obnoxious anime tropes, and feature some of the worst minigames I’ve ever seen in my life. At the same time, though, they can be quite funny and occasionally feature some genuinely interesting mysteries. Although many fans had a pretty negative reaction to the finale of V3, I found it to be probably the most interesting thing about the game and improved my opinion on it overall. It’s hard to say I’d recommend Danganronpa even though I enjoy them. It might be easier just to say play any of the dozen Phoenix Wright games, all of which are pretty good.
#22: Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor Overclocked (6/28/21)
I’m suddenly remembering now that I actually finished this game this year somehow, despite the fact that it feels like it was much longer ago. I got wind of a rare sale on Atlus games on the 3DS, so I picked up both Devil Survivor games and Shin Megami Tensei IV and IV: Apocalypse. I knew I was in for many hours of gameplay to get through them all, but I’m nothing if not determined. I remember bouncing off the original version of Devil Survivor in 2009 due in large part to an art style that really turned me off. It still does, especially for female characters that seem overwhelmingly depicted for the male gaze. The tactical RPG gameplay should be an automatic win for me, but the nature of the combat often loses me, particularly when enemy units spend so much time just healing themselves. It felt like the most appropriate strategy was to go as glass cannon as possible to make sure I could take out enemies in one hit. This ended up working all the way to the final boss.
#23: Super Robot Wars X (7/17/21)
I also went through a big Super Robot Wars phase this year that ended up really burning me out on the series! I’m not even sure how it all started, but I got the idea (as I often do) that I should be ambitious about watching anime again. I have severe ADHD that makes staying focused on entire anime series extraordinarily difficult, but because I had a set goal in mind, I was somehow able to do it for a sustained period of time. I got through several of the anime series featured in Super Robot Wars X like Buddy Complex, Code Geass, Cross Ange, and Gurren Lagann, and found that it really did enrich my enjoyment of the game when I finally played it. I’ve played a ton of this series in the past and always enjoy developing my giant robots and annihilating hundreds of alien and mecha foes in as flashy a fashion as possible. Although I played on the harder difficulty, I found SRW X to be pretty easy and occasionally tedious. This isn’t uncommon for the series, actually, and it’s a cross I’m frequently willing to bear. To a point, anyway.
#24: River City Girls (7/18/21)
I think I decided to play River City Girls because it looked cute and I’d already played one beat-em-up this year (Scott Pilgrim) so why not two? I actually did find the gameplay for this one a little more enjoyable than Scott Pilgrim and found the dialogue and story to be pretty fun. It was also a little more difficult than I was expecting! The ending of the game, though funny, really did lose me.
#25: Orcs Must Die! 3 (7/27/21)
I’m a massive fan of the first two Orcs Must Die! titles and have spent dozens of hours on them constructing complex killboxes in which orcs and ogres get turned to pudding. I even spent a ton of time on the now defunct Orcs Must Die! Unchained, a failed venture from Robot Entertainment that was initially a MOBA that was restructured into a multiplayer tower defense game more in line with their previous titles. Because of its need for dedicated servers and a shrinking playerbase, that game eventually fell by the wayside, which is a real shame since it featured a ton of content not available in their other games. All that aside, Orcs Must Die! 3 is a much more focused one- or two-player tower defense game very similar to their first two. Having played the entire game and the two tiny DLC packs by now, though, I find myself wishing there was a bit more content. This game was funded originally for Google Stadia and may not have come into being at all if not for that funding. I hope it sells well enough for us to see more content in the future.
#26: Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster (8/9/21)
Even blinded by my intense nostalgia for the classic Final Fantasy titles, I can still recognize their Pixel Remaster line as a bit of a money grab. Having said that, though, these titles exist now as maybe the most easily accessible versions of these games that most closely resemble the originals—and this certainly counts for something. This version of Final Fantasy felt very similar to the FInal Fantasy Origins version I played in 2014, but I found I enjoyed it even more this time for two important reasons. First of all, Auto-Battle is an absolute godsend for an old-school JRPG like this. I don’t mind grinding or constant random battles at all because I’m extremely used to them, but speeding up the process (and therefore the requisite rewards) is an absolute dream. On top of that, the rearranged soundtrack is exceptional, a trend that will continue in other Pixel Remaster titles. The rest of what makes the game good is what makes any version of Final Fantasy good. You can make your own party and plumb the depths of caves, fly an airship, and conquer the forces of Chaos. It’s great, old school fun in a more polished package.
