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Jovafy

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Games that I've been playing in 2017

Not a "best of 2017" -list as I kinda see myself playing a bunch of older releases this year. 2017 games will still appear on this list but this list won't be limited to those. This is more in line of "best games that I played this year". I'll throw all the games I played this year into this one list and see how they fare against each other.

Like I said, I'm probably playing a bunch of older stuff this year and I already have: I just recently played through Mass Effect 1-3 again. I'm re-reading the Witcher-novels by Andrzej Sapkowski and when I'm done with those, I'm planning to play Witcher 1-3 again. I found a cheap Wii U, so I'm looking forward to play Super Mario Maker, Wind Waker HD and of course Breath of the Wild. If I have the time and will, I might go and start playing through a bunch of the Zelda series again. And of course, I still play Street Fighter V regularly.

It's the best time to be playing video games! Even if they're not current releases.

List items

  • Wow! I haven't loved a game this much in a while. I watched about 18 episodes of Beast in the East before caving and buying this game but watching those episodes did not diminish my enjoyment one bit.

    The combat and gameplay in general may be a bit clunky at times but once you get to know the systems it's just fine. There were also more activities than I cared for; I didn't touch pocket car racing, underground fight clubs, weapon crafting, or most of the mini games at all. Good thing is that the game does not force you to. I did a decent amount of cabaret club and real estate though which are alright.

    The main thing for me was the story. I really liked the writing and the plot in general. It's filled with great characters, great plot points and memorable moments. And that soundtrack is banging!

    This was my first Yakuza game but after finishing 0 I was completely sold on the series. I immediately pre-ordered Kiwami, bought 4 and 5 from the PSN-sale, and started a second playthrough of 0 just to see the story again. I'll need to check a summary of 2 and 3 after I finish Kiwami and hopefully I can finish Kiwami, 4, and 5 before 6 comes out.

    END OF THE YEAR EDIT: I still love this game. During my second playthrough I went through a lot of the side stuff. In fact, I went through all of it, except one dancing side quest with Kiryu. I ended up loving the Cabaret and the Real estate, and most of the side quests were great, and I even enjoyed most of the minigames. This game is really good.

  • I recently clocked 600 hours in to SFV. I have 2 characters that I've gotten to Gold-league and feel comfortable with and now I'm starting to figure out who is going to be the third character that I'll invest in. I've spent a lot of time playing, watching, talking and thinking about SFV in the past year and I'm still liking it a whole lot.

    I wasn't that into fighting games before SFV. Or rather, I liked them but I was bad at them and didn't understand them. SFV made me understand how you're supposed to approach fighting games, how deep they are, how they're not just about who can mash out the most. And I'm really interested in taking those lessons and applying them to other fighting games. I also started watching SFV tournaments and it's really exciting to see high-level play and try to pick some lessons from those matches and apply it to my play style. Watching SFV tournaments also allowed me to appreciate the whole e-sports phenomenon which I previously had mostly dismissed with a shrug.

    There's a ton of critique that could be said of SFV and most of it is not without merit. I certainly have a lot of critique concerning SFV. From simple quality-of-life-UI-stuff to the way they sloppily handle their business to the utter lack of community engagement, communication and transparency. And many more! But in the end, it's the fights that draw me to SFV. And I happen to enjoy the core fighting so much that I'm prepared to shift through a bit of bullshit to get to it.

  • I used to play a lot of Tekken back in the day. Sure, I didn't know what I was doing. I just mashed some stuff out and hoped for the best. Just like all other fighting games I played. Now the situation is a bit different.

    I got really into fighting games when SFV came out. I actually started learning how to play those games. Before that I didn't think about stuff like punishing, frame advantages, startups, recoveries, mix-ups, confirming, footsies, or any of that jazz. I just did stuff and if it worked I was a god among men, and if it didn't I just had to do it more, harder, and faster. So, after putting over 700 hours into SFV, I was really looking forward to putting my new-found knowledge and way of thinking to Tekken.

    I'm really enjoying Tekken and I'm having a great time actually learning the game after so long when I first played Tekken 3. But, man, if it's tough. I picked up on the combos pretty easily, but just moving the character around in this game is difficult for me. Most of the time, I forget that I can actually sidestep. And figuring out when to sidestep and how to use that smartly is a different thing. And don't even get me started on canceling back dashes into more back dashes. But I guess that's a big thing (among others) in this game, moving tactically, and I just need to put more hours into it to learn the ropes. And I'm not complaining, learning this stuff is fun!

