Here we go again! This is still a fun way to keep track of what I'm playin', even though I've been doing worse and worse with keeping up with my backlog. Lousy free time is starting to become a premium. There's still a lot of things from last year's list I haven't quite finished yet, so this might look kinda funky. Ah, who cares! Games!
[STARTED: December 26]
[ELITE FOUR: February 1]
I got this around when it was released, but waited to play it 'til Christmas when I got both versions for my li'l siblings as well. It's become kinda our tradition to play these games together, and it's a thing that's probably helped Pokemon stay special to me. That said, this is an objectively solid entry if you're into this series at all.
Sapphire FYI
[JANUARY 11 - ONWARD]
Got Bayonetta 1 and 2 from my older brother for the holidays, so I guess it's time to see what the hell's going on in this crazy corner of videogames!
THIS GOBBLED UP LIKE AN ENTIRE DAY AND SO IT'S WORTH MENTIONING
The announcement of the next Fire Emblem put me in the mood to play Awakening again, so I did! I had a rare free day, and I spent... practically the entire thing getting lost in this awesome game again, hitting up the extra missions and side chapters I didn't get on my first go-around, and leveling up a whole new team of dudes just for funsies. Because Fire Emblem is funsies.
[JANUARY 17]
Push mo' and mo'. I've been wanting to pick this up for a little while, and I'm happy I did. It's a fun, simple concept that spins out into like an infinity of great puzzles. It's a perfect thing to have on a 3DS when the need for a quick game pops up.
[BEGAN: February 14]
[MULTIPLAYER HIGH RANK: February 21]
[SINGLE PLAYER HIGH RANK: March 30]
[MULTIPLAYER G RANK: April 14th]
Ayup.
[BEGAN: February 16]
[STORY MODE: February 22]
Awyiss.
[BEGAN: June of like 2012]
[FINISHED: February 23, 2015!!]
Back in '12 I decided to marathon through the Half-Lifes again, and successfully got through HL1 and halfway through Opposing Force before that kinda peetered out and I got sidetracked.
WELL I PICKED THAT SAVE BACK UP AND FINISHED IT FINALLY
Streamed it happening too!
[BEGAN: December 22]
[FINISHED: February 23]
A long time coming. I always liked the bits I played of Blackthorne and always wanted to do a full run. Well, it finally happened! Starting late last year and proceeding all the way up to the end of February, I sat down once almost every week and plugged away at it bit by bit.
It's a great game. It's technically considered an action game, but puzzles are at its core -- kinda feeling like a sideview Zelda at times -- and it has a good difficulty curve. It can be a bastard when it feels like it, but in a way that I had a weird respect for.
...
Might as well shamelessly mention that I recorded the full playthrough, me and my friends providing "color commentary" the whole while, and it's up on the YouTubes here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsa31SY1lUwzgq47HMEzigflukUxZKous
[BEGAN: March 2]
Nippon Ichiiiiiiiii
[BEGAN: March 15]
Here's a thing I started messing with as a part of my streaming tests. I decided I'll try to get through the rest in FUTURE STREAMS, because it's been fun.
Also, goddamn this game hates you. I got through it years and years ago in All-Stars, but I never really thought about how much more effed-up this is when you can't continue per level. This thing's a slog! Of tears.
[BEGAN: March 16]
Just another one of the awesome games I'm getting buried under. I've barely started with it, but I like the cut of its jib very much.
[BEGAN: March 25]
[AN ENDING: April 9]
I can see why people generally didn't like this game, because it's certainly not the "STAR FOX 64" successor one would like it to be, but I personally dig it anyway. It's quirky and weird. The gameplay takes place on a turn-based strategy map where you're telling your ships where to go, switching to dogfightin' mode when your ships collide with the enemy. Flying up on an enemy ship turns into a quick ship battle, intercepting an enemy missle turns into a little missle chase sequence, moving onto a base turns into a boss battle. You typically have a limited amount of turns and are trying to shoot down enemies before they advance to a certain point on the map, and it becomes somewhat puzzle-like as you plan your flight paths to take down as many things as possible at once.
It's definitely an interesting approach, and I'm glad I'm finally trying it out.
[BEGAN: March 28]
I got this on sale, and I'm supes glad I did. Ended up spending an evening doing this multiplayer with my younger sibling, fumbling our way through its ins and outs and running from hordes and hordes of WAY PERSISTENT LIONS. Yeah, okay, I ate your cubs, sure, but you had like at least three more! We had to eat! It's a jungle out there!
A TOKYO JUNGLE.
[PLAYED: April 11th]
I don't own this, but for some reason I felt like I should write down that I played it. A friend brought his PS4 over and had me give it a shot, so I played it and explored the hell out of that first area, eventually beating the first boss. Weapon of choice: that weird whip-sword. It's great. Pound that cane.
Seems pretty solid, and hella like Demons' Souls. Made me want to go back and finish that...
[SORTA STARTED: April 12]
So this is a weird thing that exists.
