Another year of quality gaming in the books!
Hey there everyone, I know it's been while! With the dawn of the new year comes time for chronicling all the wonderful games I played this past year. This year I'll be taking a slightly different approach than the past couple years, in that I will let my inner critic out that I usually keep to myself and my close friends, giving personal ratings on how I felt about each of these experiences. So even if I may say some things weren't for me, don't be afraid to check some of these games out and come to your own conclusions if they're worth checking out! Without further ado lets get into in!
Pokemon Legends: Arceus (Personal Score 7.5/10)
I’d been kinda down on Pokémon recently after Gen 8 with Sword/Shield even if I liked certain mechanics like Wild Area. PLA may have plenty of its rough edges (mainly regarding bugs/optimization) but goddamn is it a much needed shakeup to the core gameplay formula of the series. Pokémon actually feel like the genuine danger that they are, and the catching mechanics are so streamlined and smooth it makes going back to other mainline games feel like a chore. No spoilers, but it also contains what I think is the single most difficult battle in the history of the entire series and was one of few times I've ever straight up lost a fight in a Pokemon game.
Live-A-Live (Personal Score 8/10)
The granddaddy of free form “choose your adventure in any order” RPGs like Octopath Traveler and the like. Honestly, it is really crazy such a unique concept of a game is approaching 3 decades old and I feel robbed it took this long for the west to know about it (unless you’re a whoisthisjit enjoyer). Such diverse methods of storytelling through both gameplay and narrative combined with modern touch ups like the gorgeous HD-2D Sprites and fully orchestrated Original Sound Track, plus updated but faithful battle mechanics made this an enjoyable experience all around!
Elden Ring (Personal Score 10/10)
I do not say this lightly in that Elden Ring was one of the greatest gaming experiences I’ve ever had in my life, and was pretty easily my favorite Game of the Year. I’d dabbled in the Souls-like genre before with games like Code Vein but this was the first time I actually played it to completion and it actually blew my mind.
The common pitfalls of big AAA “open world” games is that despite the size of the world, there actually isn’t that much actually tangible things to do, or the game railroads you so hard you may as well be playing a linear game. This is N E V E R the case in Elden Ring, there is an absolutely gigantic amount of unique content sprawled across the world that you will continuously be shocked at how massive it is, and each area having little bits and pieces of narrative that help you piece together the history of the Lands Between. There are also just some sick as FUCK characters in the game that are well built up even with the subtlety of its storytelling, some of my favorites being Radahn and Ranni.
The gameplay of Souls games is definitely an acquired taste ( I remember trying the OG Dark Souls and it just wasn’t my thing at the time) but the emphasis on commitment to actions and pattern recognition/reflexes gives the combat so much weight and satisfaction once you get a handle on it. There is a huge variety of viable play styles and definitely something for everyone.
Triangle Strategy (Personal Score 8/10)
Yet another of Square Enix’s HD-2D gems. Triangle Strategy brings some high quality turn based SRPG combat with an emphasis on positioning combined with an interesting twist on branching story progression, where you have to indirectly convince your followers what actions to take that have very real consequences on the narrative overall. . Some of the implementation of this has its rough patches, but is still overall a very fun experience if you want to scratch that tactician itch. The characterization is surprisingly grounded and avoids a lot of glaring anime tropiness, whether that’s a positive or negative is up to you.
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (Personal Score 9.5/10)
As a known Xenoblade series crackhead I had been looking forward to this conclusion of this trilogy for a loooooong time. It's just tragic it came out the same year Elden Ring did or it would have easily been my Game of the Year pick. XC3 accomplishes the seemingly impossible feat of (quite literally in story too!) seamlessly blending and even improving on the best traits of the two previous installments in the franchise with an extra pinch of British and hand crafted flutes to make one of the most satisfying conclusions to a trilogy you could hope for.
One of the most frenetic, engaging combat systems I’ve ever played merges the MMO-esque cooldown gameplay of XC1 and rhythmic timing based gameplay of XC2. The overarching themes of the nature of the human condition and breaking cycles resonated deeply with me, and the core cast plays off each other well and for the most part get a solid amount of development and big moments
The Switch is a notoriously under powered console and rightly panned for it, but the Xenoblade series still manages to have some of the most visually impressive locales in gaming. When the next Gen finally comes for Nintendo I eagerly await to see what kinda magic Monolith Soft can pull off on a greater canvas. Literally the only two knocks I have towards the game is having an unfortunate bug kinda ruined my pacing on the side quests and the fact the class balance is kind of suspect, ultimately the main reason for the half point docking of what is otherwise a nearly flawless game in my eyes.
