Yes, yes, I know, I missed my traditional May 1st write up of the games that I played over the last year, but I wasn’t really feeling up to writing any reviews during that time, so I decided to hold off on making a post. Then, once I was feeling better, I realized that my PS+ was nearing its expiration, so I held off a few more weeks so that I could squeeze a couple more games into this list.

Update: Since the reviews ended up taking longer to jot down than expected, I’ll be splitting this post into two. The second half, consisting of January - July will be posted next month.

(May 1, 2022 - December 31, 2022)

So, this year saw a lot of PS4 games completed, largely for two reasons; The first being a good deal on Gamefly, giving me the chance to play some new-ish titles for extremely cheap; and second, there was the decision to cancel my PS+ subscription, which gave me the much needed motivation to play through games that were set to expire from my library in June

• Horizon: Forbidden West
  
• Kena: Bridge of Spirits
  
• Wild at Heart
  
• Borderlands: Tiny Tina
  
• Supraland: Six Inches Under
  
• Spider-Man: Miles Morales
  
• Guardians of the Galaxy
  
• Little Big Workshop
  
• Bugsnax
  
• Inscryption
  
• Luna's Fishing Garden
  
• Lost in Random
  

• Horizon: Forbidden West - I can't place exactly what it was about this game, it could have been the sum of multiple nitpicks, but despite the larger scale, the QOL improvements, and the deeper skill tree, the game just seemed to underwhelm compared to the original. Where Horizon: Zero Dawn felt fresh and new, Forbidden West more or less just treaded the same ground, only somehow worse. Taking down the large dinobots was no longer enjoyable, with some of the best weapons (namely the ropecaster) completely nerfed to the point of being useless. And in their place, dozens of modifications to be placed on other weapons. It sounds like an improvement, being able to fully customize each weapon to your liking, but what it ends up doing is completely trivializing the combat. Machines that previously required systematic targeting/trapping, now just needed a few shots with a Bow. Trapping became an afterthought to the swiss army knife Bows and Blasters.
  
  This is not to say that the entire game was a slog or unenjoyable, as the locations and set pieces were fun to explore (especially Vegas). Even the main story, which had its rough patches, wasn't all bad. Aloy's character actually managed to grow as a person... Slightly. Her biggest flaw of needing to be the smartest person in the room (even one with an AI super computer) is still strongly prevalent, but she does eventually do away with some of her stubbornness and learns to accept help from others. And while I was disappointed at how simple combat became, I can't deny that creating an overpowered weapon that could melt Apex Thunderjaws in two hits was rather satisfying.
  
  
• Kena: Bridge of Spirits - A beautiful game with a split personality. On the surface, the game looks and feels like a Pixar movie that got turned into a video game. The little Soot sprites hiding in various nooks and crannies for you to find, dozens of collectible hats that you can then equip onto them, the serene atmosphere and calming music. Even the combat portions are simple enough that they never truly pose a challenge. All together, it seems like the perfect fit for a younger audience. That is, until you complete a chapter and are faced off against the area's boss. Then, not only does the tone of the game shift to something a bit darker, but the combat also gets a spike in difficulty. It is no longer something that can be easily breezed through, but requires perfect timing and concentration. This game is that of an angler-fish - luring you in with the beautiful lights, only to bare its fangs once you get in close.
  
  
• Wild at Heart - Indie Pikmin, enough said. As someone who adored the original Pikmin, I'm always on the look out for games with a focus on horde-management (ex: Overlord), but over the last few decades, that genre has been incredibly underrepresented, with more games seeming like cheap knockoffs (ex: Hotel Transylvania 3) than naught. The Wild at Heart, however, managed to become one of the few exceptions, taking formula that made Pikmin so great, shaping it into its own. It still featured the creature-specific puzzles, the weighted items that needed X number to be carried, and the ticking clock towards lights out, but it also introduced plenty of other features that would fit perfectly with an official Pikmin title.
  
  The biggest feature of which was the crafting system. Now a standard in most games, crafting is something that seems right at home in this style of game. You are already collecting plenty of items to take back to your home base, so why not attempt to create something to speed up your movement, or upgrade your light source. With the right (or wrong) combination, you might even create an explosive that could aid your pik...Sprites in combat/puzzles. Multiple NPCs are also scattered around the world to help aid your adventure, and while the story leaves much to be desired, the upgrades you get from said NPCs make it worth the effort. These features and others show that the devs wanted to do more than just copy the original, but to modernize and compliment it, and for that I approve.
  
  
• Borderlands: Tiny Tina's Wonderland - This will probably be a controversial take, but this might tie Borderlands 2 as the best Borderlands game. Borderlands 3 had some great quality-of-life improvements for the franchise, but the story ended up dragging it down to make it the worst overall. Tiny Tina took those new features, expanded upon them, and then had a great story to go along side it. Between the Overworld, the new take on grenades (now "spells"), and the ability to multi-class, TTW has managed to give the series a much needed coat of fresh paint. Playing as the Spellshot, specifically, made it feel like an entirely different game, with the ability to play around with two of those new spells at any given time.
  
  
• Supraland: Six Inches Under - A great Metroidvania-esque puzzle game that just didn't feel as interconnected as the original. I had high praise for the first Supraland, and much of those positives can be reused here as well - great level design, constant upgrades to keep things fresh, and fun/challenging puzzles. The biggest difference between the two being that, where the first game made an effort to wrap everything together, Six Inches Under felt more like branching paths from a single hub. That's not to say that there is anything wrong with that design choice, but much in the same way that Dark Souls 2 was to Dark Souls 1, it does lose that sense of accomplishment when you've unlocked a new shortcut to a previously trekked path.
  
  
• Spider-man: Miles Morales - Miles Morales is a complete upgrade over Peter Parker's Spider-man in nearly every regard. Starting with the combat, Miles' new Venom abilities give him far more toys to play around with. Not only do the hits feel stronger, but being able to chain/juggle enemies into Venom punches provides for hours of fun. In stealth scenarios, the Camouflage becomes a fun little addition to the tool belt, allowing for a far more active approach to the ghost-style gameplay. Then the story, being a much shorter experience, is able to keep things contained and succinct. It also has the benefit of starring a character who hasn't had multiple films about him, allowing for certain story elements to not be completely obvious (Looking at you, Dr. Otto Octavius). As a bonus, I don't think I could hate on a game that featured Spider-Cat.
  
  
• Guardians of the Galaxy - A well-done story with combat that got a bit stale. One of the biggest flaws, outside of the repetitive combat, was the worry that you would proceed into the next area before the previous bit of convo had finished. I don't know how many lines of dialogue this game had, but even after idling around after each section, I still managed to miss a good chunk of the interactions. Which, being the best part of the game, is what makes those missed moments all the more painful. In fact, there was one point I force-quit the game just to reload a save to hear a bit of story that got interrupted for walking too far. That dialogue is what kept me from dropping the title. Getting to the combat though, there wasn't really all that much to it. While the team combo was fun to see the first couple of times, after the dozenth time, the animation felt like more of a chore than anything else. Trying to match the correct response to each Guardian's grievance mid-combat became an unnecessary distraction that just ruined the flow of the combat. Now, I will admit that a few of the songs that played after the huddle were a delight to hear... But not at the cost of going through it over and over again.
  
  
• Little Big Workshop - A true simulation of what its like to run a business - You start off small with just a Mom & Pop business, with hopes and dreams to become large enough to put Amazon out of business, only to be crushed under the sheer pressure of it all by the end. Oh, not because of the difficulty of the game, but because once you start to get large, the PS4 can no longer handle the number of requests it receives and becomes incredibly glitchy, until it ultimately crashes every 10~ minutes. Granted, the PC version may run smoother, but I can only review my personal experience of the game, which was painful late-game.
  