[HARVEST SEASON: April 12]
The real Harvest Moon starts here!
I'm enjoying it, but it's super slow going.
[BEGAN: April 26]
[CADENCE COMPLETION: May 29th]
[MELODY COMPLETION: June 19th]
Please just let this be the REST OF MY LIFE.
[BEGAN: May 3rd]
Why are they making Star Ocean FIVE and not Radiata Stories TWO??
[BEGAN: May 17th]
Yeah, it's okay. It's not something that I'd play over anything else, but it's a good bite-size thing to mess with when I'm waiting somewhere, or watching something.
The highlight is pretty much seeing old sprites animated, and characters and enemies from 3D Final Fantasies re-imagined as FF6-style sprites. And the potential of making a wacky cross-game dream team.
[STAY FRESH: June 1st]
You know what's pretty damn a'ight? This is pretty damn a'ight. Game's fun, feels good, and it's really easy to fall into that "one more match" mode.
It's interesting that it plays a lot like a third-person shooter, and your skill at such a game will transfer to this, but the paint gimmick adds another layer where your ability to gun a dude down isn't the end-all -- you gotta shoot dudes while also strategically managing your map control. It ends up really frantic and demanding, in a good way. The matches are short, but it's always ON.
They really hit something here.
And it's just damn weird.
After Bloodstained's successful kickstarter, I felt an un-ignorable itch to play through one of the #Igavanias again. So I did just that. Start to finish, this game's still great. Doesn't hurt that this genre may just be my favorite in video games, but the Symphony of the Night -> Order of Ecclesia stretch are superbly-done executions of the formula.
I'm excited that another one's coming.
Dawn of War II can eff right off, but Dawn of War I is the best RTS that no one ever talks about. I never picked up the Soulstorm expansion, but I finally did recently as an excuse to get back into the game again. Fun little discovery here: Relic/SEGA will actually give you proper Steam keys for your boxed editions of the games. You have to go through support, but it was pretty painless. So now, my original Dawn of War and the other two expansions I bought years ago are snug in my Steam list, and that's pretty nice.
I CAN FEEL THE WARP OVERTAKING ME... IT IS A GOOD THING!!!
1.3!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm really starting to think this is legitimately my favorite game of all time. I've never gotten anywhere close to bored with it despite like 200 hours on my Steam clock.
[BEGAN: Some Humble Week in August]
[FINISHED: December 29th]
I love Etrian Odyssey like a crazy person, but I wasn't in a hurry to play this one. Partly because it came hot off the heels of Etrian Odyssey 4 (so it felt too soon to start another), partly because it was just a remake of the first game, and partly because I was kinda iffy on the idea of them adding their own everyday-JRPG-style story mode to a game that was very unique for not having one of those -- it told a more subtle tale with just enough to keep you engaged while having enough room for imagination to make the adventure a very personal one for yourself. To... like, actually roleplay.
Which is just a long way of saying "I ALREADY HAD MY OWN HEAD-CANON, HOW DARE THEY MAKE THEIR OWN. NOOO!!" But I digress.
As it turns out, it's not "just" a remake. They did a lot of smart things with this game, and I'm having a lot of fun. I expected the game to have the exact same dungeon layouts as its original, and they seem to try and convince you of that themselves as the 1st Floor is a perfect replica, but it turns out to be a rope-a-dope. You go down to the 2nd Floor, it looks like you remember... but then, wait... did this hallway turn like this? Was this how this was shaped before? Wait... no, this is different, I think... OH GOD, WHAT IS THAT MONSTER I HAVE NEVER SEEN IT BEFORE.
Turns out, from the 2nd floor and on they have entirely redesigned the game's levels, added new enemies, and just generally done things to vastly improve the flow. And that was cool to discover. I'm still getting that injection of nostalgia from familiar sights, yet at the same time everything is completely different, and it's basically like playing an entirely new game. Heck, there's straight up an entire new dungeon full of new bosses that you get sent to regularly between stratums, which was also a big surprise. There's lots of little fanservice-y stuff (not the bikini kind) throughout the game, like getting a lot more dialogue and development from the NPC's you know from before. It's neat.
As far as the story goes, it's kinda whatever. It has intriguing elements, but it also sort of ruins the major revelation that the original game had going for it. The characters aren't amazing, but not offensive either. But while it may not inherently terrible, I could've still done without it. It's not worth the trade-off of losing the customizable party I felt like I had complete authorship over. I'm still curious to see what Untold 2 does with it though.
In closing: yay!
[THE MAKING BEGINS: September 10th]
Not that you're here for my opinion, but I know you don't need me to tell you how great this is.
[DO THE SQUIRRELCARENA: October 19th]
[WELCOME TO HELDALF: November 10th]
Hot damn, it's Tales time!
And a fantastic time it was!
[EN TARO ADUN: November 13th]
[HELL, IT'S ABOUT TIME: November 23rd]
[DOWNLOAD YER DATA PACKS: December 5th]
[SHIRTS OFF: December 9th]