#27: Tales of Berseria (8/12/21)
I genuinely forgot I’d even played through this game this year because like many Tales games, it’s somewhat forgettable. Berseria received a small amount of acclaim upon release as being a particularly notable entry in the series, but I found it about as bog-standard as usual. I also didn’t love the combat system, which felt a little insubstantial compared to something like Symphonia or Vesperia. As of this writing, Graces f probably still has my favorite combat system, but we’ll see how I feel about Arise once I finally actually commit to it.
#28: Final Fantasy II Pixel Remaster (8/13/21)
Now, I also played through the Origins version of Final Fantasy II in 2014 and mostly greatly disliked it. It’s probably the least favorite FF of a lot of prolific fans for good reason, but I found I was significantly more fond of it this time. The excellent new arranged soundtrack helps, of course, but as usual, Auto-Battle does wonders to smooth out the experience. It’s also definitely worth noting that Final Fantasy II’s action-based stat leveling system significantly influenced the way stats would work in later SaGa titles that I love. It’s worth celebrating for that alone. I’m a sucker for a black sheep of a series anyway.
#29: Final Fantasy III Pixel Remaster (8/17/21)
To my knowledge, this is the Pixel Remaster that has had the most tweaking done to gameplay mechanics from the original version. Although prior to playing this version, I had only played the DS remake of Final Fantasy III, I happen to know there was a resource system in the original title that limited how often you could change jobs. On top of that, many jobs were close to useless. That second part is still kind of true, but others have been updated and tweaked to be more useful. One memorable aspect of this particular run is that I was able to use a bard for pretty much the entire game and it remained useful even against the final boss. In the DS version, I ran some awful comp like two dragoons and two devout, but this time I absolutely annihilated with a ninja, black belt, bard, and sage. Final Fantasy III definitely doesn’t have the most refined job system, but it’s not bad at all. I found playing this version without all the cruft of the DS remake to be a more enjoyable experience by far.
#30: The Wonderful 101 Remastered (8/18/21)
I’d been looking forward to finally playing this game for a long time because I’d always heard it was a hidden gem on the Wii U. I decided to just get it on PS4 since that’s my preferred platform. To be honest, I found it to be a very annoying game to play. I greatly admire the clever game design in theory, but I generally dislike any game that makes me draw, especially without the use of a touch screen. Drawing guns, swords, and bombs in the middle of combat with my army of followers was often a tedious mess that just led to my death more often than not. I’m also not even really a fan of the cheesy 50s superhero aesthetic. Although the Platinum action style is still there, the aforementioned elements combined with a clumsy transition to a platform that doesn’t have an additional gamepad screen results in a game I felt like I had to really trudge through to finish. This will go down as my least favorite Platinum game, for sure. That reminds me, I should really finish the other routes of Nier Automata. I still haven’t technically marked that game as beaten…
#31: Ys: Memories of Celceta (8/23/21)
Once upon a time, I started a YouTube video series on Ys as I played each game in the series. I made it to Oath in Felghana before just falling off that entire project and eventually just stopped the YouTube channel altogether. I put off playing any more Ys games for the longest time because of my long-since abandoned plan to put together a video comparing the various different versions of Ys IV, one of which is Memories of Celceta. None of that ever ended up happening, but I have at least played the most modern available version of the fourth game in the series! As for how I feel about it, well… it’s not bad! It’s a pretty solid party-based action RPG. It actually reminds me a lot of the recent Trials of Mana remake. It’s very much in the vein of a Mana game in general, which isn’t a bad thing. I wouldn’t say it’s exceptional, but it’s not bad at all. I think I ultimately preferred Origin and Oath in Felghana. I do want to play more of this series one day; I already own several more.
#32: Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor 2 Record Breaker (9/1/21)
It felt like I took a long break between the two Devil Survivor games, but I think that’s ultimately just because it took me a very long time to actually finish the first game. Devil Survivor 2 improves on its predecessor in pretty much every way, but it still has a lot of the same problems. Pacing in combat isn’t the greatest and glass cannon builds still rule the day since you only have two turns to work with in any particular combat session. To be clear, these games definitely have some great elements to work with. I’m particularly fond of the fact that each type of demon has a unique trait you can use to either passively strengthen your squads or an ability that you can use on the map outside of combat. Putting together the perfect squad is always a fun challenge, but it never works quite as well as I’d like. The art is still not great; I always have to cringe at all the booby teens the artists designed.
