A game that's a cross between Slay the Spire and rearranging a Resi backpack sounds like absolute hell for me. Good stuff.

2022:
Final Post

For list of games played in 2022, click any of Parts 1-6 below. List removed from Part 7 onwards.

2023
Part 1: Games 1-3 (plus 2022 hangovers) (Judgment, Vampire Survivors, Miles Morales)

Part 2: Games 4-39 (Vaporum: Lockdown, DMC5:SE, Lost Judgment, Roadwarden, Yakuza Kiwami 2, Against the Storm, RE: Village PSVR 2, Tentacular, Destiny 2: The Witch Queen, Destiny 2: Lightfall, Tyranny, Lunacid, Pile Up!, Synapse, Far Cry 6, GTA 5, RE4 Remake, Tchia, Scarlet Nexus, Pistol Whip, Olli Olli World, Nier: Replicant, JETT: The Far Shore, Rune Factory 4: Special, Horizon: Call of the Mountain, DQ11:EoaEAS - Definitive Edition, Legend of Grimrock 2, Baldur's Gate 3, Whitewater Wipeout, Casual Birder, Pick Pack Pup, Crankin's Time Adventure, Direct Drive, Legend of Etad, Reel Steal, Recommendation Dog) 

Part 3: Games 40-43 (Dungeons and Puzzles, The Bookwalker, Chambers of Devious Design, Super Corporate Tax Evader)

Part 4: Game 44 (El Paso, Elsewhere)

Part 5: Game 45 (BABBDI)

Part 6: Games 46-54 (Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail, Teardown, Humanity, Walkabout Mini Golf, Shadows of Doubt, Omaze, Demon Quest 85, Slay the Spire...again)

Part 7: Games 55-61 (Vignettes, Froggy's Battle, co-open, Fatum Betula, Executive Golf DX, Questy Chess, He Fucked the Girl Out of Me)

Part 8: Games 62-65 (Crusader Kings 3, Football, Tactics & Glory, Backpack Hero, Starfield)

Just one game today.

66. Salamander County Public Television

I have no idea what the fuck I just played. 

I'm not even sure if I like it, and that's weird as on more than one occasion there were actual involuntary laugh snorts caused by the game and it feels petty to judge it too harshly when the game is 2 hours long (depending on what kinda scores you are happy with) and probably averaged a decent laugh or chuckle every few minutes during that time. 

So...what is the game? Well, the lazy way to do this would be to describe it as Warioware via QWOP plus Stock Photos, which I think isn't totally inaccurate, but misses a fair bit of what makes the game work. 



So, let's start at the beginning. You are a new worker for Salamander County Public Television and your job is mostly to film content that can be used by SCPT in their TV shows. So, the pic above, help the dog get the ball by moving its tongue. That'll go great in a show!

There's a minigame a "day" and the story takes place over a month (23 minigames total, because weekends are off, plus some bonus ones). And, between each day you chat with colleagues and various NPCs in Whack Chat. 



The thing is, the game is intensely, intensely weird, and there's a fine line to walk there between RANDEM and boring. I have a low tolerance for games that lean into memelord internet humour - it's one of the things that really put me off Guacamelle, for example, and I think this only gets away with it because:

1. It's more the vibe - there's no actual known memes in the game, unlike in Guac
2. It's a vibe that is less reminiscent of modern reddit / twitter / 9gag etc and more like 00s rathergood.com 

It's cats playing Elbow's cover of Destiny's Child...



One advantage that Warioware has over this is that the minigames are fast and short. In SCPT they can take a few minutes. Now, a few minutes isn't the end of the world but when they deliberately control like shit, it's not always super tempting to restart them to get a higher score. I basically accepted the first passing score I got for most of these games, as I enjoyed the theme and stupidity of the challenges more than actually playing them, meaning I got mostly bronze medals, with a handful of silver and a couple of golds. 