  When starting out, the game is actually a lot of fun, and in some ways, hearkens back to the days of the Sims, as you renovate the workshop to be your own little playhouse. Watching it grow and evolve as you earn more money and unlock new "toys" to build more and more advanced goods. It becomes rather cathartic up until mid-game, when they start throwing curve-balls at you, with things like spies, rats, and mold that need to be dealt with to prevent worker unrest. Even then, it's no more of a challenge than a slight annoyance. Though, for players who just want to experience the game without these distractions, the devs did see fit to put in the option to disable them, which is a major plus that can help keep the flow of the game running smooth. Once you reach late game, however, is when everything starts to crash down (no pun intended).
  
  Somewhere around mid-to-late game, once you have a few dozen workers, pathing starts to become rather glitchy, and no combination of storage-priority seems to fix it. Workers who are supposed to drop off specific materials at one location will opt to drop them off at a completely different location that becomes incredibly inconvenient for other workstations (ex: The far end of the shop), causing delays, and often-times missed deadlines. After a while, I ended up re-renovating much of my workshop to have wide-open areas of storage, and even that only worked for so long, until the wrench fell back into the code breaking things all over again. However the "priority" system was supposed to work, clearly stopped functioning once I hit a certain threshold in the game. The AI then continued to devolve, as eventually bottlenecks started to form where they shouldn't have, with my entire staff just chilling in the many break rooms. Not a single station being used. If I didn't know any better, I'd say they had all staged a strike. The best I could figure, a specific material needed for a job was stuck in the storage somehow, causing that build to be suspended, as well as every other un-related job. Breaking down the shelves allowed for the material to finally be reachable, but the process started all over again for the next part. It was a cycle that required yet another unnecessary renovation of the storage area.
  
  Things only got worse from there, as once I unlocked the final few parcels of land to build my workshop, the game began to periodically crash, increasing in frequency the more workstations I built. So what had originally been a dream of building a workshop that filled every inch of the table, now became a nightmare of constant crashes. Crashes, that if they happened during an auto-save, would corrupt the save (which happened multiple times), resulting in a loss of a good 15-30 minutes of work. By the end, I had to break down a good 75% of my shop, leaving only the bare essentials and large amounts of open air, just to finish the final challenge.
  
  
• Bugsnax - Let's talk about Bug Snax, and how it is everything I wanted out of a Pokemon Snap game (from a gameplay perspective). In the original Pokemon Snap, your ultimate goal was to capture (photograph) every pokemon, sometimes even requiring you to throw food and pester balls to get the less cooperative ones out of hiding. Bugsnax acts in much the same way, trading out apples for flavored sauces, and the camera for a net, but still challenging you with figuring out what exactly is needed to get each name-loving monster into your pocket. From a creature-collecting perspective, this game manages to hit the nail right on the head - no need to level them up, or have them fight each other, it is just a simple puzzle game with cute critters on the surface. My only wish was that Gramble's barn was bigger so that more of these delectable creatures could be on display.
  
  As for the story, it does present itself as a mystery, so I will avoid spoilers, but the overall writing is a mixed bag. It isn't the most subtle about the mystery, and some of the Grumpuses tend to be more annoying than loveable. Even if there is depth to them, discovering why certain characters act a certain way, it doesn't exactly excuse their behaviors. Thankfully, there are only a handful of those types, and you don't technically need to do all of their side missions.
  
  
• Inscryption - Sadly, spoilers were abound when this game first came out, and I was unable to avoid getting that knowledge thrust upon me. Thankfully, the experience wasn't completely ruined, as the rest of the game still held up incredibly well. Learning the various mechanics and synergies throughout was a blast, and even when the RNGod wasn't on my side, it never felt frustrating. I won't go into too much detail, to spare others from being spoiled as I was, but suffice to say I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it, and fully intend to revisit it at some point for the NG+ patch that was released.
  
  
• Luna's Fishing Garden - Despite the overwhelming positive reviews it has on steam, this game just did not click with me. Admittedly, I was expecting something completely different going in, but even knowing that it is more collect-a-thon than farming-sim, I'd still say it was rather shallow. Sitting at about 4-5 hours long, you repeat the same actions over and over - NPC tasks you with collecting X number of fruits/fish/feathers/whatever > Gather said items via waiting for them to grow/playing the Stardew Valley fishing minigame > return to NPC > Repeat. It's fine if you just want something to pass the time, but don't go in expecting any sort of depth to the gameplay.
  
  
• Lost in Random - First thing's first, do not be ashamed to play this game on easy mode - I know I don't. Normally I opt for the harder difficulty in games, but when the key difference is the tanky-ness of the enemies and you have to go through a lot of them, easy mode just helps keep the flow of the game going. There were some street battles that would last 15+ minutes on normal, simply because more and more waves kept piling in after the previous enemies had been defeated. They weren't necessarily tough, especially once you learn how to properly dodge their attacks, it just became monotonous. That aside, the combat itself was a lot of fun, and something I would like to see utilized in more games. It is very similar to Kingdom Hearts: Rechain of Memories, in that you are fighting in real-time with a deck of card you cycle through. Where it stands out, however, are the cheat cards, which you can chain into giving you bigger hands each draw. With certain combos, you can essentially guarantee getting the hand you want every single time.
  
  The gameplay isn't the only place this game flourishes either, as the world itself is also well crafted, both from a lore perspective and an artistic one. The Tim Burton influence is clear from the onset, but they manage to mold it into their own, without ever feeling like a knockoff. Then, there are multiple districts, each fleshed out with their own history and unique cast of characters, giving you the perception that it is a living world. One that could be explored well past this one game.
  

I guess May 1st has become the day for my annual backlog update, as this is the third year in a row I’ve built up some games to review on this date. This year, though, has been rather thin in terms of games, primarily because of my focus on 2 main time sinks - Maplestory (returned after a 6-year hiatus) and Deep Rock Galactic.

(May 1, 2021- April 30, 2022)

• Rise of Slime - Very limited rogue-like, this not enough cards/variety to carry it long-term. You'll pretty much exhaust all of the upgrades in a single run
  
  
• Spelunky 2 - More of what made the original so great, with plenty of new F*** you moments. Things will fall/fly at you from off-screen to kill you, and/or tick off the shopkeeps, giving them all the motivation in the world to come after you. There have been some nice QOL improvements over the first though, including a way to pacify said shop-keeps if you can manage to sneak past them for a few floors. It is both a satisfying and rage-inducing rogue-like... So working as intended
  
  
• Hades - I returned to Hades after a few months, but my initial review still stands. Amazing game, GoTY. And the post-game content added enough of a challenge to keep you going for easily another hundred hours.
  
  
• The Survivalists - Was expecting something more along the lines of a Don't Starve, but with monkey automation. Instead, got a rather simple survival game where the monkeys did almost nothing. Even late game when you get 15(?), they move incredibly slow and can easily get confused with tasks. The crafting mechanic was also rather grindy, with multi-step processes that would require you to travel to different islands constantly for material. The most annoying part, however, was the item management. You could create dozens of chests for the various materials, but when the monkeys came time to deposit what they had made, it seemed like a crap-shoot on where they would deposit anything, making finding/sorting a massive chore.
  
  
• Dead Cells - I wanted to love this game, especially since the devs have been so active with the game, constantly doing free updates and content patches, keeping this game alive for many years. But one of the key mechanics of the game continues to leave me dumbfounded every time I attempt to play. Every time you pick up a stat increase during a run (brutality, tactics, or survival), you get a bump in damage and health, but so do the enemies, and to a certain extent, if you don't follow a certain pattern with which upgrades to go after, the enemies will out-scale you, allowing them to one-shot you. And with runs that can go an hour, getting killed in a single blow in the final dungeon is extremely disheartening. Helps even less that some enemies do multi-attacks, so even if you somehow survive the first hit, the followups will surely end your run.
  