#33: Final Fantasy IV Pixel Remaster (9/11/21)
I have had a soft spot in my heart for Final Fantasy IV since I was a little kid. It’s the first Final Fantasy I ever played and definitely the game I’ve played the most different versions of in my life. It would be difficult to say this is my favorite version of the game despite its phenomenally arranged soundtrack just because of the way leveling is tweaked. Part of what makes Final Fantasy IV engaging is the consistent difficulty curve. Because you level up so much more quickly in the remaster, this difficulty is significantly nerfed unless you specifically run from enemy encounters. I would prefer to not have to do this. Despite this, it’s still a fine version of the game I’d recommend to others and still holds up as a classic melodramatic adventure.
#34: Super Robot Wars GC (9/16/21)
Speaking of black sheep, Super Robot Wars GC is evidently considered a maligned entry in its series. Traditionally, Super Robot Wars is a strategy RPG with fanciful 2D animations. The flashiness of these animations is a big draw, but GC, appropriately released for the GameCube, eschewed the traditional 2D for fully animated 3D animations. Personally, I don’t think it looks that bad, but I will say the roster in this particular title is decidedly classic. It’s really cool to see some series that have never been represented in any other game as far as I know. I’m thinking of Sasuraiger and Baxinger in particular, obscure mecha from the early mid 80s that are tough to even find for viewing these days. It’s also a pretty tough game, in stark comparison to a lot of the recent releases. It’s no A Portable by any means, but it’s certainly tough enough. It also pulls that old gag of having bosses with huge HP pools that regenerate to full multiple times. Those final fights were an ordeal.
#35: The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures (9/22/21)
I have to say, I’ve really missed Ace Attorney. Although Phoenix and the gang are nowhere in sight in Great Ace Attorney due to taking place 100 years in the past of that timeline, the exceptional quality of the game more than makes up for that. I’m not sure why I didn’t just move directly on to the next game after finishing this, because there are still definitely dangling plot threads I’m interested to explore. I also really dug most of the characters! It’s funny to contrast the quality and consistency of a game like Great Ace Attorney with Danganronpa V3 that I’d also played earlier on in the year. They arguably tackle different niches, but I can safely say I never wanted to mutter “man, this is bullshit” at any point during Great Ace Attorney.
#36: Dishonored 2 (9/25/21)
This is another game that had been languishing in my backlog for some time. I’m actually pretty glad I decided to just play it on PC instead, because an immersive sim like this feels much more natural and fluid on the platform. Greatly reduced loading times (compared to PS4) certainly helps as well. I was decidedly more violent in this run compared to Dishonored and felt like I had a bit more fun, but it also made me disengage with the narrative more. Probably the most memorable moment of the game for me was a big logic puzzle in one later stage that I spent about two hours trying to solve. It was a lot of fun and rewarded me by allowing me to completely skip the stage I was on. I may not like traditional puzzles in games very much, but man, I love logic puzzles.
#37: Castlevania (9/26/21)
Playing through the original Castlevania resulted due to a random whim while I was searching through my PlayStation library. I own the Castlevania Anniversary Collection but had only ever really played any of the games for a couple of minutes. I rectified that one fateful night and played through the entirety of the game. It’s tough, but not nearly as tough as I’d assumed. It’s obviously a very dated action platformer by today’s standards, but it’s not bad at all. Perhaps one day I will play the rest. I’ve played a bit of Simon’s Quest, but I did fall off that one.
#38: Blasphemous (9/30/21)
I haven’t heard a ton of buzz for Blasphemous for whatever reason, but man, it’s great. I think a lot of folks dismiss it as a 2D Soulslike, which is a little reductive since it’s much more of a Metroidvania. The combat does have some weight to it and involves parrying, but the exploration, upgrading, and platforming are equally important aspects. It also has a brutally dark Gothic aesthetic that I personally enjoy. It’s difficult, but not punishingly so. It succeeds on pretty much all fronts for me.
#39: Dandy Ace (10/1/21)
I got a ton of mileage out of Xbox Game Pass in 2021. I tend to try out a lot of new games that pop up on the service for at least a few minutes. Dandy Ace interested me enough to play all the way through, even though it’s a pretty tried-and-true example of the roguelite genre. It broadly plays like Hades, except there’s much more of an emphasis on ranged attacks. It also feels a little like a mashup of Dead Cells and Wizard of Legend in that you build out your roster of weapons as they drop from enemies or you can purchase them from shops. To add additional depth, you can take any weapon or power and equip it as a secondary ability on an existing weapon. This allows you a lot of flexibility in your build. I spent a fair amount of time on the game just trying out different builds for this reason.