But make no mistake - the games themselves are often so stupid as to be genuinely hilarious. They're almost all controlled with the arrow buttons / WASD and sometimes the space bar. They're dumb, and surprising and genuinely very, very funny. There were also times in those 2 hours where the game was laying the insanity on so thick that I had to stop and turn the game off. Despite it only taking me 100 minutes, it took a couple of sittings. I also, on one occasion, made use of the skip day button, which just lets you pass a challenge because I hated it so much. 



Oh, but there are some good gags. As in, genuine proper sight gags. And every time I thought I was growing tired of the game, it gave me something so monumentally stupid I couldn't help but kinda like it. 

Should you (yes YOU!) play it? I would say, yes. Will you like it? Fuck knows, I don't even know if I like it. [8?]

Next / The To-Play List:
Final Fantasy XVI (for real, real - right at the end now)
Growing my Grandpa
Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty 
The Forest Quartet 
Spare Parts: Episode 1 & 2 
Unpacking
NUTS
Super is Hot
Neurocracy
Evolution
Slasher U
Cannelé & Nomnom - Defective Agency
Druidstone
Prodigal
Tangledeep
Jupiter Hell
Mary Skelter 2
Scanner Sombre
Recursed
Kine
Vomitoreum

Might have a crack at Salamander Television on Christmas day.

I'll probably get Tilly to review that one, the cat video sold it.

Ah right. She might need cats in flatcaps tbf.

2022:Final Post

For list of games played in 2022, click any of Parts 1-6 below. List removed from Part 7 onwards.

2023
Part 1: Games 1-3 (plus 2022 hangovers) (Judgment, Vampire Survivors, Miles Morales)

Part 2: Games 4-39 (Vaporum: Lockdown, DMC5:SE, Lost Judgment, Roadwarden, Yakuza Kiwami 2, Against the Storm, RE: Village PSVR 2, Tentacular, Destiny 2: The Witch Queen, Destiny 2: Lightfall, Tyranny, Lunacid, Pile Up!, Synapse, Far Cry 6, GTA 5, RE4 Remake, Tchia, Scarlet Nexus, Pistol Whip, Olli Olli World, Nier: Replicant, JETT: The Far Shore, Rune Factory 4: Special, Horizon: Call of the Mountain, DQ11:EoaEAS - Definitive Edition, Legend of Grimrock 2, Baldur's Gate 3, Whitewater Wipeout, Casual Birder, Pick Pack Pup, Crankin's Time Adventure, Direct Drive, Legend of Etad, Reel Steal, Recommendation Dog) 

Part 3: Games 40-43 (Dungeons and Puzzles, The Bookwalker, Chambers of Devious Design, Super Corporate Tax Evader)

Part 4: Game 44 (El Paso, Elsewhere)

Part 5: Game 45 (BABBDI)

Part 6: Games 46-54 (Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail, Teardown, Humanity, Walkabout Mini Golf, Shadows of Doubt, Omaze, Demon Quest 85, Slay the Spire...again)

Part 7: Games 55-61 (Vignettes, Froggy's Battle, co-open, Fatum Betula, Executive Golf DX, Questy Chess, He Fucked the Girl Out of Me)

Part 8: Games 62-65 (Crusader Kings 3, Football, Tactics & Glory, Backpack Hero, Starfield)

Part 9: Game 66 (Salamander County Public Television)

3 games today, including one biggun'.

67. Tangledeep
I'd been tempted by the Shiren the Wanderer games for an age, but never really tried them. And, to cut a long story short, Steam recently had an Autumn Sale with a bunch of my wishlisted Trad roguelikes on sale. Given that i'd really enjoyed my dive into old-school tile-based Dungeon Crawlers in recent years, I thought a dip into Proper Rogue might be a good idea. So, I tried some, including Tangledeep.



Tangledeep is full of options. When you start the game it offers 4 basic game styles, including a "you bank what you bring back" version, a death = complete wipe option and a more modern full meta-progression variant. The game is pretty clear about which version is the intended way to play, and I appreciate that, so if you'd absolutely hate to lose all your progression in a game like this...Tangledeep kinda has you covered. 

