Game 1 - Like A Dragon: The Man Who Erased His Name - Xbox Series X - Completed Jan 3rd, 2024
This game started out a bit on the slow side, and that's saying something after having just finished Judgment a few weeks ago. Chapter two was particularly brutal in its slow pacing. However, the final chapter more than makes up for the game's other shortcomings as it was absolutely amazing storytelling. Seriously pumped now for Infinite Wealth to drop in a couple of weeks!
Game 2 - Alex Jones: NWO Wars - PC - Completed Jan 6th, 2024
Ha this game was interesting, to say the least. Gay frogs, free ducks, globalist agendas, it seemingly had it all. One of the levels was San Francisco where you have to avoid homeless as they vomit on you, and destroy tents. That seemed fairly accurate? I dunno, lots of interesting references that I didn't really get, since I don't follow Alex Jones. Game was pretty meh, kind of like an old Flash game. Enemies (especially bosses) had way too much health. Very little challenge.
Game 3 - Koumajou Remilia: Scarlet Symphony - Nintendo Switch - Completed Jan 6th, 2024
"Mom, can we get Castlevania?". "No, we have Castlevania at home." Castlevania at home: Koumajou Remilia: Scarlet Symphony. I picked this game up because I thought it looked like a pretty good Castlevania clone. Turns out, it's got a lot of similarities with Symphony of the Night that Konami ought to sue. The game was short, and the levels were pretty tedious. I'm honestly not a huge fan, but I got the double-pack, so I'm sure I'll play the sequel at some point...
Game 4 - Kingdom Rush Vengeance - PC / Steam - Completed Jan 11th, 2024
I played through this a couple of years ago (on Android), but decided to play through again on Steam and unlock the game's plethora of achievements. This game still holds up really well as one of the best tower defense series, and this is probably the best game of the series, simply because of the variety of towers available. Tons of fun, played through all the levels and did all the challenges.
Game 5 - Dungeons and Dragons: Tower of Doom - Retro Achievements - Completed Jan 11th, 2024
I spent a few hours delving through Tower of Doom. I realized that I haven't ever played this game before, but I always saw it in the arcade, and it looked like fun. I sunk a fair few virtual quarters into beating this game, I couldn't imagine paying that much on a real arcade machine though, I would have definitely gotten frustrated and would have quit well before the end. Really fun game though!
Game 6 - Time Survivors - PC / Steam - Completed Jan 20th, 2024
A fun take on the Vampire Survivors genre, this game had you pick from a cast of historical characters and the stages were all different times in history. While not incredibly deep, it only took me about 10 hours to fully complete it with 100% of the Steam achievements. The biggest problem with the game is that it's incredibly unbalanced - there is definitely a weapon loadout that will let you win every time, and some of the weapons are totally worthless. So, by the time you get enough reroll power ups, it's basically just an instant win.
Game 7 - 12 Labours of Hercules XII: Timeless Adventure - PC / Steam - Completed Jan 22nd, 2024
Another year, another Hercules game that is 99% the same as the last one. For some reason, I really dig these games - they have a good flow to them, and they usually make me think and strategize. It also helps that they're usually incredibly cheap on Steam sales. Completed this one with all gold times - and even beat one of the developers records (badly) on one of the super secret stages. Fun stuff, can't wait for part XIII!
Game 8 - Octopath Traveler II - PC / Steam - Completed Jan 28th, 2024
Easily my favorite JRPG of 2024, this game was amazing from start to finish. It took me almost a full year to finish the game, as I took a break after finishing my first character's final chapter. I'm glad I came back to it in earnest though, because the payoff at the end was emotional and incredible. I had nearly 100 hours on my save file, and there were still a lot of side quests and collectibles I missed. I hope that a third game in the series is made eventually, because this really is some of the best stuff that's come out of Square Enix in decades.
Game 9 - Turnip Boy Robs a Bank - PC / Game Pass - Completed Feb 2nd, 2024
Man, fuck this game. I really, really enjoyed the first few hours of this game - going into the bank, coming out with treasure used to level up your character... a really solid rogue-like. But the last level, man fuck the last level of this game. You have to go into the bank, beat four bosses, then go back through each of the four boss chambers while a big space thing is chasing you - all while on a six-minute timer. Took me a good 10 tries - that's a whole hour where, the entire time I thought "wow, this game got to be a huge pile of bullshit". It seriously ruined the game. Liked the first one, will definitely not buy / play the next.
Game 10 - Granblue Fantasy: Relink - PC / Steam - Completed Feb 10th, 2024
I've been waiting ages to play this game, and I'm happy to say it was worth the wait. Great story, really great characters, fun battle systems, and above all else: really, REALLY good music. A bit of a budget title (at $50), and the main storyline never overstayed it's welcome at about 15 hours for me. I'm not a massive fan of the end-game stuff, but I may boot it up a few more times to grind out some levels / equipment. Overall, this game had massive charm and heart - I hope we see others like it in the future.
Game 11 - Star Trek Borg: Remastered - PC - Completed Feb 19th, 2024
I saw a post on GAF that this game got a "fan remaster" that turned it into a browser game in high definition. I used to love this WAY back in the day, so I decided to check this out. I'm very glad I did, this was such a treat! John DeLancie as Q did an amazing job here and put on an excellent performance. It's crazy seeing the footage here in such high resolution detail, I remember it being SUPER grainy and hard to make out back in the day. My only gripe is that there was a ton of buffering - I wish there were a way to buy this on modern systems and play it locally.