  
• Swords & Souls - Think incremental idle game, but with slightly more player input and turned into an RPG. Slowly increase stats with mini-games, get new gear, go out and do missions. Lather rinse repeat. Still, oddly satisfying, but then again, I have over a thousand hours in games like Crusaders of the Lost Idols and Idle Champions
  
  
• Far Cry Primal - The first Far Cry game I've finished. I came close to beating FC3, but a game-breaking glitch on the final island prevented that from happening. That said, I actually really enjoyed my time with this title. While it carried the same mechanics of the other Far Cry games, the different setting and animal companion gave it a breath of fresh air.
  
  
• Assassin's Creed Origins - My previous review still stands on this one - too many boring side-missions, not great writing, and definitely felt more like a check-list than anything else. This game is a perfect example of games that are big for the sake of just adding hours to gameplay. I don't mind large games, but at least make the players want to explore more outside of a desire to 100%
  
  
• Watch Dogs Legion - It had potential, but yet again, Ubisoft showed that writing took a back seat. Played the majority of the game in perma-death mode, but near the end, encountered two glitches while flying a drone that caused me fall to my death. I didn't mind losing a spy for being over-zealous with my actions, but when the game freaked out and offed my players, it was time to disable that mode. The game wasn't even that difficult either, I think during the entirety of it, I only ever lost one person from an actual mission, and that was near the end when enemies learned how to go invisible. For the most part, every other mission had me going in with a little drone and doing the tasks remotely. Not very engaging, but when my assassin's lives were on the line, I did what worked. Maybe had I played the game in normal from the start, I would have tried different tactics and had more fun, but that's not how I went about that playthrough
  
  
• Witcher 3 - Another big open-world game, but unlike AC Origins or WD Legion, the writing was actually the strong point in this game. I like to 100% these types games, but the common issue is that I begin to get exhausted by the dialogue and stories they try to tell in the side-missions. That was not at all a problem in Witcher 3. I actually sought out the missions to hear more about the lore and world in which Geralt resided in. The tales of betrayal and what created certain monstrosities actually had me engaged. Why did they curse this person, and what was the end result, I had to know! The only real problem was that since I skipped Witcher 1 & 2, there were some story beats that I missed out on, and despite the game trying to catch me up, I still felt a little lost on certain elements (near the beginning of the game there were even choices to bring in your "save", but without the context of what happened, I had difficulty knowing what I would have done).
  
  Things weren't all positive though, as I did have a few issues with the game. Mostly minor, but still there. Movement was one, and attempting to loot certain things did come with a bit of hassle, trying to get in the right spot. Then the inventory management was a little awkward. The game really wants you to use potions and pick the right ones for each encounter, but going into the menu every time to apply them was a bit cumbersome. Not to mention I couldn't sort them the way I wanted for quicker access (on PS4, no clue if you could on PC). There were some other minor inventory woes I had as well, but they were so minor I can't even remember them now when reviewing it 6 months later. I don't know if I would give it the 10/10 it seems to receive everywhere, but it does come close.
  
  
• Deep Rock Galactic - The best way to describe this is Minecraft without the crafting. There are things to create back at the hub area, like cosmetics, but the game is all about mining for resources and fighting hordes of bugs. On the surface that may not be too appealing, but right now, it is easily my most played game in 2022 (easily over a hundred hours clocked thus far). Four classes to choose from, with a variety of different weapons, and all unique from one another;
  
  I started as the gunner, primarily because he was the tutorial character, and pushed him to prestige first. When first playing him, he felt like the real damage-dealer of the team, but with secondary items like the dome-shield and zipline, he also provided the necessary support for the team to feel well rounded enough to be a main
  
  After getting the Gunner to level 25, it was time to move on to the Driller. In my time as the Gunner, I was envious of the driller's ability to quickly make paths to/from objectives. Alas, starting out he did feel weak, making me yearn for the damage of my Gunner. Once the cryo-gun was unlocked, however, the class morphed into a completely different monster all together, making this character my new main. Freezing waves of enemies in an instant, allowing my allies to finish them up became the most satisfying part of the game. And burrowing around the map as the driller was just as fun as I'd hoped it to be. My only real issue with this class was his grenades which tended to harm my allies more than the bugs. I AM SO SORRY TO ALL MY TEAMMATES I ACCIDENTALLY KILLED! I have since switched to the throwable Axe, which has worked rather well, and saved many of my dwarve allies
  
  Once the Driller was prestiged at 25, I moved on to the third class, the scout. There weren't too many of these playing during my time as the other two classes, so I was curious as to how exactly they played. Right out the gate, there was definitely a skill barrier that needed to be reached to prevent constantly dying from your own zipping about. You want to play him like spider-man, going place to place, but ol' Peter Parker never had to worry about the fall damage like these dwarves. The damage was also fairly low starting out with these guys, but they seemed to be best at going forward and, well, being the scouts. Getting hard to reach ores and kind of being their own solo-characters, not really focused on the rest of the team. Which works, but also puts a bad playstyle in your head when you want to switch to another class, thinking the other dwarves can also break away from the party
  
  Finally, the engineer had his time in the caves. Honestly, this was the one I was most looking forward to, because of his little mini-turrets that he could set up. But as the trend went, outside of the gunner, this character started out rather weak. It wasn't until late-game that I began to really feel his power, doubling up on the turrets with a quick build time to be able to set them up without much need for prep. This was also the first character I unlocked an overclock mod on, which sent him far and above the others in terms of damage and enjoyment to play. An arcing streak of electricity that went between the two turrets created a new line of defense that became my new favorite thing to play around with, at the cost of zapping some fellow teammate. I am less sorry about this than the Driller grenades, only because there is a huge chain of lightning that should be obvious to stay away from.
  
  All in all, amazing game with a whole ton of depth (no pun intended), and easily my favorite game this year
  
  
• Lego Star Wars: Skywalker Saga - Glitchy mess. Let's just get that out of the way early; Crashed dozens of times; waymarkers were sending me to completely different planets; some missions had enemies not spawning, forcing me to quit and retry; and some minikits wouldn't even trigger until done multiple times. Then, the actual story in the game felt rushed, with the level missions feeling more like an afterthought. It seems they put all their time in the 30+ hub worlds, because boy howdy, was there a lot to do in them. I pride myself in being a fan of collect-a-thons, but even this was too much for me. Over a thousand bricks, and over a hundred side-missions. The writing was definitely hit-or-miss as well, getting a couple chuckles out of me, but not enough to want to sit through all the dialogue in the side missions. After a while, I just began to speed through them. The missions themselfs didn't feel super unique either, with many of the same ones repeating over and over. It may have prided itself in being the biggest lego game so far, but like I said for AC origins earlier, size don't mean much when the content itself is boring and repetitive.
  
