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ichthyocentaursI've been tracking my personal game of the years for over 5 years now, crazy. I've tweaked stuff along the way, but this is pretty much what I did last year, which is like, I drew a little picture to commemorate the games (I didn't think about this I think the image insert should work ok right haha) that I liked the most. And then I slam my personal shittest game <3.
This listing is every game I played this year, not just games that came out this year... cause who does that. That'd be wild huh. They're in no particular order, just categories.
This will probably look VERY broken not on fullsized browser. I didn't think about changing the size of my pics from last time when the blog fit it a little better... next year I'll tweak it haha. Oh well. idk what I did to make it have 3 cuts or how to fix it so please ignore that thanks
Winner of the I regret not playing this the minute it came out award. I was skeptical. I did not believe there could be a decent sequel to TWEWY, especially not on not the DS. I should’ve been out there championing it with whatever teeny, tiny influence I might have had. They made something so wholly interesting, where you have to spread your fingers like evil crab claws spanning the entire controller yet it’s so satisfying as you get more and more characters and it still works, somehow. The story is thematically similar to but different from the first, and the callbacks were surprisingly welcome. This is a direction I would like to see more action RPGs go.
Final Fantasy VI
No one has to talk about how good FF6 is! Sometime I’ll post my FF rankings and I’ll talk about it more there.
The Procession to Calvary
This is a smaller one, a game I only found because I saw someone *not* recommend it on their own list last year (apparently because of some joke in the game being too rude… I don’t know what they were talking about), but the description intrigued me. This is a bawdy, crude, disgusting, British, anti-Catholic, or maybe just the whole concept of religion, very funny point and click adventure. It flirts between being silly and biting and lasts the right amount of time for a comedy game. The art style is so notable, as it repurposes classical paintings and music to make an incredible mashup that is genuinely pleasing to look at and contrasts beautifully with the humor.
Wild Arms 3
To be completely upfront, I fully played this game with a guide. (Other than a few straightforward areas in dungeons, and I didn’t cheese boss fights as recommended.) If I hadn’t and had wandered around, lost, as intended, I can’t imagine I would have liked this so much. This is one with so much potential, and so many systems that are poorly explained that actually make it kind of an amazing game. This is the kind of game that needs a remake, but like, not really, I feel like it just came out at the wrong time and people would be into this today. The idea of having to physically scan your environment and only being able to find cities and dungeons by asking people about them is such a unique adventure aspect for a JRPG. Plus the ways you can cleverly avoid combat, that items are rare and only acquired in certain ways because it’s thematic to the game’s desert setting… and I like the characters and the story too. Very interesting and deftly executed, but understandably misunderstood.
AI: The Somnium Files – nirvanA Initiative
Unfortunately I was a little disappointed by this one, but overall it’s still a pretty damn good game and I would recommend it and loved a lot of it. They basically made one pivotal choice that negatively effects the game thoroughly, and I wish they had done things differently. Otherwise, they tried really hard to create a sequel to an amazing game. Some of the puzzles are actually difficult brain teasers, and there’s new additional gameplay that’s quite fun. But most importantly: the characters. Of course I thought my beloved Mizuki would be the only good one and this stupid dude and his dommy mommy AIball would suck, but I was wrong and I love Ryuki and Tama and their interactions so much. They work so well and fit so perfectly into the story with their unique dynamic; they are some of my favorite characters of the year.
Mixed-Up Mother Goose
Okay this is a baby game for children, but a childhood classic for me, and replaying it made me feel so happy. Roberta Williams put respect on Mother Goose’s name, as is deserved.
Dragon Quest III: The Seeds of Salvation
Remember what I said about Final Fantasy VI. Well say it again here, except Dragon Quest III is a DQ game so less people in the west have played it. It’s wonderful, a quintessential JRPG that made me feel like, damn, this is why I love this genre. And this was after playing a bunch of great JRPGs during the year.
Sly 2: Band of Thieves
Not finishing the Sly Cooper er… quadrilogy has been kind of a shame of mine, because I’ve always been a big proponent of the first game but never beat it, and I’m only now correcting this. And thankfully so, because this game is superb. It’s quite different from the first, which had standard, linear platformer gameplay. This one expanded into miniature open worlds, with multiple playable characters and somewhat open mission orders. The stealth is still not too punishing, and there’s extremely generous checkpoints for a PS2 game, leading to very little frustration even on the harder sections. Sly is just a cool character, and the cel shading ensures these will look great forever.