This player-centric approach to difficulty extends to the class selection - as the game gives you most classes (and there are quite a few) unlocked from the start, rather than force you to slowly unlock them one by one, with each class given a difficulty rating for how hard it is to play. 

So you pick a class, and jump into a dungeon, move tile by tile and fight monsters / discover secrets / get loot. Monsters move when you move, so the emphasis is on the right mix of strategy, caution and bravery to know when to push and when to run. 



It's all very pretty, with the art style being very...highly competent pixel indie (and that's not meant as a backhanded compliment), and there's systems and lots of loot and locations and secrets and...why, oh why did I just find it a bit flat?

Like, there's nothing wrong here - it's clearly, clearly a well made game, and I fully intend to put more time in to it over the coming weeks and months. But there was rarely a sense of proper danger or risk - i think partly because the game offers you an infinite use "teleport home" button which, while it takes a few turns to wind up and actually do anything, undermines much of the drive to push for riskier rewards. There's no all-or-nothing gamble, as it's super easy just to teleport out and drop off what you have to hedge your bets.

Maybe there's more there that I haven't discovered yet (quite likely), so I'll keep diving into the dungeons for now. But more than loot or new locations, what I'll be looking for is...a hook. [6]

68. Jupiter Hell
The 2nd Traditional Roguelike of this post, this one is a bit different. Jupiter Hell is the commercial remake and spiritual successor of DooM, The Roguelike (aka DRL) and it works exactly as you would assume it works. It's DooM, turned into a top-down tile-based dungeon crawler. The grungy space industrial vibe is still there, the metal music is still there...it's just now no longer an FPS.



What makes this game work, for me, is the emphasis on weapon selection and builds, and the very smart way is transposes on-the-fly DooM movement shooter / boomer shooter mechanics into a gameplay system where you, technically, have all the time in the world to make a choice. 

Lets take the guns - you have pistols, SMGs, Shotguns, Grenade Launchers, Rockets etc. Each gun consumers ammo, with pistol ammo the easiest to find. But, beyond that, you also have clips per magazine. Reloading is an action, you see, so while a shotgun may do big damage, it might be better to blow up a nearby explosive barrel with a pistol to clear as many enemies as possible before worrying about hitting the bigger target.

Because enemies in this game, when they come, come thick and fast. It might be nothing for several hallways, then it's one, five, fifteen enemies one after the other - forcing repositions and reloads and grenades and, honestly, it's pretty fun. When it calms down, often what is left is a hallway of loot to pick from and ammo to replenish stocks. 



There's only a handful of classes in Jupiter Hell - bugger all compared to Tangledeeps dozen+, but the choices you can make to sculpt your character each time they level up helps to keep it feel fresh. Pistils can become death dealers with level up perks invested into increasing their range and damage, then another perk to let you dual-wield them. There's secrets, multiple paths through each dungeon, lots of choice and consequence when it comes to healing, upgrading and modding. 

It's impressive and yet...once again, something ends up feeling a bit flat. I prefer this to Tangledeep. I'll likely go back to this more quite soon. But it starts to feel quite samey, quite fast and I don't necessarily seeing that changing anytime soon. As a 300-hour 2nd job style game, i think this would suffer. As a run-a-week dip in and dip out 20 minute thing, I think it could work. It's too fun to say it's a disappointment, but it's too repetitive to say it's a must own. [7]

69. Final Fantasy XVI



Lets get this out of the way. I thought this game was great. 

I think it would be relatively easy to do a review just nit-picking or going over areas that fell flat (yes, yes, those side-quests...) but given how little those problems mattered in the scheme of things, it'd feel disingenuous to focus on them too much. 

So yes - the game has issues: Performance outside of combat can be a bit choppy. Side quests can be a bit crap. There are too many side quests. Side quests are awkwardly placed in terms of when they unlock and risk completely grinding story progression to a halt. The item economy in the game makes absolutely zero sense. I was expecting the game to be a bit hornier. 