  

It’s been a year since my last update, but I have been actively working on my backlog (as well as adding to it). I also got back to streaming earlier this year (dedicating one night a week to a different roguelike), which has allowed me to cycle through my backlog far more than I otherwise would have.
That said, these reviews will be much more quick and dirty than the ones I have written up in the past

(May 1 - July 31)

• Supraland - Amazing 3d metroidvania. Good progression of abilities, always keeps things fresh. One of my favorite games played of the year
• Kingdom Hearts 3 - Gameplay was alright, but easy. Level design started strong in the first few worlds, but quickly became bland and linear. Story felt rushed, with many beats dropped, or skipped all together. Also, Frozen world was a mess (out of no where final boss)
• Ori and the Will of the Wisps - Somehow managed to surpass the original. Was unsure how I'd feel about a more Hollow Knight style skill system, but worked really well.
• Creeper World 3 - Fun Tower defense game. The difficulty curve was all over the place though, with some levels being a breeze, and others just kicking my arse.
• My Time at Portia - Starts off fun, with plenty to do, but once you reach a certain point, it becomes grindy getting the materials needed to progress.
• Gato Roboto - Fun metroidvania, but incredibly short. I honestly can't remember much about it though, so can't say it was too memorable of an experience. Just that I enjoyed it

(August 1 - December 31)

• Wuppo - Didn't like it. Lots of items to collect, with the majority doing absolutely nothing.
• Dandara - Interesting take on metroidvania, where you can only jump/"bounce" from one spot to the next. Controls are a bit finnicky from time to time though, as there were many instances of wanting to dash from one spot to another, only to land somewhere else
• Borderlands 3 (Zane) - Definitely some gameplay improvements from Borderlands 2, but the story was a MASSIVE downgrade. The villains weren't even remotely interesting, and the interactions with the secondary characters on the ship added nothing
• One Step from Eden - Fun rogue-like/card battler. Super quick and challenging, with a bunch of characters to choose from who play vastly different from each other.
• Medievil - Never played it back in the day, but I have to imagine it was much impressive back then than it is now, even with the remaster improvements. There is a reason Spyro was a much bigger success

(January 1 - May 1)

• Journey to the Savage Planet - Great 3D metroidvania. Humor is definitely hit and miss, but the gameplay is very solid.
• Airheart - Very shallow gameplay. Twinstick shooter, flying around collecting material to craft better ships/weapons.
• Star Wars: Fallen Order - It had potential, and was alright for was it was, but could have been so much more. ex: Tons of chests, but they only give cosmetics, which you barely even see anyways.
• Enter the Gungeon - Started playing years ago (off and on), but finally beat recently. Lots of interesting weapons to play around with, and feels really satisfying when you get good at it
• Enslaved - Pigsy's Perfect 10 (DLC) - Terrible. The original Enslaved was a very fun, and underrated action game (was one of my top games from 2010), this DLC, however, is just a cover-based stealth game over and over again
• Neon Abyss - Collect eggs and weapons, hatch eggs, watch as your character grows in power. So much variety in the game, and is a great roguelike. The biggest issue, is that in order to unlock a bunch of things, you are probably looking at 20 hours of grinding. There are only so many tokens you can get per run, and the skill tree quickly starts getting expensive
• Book of Demons - Far more linear of a rogue-like than I thought going in, but still fun. Would've liked more variety with the cards/skills though
• 20XX - Challenging rogue-like platformer, not so much due to the baddies, but the platforming itself. Many instances, specifically near the end, that require keen precision to do. Also fairly short, with all of the items able to be unlocked fairly quickly.
• Detective Gallo - Not a great point and click game. Multiple instances of nonsensical puzzles (ex: black diamond), as well as moments where the game punishes you for being too many steps ahead, and not triggering the needed dialogue to allow you to get something (with the main character calling the player an idiot for even attempting it)
• Sparklite - Fun zelda-style roguelike, but very short. Took about 4 hours to reach the final boss, and that includes exploring finished zones after I beat their respective bosses (which were dispatched with ease). The crux of the game will be exploring though, with a variety of tools you get from dungeons, solving puzzles and getting new badges to equip back at your base. Really enjoyable, but not nearly worth the $25. Get it on sale
• Darksiders: Genesis - I still need to play Darksiders 2 and 3, but this one was a fun spinoff/prequel. The skill tree, particular, was what made this game so unique, with enemies dropping orbs that you would then level up and try to fit on the tree, with the game only allowing so many, forcing you to balance how you wanted your build to go

Games played, but not beaten

• Fall Guys - Yea, so this has been my time sink. Hundreds of hours into this, over 400 crowns in all.
• Hades - Technically, I kind of beat it. Beat the "final" boss at least, but obviously that isn't the end. Great game that I really intend to get back to, but it is one of my streaming games, so need to fit it into my schedule
• Griftlands - Seems to be a deep game, played a few hours of it, love the fact that choices have deep meaning in the game. Will likely return to it after it leaves early access
• Mothergunship - Fun FPS Roguelike, but gets chaotic after a while. It doesn't help that I'm no good at shooters on consoles. And losing some of your best gun parts is really devastating.
• Children of Morta - Like Neon Abyss from above, seems to be a lot of grind required for proper progress. Beat the first area without too much issue, but the game really wants you to switch the characters around for balance, which means using some people you aren't especially good with.
• Wizard of Legend - So many abilities and items, I love it. It's also fairly easy to unlock new items, without it feeling like a grind
• Dead Cells - This is one I really want to get good at. Very fun and challenging.
• Moonlighter - Store management aspect of the game is very weak, but I am also still early game, and have hope it improves. The dungeon-crawling is also not the greatest, with attacks that are either too slow, or too limited in range. It also seems like another game that is going to require grinding for upgrades in order to progress properly
• Final Fantasy XV - Only FF game I've ever finished was 10... I don't feel like that changing after the time I've put into XV. It's an alright game, and I like the real-time combat over turn-based, but it is rather easy and dull. Made even worse due to a daily quest I did that boosted me all the way to about level 70 (and I'm at a point in the game where story enemies are about 20... so massively overpowered now)
• Marvel's Avengers - Premise sounded fun, but gameplay is terrible. Played for a few hours, hoping I'd unlock the better characters faster, but stopped after a few hours in (the Ant Hill).
• Assassin's Creed Origins - In order to not be underleveled, did a bunch of side quests and activities, and got burnt out. Began to feel more like a chore / a to-do list. The side activities weren't even fun, but a means to be level appropriate for other content. Will return at some point, so that I can go on to Oddyssey, which will likely be more of the same. *shrugs*
• Days gone - Surprisingly good game, considering all the negativity I heard about it previously.
• Fenyx Rising - Interesting attempt at PG-ifying greek mythology, with a lot of tongue-in-cheek nods to the real stories. Not sure how long having Zeus as a bumbling idiot will last before it wears thin though. Gameplay is fun, but with so many side quests and activities, it doesn't take long to unlock/max out most of the skills, leaving nothing to really look forward to.

You’d think with quarantine, I’d have more time to work my way through my backlog, but my gaming habits are still as slow as ever. In fact, started Kingdom Hearts 3 back in March and am still slowly working myself through it (which is funny considering how quickly I ran through Birth By Sleep earlier this year, but more on that below)

(Jan 1-May 1)

• Undermine - At time of playing, I purchased all of the available upgrades at the shop, as well as beating the end-boss multiple times. It has since had a few updates, but none that really give interest in returning anytime soon. The game, while fun at first, slowly ends up turns formulaic once you get used to the mechanics, and for a rogue-like/lite, that is a death sentence. The elements of a good rogue-like is replayability, giving you completely unique runs each time, however with this game, the bosses are all the same, the item pool is somewhat small, there is minimal synergy with the items, and more often than not, you will be going for a "gold run" thereby allowing you to buy out all the shops with minimal effort. Good for the first 20 or so hours (which isn't bad), but it does end up rather repetitive after reaching the end the first few times


• Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep - It had been a long time since I last played a Kingdom Hearts game, so after a quick refresher on the lore (KH 1, 2, CoM and 358 days), I decided to dive back into the universe, starting with one of the games that I had previously missed out on, Birth By Sleep.
  With this game, I can say without question, it is by far my favorite in the franchise. The story as a whole was solid, intertwining the 3 main characters adventures as they hopped around from planet-to-planet. Now for some, having to play through the game three times (once per character) to get the full story may seem daunting, because, yes, you are revisiting the same worlds on each of the playthroughs, but the experience feels completely unique each time, as your playstyle for each of the characters is completely different. Even if a majority of the abilities can be learned on each of the characters (Magnet OP), their core fundamentals are different -Terra focusing on heavy hitting melee, Ventus with quick strikes/magic, and Aqua being almost purely magic (oddly enough, hers is the most satisfying). On top of the different skills that you will be utilizing, many of the worlds will have vastly unique level designs as well, so even if some areas do look similar, you will soon be exploring brand new locations within those worlds.
  Finally, one of the other big pluses that I give this game, and this is kind of mixed with the fanbase, is the crafting of abilities. Upon killing enemies, you get material than can be used to create new/more powerful abilities to use, and if you know the right recipes (from your previous characters' playthroughs, or from a chart online), you can create some extremely powerful moves/magic fairly early on in the game - No need for hours of grinding/farming required for that one skill you loved using on your other characters... Something that Dream Drop Distance failed hard at.
  