Lamento ~Beyond the Void~
Hahaha yaoi time. I think this is one of the best dating sim style vns that I’ve played, story-wise. It actually feels worth playing beyond the porn aspect, but then hey great news, there also is porn! The plot takes its time building up this unique fantasy world with its own magic system, the backstory of the characters, the backstory to that backstory, and the relationship between the main character and the love interests all really well. It has a sense of humor at times, and plenty of wickedly dark content. Look. You’re throwing catboys and demon guys into a dark fantasy and shaking them up together. Combined with the honestly beautiful art nouveau aesthetic and great character art, this is worth figuring out how to patch and play.
Solatorobo: Red the Hunter
One of those games that shows up on super rare! DS games! all the time and it’s a shame because more people should have played this. It’s a hugely improved version of Tail Concerto, which was already pretty good, but there’s so much expanded content and it’s a real fun time. Red is such a fun main character, and the supporting cast added up to a pretty touching story in another really fun world. I think they’ve kinda moved away from this style of game with Fuga but I would like to see it again, I like being a little dog in a robot suit throwing shit around.
Bayonetta 3
Sliding in right under the wire for this one. This game is simply fun as hell to play. I am not a person who particularly plays games for… the actual game, I love VNs, puzzle games, and turn based RPGs so when there’s a game with action based combat, if I love it it’s something special. I’m a huge Bayonetta fan, but as usual they stepped it up, and just… look, if we’re having different forms in games, and they’re different like, demon forms so you have a weird sexy frog lady Bayonetta. It’s fantastic. It just feels so good and fluid, and I like how they added some open world design so you could use the forms for flying around to new areas and find little secrets or collect items. The slight diversions like having Viola as a playable character and Jeanne’s weird, goofy ass levels was a nice time too. Viola is a great addition to the crew, like Bayo and Jeanne are so cool you need a cringefail idiot baby who keeps fucking up to show up and make you laugh. There are a few things I didn’t love, story-wise, but at the same time most of them are fixed with simple assumptions, or may even be covered in the future.
Other Games I Liked:
The Good Life, Tail Concerto, Radiata Stories, PUI PUI MOLCAR Let's! MOLCAR PARTY!, Dragon Quest, Grandia, Stretch Panic, KeyWe, I Expect You To Die 2, Piofiore: Fated Memories, The Room Three, Moss, Tokyo Chronos, Dragon Quest II: Luminaries of the Legendary Line, Four Last Things, Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising, The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story, Yurukill: The Calumniation Games, Saints Row, Escape Academy, The Quarry, Paper Beast, Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly, Strange Horticulture, The Room 4: Old Sins, Ancient Enemy, Sanrio Characters Picross
Totally OK Games:
PowerWash Simulator, Unpacking, Nancy Drew: Shadow at the Water's Edge, Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies, Déraciné, I Love Finding Cats, Astro Boy, Nancy Drew: The Captive Curse, Pikuniku, Assault Android Cactus, 199X, Bully, Not For Broadcast, Chicory: A Colorful Tale, Mass Effect 3, Raging Loop, Sherlock Holmes: Secret of the Silver Earring, Tales of Xillia, American McGee's Alice
Kinda Bad Games:
Suikoden IV, Vampyr, Never 7: The End of Infinity, Tales of Graces f, Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Adventure, Café Enchanté, Psychonauts
Worst Game of the Year:
Blue Reflection
What do you say about a game like this. It’s like a fucking water vapor. There is so little substance I can’t even capture it while complaining (I described it as homeopathic). I can’t believe people recommend this! It’s designed for creeping on anime high school girls (your shirt goes semi-transparent if you go outside in the rain. like.) and every plot point is the most meaningless non-drama teenage shit I simply could not give a diddly dick about. The combat is extremely repetitive, the worst of turn based gameplay where you’re just using the same attacks over and over to hit the boring monster’s same weaknesses with little variation. The only setting is inside the school, aside from static locations where you go on “dates” with girls, which are all the most soft yuri-bait garbage you could imagine. Aside from the girl who’s obsessed with the main character’s underwear, oh uwa how funny anime hijinks. Honestly, some of the other games in the kinda bad category were more disappointing, or more frustratingly annoying to play, or were just kind of terrible, but this is a level of bad a step down for me. I know some people like this but I can not fathom why. Horrible.
