Welcome everyone to the last All-New Saturday Summaries for 2017. It's probably time to retire the "All-New", huh? Maybe I'll just go with "Mostly Still Newish" next year. Or just write titles like a normal person, perhaps. Regardless! It has become my custom at the end of every quarter to chat candidly about the games coming up in the subsequent quarter, which is to say January 1st to March 31st of 2018.

Q1 is usually a bottom-heavy quarter, as various games that were delayed from the previous year go into a bug-finding crunch to hit the end of the fiscal year at the very least, and there were probably a number of games who smartly decided to step the heck out of the way of the procession of incredible once-in-a-lifetime games this year and try their hand competing with 2018's crowd for that year's award season. Not that "delay your game on purpose for the sake of awards" is a brilliant business strategy, but it's fun to make up these little dramas, you know?

January provides a bevvy of JRPG goodness for those tru fanz who know the genre is far from being on its last legs. Of course, I'll be busy enjoying some of last year's best JRPGs - Persona 5 and Ys VIII specifically - while this quarter is raging on, but all in good time with these fifty hour goliaths. Speaking of goliaths, I suppose the big game for January is the new Monster Hunter World. While I'm in no rush to play any MonHun, this seems like the franchise's equivalent of Yakuza 0: not only a great gateway for those who have been sitting on the fence about joining in, but a great game in general. We also have Lost Sphear, the next throwback JRPG from Tokyo RPG Factory, the creators of I Am Setsuna. I'm still planning on getting around to Setsuna eventually, and I suppose I should start there before moving onto Sphear (wasn't that a Pokemon?), but here's hoping this continues to be a profitable little side gig for the RPG giant. Rounding out that trio is the new Dissidia, Dissidia Final Fantasy NT, which... I dunno. I like those spinoffs in principle and the amount of fan-servicey dialogue and Smash Bros-style unlockables but the mechanics never felt great. Maybe that's something the new one is planning to overhaul. I'll be keeping an eye on early impressions for it, that's for certain. Then there's also some DBZ thing I don't care about. Moving on!

February looks to be the season for ports, remakes and remasters. We have the two Bayonettas coming to Switch, along with Dragon Quest Builders (which seems perfect for the system, honestly). There's also Owlboy for all current-gen consoles. In remake town we have Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology for 3DS, which was one of the best DS RPGs, and the beautiful new Shadow of the Colossus for PS4 and Secret of Mana for Sony consoles and Steam. We also have a bunch of games that will... be interesting, if nothing else. That includes the zombie-like Metal Gear Survive, the odd medieval RPG Kingdom Come: Deliverance, the next Yellow Turban thrashing sim Dynasty Warriors 9, and the first expansion for Civilization VI. Gotta say, there's not a whole lot from this month that I'm champing at the bit to buy - I'd rather spend money on sequels and new IPs than remakes and remasters of games I've already played - but February looks packed to the gills with a wide array of games to suit every interest.

The big games for March are all sequels: Far Cry 5, Ni no Kuni 2 and Yakuza 6. I'm very excited about all three, of course, but I doubt I'll get around to any of them soonish: they're all fairly gigantic, I suspect, so not something I could feasibly slip in between the stack of 2017 hits I'm planning to get through. I am wondering how Giant Bomb will cover them, however: obviously Far Cry 5 will get the works, but I don't think anyone played Ni no Kuni 1 besides Brad and Rorie, and Yakuza 6 is obviously a tricky case for the GBE duders since they're so far behind with the series. However, we do have an online game suitable for GB shenanigans with Sea of Thieves, which promises to be a silly enough adventure on the high seas suited for those who love holding up maps and cronching bananas. And, of course, we have the total Dan Ryckert games that are Attack on Titan 2 and Atelier Lydie & Suelle: The Alchemists and the Mysterious Paintings. Oh right, and that A Way Out is released in March too: that's the new simultaneous multiplayer prison break game from the studio that brought you Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons and the guy that brought you the embarrassing ranting about the Oscars at The Game Awards. So that'll be a top ten contender, no doubt.

Of course, I can't account for the many incredible Indie games that come out of nowhere every month and manage to wow everyone, but hopefully GB will keep us posted. News spreads fast in this industry, after all, and a great little game can get everyone talking when it's Bombcast/Beastcast time.

However, we've been talking about 2018 too much. Even though I'm counting down the days for this year to end, let's review the last of what my blogging in 2017 had to offer:

• It's GOTY season, so obviously that means an Awards Blog and GOTY List from yours truly. I'm playing fewer and fewer new games every year it feels like, so this year's list feels more incomplete than usual. Still, I'm happy with those ten - it won't stay that way, but those are ten great games regardless - and how my doodling is coming along after many months away from the ol' MS Paint.
• Even though I was busy putting together GOTY stuff, I didn't let my other features fall to the wayside. Especially not The Top Shelf, which had its finale this week: this blog compiles the forty-four best PS2 games to be enshrined upon my top shelf for all time... or at least until the shelving unit collapses, which'll be another year yet at least. Take a gander at the list, scorn at the snubs, and write me an angry reply about your favorite PS2 games in the comments below. Or, hell, you could always write something nice instead. 'Tis the season, you know?
• This week also saw the final Indie Game of the Week, lucky number 50, with the surprisingly excellent Japanese spacewhipper Pharaoh ReBirth+. The gameplay is solid but unremarkable, but it's worth seeing this game's story in action and the incredible level of detail in its pixel art, from the multiple layers of parallax in the background to the sharp and fluid character animations. I could've done without the minecart sequence, but it's an ambitious and silly game that's worth more attention than it got. If you have a soft spot for Indie spacewhippers like I do, I'd highly recommend it.
• Oh, this was something I did too: Updated the "Z-A of Ztuff" list, which is a combined bucket list and contemporary wishlist, just in reverse alphabetical order because that's how I roll (and because the list would be five hundred games long without some convenient limitation).

And that's going to do it for this week. I've been playing some Super Mario Odyssey on my brand new Switch since Xmas, and while I have plenty of thoughts about it I'd rather cut this entry short for the sake of holiday merriment and double-up on a huge, gushing encomium for it next time. See you all in 2018, everyone, and have a happy new year.