    Speaking of learning, I wish the game had some sort of tutorial because there are so many hidden mechanics that are not explained anywhere. Thanks to Aris's streams, I have learned so much more about this game than what the game actually told me. Sure, most of this stuff is old news to Tekken veterans but for a noob like me? The world is full of surprises.

    I also wish that the game was a bit snappier. Load times are pretty long (on PS4 at least) and why on earth do I have to sit through the loading screen again after hitting "Rematch"? And while we're complaining, whose idea was it to allow those stupid intractable customization items in ranked matches? In player matches, I'll allow it although I'd rather not, but for ranked? Get out of here with your dumb pistols, pizzas and battleaxes.

    Anyway, I'm really enjoying Tekken 7 and I'm really looking forward to getting better at it.

    END OF THE YEAR EDIT: I ended up buying Tekken on the PC too and I'm still loving it. I haven't put as much time into it as I would have liked (I'm only about a 100 hours in total) but man have those hours been great. SFV is still my game but there's something in Tekken that just gets me so turned up.

  • Man! What a game!

    After 98 hours, 104 shrines, and 180 Korok seeds I finally defeated Ganon. And I had tremendous fun all the way through. I loved just making my way through the world searching for shrines, Koroks, side-quests, materials, and cool places just to hang at. Most of the main story was a bit forgettable but all the stuff surrounding that more than make up for it. Breath of the Wild makes the whole open world exploring fun in a way that I haven't experienced in a long while.

    Other people have said it already but I think it's really smart that BotW doesn't populate your map with icons, unless those are icons that you yourself placed. I loved how the game basically says "go and figure this stuff on your own" and then applies that to most things, whether it's combat encounters, traversal, side activities, or whatever.

    I once again find myself at the situation where I'm at a loss for words when it comes to writing about a game I really liked.

    EDIT: So I had Zelda picked as an easy GOTY. Heh, Yakuza just came in and swooped that title from its grasp. And now that I've poured more hours into Tekken I'm starting to feel like I'm also enjoying that more than BotW. Looking back now after a few months, I don't think of this game with the same fondness that I do some other games. It's still a brilliant piece but I don't think I love it as much as I thought I did.

  • I never played the original (or any Yakuza game before 0) so I didn't know much about Kiwami. I fell in love with Yakuza 0 and I was super excited to play Kiwami, but unfortunately it didn't quite meet my expectations. I still enjoyed it a lot but not as much as I wanted to.

    MY biggest problem is probably there in the story. The story on its own is fine and I did like it but my problem is in the presentation. Although they have upgraded the engine and the graphics, they're still using the old mo-cap and camera angles which sometimes creates these weirdly janky looking cutscenes. It's a car crash of the old and the new.

    It also feels a bit weird how 0 had a much more modern feeling story even though it happened chronologically 17 years before Kiwami. Maybe that wouldn't be as weird if I hadn't come piping hot from 0 straight to Kiwami or if I had played the original Yakuza before. Kiwami also has some weird pacing sometimes. There were a bunch of times when I had to do fetch-quest-esque stuff running between 2 points for a while for no real reason except for stretching that stuff out. And sometimes after cutscenes Kiryu would think to himself "I should go here for no apparent reason except that the plot requires me to be there". But hey, it's a PS2 game with PS2 stuff and PS2 writing.. I can't be too mad.

    Also, I wasn't too hot on the idea that tougher enemies went down to this state where they started regenerating health and I had to do an extra special heat move to stop them. I just felt like I was being limited in the fights as I couldn't tackle them the way I wanted to. Other than that the combat and gameplay in general felt great.

  • Samorost 3 was my 3rd favourite game of 2016 and playing through it reminded me of how much I love Amanita Design and made me want to revisit Machinarium and Botanicula (I played through Samorost 1 & 2 before I started 3). I'll start Botanicula soon-ish and I'm really looking forward to Chuchel.

    Machinarium was a blast just like I remembered it to be. It's probably the most challenging Amanita game I've played, although that isn't saying much. Amanita Design's games don't tend to have difficult puzzles or anything and I often have regarded them as interactive story books disguised as point-and-click puzzle games. Machinarium looks and sounds fantastic. There's something about Amanita Design's games that put a smile on my face.

  • I usually don't like horror games. Or movies. It's not that I don't like the horror aspect. In fact, I like it. It's just that I can't stand jump scares. I'm a very jumpy person and jump scares always get me, even when I see them coming. And they never "feel good". I find them cheap, dumb, and annoying. Keeping that in mind, Little Nightmares was perfect for me.