Game 12 - Brotato - PC / Game Pass - Completed Feb 24th, 2024
It took me about 30 hours, but I finally finished up all the achievements for Brotato on Xbox. I also previously played this to 100% on Steam, so I had a jump start on knowing the best combos and such. Some of the builds in this game are incredibly broken, but I like how the game almost expects you to use that to your advantage (otherwise you'll get overwhelmed easily and die). A really solid game through and through, so much fun in short 25 minute bursts.
Game 13 - The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel - Nintendo Switch - Completed Mar 3rd, 2024
This is only the third game in the Legend of Heroes series that I've beaten, but this series is quickly climbing to the top of my "best series ever" list. It's unlikely to dethrone Final Fantasy or Xenoblade Chronicles, but damn was this game great. Like the other games I've played (Trails in the Sky FC and Nayuta), this starts out as a typical "slice of life" narrative that grows in scope as the game progresses. Despite this game being pretty old, I still didn't see the ending coming! I am definitely going to have to dive into the second game now, it's just so damn good.
Game 14 - Braveland - PC / Steam - Completed Mar 10th, 2024
I played the Braveland trilogy on the Switch a few years ago, but liked it well enough to replay it - this time on PC. The game is still a fun and charming light strategy game that holds up well enough. My biggest complaint is that I wish the game got just a bit deeper - some of the later games in the series had more going for them, and it would have been nice to have that in this setting. Maybe I'll give their latest game, Knights of Braveland, a try next.
Game 15 - Soulstone Survivors - PC / Steam - Completed Mar 16th, 2024
Been playing this off and on since 2022, but finally feel like I've "beat" it (despite there still being about 20 achievements I haven't unlocked). The game is a really solid Vampire Survivors clone, each hero has a unique skill set and ability that can be changed per run. The rune system lets you unlock and pick different passive perks for each character / run, so that's cool too. Massive amount of build variety here, every run seems pretty different. Only complaint is the lack of unique stages, and the fact that once you unlock the best runes each run starts feeling the same unless you handicap yourself. Overall though, very solid game.
Game 16 - Final Fantasy VII Rebirth - PlayStation 5 - Completed Mar 18th, 2024
Amazing game, really a solid 10/10. Easily my game of the year, and something absolutely incredible will have to get released this year for it to be topped. Honestly, this was so much better than Remake - and I think I even enjoyed it more than the original from 1997 (which is saying a lot). Amazing music (I've already got tickets to the concert later this year), fantastic characters and character development. I even enjoyed the ending a lot, which has been pretty dividing online. Just really solid, very amazing.
Game 17 - Balatro - PC / Steam - Completed Mar 22nd, 2024
I heard good things about this card game, so I thought I'd check it out. Glad I did, it's a lot of fun! It also got my son and wife both playing it, so you're wecome devs. Won my first run after only about 6 hours playing, got really lucky and had two jokers in play that both had x-multis, so I was getting crazy scores like 100k in one hand. So much random shit happening with this game, I love it.
Game 18 - Alone in the Dark - PC / GOG - Completed Mar 28th, 2024
This game wasn't really on my radar, but it got good reviews here on GAF (and terrible mainstream reviews) so I thought I'd give it a chance. I picked it up on GOG since it was available there. The graphics were good, and the story was engaging. Voice acting was incredibly good. The game had a huge amount of atmosphere that really portrayed 1930s New Orleans well. Don't listen to the critic's reviews on this game, it was a really solid adventure / survival horror game. I also liked that it only took about 7 hours to finish, so it never felt like it overstayed it's welcome. Also, I'm glad it wasn't too scary, because I'm a wuss with horror games. A really great experience overall.
Game 19 - Unicorn Overlord - Nintendo Switch - Completed Apr 10th, 2024
This was a hell of a game. I loved how the gameplay blended both real-time and turn based combat. The characters, although numerous, were really well written and had fun personalities. Exploring the map and unlocking new quests / units / areas was a ton of fun and easily the game's standout quality in my opinion. My only real complaint is that the game does go a bit long (my save file had just over 50 hours on it), too much of the dialog was unvoiced, and there were so many characters that I felt myself not caring about a lot of them towards the end. Otherwise, this was a solid experience!
Game 20 - Deep Rock Galactic Survivor - PC / Steam - Completed Apr 14th, 2024
I loved Deep Rock Galactic, but hated that it was multiplayer only. This basically fixes this problem, while also making a game that's in one of my new favorite genres. The game is tons of fun, maybe one of the best autoshooters yet - as it requires not only movement and weapons but also mining and securing minerals that you can use between runs to level up. Game ran great on the Steam Deck, and also looked incredible on my new 32:9 ultrawide monitor. Unlocked all achievements, will probably return when the game is out of early access.
Game 21 - Crystal Project - Nintendo Switch - Completed Apr 26th, 2024
So there was a lot about this game that I absolutely loved. And also, there were things I hated. The class system was amazing, finding crystals was a fun endeavor, and the general progression of the game was incredible. This was all marred by some seriously terrible platforming sections that were mandatory. Overall, I'd give this game a 7/10 - would be 9/10 if not for the platforming.
Past challenges:
jshackles
as the prior host)
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