#40: Nex Machina (10/8/21)
Amusingly, Returnal was the first Housemarque game I’d ever finished despite having played most of their other games. I rectified that by making it through at least one run of Nex Machina, which is a top-down bullet hell style game very much in the vein of old arcade games. It’s a lot of fun! This isn’t the kind of game that can keep me entertained over the long term, though.
#41: The Evil Within 2 (10/9/21)
Once I got to October, I knew it was time to buckle down and start a horror marathon. Well, sort of. All of the games I finished in October (aside from the next one) were at least tangentially horror-related. The Evil Within 2 is a pretty solid follow-up for this Resident Evil spiritual successor series. There’s a pretty significant open-world element to this game, at least for about half the game. There are many sequences in the game that are more linear and delve into surreal psychological horror segments where it’s not clear what’s real and what isn’t. Given that the entire game essentially takes place in virtual reality, that was a tenuous line from the beginning. I’m not great at survival horror games so I did have a hard time with this one, but it was at least a little easier than the first game.
#42: Crown Trick (10/11/21)
Here’s the non-horror game I was talking about. This followed right up after Dandy Ace in games that popped up on Game Pass that seemed interesting to me. I liked the idea of this one because it’s like a classic Mystery Dungeon game with a little more polish. I liked this game a lot but I’m glad I finished it, because I do think it would really wear out its welcome after a while.
#43: Resident Evil 5 (10/13/21)
It took several months before I was ready to continue the Resident Evil series and the month of October seemed to be the perfect time for it. Unfortunately, Resident Evil 5 is definitely not the strongest entry in the series. Although the shooting and combat are arguably a little smoother than Resident Evil 4 and the AI of your ever-present partner is surprisingly competent, it’s just not really what I’m looking for in this series. It’s not at all scary and mowing down zombies for loot and breaking crates for loot is just way too arcade for me. If the shooting just felt extremely good, I’d be very much on board, but remnants of Resident Evil’s sluggish past drag down the controls for no real purpose. The tension and fear have been completely eradicated by this point.
#44: Resident Evil 6 (10/23/21)
Despite the poor feedback I’d always heard Resident Evil 5 getting, I was surprised that I didn’t really mind it. It’s a fine game that isn’t necessarily my thing. Resident Evil 6, on the other hand, is something else. It’s almost hard to describe why this game fundamentally doesn’t work. In theory, it starts off pretty strong with a neat Uncharted-style set piece. The controls are also smoother than they’ve ever been. There are even four main playable campaigns, three of which allow you to pick between one or two characters. The components all sound good, but in practice, it’s just very… boring and long. If the entire game was just Leon’s segment, I’d honestly say the game is decent, but the more characters you play, the more the game just wears out its welcome. Chris’s campaign is basically just Call of Duty with zombies and mutants. You’ll also find yourself retreading the same fights over and over as you play with the other characters, all to shade in different perspectives of a story that wasn’t very interesting to begin with. Oh, and it’s much more like an action movie than anything that’s even remotely scary. I just couldn’t wait for this game to be over.
#45: Resident Evil 7: Biohazard (10/25/21)
On the other hand, Resident Evil 7 is a phenomenal return to form for the series. Alternatively, it could be described as a new chapter entirely since it’s the first of the series to be played entirely from a first-person perspective. I don’t normally prefer first-person, but it totally works for RE7 to heighten the tension and fear of the experience. This game is refreshingly scary—enough so that I’d heard that it even turned some people off. After several games of bland horror-lite action, I was so on board for a game where I felt dread walking around every corner. It’s also so similar in structure to the earlier Resident Evil games, even if the puzzles aren’t nearly as complex. It still totally works for me, despite a notable lack of enemy variety. The cast of characters that terrorize newcomer Ethan Winters in the Louisiana Baker ranch are chillingly memorable. Sure, the game has more in common with something like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre than classic zombie movies, but the change of theme really worked for me.
#46: Resident Evil Village (11/1/21)
While I might have preferred for Capcom to continue the focus on genuine horror, I still don’t mind how Village ended up. It’s much campier and in the vein of Resident Evil 4, but it’s still reasonably spooky and feels satisfying to play. I feel more comfortable calling it an action horror game than 5 or 6, certainly, and it’s miles ahead of both in terms of fun. Things like being able to buy weapons in shops, the upgrades, the inventory system—that’s all pretty much preserved from Resident Evil 4, an overrated game that I nevertheless do not hate. It’s also a really gorgeous game, to be fair, and looked great on the PlayStation 5.
