To the Moon (2011)
Update 1 (71 minutes in, four months ago…)
So far, this has been better than I thought, but hasn’t come with any other surprises yet. Playing it now in memory of my grandad…
Update 2 (finished!)
Finally finished the story! (It really is a story, much more than a game – and that is not a knock against it at all.) It was both less sad than I’d expected (probably built up too much), but also continued to be a better story than I’d expected. There was good care taken with the personalities of all the main characters, and the music, and the ending is… satisfying, but not any of the ones I was guessing at as the story progressed.
To the Moon was in my backlog since October 16th, 2012, where I purchased it for $4.23 (along with four other games) in the Indie Royale Fall Bundle. And that finally puts me at the halfway point for clearing out my list of The 26 games I’ve been meaning to play for years, and haven’t… for 2017.
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To the Moon
#13 of 26 (2017)
5 hours playtime
1 of 1 achievements
The 26 (2018)
I could use your help paring down my list for next year. Assuming that I finish Dark Souls before the year is out, here’s what I have so far…
Returning from The 26 (2017 edition) because I didn’t finish them this year…
- Alice: Madness Returns
- Darksiders
- Dragon Age: Origins - Ultimate Edition
- Fable: The Lost Chapters
- GUN (might still finish this year)
- I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream (might attempt to finish this year)
- L.A. Noire
- Mass Effect 2
- Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II - The Sith Lords
- Wailing Heights (might still finish this year)
- The Witcher
New for consideration for the 2018 list…
- Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
- Card City Nights
- Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines
- Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
- Dishonored
- Dropsy
- Enslaved: Odyssey to the West
- Grimm
- Kathy Rain
- Mad Max
- Murdered: Soul Suspect
- Pony Island
- The Purring Quest
- Puzzle Dimension
- Renegade Ops
- Resident Evil HD Remaster
- The Sea Will Claim Everything
- The Sexy Brutale
- StarTopia
- Tex Murphy: Mean Streets
- Thief - Gold
- Tomb Raider (1996) or Rise of the Tomb Raider
- Undertale
- The Way
NOT returning from The 26 (2017 edition) because I am not enjoying it…
- Dead Space
In total, that’s 35 titles… I need to cut nine of them out. Help! :D
Also playing…
Lots of things… see the profile for that if you’re really curious. Mostly Dark Souls and DiRT Rally though.
Lack-of-an-event update…
(In case you were wondering….) I didn’t have my event ready for my cake day, although I seriously think I would have if I hadn’t been suddenly employed. However, I have doubts that I’ll have it ready this December either. So, that pushes it to… my next cake day as my next reasonable estimate. In my head, this means I have time to illustrate things!, but in reality, no – it’ll still be text-only. But it will exist… eventually….
To the Moon is really a nice game. Absolutely loved its story and its music. :D
And after countless times of watching play throughs and stuff before playing it, it still got me emotional, which is impressive. :P
Oh and, saw Grimm in the list. I managed to play its first episode since it’s free. It’s quite a “lovely” game, if you could call it that. xD The story is kinda silly, and the concept is silly, yet it’s so much fun. Basically sorta like a splatoon game, and for me, nothing is more satisfying than filling up every nook and cranny with my “color”. So I did just that, exploring thoroughly in the limited 2 stages the first episode grants me access, and I had a blast cuz of it~Lots of effort and funny moments revolving around trying to get onto hard to get places.
So if you’re like me, or if that concept sounds interesting to you, you should give it a try. :3/
Interesting about Grimm! I’ve mostly been interested in it since it was one of American McGee’s projects (the first Alice was excellent), one of the earliest well-executed (i.e. “completed”) attempts at episodic gaming, I liked the concept of having a bunch of relatively short gaming experiences in one package, and I was interested to see American’s lightheartedly-twisted take on the fairy tales. :) But somehow… the gameplay itself had completely escaped my notice! :D I think I’ll play the first episode before committing it to the list to be sure it’s something I’m really interested in (I haven’t played Splatoon yet). Thank you very much for the input on that one! :)
Haha I have a long line of games I’ve been meaning to play for what must be years too… like Dark Souls for instance! Well here’s my list for you from the games you included that I can recommend having played them:
Dragon Age: Origins - Ultimate Edition - one of the best RPGs I’ve ever played, it lived up to its reputation
L.A. Noire - the detective stuff is fun and I love games set in historic time periods, the ending sucks though
The Witcher - might be difficult to get used to due to its age but there’s a lot about it I actually prefer to the second game
Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood - Rome is great to explore, if you enjoyed II then you’ll like this too
Dishonored - another game that lived up to its reputation for me, it’s great having the freedom to approach levels in different ways
Murdered: Soul Suspect - enjoyable game that should entertain you, the story is decent and also another detective game if you like them
Definitely ranking those all up in my deliberations here then – thank you! :) The only reason AC: Brotherhood didn’t make it to my list last year was because I played too much of AC2 the year before! Had 100% on that, and didn’t use the mini-map or compass, so I had to find everything by using the landmarks visible in the skyline (highly recommended, actually). It got so that when I saw a very old real-life painting of one of the harbor locations in an art gallery I was all, “I’ve been there!”