This listing is every game I played this year, not just games that came out this year... cause who does that. That'd be wild huh. They're in no particular order, just categories.
This will probably look VERY broken not on fullsized browser. I didn't think about changing the size of my pics from last time when the blog fit it a little better... next year I'll tweak it haha. Oh well. idk what I did to make it have 3 cuts or how to fix it so please ignore that thanks
Very Good, Play These:
NEO: The World Ends With You
NEO: The World Ends With You
Winner of the I regret not playing this the minute it came out award. I was skeptical. I did not believe there could be a decent sequel to TWEWY, especially not on not the DS. I should’ve been out there championing it with whatever teeny, tiny influence I might have had. They made something so wholly interesting, where you have to spread your fingers like evil crab claws spanning the entire controller yet it’s so satisfying as you get more and more characters and it still works, somehow. The story is thematically similar to but different from the first, and the callbacks were surprisingly welcome. This is a direction I would like to see more action RPGs go.
Final Fantasy VI
No one has to talk about how good FF6 is! Sometime I’ll post my FF rankings and I’ll talk about it more there.
The Procession to Calvary
This is a smaller one, a game I only found because I saw someone *not* recommend it on their own list last year (apparently because of some joke in the game being too rude… I don’t know what they were talking about), but the description intrigued me. This is a bawdy, crude, disgusting, British, anti-Catholic, or maybe just the whole concept of religion, very funny point and click adventure. It flirts between being silly and biting and lasts the right amount of time for a comedy game. The art style is so notable, as it repurposes classical paintings and music to make an incredible mashup that is genuinely pleasing to look at and contrasts beautifully with the humor.
Wild Arms 3
To be completely upfront, I fully played this game with a guide. (Other than a few straightforward areas in dungeons, and I didn’t cheese boss fights as recommended.) If I hadn’t and had wandered around, lost, as intended, I can’t imagine I would have liked this so much. This is one with so much potential, and so many systems that are poorly explained that actually make it kind of an amazing game. This is the kind of game that needs a remake, but like, not really, I feel like it just came out at the wrong time and people would be into this today. The idea of having to physically scan your environment and only being able to find cities and dungeons by asking people about them is such a unique adventure aspect for a JRPG. Plus the ways you can cleverly avoid combat, that items are rare and only acquired in certain ways because it’s thematic to the game’s desert setting… and I like the characters and the story too. Very interesting and deftly executed, but understandably misunderstood.
AI: The Somnium Files – nirvanA Initiative
Unfortunately I was a little disappointed by this one, but overall it’s still a pretty damn good game and I would recommend it and loved a lot of it. They basically made one pivotal choice that negatively effects the game thoroughly, and I wish they had done things differently. Otherwise, they tried really hard to create a sequel to an amazing game. Some of the puzzles are actually difficult brain teasers, and there’s new additional gameplay that’s quite fun. But most importantly: the characters. Of course I thought my beloved Mizuki would be the only good one and this stupid dude and his dommy mommy AIball would suck, but I was wrong and I love Ryuki and Tama and their interactions so much. They work so well and fit so perfectly into the story with their unique dynamic; they are some of my favorite characters of the year.
Mixed-Up Mother Goose
Okay this is a baby game for children, but a childhood classic for me, and replaying it made me feel so happy. Roberta Williams put respect on Mother Goose’s name, as is deserved.
Dragon Quest III: The Seeds of Salvation
Remember what I said about Final Fantasy VI. Well say it again here, except Dragon Quest III is a DQ game so less people in the west have played it. It’s wonderful, a quintessential JRPG that made me feel like, damn, this is why I love this genre. And this was after playing a bunch of great JRPGs during the year.
Sly 2: Band of Thieves
Not finishing the Sly Cooper er… quadrilogy has been kind of a shame of mine, because I’ve always been a big proponent of the first game but never beat it, and I’m only now correcting this. And thankfully so, because this game is superb. It’s quite different from the first, which had standard, linear platformer gameplay. This one expanded into miniature open worlds, with multiple playable characters and somewhat open mission orders. The stealth is still not too punishing, and there’s extremely generous checkpoints for a PS2 game, leading to very little frustration even on the harder sections. Sly is just a cool character, and the cel shading ensures these will look great forever.