  
• Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance - Here comes the polar opposite of BBS, in what may potentially be the worst KH in the franchise. I could go on and on about how badly written the story is in this game, but I don't really have the time. Suffice to say, this game retcons certain story elements of past games, and bits of this game get completely disregarded in future entries.
  This game is supposed to act as a bridge between 2 and 3, but fails miserably in every regard. First, the introduction of flow-motion, which completely breaks, coincidentally, the "flow" of this game. With infinite wall-jumps, you can access any part of any map from the beginning, so future skills like glide/double jump are completely worthless. This also means that many of the maps were designed to be large to accommodate this new feature in the game, but in reality, the emptiness just makes the game feel unfinished. Next, you have the "drop" mechanic which switches your characters after set periods of time, and doesn't really add much to the game since you can easily reset the timers with consumables. If anything, it just feels like a waste of time, even more so post-game when you are swapping between the characters dozens of times to find a specific portal. Which brings me to the next, and possibly biggest flaw of this game - the skill-unlocking system. In order to unlock a move/magic skill, you must find the recipe & material to craft a summon (with some material being very rare/in those portals), fight MANY battles with said summon for them to gain experience (or burn boatloads of candy in a repetitive minigame), and then put that XP towards the individual summon's skill tree/map (and if you want their passive abilities, you must keep them in your party... Passives that were permanent buffs in Birth By Sleep). It is a mechanic that is "supposed" to encourage you to constantly change your summons, but in reality, is an extremely slow process that discourages you from expanding your available deck.
  
  
• Kingdom Hearts: 0.2 Fragmentary Passage - Not much to say about this one, since it is a much shorter experience, mostly created as a way to introduce the new magic system, which worked rather well. I enjoyed my time with Aqua in BBS, so I was glad to get to play around with her some more. Sadly, many of the spells were removed and replaced with just elemental attacks. The only real nitpick I had was that the wardrobe didn't really do anything - as you play through the game, and complete certain objectives, you unlock different clothes for Aqua to wear, which never serve as anything more than mere cosmetics.
  
  
• Steamworld Quest - For whatever reason, this one just doesn't quite click with me the same way the other Steamworld games did. That's not to say that it was bad, as the gameplay was alright, but that's kind of the problem - it didn't really excel anywhere. The story felt familiar, and while there were some nice synergies/combos with the cards, nothing really stood out as unique. The only thing that felt even remotely different was mid-game when you could upgrade cards without increasing their casting cost. But that alone isn't enough to make me too excited about it. I don't know, I think I just yearn for another Steamworld Heist
  
  
• Uncharted 4 - Low point for the series. Between the introduction of Nate's brother ("the long lost brother that was never spoken of before"), and the grappling hook ("the long lost tool that was never spoken of before"), it feels like Nate was hit rather hard on his head by a boulder during one of his adventures, and must have forgotten his pre-UC1 days. The game is also very slow to get started, with the first 7 or 8 chapters having barely any gunplay at all, mostly sticking to platforming and walking/talking. When it finally does get started, the game encourages you to go stealth, which I do have to commend it for trying, but without the bottles/bricks from the Last of Us (Naughty Dog's other modern IP), it's far easier just to mow down the militia (and unlike Last of Us, there is no shortage of ammo). There are a few interesting encounters in this game (like being dragged behind a car), but for the most part, nothing on par with the bar that was set in the previous games.

It’s been a minute since the last update, so just quick and dirty game impressions from the last 5 months

(May 8-July 31)

• Ratchet & Clank - Huge fan of the R&C series (despite only having played the PS2 games), so enjoyed this quite a bit. Good remake of the original game with some nice quality of life improvements. Wasn't too keen on the story changes, but some of the different weapons (which I hear were from the PS3 titles) were fun to play with.


• Horizon Zero Dawn - Good setting, fun gameplay, but very limited inventory/weapon system. After coming off R&C that had a weapon wheel and about a dozen weapons to choose from on the fly, being so limited sucked. There were unique weapons to play with (trip wire, gust gun, anchor wire, flamethrower, etc.) but only ever allowing 4 equippable felt unnecessary (especially since most of the bows had very minor differences)


• Forager - Fun and very addicting game to turn your brain off to and manage. Biggest downside was at the time of playing, once you started getting off the ground, everything became too easy (since playing, there is a new, harder mode that I haven't touched). Farming for some items at the end did take multiple hours, but I feel like if you make enough machines to automate stuff, it might be expedite the end-game items


• Knights of Pen/Paper 2 - Never played the first Pen/Paper, but did enjoy this one. Never took itself seriously, and had some nice classes to play around with. Biggest downside I felt was the limited skills per character. If there is a Pen/Paper 3, I hope they allow for more choices when leveling.


• Teslagrad - Fairly standard metroidvania - Didn't really bring anything special to the table. There were only a few upgrades, most of which were maneuverability to get around puzzles. In fact, I feel like this was more of a puzzle game than a metroidvania, as there weren't really any combat encounters. (also, game crashed and corrupted my save right at the end, sooo can't speak on the final boss/ending)


• Batman: Telltale Series - In a large part, I enjoyed it. It was no where near as good as Tales from the Borderlands, but was still a very solid story that had quite a few interesting takes with the classic Batman characters. However, I must add once again to these telltale games the caveat of "illusion of choice". And it seems even more apparent in this than in Borderlands, as on multiple occasions, I made specific choices, only for other characters to act as though I had chosen the opposite path (ie Alfred getting upset at brutalizing a thug, despite my choice to specifically not crack the guy's skull in a prompt; or deciding not to tell a cop about something, only for Dent to act as though I did)

(August 1- October 20)

• Stories: Path of Destinies - Starts off alright during the first few paths you take, but ends up getting very repetitive after about the 5th or 6th path. They keep adding new enemy types to challenge you, but button mashing works for just about everything, even moreso when you begin to level up the slowdown abilities. At that point, you are just trying to rush through the levels to reach a "new" ending/to unlock a part of the key for the true ending (which again, is the same level every...time)


• Forma.8 - Surprisingly good metroidvania with an actual challenge. Certain chase areas give you little room for error, and in the actual overworld, enemies pack a hell of a punch, KOing you in a few quick hits. Well designed, although I do wish that there were faster methods to travel. You get a few upgrades to increase your speed, but it still feels rather slow


• Rime - It touts itself as an adventure/puzzle game, but to me, felt more like a walking sim with interactables. The story itself was well done, with some aspects of the narrative being rather subtle (get the collectibles). The puzzles, however, never really required any real thought, as it feels like it is guiding you the whole way through.