Mostly Dark Souls and DiRT Rally though.
It’s funny, because I’ve heard DiRT Rally described as the Dark Souls of racing games. :P
I really liked To The Moon, and was also surprised that I didn’t find it to be sadder (given its premise), but there was one part in particular that really moved me. It was at the very end when he was dying and the memory was flickering and about to fade out completely, and she reached out for his hand and he took hers. :’)
I’ve only played two of the games that you’re considering: Undertale and Thief - Gold. Knowing that you appreciated the storytelling in To The Moon, I can wholeheartedly recommend Undertale. Go in blind, though, without reading/watching anything about it. Thief was a fantastic game in its time, and the very first first-person stealth game, I believe. Since it would look painfully dated compared to modern games, give it a little facelift with a high-def texture mod, and stick to the shadows! ;)
Yes, that particular note on that scene – I was going to leave the game all disappointed if at least that didn’t happen! :)
One of the alternate endings in my head had him rocketing up toward the moon alone, and then finding her on the moon and the two of them sitting on their log on the moon holding hands.
For Undertale, I keep very much trying to avoid any spoilers, and I think I’ve done a pretty good job of it so far, but it’s on my list in part because I don’t know how long I can keep that up! :D
I’ll consider the facelift mod for Theif… I generally avoid using any of that (since I’m from that era anyway), but I tried playing Thief once already a year or two ago and didn’t get very far – part of it may have been its age, but it may have also just been a lack of commitment to my backlog.
Thank you for the recommendations! :)
From your 2018 list, I’d recommend some games I’ve played and liked:
Dropsy/Kathy Rain (both are Point n click games)
Mad Max (a bit repetitve tho)
Murdered: Soul Suspect (short and also a bit repetitve)
Undertale - (very different than the average rpg maker stuff)
I haven’t tried the rest.
Well congrats for a great 2017 and good luck with this new list.
Thank you very much for the recommendations! :)
Alongside everyone else’s feedback, it’s been great for paring down my list! I’ve gotten pretty far in Dropsy, but gave up on it for a while since I got stuck and am trying to avoid using a walkthrough. I might ask you for a hint on it when I get back to it since you’ve played it before – asking people for help instead of using a walkthrough reminds me of an older age of gaming. :)
A few notes from the main theme of To The Moon are all it takes for me to get a bit emotional so… yeah :3
As other people are making their recommendations about your 2018 list, I’ll throw mine on Pony Island and Undertale, as they’re both really unique experiences. They can take a little bit to get into gear so stick with them.
Man, that’s four votes for Undertale now – I think it’s definitely going on the list! I’m super curious about Pony Island too, although I haven’t been as successful avoiding spoilers for that one. Thanks much for the recommendations! :)
Thanks everyone for the recommendations! I think I’ll definitely be able to tame this list into shape now! :)
I wish all the best for your nerves, that combination sounds brutal. Dirt Rally is an awesome game, though. Such a blast once you get things right and find the sweet spot with the car and setup. Then you get just that tiny bit too confident and find the ditch on the next stage. It’s a never-ending cycle. :)
I see many good titles in your considerations, personally I’ve played and enjoyed Dishonored, Pony Island, The Sea Will Claim Everything and Undertale from that list.
Thanks for the good wishes for DS and DR! I’m up to having them both mostly under control now, and I feel like they complement each other well. Both are very difficult, but can be taken at as slow a pace as you need as you figure out how to get better. And Souls has its stretches of fairly slow gameplay with brief moments of high intensity panic while Rally has its long stretches of fairly intense gameplay with brief moments of focused relaxation. Souls probably has a better backstory though….
Of those you’ve mentioned for my 26, I’ve only started Dishonored once before (didn’t get too far before I got distracted – can’t do that anymore in these days of deep backlogs!), and I’m glad some of the shorter-length games meet with some approval! I felt I needed to add a lot more of those than I had on the 2017 list to give myself a better chance at getting through it this coming year.
Yeah, long games tend to stick to your mind for a while after finishing them so it would help to have a some shorter games to play instead of jumping into a next long game right away. :) I think your idea of having one list to focus on throughout the year sounds good, it feels less restrictive than let’s say having a game list to refresh each month.
Did someone say… VROOM?!
Don’t blinkDon’t cutAs a person who enjoys metal, that was fun. :)
Vacuity
Vomituity