Games I played in the 2017th year of the Common Era
I figured I should do one of these to keep track of the games I played this year, since I always end up forgetting.
List items
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I love the original Deus Ex, so I was super bummed when this didn't really grab me. Oh well. Maybe I'll go back to it at some point.
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Played a couple hours of this and liked it, since it just seemed like more SMT IV... but it also just seemed like more SMT IV. Dropped it in favor of some other stuff, and I'll hopefully get back to it.
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Kinda cheating, since I played this mostly late this year, but it bled over into the start of the year, so whatever.
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I dunno, it's Civ. I haven't actually played much of it.
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I managed to finish a (mainline) Final Fantasy, so hooray, I guess. I really liked this.
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A super nice and cozy visual novel thing with a super-duper good soundtrack.
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A really, really long JRPG that's probably too long but that I really, really liked anyway.
I also went and bought that PC version that just came out, so I might play some more again. Maybe. Who knows!
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A neat action-RPG thing. I die a lot.
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I finished it finally! Ys is pretty cool. I own Memories of Celceta and Origin, so I figure I'll play those at some point.
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I finished this finally! It's pretty great!
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Started playing this. Apparently, it is also incredibly long. It's basically just more of the first game and a continuation of the story, so I'm liking it a lot.
...OH YEAH, I finished this at some point. I think the end kinda drags, but I ended up really liking both this and its predecessor. I found the combat really fun, really liked the cast, enjoyed the setting, and once the story actually picked up, I really wanted to see how everything played out. Guess I'm a Trails/Kiseki fan now?
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Continuing my weird little visual novel odyssey. I wonder how many people are buying physical Vita games in 2017? At least one, that's for sure!
I finished this at some point, and didn't super love it or anything, but I liked it enough to want to play the sequel. I wasn't really into many of the characters, so I hope the second game improves on that front for me.
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It exists! And seems pretty great.
...I also finished this at some point. While there are some things about the story I wish were improved or had been done better, between really liking the cast and (most of) the confidants, as well as the various gameplay improvements (actual designed dungeons, improvements to combat, confidant bonuses), I ended up loving it. I'd say it's my favorite of the post-3 Personas, and is a pretty solid frontrunner for my GOTY.
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It's super cute and super charming. I'm really bad at Puyo-Puyo.
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I played 999 last year and really liked it, and finally got around to playing VLR. I like the core concept of traversing a giant branching tree of a story, hopping to different realities where you made different choices to see how things play out differently and applying knowledge gained in one branch to other branches... but there's so much you have to go through, and many of the different branches feature events that are pretty similar to ones in other branches, and it all ends up feeling like kind of a slog. I enjoyed how it all wrapped up, but I think I like 999 more.
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I thought Nier seemed neat when I read about it a long time ago, and Automata coming out reminded me that it existed, so I decided to play it. Turns out I really loved it! ...even though there is a lot about it that I would call 'very much not good.' The combat isn't much more than 'fine', the side quests are pretty much all really boring fetch quests that have you running across the entire map farming for drops, and the fishing is *really* terrible. Despite all that, the game is super endearing and charming, the characters and their interactions are all really well written, and the story and themes are incredibly interesting. That I like Nier as much as I do probably has to do with the fact that I decided to skip past a lot of the bad parts (had I bothered to do all the side quests, or engage with the fishing or weird farming at all, I probably wouldn't like it nearly as much), but... yeah. I really liked it. The music is also incredible.
I love Emil.
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Automata is a pretty significant improvement over the first Nier in that it's actually enjoyable to play. Combat is super flashy and feels great (even if it isn't really all that deep, and does get pretty repetitive), as does the act of simply moving around, in ways the act of playing the first game straight-up didn't. The story is, much like the first game's, crazy and intriguing, and while I think I like the cast of Nier more, Automata's is plenty likable. It's pretty great!