#47: Darkest Dungeon (11/15/21)
I first tried this game many years ago and fell off it because the UI was so blurry and difficult to read on a TV screen. I later found out that the PS4 version of Darkest Dungeon is a really shoddy port that only runs in 720p. I pulled it up to compare after investing a significant amount of time into the PC version and I can totally understand why I wasn’t willing to invest the effort the game demands. I love Darkest Dungeon, but can also totally understand detractors who get frustrated with how easy it to lose hard-earned progress on your characters when they inevitably meet their ends. I don’t mind a little grinding, though. I lost my fair share of level 5 and 6 heroes and bore the grind of leveling up replacements for them. Although I took my sweet time getting through it, I found I really enjoyed the strategy of putting together team compositions for specific areas as well as devising the all-important four final rosters for the wings of the Darkest Dungeon itself. It’s a challenge, to be sure, but a rewarding one.
#48: Final Fantasy V Pixel Remaster (11/30/21)
Although I never would have guessed it would be the case when I played the Pixel Remaster of Final Fantasy, this remaster of Final Fantasy V ended up being the final of the series to be released in 2021. I believe this is only the second or third time I’ve ever played this game, but it’s obviously a very elegant expression of the Final Fantasy job system that was enormously influential on many of my favorite games, Final Fantasy Tactics chief among them. On the other hand, the story is whatever and the characters are quite bland. That’s okay, though, because I can trick out my characters to attack with Flare-infused spellblades eight times in a row or essentially triplecast Meteor. What I love about job systems is how ludicrously you can break the game by the time you reach the end and Final Fantasy V is a great example of that.
#49: Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker (12/9/21)
If there’s any reason that I slowed down on finishing games for the last part of the year, it’s because of Endwalker. I resubbed to the game about a month prior to the expansion’s release and settled into the good old routine. The expansion itself was incredible, with some of the most interesting storytelling the game has ever had. I was spellbound throughout pretty much the entire thing. I originally had no intention of rushing through the storyline, but I really couldn’t help it. I was drawn in, particularly after about halfway through. I’m still playing the game pretty regularly, but I’m trying not to play every single day. It can be tough, though!
#50: A Dance of Fire and Ice (12/20/21)
It had been some time since I’d played a rhythm game and I was really craving one. There are surprisingly few available on Steam, but this one is pretty exceptional. I really like when games can make something fun out of something very simple. This rhythm game only uses one button and that button can be whatever you like. It suggests the space bar, but you could easily alternate number keys if you prefer. The main concept, beyond just following the beat, is to sync your key presses to rotating red and blue spheres as they collide with a series of blocks on a track. Blocks arranged in a stair-step pattern indicate a half-time beat, for example, whereas steps going down will result in a longer rest between beats. After some practice, you start to recognize the geometry of the terrain as a specific type of beat instead of simply trying to sync your presses in real time with where the spheres are. It’s pretty fascinating! It also helps that the music is really exceptional.
#51: Kirby Triple Deluxe (12/27/21)
I preordered Kirby and the Forgotten Land some time ago because it looks rad. I’ve always really enjoyed Kirby but the high cost of each respective entry has always scared me away from buying them. I’m working on rectifying that now and found that Kirby Triple Deluxe was a delight! It’s a very standard entry in the series with no real gimmick to speak of beyond… 3D, I guess? I’ve had 3D turned off on my 3DS for many years now, so I can’t really say. Having said that, though, it’s a really solid adventure somewhat in the vein of Kirby Super Star, with admittedly a bit less charm. I’m really looking forward to Planet Robobot, but I hope it goes on sale at some point.
#52: Griftlands (12/30/21)
Last but not least is Griftlands, yet another roguelike deck builder! This one’s anything buy a copycat, though, and despite having finished runs with all three characters, I’m far from done experimenting with it. What makes Griftlands so fascinating beyond its grimy themes is that it has a surprisingly heavy emphasis on plot and dialogue, both of which can change heavily depending on the choices you make in your run. All the while, your choices affect which cards you get, how your cards are upgraded, how much money you have to upgrade or buy new items (temporary cards). Combat is even divided into two separate decks for each character, one for verbal negotiation and one for physical altercations. Many fights can be avoided entirely through good negotiation, but relying solely on negotiation is dangerous since a neglected combat deck means fewer upgrades and less power for the inevitable fights you can’t avoid. It’s a fantastic concept for this type of game that I haven’t really seen repeated elsewhere. I’m definitely adding this to my personal pantheon of excellent deck builder games.
And that's it! That's 52 games, which is about 5 games less than last year, but all of this is incredibly arbitrary anyway. I'm just happy that I cleared out a ton of backlog games. Here's hoping I can catch up on some other series in 2022.