    Little Nightmares is eerie. Its atmosphere is spooky, oppressing, unpleasant, and creepy. That's the kind of horror that I love. Little Nightmares is like Limbo and Inside but amped up. And on that note it's about the same length, which I feel works perfectly for this game. It was a great way to experience this game by sitting down in the evening, grabbing a few beers and playing through Little Nightmares in one sitting.

  • Mass Effect 2 is the greatest game of all time, right? Could be, could be. While I'd say ME3 is the best playing Mass Effect and ME1 has the best story, ME2 would be the jack of both trades. Bioware made a ton of improvements from ME1. The story in ME2 feels a lot more personal than in the other installments. And the gameplay still holds up after all these years. Oh, and I forgot how strong that opening hour is.

    I still wish I could leave Jack behind on the prison station... Or pop a round in her head when she throws her fit about the Cerberus vessel...

  • The Mass Effect universe is one of my favourite video game universes. I was basically hooked from the moment I set my foot on Eden Prime back in 2007. 10 years later ME1 sure does feel janky. Hell, I might say it felt janky back then! But ME1's story is the best in the series, hands down. Saren is a great villain, the Reapers are still a mysterious threat. I just love the story in ME1; the gameplay not so much. But I'm still not sure whether I like ME1 or 2 more. They're both fantastic games.

  • I love Mega Man 2. That game is basically the reason I bought the collection. Sure I've done some dabbling in the other games included in this collection. But I don't see myself pouring a lot of time into any of the other games (except 1 and 3 maybe) because I hate the slide with a passion and I hate the charge shot even more than that. But Mega Man 2 is my game! For some years now, I have played through Mega Man 2 every time I needed to kill an hour. It's such a good game.

    Oh.. For the record: Air Man is first. Then it's Clash -> Flash -> Quick -> Metal -> Bubble -> Heat -> Wood. And the first day of the week is Monday. Saturday-Sunday is called "the weekend" for a reason.

  • I haven't been this up and down on a game in a long time. One hour I hated it, the next I loved it, and then back to hating it. In the end, I ended up on a positive note but I can't rank it very high.

    Let's start with the pros. I loved the art style, music, voices and the world. The game looks and sounds gorgeous. Also, I liked how the story is basically just Dark Souls with bugs (as tired as that sentence is). And it was a good time adventuring around the world, finding secrets, and doing all that metroidvania jazz.

    On the downside though, I did not enjoy the controls very much at all. The platforming is clunky for the most part and the combat is atrocious. It gets slightly more acceptable once you get the charm to prevent your character from recoiling after hitting an enemy. And then again slightly better once you upgrade your weapon and its range. But then there's the problem of boss fights which you apparently have to defeat with the health you got because there is just no time to heal during those fights.

    Anyway there's bunch of stuff I hated and bunch of stuff I liked.

  • I was hoping Slime Rancher would be a perfect podcast-game for me, and it was for a while, but then I burned out on it. I had a good time for the most of the 14 hours I spent on the ranch but then I had no interest in going back.

    The biggest gripe was just a sense of not having any balance to the things you were doing. I could easily spend an entire in-game day at the farm doing farm stuff, which means that I then didn't really have time to explore. And if I went exploring, I had to come back to a farm that was on fire and then spend a good chunk of time getting everything back to normal.

    I often felt that the farm could use some automation to help feeding the slimes and taking off the workload from the player. Sure, you can upgrade your corrals to have autofeeders and automatic plort collectors, but then you have to keep refilling and emptying those respectively. And the tanks aren't very big for either of those so they won't help long. Not to mention your character's carrying capacity which is minuscule. I guess that's the developer's way of saying that your farm needs you and you shouldn't go on super long trips. It's still not fun having that strict of an inventory limit.

  • This is a pretty fun collection to have easy access to those childhood favorites. I'm a big Darkwing Duck fan and it's great to get to play that game again. And hopefully to suck less at it this time.

    The collection also served as a great reminder on how atrocious that Xbox 360 controller's d-pad is. Foof, I need to figure out another controller situation.

  • I was supposed to pick this game up in 2016 but I never did. Until now, obviously. I haven't played a lot of the Gungeon yet, but so far I am really enjoying it. At the moment, I mainly play this while I'm on my exercise bike and it's prefect for when I want to concentrate on something else and just let the exercising happen on its own.