• Tearaway Unfolded - Charming little 3D platformer. Geared towards children, so never really any challenge (aside from the optional gopher sidequests, which aren't too brutal), with checkpoints-a-plenty. Keeps adding new abilities to keep things from getting stale, and is very creative with the use of papercraft for everything (take a hint, Lego, who use non-lego objects in their games!). There is even a good amount of customization, with the game asking for you to cut/design certain objects that will appear all throughout the game. My only real gripe with the game was that all the confetti you gathered had no real purpose outside of stickers/camera filters. In a 3D platformer, you expect the collectibles to be useful for... something (level unlocks, abilities, alternate paths, etc..), but in this, whether it is from completing quests or 100%ing a level, it is always the same confetti, and never gets used for anything outside of cosmetics.


• Yoku's Island Express - I am no pinball wizard. In fact, it's probably been about 20 years since I last played a pinball game, so for that reason, I was totally expecting to get frustrated at this game... And yet, found it to be surprisingly forgiving with the shots it required to reach certain areas. Even someone like me was able to get into the groove of the "machines" fairly quickly. There are certain areas that do require a bit more precision, but for the most part, those are for the optional butterfly "collectibles" (which as far as I know, don't do anything, and the one achievement I didn't go after).


• Majin & the Forsaken Kingdom - Interestingly enough, despite appearances, this game kind of plays like a 3D Zelda/metroidvania. As you progress through the game there are collectibles to increase your health/magic, and after each major zone you get an upgrade that helps you defeat a boss, and allows for you to access previous areas' collectibles. The combat is decent, if simple, and despite the fact that your Majin gains "new combos" as he levels up, they never really change how combat encounters go. Puzzles, too, are never too difficult, usually just requiring you to use the new element you had recently gained to destroy/move objects. The final boss was probably the highlight of the game, with multiple phases that tested everything you had learned


• Telltale's Batman Season 2: Enemy Within - A big improvement from the first game (minus the graphical issues) in terms of story and gameplay - combat encounters actually felt more engaging. The dialog choices also felt more in tune with how Batman would respond to specific circumstances (especially how I was playing the Batman/Gordon relationship). The "illusion of choice" also seemed to not be as prevalent in this one as the first, with choices having a real impact on how the game progressed. The only exception to this was the very final scene with Alfred, which, funnily enough, despite all the other liberties they took with the Batman characters, seemed completely out of character with how he acted (no spoilers). And speaking of character liberties, the version of Joker that I ended up with (yes, there were multiple... Like I said, choices seemed to matter more in this game) was probably one of the most intriguing takes on him I have seen, and yet, still managed to feel true to how he would behave.


• Dishonored 2 - For the record, I never played the Dishonored 1 DLC, so some character interactions did seem a little more confusing than they probably should have. Despite this, the gameplay was extremely solid, and what I feel like every stealth game should strive to achieve. Multiple different paths to the same goal, multiple different methods to achieve it, extremely fun abilities that allow you to go about it in a multitude of different ways. Then there are bonecharms that further augment your character further to open up those choices even more... This game gives you choices, and they are given in spades, and that is just by default. Apparently in the options menu for difficulty, you can adjust enemy AI and other aspects even further. The only negative marks I can give, is that when you spec into a skill with runes, you are locked into that skill for the remainder of the game, with no way to respec. I feel like a game like this that allows for so much customization, you should at least be able to do so on the Dreadful whale (this way you aren't breaking the game, respeccing mid-level)


• Guacamelee 2 - A metroidvania that doesn't take itself even remotely seriously. I'm sure the humor will land for some people, but despite being a fan of referential comedy (I loved Evoland afterall), I can't say I enjoyed the writing that much (my only chuckle was from a temporary upgrade). The gameplay was solid, with some fun movement abilities, though overall was a bit on the easy side - button spamming my way to victory at almost every encounter. The only real difficulty came from the optional key areas, which was more of a platforming/quick thinking challenge - outrunning a gravity field while quickswapping between different maneuvers.


• Ni no Kuni II - Comparing this to Ni No Kuni 1;
  Pros: Improved combat encounters - In dungeons, no more 10 second transitions into/out of combat. It all happens instantly (overworld battles still have the transitions though); Improved Combat - Combat itself is now real-time, so no more quickly going through menus to choose attacks/spells; More weapon choices - Diablo-style loot system means far more weapons/armor to choose from, and on hard mode, enemies essentially become loot pinatas; Better main character - He's in no way perfect, but is no where near as annoying as that dense brick Oliver from the first game; Better sidequests objectives - In the first game, about half of the sidequests involved going out to find emotions (of which, you could only ever have 1 of each in your locket), in this, less than half require you to simply have a certain material, and again, with enemies being loot pinatas, you should almost always have the object required. The rest of the time, the sidequests involve combat against mini-bosses
  Cons: Worse story/writing - Just a poorly written mess. We have one main character who is transported out of his world for a reason (no spoilers), and is very laissez faire about the whole thing. You have another character that the writers desperately want to be the next drippy, but falls incredibly short. You have a majority of your team who feel more like background characters, never really supporting the story once they join (except for one of them). You have two massive biomes that are completely neglected/unused in the main story (I don't count the 3-minute fetch quest). You have an entire chapter's plot point seem to be thrown out the window by the end of it (seriously, wtf Hydropolis). Then you have a terrible ending that tries to be further explained in the DLC that doesn't even add much that wasn't already inferred; Much less voice-acting - It is actually quite jarring how much less voice acting is in this game. Important scenes will occur, you will get a single sentence from a character, then suddenly, animation gone and plain text; Lousy mini-game - There are two mini-games, one is a city-building minigame that, while simple, works as a nice way to get materials for crafting. I personally had no problems with this one, but can see why others would. The actual bad mini-game is that cheap attempt at an RTS, skirmish battles. Scattered throughout the overworld are dozens of skirmishes (some tied to sidequests) that are completely optional... But are also pretty essential for grinding through, if you want your skirmish-team to be an appropriate level by time the 3 or 4 required story-related skirmishes pop up (which, btw, has no effect on your regular fighting team); Much easier game - Even on hard mode, the game seems to be fairly easy. On insane, however, enemies will have no problem one-shotting you. There are a few difficulty spikes (broadleaf, for example), but it never seems to be too much to handle. In fact, because you can pause the game to heal yourself at any time, even if you encounter an enemy who hits you with a barrage-attack, you can take a few hits, pause/heal, then take the remainder of the barrage. The DLC further trivializes the difficulty with one of the "methods" you learn, turning your mages into complete monsters

(May 2-May 7)

• Middle Earth: Shadow of War - Two years ago, when I played through Shadows of Mordor, I had nothing but high-praise for the game, with only minor nit-picking geared towards the difficulty (far too easy). Last year, when I posted my first impressions about this game, I really only commented about the difficulty modes having night and day differences (with hard mode having enemies who became immune to nearly every attack far too quickly). Now, I feel like whatever I would have said about this game is being marred by my final couple of days with it
  In the year-long break since I last laid waist to the hordes of Uruk, a few things had been changed - loot boxes removed, the final mission's length being chopped in half, and some new "prestige" skills, but getting back into it, it also seems like there were some other changes to the game, or at least, some things I didn't notice during my last foray into middle-earth - the glitches. By the Gods, was the game littered with them these last few days, ranging from captains with no heads, to the camera zooming away during executions (or Talion's model disappearing during executions), to Talion's inability to target certain platforms to jump to (or jumping to platforms I didn't want him to jump to), to constantly targeting the wrong Orc when attempting to drain/dominate (or heal in the case of allies), to allies idling during combat (side-stepping, back and forth), to counters just not registering properly.
  Now, most of these were fairly benign, but when dodge-counters stop working (oddly, don't recall any issues with parries - just the dodges), and you are attempting to fight off dozens of enemies, some of which whose combination of perks can one-hit KO you, it ends up ruining the experience. The weird thing is, out in the wildlands, the counter issue rarely occurred. From what I could tell, it mostly seemed to happen during siege/defenses, when there were a lot of enemies on screen. So who knows, maybe this was just the PS4 not being able to keep up? Dunno, but whatever the underlying cause, it definitely soured my final take on the game, which is all the more upsetting, considering how high I regarded the original.

