Main post.
21. Vagrant Story | VITA | 30th Aug | 34h | ★★★★☆
Vagrant Story is beautiful, poorly designed and extremly engrossing. The gorgeous low-poly aesthetic and lonely atmosphere of this cult classic has long had me curious but I'd failed several times to push through the frustration of the initial few hours. The tutorials do not adequately explain the intricacies of the workshop, the relative importances of affinity, class and type, the impact of dp/pp or any of the many reasons your meticulously planned weapon is dealing 1 damage to its intended target. Even online resources can't always be trusted here; such is the cryptic nature of the mechanics.
Occasional victories of mechanics mastery were hard-won but felt equally rewarding. Unfortunately, the post-boss stat growth roulette was also against me. Half way through my playthrough my agility had barely moved from its base level meaning I was constantly missing attacks. My luck changed with +3 agility from a boss followed by two agility elixirs dropping. At this point, I'd gained a solid understanding of the mechanics, amassed a versatile collection of grips, blades and elemental gems and mastered the timing of chain attacks. The difficulty promptly broke and I flipped from scraping by to god mode before slapping me in the face with a enourmous difficulty spike at the last boss.
Overall a unique experience of overcoming adversity with incredible presentation. However, I can't call it a 5/5 because a) your masteey of the mechanics mean nothing when you don't have the requisite weapon parts + gems on your first playthrough to avoid dealing no damage and b) for a game so reliant on fiddling around in menus they sure are some shitty menus.
22. Samorost 3 | PC | 3rd Sept | 5h | ★★★★☆
Samorost 3 had all the things I love about Amanita Design's games: delightful interactions with curious environments, adorable animations, surreal humour and a stellar soundtrack from Tomá Dvořák. I particularly enjoyed the protagonist imitating noises on his horn improv jazz style.
23. Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory | PC | 6th Sept | 14h | ★★☆☆☆
I liked the Mission Impossible vibe and Sam Fisher's sardonic attitude. However, I don't think I understood the point of this game. Walk slowly, choke out a guard, walk slowly, choke out a guard, hack a terminal. Thief 1 and 2's core design starts with this foundation but distinguishes itself by expanding the experience with meaningful resource management and risk-reward choices in how you use your bag of tricks to navigate non-linear environments.
24. Sonic Mania | Switch | 16th Sept | 6h | ★★★☆☆
A consumate homage to the classic Megadrive games. Some pretty good music and relatively good flow to the levels but I'm not sure that the Sonic franchise ever really had a flawless gameplay formula. Some frustrating boss battles. I really didn't enjoy the secret final final super Sonic boss.
25. Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One | PS3 | 16st Sept | 11h | ★★★★☆
A really solid co-op experience. And a substantial one at that too. Plenty of levels with their own unique gameplay gimmick and plenty of destructive tools. We eventually discovered the unstoppable power of combining the beams of multiple Critter Strikes. Turning bosses into giant pigs never got old. Turning swarms of enemy robots into a sea of fire-breathing hell-pigs never got old. More Cpt Quark and Nefarious is always a good thing.
26. Castlevania IV | SNES | 30th Sept | 5h | ★★★☆☆
My expectations were high after playing Rondo of Blood as my first Classicvania the other month and, unfortunately, Castlevania IV just didn't quite have the same magic for me. Slightly lack-lustre visual design and mediocre music (that jazzy Submerged City track was ambitious but ended up feeling like some kind of keyboard cat Thelonious Monk). Sub-weapons seemed extremely rare. Way too easy up until an extreme difficulty spike in the boss rush leading up to Dracula. And I'm just going to come out and say it: tickling enemies with the droopy whip looked dumb and felt silly.
That being said, Castlevania has some solid base gameplay: whipping enemies, dodging attacks and utilising the right sub-weapon for the situation. So I had fun overall.
27. Sonic The Hedgehog 2 | Megadrive | 1st Oct | 2h | ★★★★☆
A replay of a classic. I feel like the first few levels of this one flow better in terms of level design than anywhere else in the series. Something about how you find yourself bouncing from enemy to enemy. Maybe the difficulty is tuned just about right for how fast you can reasonably react with such a small viewport.
28. Suikoden 2 | VITA | 3rd Oct | 40.5h | ★★★★☆
I finally understand the praise. Recruiting soldiers, growing your castle, wanting to kill the shit out of Luca Blight. What a good jrpg.
In fact, Suikoden 2 had one of the few turn-based combat systems that I've genuinely enjoyed in a long while. And I think that's largely down to its rapid pace. Instead of dwelling on lengthy individual attack animations, attacks come out in rapid succession, often firing-off simultaneously. Regarding pace, the events of the story also rattle along at a decent speed with characters joining and leaving and areas of the map opening and closing. There are a number of powerful moments in the story and I loved how the bonds between the primary protagonists are reflected by their synergy in combat.
My main criticism is that most of the soundtrack is painfully obnoxious, specifically pretty much any tune that plays while in a town or the castle. Thankfully the battle themes and the track that plays during any emotionally significant moment are all really strong so it's easy to put some other music on while playing. Also, what the hell happened to the localisation in and around Tinto? It's like they didn't have time to localise the literal translation and it ends up sounding like Half Life 2 Full Life Consequences. I didn't mind too much though, it was kind of hilarious.
29. Castlevania: Circle of the Moon | GBA | 13th Oct | 10.5h | ★★★★★
A replay of my favourite Igavania, ironically not directed by Igarashi. Tight controls, challenging encounters and an amazingly diverse magic system to explore. Cruising around with double runspeed, the Roc Wing and a close familiarity of the layout of Dracula's castle results in some seriously satisfying flow. I can't believe no other game has copied the Battle Arena. Probably my favourite part of CotM.
Two criticism I have: vanishingly small drop rates make some items not worth farming for and the run animation is kind of lame.
30. Professor Layton and the Curious Village | NDS | 14th Oct | 12h | ★★★★★
Absolutely charming and refreshingly placid. I was initially concerned that the majority of the puzzles were going to be trick questions after a slew of them near the start but there ended up being a good range of questions. A perfect game to play in short bursts. A true gentlemen never checks online for puzzle solutions.