2022 -- Finished
Games (from any year) which I finished playing in 2022.
List items
-
01/07 (Keeper Master, all monsters) -- How much you enjoy Monster Sanctuary might depend on how much you enjoy the team building gameplay. The later story battles are challenging enough to require a decent team (and there are optional challenges for testing different builds and strategies). I also enjoyed collecting monsters and exploring the map, although Monster Sanctuary doesn't necessarily stand out as a Metroidvania.
-
01/13 (all endings)
-
01/23 (100% map) -- Astalon is a retro platformer with a "start over when you die" structure that turns its Metroidvania elements into checkpoints. Health is hard to come by, and a death before a new power or shortcut can be a pretty big setback. The mix didn't always work for me -- the timed traps, hidden threats and sponge-y enemies which fit a challenging platformer also made the backtracking or forced repetition tedious. (In one particularly long stretch, it felt like I had missed at least one major shortcut as I kept replaying a challenging series of rooms.)
Astalon's pixel art might be Famicom-inspired? It's a little blocky, but I think it fits what LABS Works was going for.
-
01/30 (Moderate) -- I enjoyed Tales of Arise, although not as much as 2021's other ARPGs or JRPGs. (The fight choreography is impressive though, especially in Boost Strikes and cutscenes.)
-
02/04 (Hard) -- Fire Emblem Warriors is still a "Warriors" game at its core, but the Fire Emblem mechanics are a nice addition. Gameplay elements such as classes, the weapon triangle and even the "pair up" mechanic factor into its battlefield combat.
I'm not sure if more "Warriors" games do this, but FEW has elements of a strategy game. During battle, you can pause to bring up a map screen and issue basic commands. Any hero you aren't controlling will carry out these orders. Weapon advantage makes a big difference in these AI actions (especially "slayer" weapons). Maneuvering heroes around these advantages and disadvantages (or even just positioning them for later player control) was a pretty fun strategy minigame in some of the tougher battles.
FEW's story is pretty mediocre, although that's probably not surprising for this kind of crossover. (On the other hand, I did enjoy DQ Heroes' story.)
-
02/13 (Moon Lord, co-op) -- I've heard Terraria described as "2D Minecraft". That's... sort of right. Both games have randomly generated worlds with distinct biomes, block placement, crafting and (mostly) gear-based character progression. But Terraria's loot variety, combat mechanics and challenging boss fights give it more of an action-adventure feel than the comparison implies.
Terraria is a game where a lot can happen. Often, I was stumbling onto a new item, biome, event trigger or something else. It also doesn't hold back on some strange and powerful item mechanics. This keeps things surprising, interesting and/or funny... most of the time. Anything requiring focus (like exploration, building or crafting) can be overwhelmed by the sheer number of enemies spawning, special events happening or other distractions. Similarly, the huge variety of items and recipes can make it tricky to sort out what's useful.
-
02/20 (Hard) -- I'm probably about 2/3 of the way through Ys: Memories of Celceta, though I don't plan to finish at this point.
Memories of Celceta shares a lot of gameplay elements with Ys VIII and IX. Everything from the flash moves, damage types and skills to the party structure and exploration goals are present. The newer games smooth out some of the rough edges, but the common mechanics are otherwise basically the same.
-
03/12 (A New Day Dawns) -- I had fun playing Pokémon Legends: Arceus. There are new regional variants and pokémon battles with a few tweaks. Filling out the research objectives was also fun (often by sneaking up on pokémon to catch them). It isn't a particularly strong open-world game, though. (At least, I don't remember a lot of exciting finds or surprises while exploring.)
-
03/19 (High threat, co-op) -- Mindustry is my first "factory" game, and it has a cool combination of co-op, tower defense and RTS campaign gameplay.
When it works, a Mindustry map has a lot going on. You need to set up basic resource lines, assess what's available, weave together resources into refineries or power production and start building and layering defenses. There's also a tech tree based on discovering, collecting and synthesizing more and more complex resources.
Mindustry is not an easy game. A map might starve you of a critical resource, send enemy waves aggressively or send a ridiculously powerful last-wave superboss (or all three). The open-campaign's pacing started to break down for my brother and me in the High-threat maps. There was still a lot of the tech tree to unlock and learn, but navigating both it and the enemy pressure led to too many punishing outcomes.
-
03/26 (Mass Effect 1, Normal) -- I was a little surprised by how much I remembered from Mass Effect. In my first playthrough, I played a pure paragon Infiltrator/Commando on Hard and mostly relied on Ashley and Liara. My recent playthrough was a less strict Soldier/Commando with Wrex, Garrus and Tali as my go-to squadmates.
Mass Effect's visual style holds up well, and its writing and dialogue are still interesting. Its gameplay isn't exactly bad... I wouldn't say that it holds up to the length of the game. The combat is a little stiff, although the progression and unlockable powers help keep things interesting. The rest of the gameplay doesn't really have that. The difficulty/loot scaling and copy/pasted design give the side quests and exploration sections a flat and repetitive. feel. There's also a lot of Mako combat with no progression (and some of the map terrain is downright frustrating to navigate).