Lamento ~Beyond the Void~
Hahaha yaoi time. I think this is one of the best dating sim style vns that I’ve played, story-wise. It actually feels worth playing beyond the porn aspect, but then hey great news, there also is porn! The plot takes its time building up this unique fantasy world with its own magic system, the backstory of the characters, the backstory to that backstory, and the relationship between the main character and the love interests all really well. It has a sense of humor at times, and plenty of wickedly dark content. Look. You’re throwing catboys and demon guys into a dark fantasy and shaking them up together. Combined with the honestly beautiful art nouveau aesthetic and great character art, this is worth figuring out how to patch and play.
Solatorobo: Red the Hunter
One of those games that shows up on super rare! DS games! all the time and it’s a shame because more people should have played this. It’s a hugely improved version of Tail Concerto, which was already pretty good, but there’s so much expanded content and it’s a real fun time. Red is such a fun main character, and the supporting cast added up to a pretty touching story in another really fun world. I think they’ve kinda moved away from this style of game with Fuga but I would like to see it again, I like being a little dog in a robot suit throwing shit around.
Bayonetta 3
Sliding in right under the wire for this one. This game is simply fun as hell to play. I am not a person who particularly plays games for… the actual game, I love VNs, puzzle games, and turn based RPGs so when there’s a game with action based combat, if I love it it’s something special. I’m a huge Bayonetta fan, but as usual they stepped it up, and just… look, if we’re having different forms in games, and they’re different like, demon forms so you have a weird sexy frog lady Bayonetta. It’s fantastic. It just feels so good and fluid, and I like how they added some open world design so you could use the forms for flying around to new areas and find little secrets or collect items. The slight diversions like having Viola as a playable character and Jeanne’s weird, goofy ass levels was a nice time too. Viola is a great addition to the crew, like Bayo and Jeanne are so cool you need a cringefail idiot baby who keeps fucking up to show up and make you laugh. There are a few things I didn’t love, story-wise, but at the same time most of them are fixed with simple assumptions, or may even be covered in the future.
Other Games I Liked:
The Good Life, Tail Concerto, Radiata Stories, PUI PUI MOLCAR Let's! MOLCAR PARTY!, Dragon Quest, Grandia, Stretch Panic, KeyWe, I Expect You To Die 2, Piofiore: Fated Memories, The Room Three, Moss, Tokyo Chronos, Dragon Quest II: Luminaries of the Legendary Line, Four Last Things, Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising, The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story, Yurukill: The Calumniation Games, Saints Row, Escape Academy, The Quarry, Paper Beast, Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly, Strange Horticulture, The Room 4: Old Sins, Ancient Enemy, Sanrio Characters Picross
Totally OK Games:
PowerWash Simulator, Unpacking, Nancy Drew: Shadow at the Water's Edge, Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies, Déraciné, I Love Finding Cats, Astro Boy, Nancy Drew: The Captive Curse, Pikuniku, Assault Android Cactus, 199X, Bully, Not For Broadcast, Chicory: A Colorful Tale, Mass Effect 3, Raging Loop, Sherlock Holmes: Secret of the Silver Earring, Tales of Xillia, American McGee's Alice
Kinda Bad Games:
Suikoden IV, Vampyr, Never 7: The End of Infinity, Tales of Graces f, Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Adventure, Café Enchanté, Psychonauts
Worst Game of the Year:
Blue Reflection
What do you say about a game like this. It’s like a fucking water vapor. There is so little substance I can’t even capture it while complaining (I described it as homeopathic). I can’t believe people recommend this! It’s designed for creeping on anime high school girls (your shirt goes semi-transparent if you go outside in the rain. like.) and every plot point is the most meaningless non-drama teenage shit I simply could not give a diddly dick about. The combat is extremely repetitive, the worst of turn based gameplay where you’re just using the same attacks over and over to hit the boring monster’s same weaknesses with little variation. The only setting is inside the school, aside from static locations where you go on “dates” with girls, which are all the most soft yuri-bait garbage you could imagine. Aside from the girl who’s obsessed with the main character’s underwear, oh uwa how funny anime hijinks. Honestly, some of the other games in the kinda bad category were more disappointing, or more frustratingly annoying to play, or were just kind of terrible, but this is a level of bad a step down for me. I know some people like this but I can not fathom why. Horrible.
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