Been a while since my last update, but no fear, for I have been slowly tackling the backlog(which currently stands this tall). No long reviews this time, as too much time has passed, and my memory ain’t what it used to be (ain’t what it used to be). But onto the games of the last year;

A year in review

(May 15-December 31)

• Owlboy - Fun little metroidvania. Little lacking in abilities that you would normally expect from a metroidvania, but it stayed fresh throughout


• Stardew Valley - Spent a good chunk of time maxing out my farm, which I enjoyed. The biggest mistake I made was at the start, choosing the fishing-farm. On the one hand, it allowed me to segment my farm animals from each other, and put the chickens/ducks and cows/sheep/pigs on their own respective islands, but it also took up a whole chunk of land I could have otherwise spent on actual farmable crops.


• Yonder: Cloud Catcher - Expected something in the vein of a stardew valley, with more concentration on exploration... Nothing like it. Felt like a chore the entire game, traveling across the world so slowly, collecting random crap. There is an image of him on some hovercraft, so I was expecting to get something to speed up movement the entire game, and nothing


• Sundered - Difficulty scaling seemed all over the place in this one. Lots of fun with the skill tree, and felt easy for most of the game, then there was a massive difficulty spike near the end, then became easy again


• Southpark: Fractured but Whole - Classic southpark humor, but felt more like you needed knowledge of the series than the first game. Also, the final hour or so just kept going and going, and not in a good way. Good gameplay though. The first was a little easy to abuse the system with (the effect damage kept stacking to insane levels), so was nice to see this one more balanced


• God of War (2018) - Game of the Year. Between story and combat, was amazing. Biggest flaw - not enough bosses. For a game series that was built on huge spectacles, you kind of expected more, and aside from the first and final, there weren't really any in between


• Watch Dogs 2 - Well, the story was improved upon the first, but that's not saying much. Still a lackluster game with interesting gameplay mechanics.


• Dragon Quest 11 - I said Southpark went on and on near the end... This game did that but the entire way through. Multiple points in the game, you felt you were reaching end-game territory, only for it to say "Nope". No spoilers here, but this is the type of game that has no DLC, but honestly felt like chunks could have been split off into separate paid DLCs. There were one or two interesting twists that I was more than a little surprised at, but for the most part, was a fairly template RPG story. The gameplay more than made up for it, with some characters having some interesting skill combos (<3 Erik's Divide with a multi-hit sword). If it wasn't for God of War, I'd have called this my Game of the Year
  Also, as an aside, one of the more bizarre combat mechanics, that served no real purpose, and confused me for the first few hours, was the ability to move around in combat... Walking behind enemies seems like it would give you an advantage, and allow for more critical hits, but really, it seems to just be there to allow for "cool screenshots", with no real gameplay benefit at all.


• Nier Automata - So much hype that I didn't really get behind. Gameplay had its moments, but the story dragged it down. For whatever reason, I just couldn't get invested in it. And as fun as the gameplay could be at times, with the right combo, it felt like dying was an afterthought. With an auto-healing augment-thingy, I never truly felt in danger. Now, I will admit, I didn't "fully" beat the game. I did the first Path with 2B, and about an hour of the second Path with 9S, but once I got to the camp again and needed to do the quests all over again, I gave it up. There just was no way I wanted to sit through a story that didn't grab me the first time, a second. So however good the third path was supposed to be, never experienced it.

(January 1-May 2)

• Monsters ate my Birthday Cake- cute little puzzle game. Definitely aimed more towards a younger audience, so no overly-difficult puzzles, but still, was a nice little distraction from all the action games I had been playing. If you can grab it for cheap, I recommend it. They constantly throw new monsters/abilities at you, so you never get the fatigue of sameiness that some other puzzles games tend to have.


• Spider-Man (2018) - Another game where the story is all-too predictable. I mean, you are supposed to be some years into Spiderman's career, and know of the different villains that he encounters, and yet we are supposed to play dumb to another one that is clear as day? The Mary Jane segments were a complete drag on the action, and really shouldn't have existed in the first place. Her only good gameplay segment was near the end when she directed spiderman in a stealth segment, but even that fell flat. Gameplay wise, it was solid, with plenty of gadgets to play around with, and a good variety of enemies to fight, each with their own annoying little requirements (also, screw the flying guys). Stealth segments felt weird, especially in the warehouses, where no matter how well you stealthed, after the first few enemies, they all became aware of your presence anyways, because technically they come out in waves, and... Yea, could have been done better


• Infested Planet - This one was a bit of a surprise hit for me. Didn't quite know what to expect aside from some tower defense against hordes, but the RTS elements of it really rounded it out. Now I want more. The campaign is a bit on the short side, but apparently there is a DLC to add rogue-elements, so might pick that up at some point


• Borderlands - with a recent update to make it more user-friendly (finally, a mini-map so my directionless ass won't get lost every 5 seconds), decided to give it another go. Played it almost all the way through a decade ago as a Mordecai, but decided to give it a go with Roland this time, and had a blast with it. So much so, I ended up playing the other two games immediately afterwards.
  Now, when a game has a pet/minion class, that's usually who I go for. It's why I chose Mordecai and his bird originally, and why I chose Roland and his turret this time (also why I chose who I did in the subsequent games). and while Roland's turret did help during some segments, it also felt completely useless during many others (seriously, whatever "shield" that thing is supposed to have does naught all). A motionless minion is great for when you are defending an area, but when you are on the move, and enemies are ducking behind cover, it just doesn't do enough. I think the biggest boon it gave me was the ability to run away from enemies, while it covered my rear, wiping out (or at least slowing down) my pursuers.


• Borderlands 2 - Diving right into the sequel after the first game, felt confident enough to choose a "hard" character, in Gaige. I considered Axton, but considering I just played Roland, and he seemed to be essentially the same, with only a few minor differences, went with the more "agile" pet class... But that was a mistake, as looking at her skill tree, I spent a lot of time focusing on her electric synergies, which considering the game has like 75% robotic enemies, had negligible effects. And it didn't help that since I was so focused on that build, I blew hundreds of golden keys looking specifically for those electric guns/grenades to maximize the skills. That said, once I learned from my mistakes (which wasn't until the DLC *cough*), found the Anarchy tree to be rather insane. With a one-shot shotgun, anarchy built up quickly, and all those shots just homed in on everyone I couldn't see, completely melting through them - Was great for arenas
  Edit: One other nitpick I forgot to mention - I was playing through the series with a controller, but Gaige does not do well with that style of gameplay, as the loot button is binded with the same button as reloading, so trying to grab/interact with things with fairly regularly cause to to reload, thereby killing off your entire stack of anarchy, and in turn, damage. There is a skill to bypass that, but you shouldn't have to put a skill into it just so you can play with a controller


• Borderlands Presequel - For whatever reason, this one gets some hate, that I don't understand, but personally, in some ways, I actually enjoyed it more than B2. Back in the day, when I used to play FPS, I did a lot of bunny-hopping, so the anti-gravity just felt natural to me. Jumping up and raining death from above, like I was back at home. Combine that with Jack's digi-clones, and you have a match made in heaven. They had a short life-span, but having them *boom* upon spawning, then double-*boom* upon death, due to their nova-shield, made it so it felt like the fourth of July 24/7. Explosions everywhere, it would have made Torgue happy.
  And that's just the one character's skills. Add in the laser guns, which I absolutely loved, the grinder, so that I could toss away useless weapons for LEGENDARIES, which have so much more of an effect than I ever realized in my time with Borderlands 2, and a story that painted Jack (The Borderlands 2 bigbad) in a completely different light (I mean, yes, he's still a sociopath, but you got to see the descent), and I question why people didn't absolutely love this game.