-
----- POTENTIAL SPOILERS -----
06/17 (Mass Effect 2, Normal) -- I'd heard that Mass Effect 2 was the strongest entry in the series, and I can see why. (This was my first playthrough.) The series really hits its stride in the second game.
Mass Effect's Spectre premise worked well, but Mass Effect 2 finds a way to raise the stakes. There's also a sort of "assemble the team" heist theme which is an excellent fit for the series' gameplay (tactical shooting missions, character dialogue and some decisions with trade-offs).
Mass Effect 2 also polishes the gameplay. The shooting is streamlined from the first game (which felt clunky and repetitive at times). Many of the Paragon/Renegade choices were also turned into real-time cinematic decisions -- this felt a lot more dynamic (and fun) than always selecting from a dialogue wheel. Paragon and Renegade actions also both seemed viable and interesting.
-
08/30 (15%) -- I didn't like Reventure (even at $3). It leans heavily in to crude (and sometimes offensive) humor, and starts to replay its jokes pretty quickly.
-
July?
-
04/17
-
----- MINOR SPOILERS -----
09/05 (Normal, Bones and Ryder) -- Dogurai is a neat Game Boy Color(?) throwback, with some modern affordances (like unlimited lives on Normal difficulty). It also has anthropomorphic dog warriors.
It's well put-together and fun overall, although it doesn't really bring anything new to retro-inspired platformers.
-
09/11 (Story missions) -- I had fun playing iX, but the story content is pretty short. I think the game is geared towards replaying and mastering levels.
-
10/04 (Normal) -- Mega Man 11 is a well-made retro(-ish) game. New mechanics like the "double-gear", item shop and easy access to Rush actually kind of felt like turning on cheat codes.
I personally like to see a fresh takes on retro series... but I'm not a huge fan of MM11. The story and gameplay formulas haven't changed enough, and the instant deaths with long checkpoints were particularly annoying.
-
10/09 -- OK... that tracks for a day at Aperture Science. And how else would you learn the Steam Deck?
-
10/22 -- I didn't play much Dorfromatik (only two sessions), but I enjoyed my time placing tiles and chasing quests. It has a relaxing atmosphere and a steady difficulty curve.
-
12/11 (Normal) -- Triangle Strategy's most distinguishing feature is probably its branching story paths. The writing does a good of presenting scenarios with no easy answers and interesting outcomes (for the most part). I like the idea of committing to a path but a few of the outcomes did seem arbitrary.
The combat gameplay is generally well-executed, including a wide cast of characters with different roles and abilities. The progression was more fiddly than I'd like. It was easy to fall behind the recommended story level (especially with a growing roster of heroes), and the specific effects of levels and weapon skills was often unclear.
-
12/19 -- River City Girls is generally polished, with voice acting, manga story panels and some cool songs in its soundtrack. I like the addition of RPG elements to the beat 'em up genre, like unlocking skills over the course of the game. The game also didn't feel too short (at maybe around 4-6 hours). The shop and item mechanics are still pretty obtuse (in classic River City fashion), and there isn't built-in online co-op.
On a side note, the Kunio-kun (River City) series has more than 30 titles. Only a handful have seen a Western release, so it's kind of interesting to see new titles like River City Ransom Underground and River City Girls pop up.
----- POTENTIAL SPOILER -----
The game's protagonists (Kyoko and Misako) are apparently an obscure Kunio-kun reference. It's a pretty deep cut that awkwardly undermines the game's story and premise.
-
----- POTENTIAL SERIES SPOILERS -----
12/22 (Mass Effect 3, Normal) -- Mass Effect 3 had big shoes to fill after Mass Effect 2. It's still a fun game, but I think it struggles with tone. The core gameplay isn't that much different, for example, but the on-the-ground shooter missions and personal conversations were a better fit for Mass Effect 2's narrative goals. The parties on the Citadel and jokes about Shepard's action-hero antics also create an almost slapstick tonal contrast against the Reaper invasion, fall of Earth and Shepard's nightmares presented in the game's opening.
Mass Effect 3 does pull things together impressively at times. The Reaper threat uniquely positions Shepard and his allies to mediate generation-long conflicts and major events. Missions like Tuchanka and Rannoch combine the world-building, gameplay and Shepard's relationships and past decisions in a really effective way.
-
12/31 (Normal, unlocked Ventuswill) -- Rune Factory 4's gameplay systems, charming characters and extensive post-game make for a special combination. It has a few surprisingly rough edges (like difficulty spikes and dating RNG) but I ended up enjoying it well into its post-game.
Meeting people and building friendships are core elements of Harvest Moon-style games, and I think RF4 stands out in this aspect. Dialogue, special events (including dates and marriage events) and little reactions to the player help develop the characters. Well-placed animations, emotes and voice clips also convey a lot of personality (and attention to detail). The main story arc is somewhat straightforward, but the story quests help support the characters and world-building.
RF4 is also a solid farm sim with some of its own ideas (like soil improvements and crop levels) and I like the series' addition of action-RPG elements. I wouldn't say it has the strongest ARPG gameplay by any means, but it does have areas to find and explore, materials to harvest and craft along with a variety of weapons, spells and enemies. There are also a few crossover gameplay elements such as cooking, gaining experience from harvests, taming monsters and teaming up with companions.
Load Comments