2017's Played of the Game.
This is a list of games I started playing in 2017. They came out in 2017 unless otherwise stated. Thoughts may be comprehensive or they may not be.
List items
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A light, Free-to-Play Fire Emblem experience, that have so far been just interesting enough to remind me of how much I liked the entry in the main series that I played.
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A Brave game with quite a few minor annoyances. Still, the freedom it gives you with its hands-off approach, as well as refreshing take on open world exploration, more than make up for them.
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Revisiting Shovel Knight and its expansions in 2017. Played all 3 campaigns, they were all pretty cool in their own ways. Plague Knight's was probably the most demanding, while Specter Knight's was the most mechanically smooth. Vanilla Shovel Knight is no slouch either, definetly gonna play the last Campaign when it releases.
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A decent, if verbose, throwback to a game I've never really played. It's ok, has some weird systems with weapons that can make bosses either super easy or very hard, but is generally fun to play and was a good length as well.
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A colourful, uniquely controlling game which is a bit too lacking in environment variety for my taste. Its control scheme takes some time to master, but once you wrap your mind around a few essential techniques, the game becomes more about planning and patience as you slither between danger zones and collect the various...collectables most of which has given me zero incentive to actually collecting them outside of having something to do as of this writing.
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A pretty but simple and short game that's main difficulty comes from a few annoying gameplay segments where you need to carry stuff without getting hit. Sometimes having to pixelhunt to find hidden passages can also be irritating. It's got solid controls for its 3 characters though and is pretty cheap, so no hard feelings.
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A very slick, pretty and colourful package of a couple of solid competitive puzzle games, that also mix rather interestingly. Oh and the story mode isn't that bad either, actually.
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Got into it once I put some hours in. It definitely seems easier to read and trick enemies than in the recent Souls games, which is a nice change of pace. Not a huge fan of the game's general aesthetic; feudal Japan mixed with super clean faces feels very Dynasty Warriors, and the environments haven't been that interesting so far either. The gameplay is weirdly,and perhaps overly, complicated in spots but it has been fun to mess around with. I could have done without all the loot though.
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NES-ish style game that looks the part and sounds it, but isn't necessarily anything special beyond that. It has some unorthodox design ideas such as fake walls with no purpose and ineffectual enemy placement. In fact it almost seems to out of its way to avoid as many of the commonly accepted, good videogame design tropes of the last 30 years, while still having just enough of them to not feel incompetent. You eventually gain enough abilities to make the platforming puzzles, that are the meat of what I found enjoyable in the game, a nice, interesting challenge but it takes way too long to get there for what it gives you. Also the writing is bad and any NPC you come across have dialogue that feels like the developer is reading you instructions on where to go of a cheat sheet. An odd one.
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2014. With the Necromancer Pack. For consoles. Kinda neato.
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It's Crash. Fun to go back to even if some parts of it hasn't aged super well. With enough time put into it I came to enjoy even the rigidly hard Crash 1. The updated graphics really grew on me as well. As blasts from the pasts go, this one left me feeling good about the series and non-Mario 3D platformers in general.
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It's fun, and has one heck of a cool artstyle. Single player is a little more varied this time around thanks to it incorporating a bunch of differet weapons, but it didn't feel like as big of an improvement over the first game as I expected.
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2016. It's like Terraria, but on a flat plane and also way harsher with its crafting and survival elements. Been fun to co-op in.
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Has been in early access for a few years but apparently came out just this year, which is also when I started playing it. Like it's predecessors it's a fun mix of tower defence with some active participation. The different "heroes" you can play as doesn't always feel as impactful as the traps themselves, but it's still fun.
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A fun and cool light, yet surprisingly intricate, strategy rpg experience. High points include really nice animations, inside and outside of combat as well as just the battle system itself being fun to master. Low points include: The endgame being kind of a grind (I'm pretty sure there were no new enemy types in the final world) and the restrictions they put on your party make-up. Having 4 Mario characters and 4 Rabbids characters, yet limiting you to a party of 3, with Mario + at least 1 Rabbid being a requirement, felt very restricting.
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Being on the 3DS does the look of this game no favors, even if the artstyle still manages to carry it somewhat with its bright colors and bloom. Controls feel good though, very Metroid, and there's nothing wrong with the animation. Various modern touch-ups to the design such as the combat and aiming are all welcome as well, though the game feels a bit lacking in enemy encounter variety (still a step up from the usual Metroid fare). Kind of tough and unforgiving in spots, with some enemies taking huge chuncks out of your health bar with each hit. But in general it's a pleasant Metroid, walk around-y, shoot-y, collect-y experience.
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Super polished and generally well controlling, even if I'm not the biggest fan of some of the main movement options. I also liked that it had a bit if a story this time. After finishing the main world progression, there's still lots to go back and do, so I'm gonna be doing that for a while.
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An odd action platformer in which you gradually unlock more and more specific weapon behaviour customization. Has a simple but cute pixel style and is maybe a little bit easy once you get certain upgrades, but still fun to play around with. The depth of the customization shouldn't be understated. Just fiddling with the different settings once you have a bunch can be fun, even if what you end up making isn't super useful.
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Finished it. Might add thoughts later.
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