• Tales from the Borderlands - First off, ignore the illusion of choice, otherwise it will ruin the experience. The first two episodes, I just kept thinking "yea, but if I chose the other option, it still would have happened", but the story itself is really done well. Lots of fanservice going on, which I won't complain about, and it tied together many bits of the Presequel to Borderlands 2. All in all, an amazing conclusion to my month of Borderlands
  Edit: One other thing that I forgot to bring up was Ashley Johnson's voice work. If I can praise one of the biggest highlights of the game, it was any time her character talked. Simply adorable

Another big gap with updates. Played a few games from December-January, then had a bunch of things happening that ruined my desire to play anything (intense stomach pain for a few months, followed by the illness[lung cancer] and ultimate passing of my cat, Velvet).

Quick update

(December 23-January 27)

• Alwa's Awakening - I'll be honest, I can't remember much about this one. It was over 5 months ago, and was really forgettable. The only thing I can recall was that while it was a mediocre metroidvania, with nothing standing out about it. The platforming was fine, but the abilities were boring. Very middle of the road


• Cat Quest - Fun little action game. The humor was definitely hit or miss, but the gameplay was solid, if easy. Going through dungeons to get gear is rather quick, and the exp gained seems to be a bit high. It didn't take long before I was one-shotting most enemies with the spike spell+slowdown combo. I imagine hard mode is where the game truly begins, but will save that for another time


• Dust: Elysian Tail - The story and characters honestly felt like they came from a middle-schooler. None of them were likeable, and everything felt forced. When the characters weren't acting manic with their emotions (especially the underground creatures... Good lord, their attitudes changed just about every sentence), they were complete dullards. Outside of the god-awful writing though, the gameplay itself was solid. Mute the game, skip the dialogue, and the game itself is fun.


• Shovel Knight - Awesome platformer, and totally worth the praise it gets.


• Shovel Knight: Plague - The plague-knight campaign, however, felt a bit off. While dashing around with the scythe (edit: jumping around with the explosions) was fun, it also made maneuvering around rather difficult.


• Super Puzzle Platformer - super chill game, good for just unwinding. Once you get the rhythm of the levels, it becomes very calming just jumping around and shooting.


• Pixeljunk Eden - Another chill game. Some of the later levels, however, were less so, once they introduced fluctuating gravity, but excluding those, it was a nice game


• Kevlin and the Infamous Machine - Disconected, the game. An alright point-and-click game, but I wish they had put more effort into making the levels feel more connected. As it was, it felt like a cheap imitation of Day of the Tentacle. Once you finish a time-period, it's suddenly "oh, there is a problem somewhere else now", with no real rhyme or reason to it.


• Bit Dungeon 2 - The game looks like a zelda-like game, but outside of the dungeons that you explore, is nothing like it. You kill mobs on your way to dungeons, level up, enter the dungeon, get to the boss and annihilate him to unlock a piece of the door to the final area. Rinse and repeat 8(?) times. The catch, however, is that you only have one life, and if you die, it's back to square one, with each door-piece now lost. As long as you loot the caves, and buy the weapons, you shouldn't have too much of a problem.

(January 28-May 6)

• Started up Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters and played through the first few planets. Some of the controls are wonky, and it definitely missed some polish, but no where near as bad as the R&C fans make it out to be. In fact, the last planet I completed had some incredibly fun minigames (basketball, lemmings, and robot wars)


• Shadow of War - Definitely missing some of the charm of the original game (not to mention some of the OPness from certain skill combos, which have now been reduced to "either or" skills). Definitely more difficult, which is a major plus - no more attacking a stronghold, then retreating for health 10 feet away. Though, the difficulty modes need some balance. The difference between normal and hard is miles apart. On hard, orcs will adapt to your moves almost instantly, making it so you have to change your strategy against them multiple times. Some captains, based on their perks, become practically impossible though, what with their healing and invulnerabilities. Haven't completed it yet, but have yet to see the major "grind" people complain about...
  

(May 7-May 14)

• Just Cause 3 - This game definitely plays like a continuation of a previous Just Cause game. However, having never played any of the other games in the series, I feel as though I missed out on some important connection with the characters. Perhaps the story will better resonate with people actually familiar with the games, but for me, I didn't care for it. It also didn't help that once the whole country had been liberated (spent a few days doing this first), the story missions themselves could be completed in under 5 hours.
  As for the gameplay, it was extremely repetitive and rather frustrating. Certain skills and features that should have come standard required tedious grinding to unlock (ex: After you get fast-travel, you may only use it once before restocking the feature at a supply depot... unless you spend hours liberating towns to gain access to mini-games that allow you to allocate skillpoints to increase your "max fast travel" slots...Then you have 3, or eventually 5)... After a while, once you unlock the best helicopters, and the ability to fast travel multiple times, it gets better. Having more options to liberate towns and plow through missions makes it almost worth the time investment.

Soooo, it’s been a while since my last update, but that is mostly due to the fact that the game I just finished took me about 2 months to complete. Would have completed it much quicker, but was livestreaming the entire thing, and only had time to stream Saturdays (On the off-chance anyone is interested, I archived the entire thing here).

(September 1-September 15)
No Games

(September 16-September 30)
(October 1-October 15)
(October 16-October 31)
(November 1-November 15)
(November 16-November 30)

A return to Youtube/Twitch Gaming

• Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch - Take Pokemon, change the turn-based combat to real-time, and have an amazing story made by Studio Ghibli, and that is the elevator pitch for this game. Sounds awesome in theory, and it absolutely was. Now, I will be honest and put an asterisk at how repetitive the dialog and certain side missions can become, but with how much there is to do in the game, and how well the actual story are, it's easy to give that repetitiveness a pass.
  *There are over 400 different monsters to collect with various ways to increase their strength in battle (leveling, equipment, treats, owner-compatibility, element, and astrology), allowing for very in-depths strategies (that are never required).
  *The story, while occasionally dipping into typical anime tropes, does manage to stray away from them for the most part, with plenty of twists and surprises to keep you engaged for the entire 50+ hour experience.
  
  

(July 16-July 31)
Nothing played

(August 1-August 15)
Nothing played again. Summer is always slow for me

(August 16-August 31)

Oh, right, gaming

• Epistory: Typing Chronicles - Considering the last "typing-adventure" game I played was well over 20 years ago (and it was an educational one, to boot), I wasn't quite sure how this one would play out. Turns out, these types of games have evolved quite nicely in the past few decades. One of the biggest bits of praise that I have for the game is for its difficulty, which dynamically changes based on how well you are doing in the game - type fast enough, and you begin to see monsters spawning simultaneously that are 25-30+ letters long. The fact that it adjusts itself for the different level of player is well deserving of kudos. The other bit of pure-praise I have for the game is for its style, which plays kind of like bastion with the unfolding landscape and narration.
  
  The rpg-like elements of the game were simple, but very welcome. The leveling system was rather trivial (I maxed out about mid-way through the game), while the magic-system added something refreshing to the gameplay. Instead of just killing off individual monsters, you could use chain-lighting to kill off groups, burn one so it takes damage while you are dealing with another, or simply freeze the ones getting too close (there was also wind, but I never saw it as being useful). I do wish there was a hotkey for switching between the magic though, mostly for the sake of convenience.