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Now that I'm done with Trails of Cold Steel, I figure I might as well play Trails in the Sky. I'm about halfway through, and while the combat in Cold Steel is certainly much improved over the combat in Sky (which isn't really a surprise, considering it came out about a decade later), the characters and world-building are enjoyable in the same way.
Hot updates: I have finished this, and my first impressions pretty much reflect my final opinion. The combat isn't as interesting or fun as the combat in Cold Steel (although even without the comparison to a game in the series that came out a decade later, I don't think the combat is very fun on its own), but the characters and story (and the quality of the localization) are very good and carry the game in the same way. Besides the combat, I think I like it better as a first entry: it's a bit shorter and tighter, I think (about 45 hours compared to my 55 in Cold Steel, so whatever).
Very excited to move onto SC, not just because I want to see where the story goes, but also, considering how structurally similar Sky FC and Cold Steel I ended up being, I kinda want to see if Sky SC and CS II are similar in the same way.
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I hear Ace Attorney's pretty popular! I really like it so far.
SO, I finished the first Ace Attorney (bought that trilogy that's on the 3DS) and while I could do with less pixel hunting or figuring out the one specific thing I need to show to the one specific person to move things along, I really liked it! It's wacky and funny and catching people in a lie is super fun. I love Edgeworth.
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I picked this up and haven't gotten super far, so I can't really say anything yet, but it seems cool based on the very little I played.
I'm now over halfway through from what I can surmise from looking at GameFAQs (that 4x speed modifier is pretty crazy) and I like it a lot! I really like the world and lore and what not, although I've found the characters themselves kinda hard to warm up to. Hopefully that changes by the end!
With the way gambits work and how I have mine set up, combat really isn't much more involved for me than pressing X on something and watching it die... but I like it anyway. There's something satisfying about automating combat to the point of pressing X on a boss and watching it melt in, like, 15 seconds. It's fun!
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I finished the story a while ago, but have kept playing and done a lot of the postgame stuff. I think the story and characters are honestly pretty dry, but I've had a lot of fun going after the endgame gear and taking on all those superbosses (other than Yiazmat and the Trial Mode, I've pretty much done everything). I don't know how much I would've played without the speed modifier present in the Zodiac Age, but I guess that doesn't matter? I dunno. I think FFXII is pretty swell. Probably my favorite numbered one, although that doesn't mean much since it's only the second one I've finished.
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I'm almost finished with it! It's more Trails, so it's pretty fantastic.
I finished it! It is, in fact, pretty great.
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I finished it once and really would like to go through it again, but yo man: those block puzzles suck. Maybe I'll give it another go at some point.
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My first Tales game! I really like it so far.
I finished this at some point. I liked the characters themselves, even if I had some problems with the story and thought it was kinda whatever. I did enjoy the combat, although it was kind of messy and not super challenging or anything. If nothing else, I'm down for more Tales games.
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I'm 5-ish hours in, and it seems pretty cool.
Having finished it, while I definitely liked it, the sheer amount of repetition in areas, enemies, and boss fights kind of got to me after a while. It's not a huge problem, since the game is gorgeous and the combat is fun enough, but still.
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I also managed to finish this at some point. It's a pretty great side-story-sequel thing with a big focus on characters. Just about every named character from the Sky games gets some love in the form of little vignettes that range from goofy to genuinely heartwarming. On top of all that, it has some great music and introduces a few great characters of its own (I love Erika Russel), as well as dropping some really interesting lore and world-building bombs.
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Continuing my adventures down the Ys/Falcom hole. A pretty fun action-RPG that definitely seemed easier than Oath in Felghana (either that, or I just got better). I finished it once with one of three characters, and really would like to go through it again at some point.
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I decided to hop on board the Yakuza train. I'm about two-thirds of the way through the main story, and while I really like the main story as a genuinely compelling crime-drama thing with great characters, what really elevates it into "I love this game" territory is the goofy-ass substories. The plethora of side activities doesn't hurt, and while I don't think the combat is necessarily amazing or anything, I enjoy it well enough. Definitely one of my favorite games I played this year, and I'm really glad I got around to it.
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