  • Unlike the previous installments, I had previously played through ME3 only once. I remember finishing the game, shrugging at the ending and walking away having next to no interest in diving back. Oh, I was disappointed by the ending but I didn't think it was offensively bad as most people make it out to be. Then over the years, I think some of that anger rubbed on me and I became more disappointed in ME3 than I actually was.

    Now after all these years... This game's not so bad. It still isn't great, don't get me wrong! But it's not so bad. No, the ending isn't much better than it was back then, even with the extended cut. But there were some good moments along the way. And having a rough idea on what to expect out of the ending and the game as a whole, the weird plot choices didn't bother be as much as they did when I first played through ME3.

  • So, I'm kinda new to fighting games and I'm brand spanking fresh to MvC -games. It always seemed impossible to me to have any idea on what's going on on the screen but now that I've put some work to it, I'm starting to get the hang of it.

    The gameplay is fun, engaging, and seems to be pretty deep from what I can tell. And I'm having a ton of fun learning the ropes. Which is good, and enough to keep me going but there's a lot of stuff that I don't like.

    I'm not one to care that much about graphics but dang does this game look like butt. On the technical side it's fine but the models are pretty bad. With lanky Ryu with his small head and what looks like a massive beer belly. And sure these characters come from different and different looking franchises, but I just feel like there's a real hard clash with how some characters look compared to others.

    And then there's the fact that there's a fraction of the roster I'm interested in and then a further fraction of characters that I'm interested in playing. But I think I've found my team that I'm happy with.

    Anyway, I like playing it. And that's the part that I care about.

    END OF THE YEAR EDIT: So, I kinda fell off of this game. I still think it's fine. Good, even. I just don't think it's my fighting game.

  • So I got roped back into playing WoW. And it's really good! Or at least it was at first... Now that I've hit the level cap, most of my motivation for playing is gone. Sure I'll run the daily world quests most of the time but that's pretty much all I can handle. It's not a bad game by any means, I'm just completely bored by it.

  • Man, what a bummer.

    I love the original Banjo games. Banjo Kazooie is one of those games that I play through every year. When it was announced that the guys who made those games were making a new similar thing, I was super excited. Now that I've put 13 hours into Yooka-Laylee, I've decided to put it down with disappointment. No, I did not finish it. I couldn't. I had to struggle to like the game and once I got to the 5th world, I just couldn't take it anymore.

    Yooka-Laylee isn't bad per se. It's just goes off the mark more often than it should. You know, what.. There were actually plenty of moments where I exclaimed "This is bad! This is bad design! Who thought this was a good idea?"

    We all saw the quick look with Dan struggling against the first boss. I wish that was as bad as it gets but no. The second boss took probably 10-15 minutes to beat. Not because it was difficult but because the boss can take an ass-load of damage before dying. So you just spend 10 minutes running in a circle, slowly chipping this guy's health down. What a tedious thing! The third boss was alright, although I took damage for no apparent reason every time I attacked the boss. And the fourth boss was so stupidly bad that I didn't actually even want to try and defeat it.

    Then there's the fact that sometimes you have no idea what you're supposed to be doing. There were plenty of cases where I was left wondering if I needed a power that I'll get in a future stage or if I have all that I need for the solution already.

    I had an alright time running around the levels collecting stuff. For the most part. But then the controls aren't super intuitive and the camera is, for the most part, terrible. And those are kinda important in a platformer. The biggest gripe I have with this game is that it's just not all that fun to do the stuff that will net you Pagies (the things you collect to progress the game). Riding on a cart in every level and collecting a certain amount of gems? No fun. Playing a bad arcade game? No fun. Playing that same arcade game again because you have to beat the hi-score on the second time? No fun. Transforming into weird stuff and solving puzzles? Pretty fun. Transforming into weird stuff with bad controls and solving puzzles? No fun.

    On top of all that the writing isn't all that good. And I ended up skipping a whole lot of it. There are funny moments but most of the writing falls somewhere between referencing, fourth-wall-breaking, or trying too hard. In fact, a lot of the design relies way too heavily on referencing the old stuff. It's like this was developed with the idea "Hey remember this? This is like the Banjo games! It's good because we do stuff like the Banjo games! You remember those, right?" Whereas this could have been a great chance to improve on the design of those games rather than try to mirror it.

    Well, after writing all that, I'm certainly feeling a lot more down on Yooka-Laylee than I was feeling prior to writing this. But now I have a mission to find 10 better games this year, because I don't really want this in my top 10.
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