Fire Emblem Warriors:Three Hopes (Personal Score: 8/10)
A genre shifting sequel to my single favorite Fire Emblem ever in Three Houses, Warriors games are very much what you see is what you get gameplay wise with its huge spectacle and flashy (yet at times, repetitive) combat, but Three Hopes manages to seamlessly implement multiple mechanics from 3H proper while also further expanding on both the characterization (including giving the MC fully voiced dialogue thank god) of its lovable cast and presents an interesting “what if” scenario that further expands on the nature of the world they reside in Fodlan.
Sonic Frontiers (Personal Score: Incomplete/10)
After how abominable Sonic Forces was in my eyes, I was cautiously optimisic on how good Sonic Frontiers appeared to be running up to release and so far I'm definitely not disappointed! While I did play through the first island I decided to stop and come back to Frontiers later after seeing the massive amount of DLC on the horizon. From what I did play though, it is so nice to have a 3D Sonic with both a high freedom of movement and an actually pretty robust combat system rather than just homing attack ad Infinitum. As much as I enjoyed the lightheartedness of recent Sonic games, Having a genuinely serious story line that doesn’t dip into corny like Forces did is refreshing
Gundam:Evolution (Personal Score: 6.5/10)
I don’t even care if it’s a shameless Overwatch clone, it is fun as fuck playing as iconic Gundams I've spent my whole life watching in a hero shooter format. For as cool as the central premise of GunEvo is however, it still has its fair share of issues. I’m not a fan of their battle pass structure however, and it’s a damn shame how quickly the playerbase died out in the west especially with no crossplay between PC/Consoles. While the gameplay is definitely fun it is definitely missing a large amount of that Gundam “soul” and I attribute that to the movement lacking the impact and heaviness you’d come to expect from the series, and the lack of fanservice like getting actual characters from the series voiced in game rather than random pilots.
Pokémon Scarlet/Violet (Personal Score 7.5/10)
Man I've seriously been playing Pokemon for almost 3 decades now huh? Bar none the most frustrating game to rate out of any I played this year. On one hand it is the most full bodied Pokémon experience in terms of content, story (including a twist I did NOT expect from Gamefreak of all people to have the stones to pull off) , and general evolution of mechanics of the Pokémon formula I’ve had the pleasure of playing in a decade+ (It also has Ceruledge who is cool as FUCK) . On the other, it might be the single most poorly optimized game I’ve played in a long time, and I was lucky and didn’t experience any of the major game breaking bugs others did.
Digimon Survive (Personal Rating: 7/10)
A grounded, brutal take on the Digimon Adventure formula in visual novel format. Kinda funny seeing some of these Digimon I grew up with portrayed as vicious monsters but the game genuinely gets you to believe it which is a testament to its narrative.. It never dips too far into edge and melodrama either which is respectable. It may be because I play an absolutely unholy amount of RPGs, but I found the gameplay is entirely unchallenging outside of a certain clown asshole and it definitely drags the experience down IMO. This rating is a bit in flux as I need to complete a couple more routes
Freedom Planet 2 (Personal Score: 9/10)
The Sega Genesis era 2D sidescroller is a lost art these days, but beyond scratching that nostalgic itch the FP series is just so refined it honestly puts a lot of them to shame. 2 is an upgrade in just about every meaningful metric, story, character writing, OST (holy shit I didn’t know Oriental New Jack Swing music was a thing ) narrative and especially gameplay. Pacing is also considerably improved due to taking page from Donkey Kong Country and the much greater variety in stages than before thanks to abandoning the two stage format.
Overwatch 2 (Personal Score:7.5/10)
Overwatch exploded hard onto the scene back in 2016 but came to a virtual standstill after Blizzard essentially shut down development on it in favor of its sequel. After almost three years of wating, dead game no more! As someone who played primarily tank the change from 6v6 to 5v5 felt bad but from what I played I do think it was probably the best choice for overall game health from the perspective of higher level player considering how disgusting some metas were to play in due to it (Goodbye GOATs you will not be missed). While it makes sense why it’s the case with OW2s switch to F2P I am definitely not a fan of this specific instance of BP and doesn’t do enough to motivate me to play much outside with friends. Hopefully with the release of PvE story content down the line the game will be done Justice to its amazing core concept.
That's all for this past year's round up! A reminder for those interested that I've recently taken up streaming so hopefully you can catch me playing some of the games I play that'll end up writing about this year! My goal is to hit Twitch Affiliate at the end of the year, so your follows and views would be appreciated. See y'all next time!