Now that that is out of the way, lets talk about FF16 and why I think it's fucking cool. 



To understand FF16, it's probably best to talk a bit about that team's other big game - FF14 aka The MMO One aka (Probably) The Best Final Fantasy. The FF14 team love classic Final Fantasy, they love the works of Sakaguchi and Matsuno, they have a composer every bit as good as Uematsu (yes, really), they love European dark fantasy. They also like stories about Eikons / Summons / Primals. 

In FF14, the Summons (or Primals as they are known in that game) are a whole thing - as in, a primal is a being that is worshiped and prayed to, that feeds off the faith and tributes of it's followers and can be summoned to defend those people when needed. But, they also exert an influence, named Tempering - basically, people become brainwashed by the influence of a primal. 

Primals in FF14 can be cataclysmic events. You know how certain FFs, especially the Playstation One games, could have summons effectively ripping a planet in half, then the battle fades back in and you see 5467 DMG? Well, the 14 team avoids a lot of that by treating Summons as something else - Weapons of Mass Destruction. 

14: A Realm Reborn becomes about stopping a series of Primals while an enemy force seeks to harness and capture those powers for themselves. The first expansion, Heavensward (done by the main writer of FF16), dives deeper into the nature of Primals, and introduces a new wrinkle - the idea that people can act as vessels for Primals. Each further expansion dives deeper on, and expands, the what and how and why of Primals - but one thing remains the same; They are giant, and dangerous and cosmic and destructive. 

So anyway - FF16 shares a lot of story beats and concepts with 14, but it's ran through a character action game and a more dark fantasy Matsuno-esque filter. It is...Heavensward. Heavensward was about different countries at war, about discussions around tables, humans as Eikons/Primals, and schemes underneath. The obvious reference that keeps getting made (and no surprise, it was also mentioned by the dev team) is Game of Thrones, but trust me...they already did this back years ago in FF14. 

So, it is Game of Thrones, kinda....but it's Game of Thrones via Dragonball Z, and I mean that in a very earnest way. Because one of the things I really, really love about this game is it's excess. 



Final Fantasy 16 is like Game of Thrones, only up to the point where someone in in Final Fantasy 16 turns into a giant walking nuclear weapon, and then all bets are off. This is absolutely not a game for people that roll their eyes when a FROM boss gets a 2nd health bar, as this game features fights that have upwards of 5 phases, each one taking the previous phase and going full Spinal Tap 11 on it. 

It is gloriously excessive, even if at their largest these fights become more about spectacle than gameplay - the gameplay often being the most satisfying when it's in Character Action mode and chucking a good combat encounter at you.

It can take a while to pick up - the game really starts having good combat once you have a few different Eikon playsets to play with - and for me it strikes a far better balance mixing in classic FF combat content to an action playstyle than, say, FF7 Remake. If there is a criticism to be made, it's that the game once again doesn't know what to do with magic for the most part (like 15), though at least here the Eikon powers effectively take their place. 

When it wants to do GoT talky talk, it's pretty great. When it wants to do full anime excess, it's pretty great. When it wants to do one-on-one intimacy, it's pretty great.

It's not perfect - even ignoring the issues listed above, there's some ones that bother me more. Several major female characters, including arguably the most important female character in the game, get done dirty (imo, ofc). That's not to say it had to be sunshine and rainbows for them - it's more that this positions itself as a story about a group of people but...it's a story about dudes. And that's ok, 15 was a story about dudes. But 15 was honest about being a story about dudes. 16 says it's about all of us, and our struggle, and freedom, and humanity. 16 is about dudes. And that's a shame, because some of 16s most interesting characters are Not Dudes, and I wish I could have spent some more time with them that didn't revolve around Dudes. 

But it's clearly a labour of love. It's a stunning game - actually, I wanted to include a whole bunch more screenshots that I thought were more impressive, but didn't know if they would be considered spoiler-y as they come from quite late in the game. The game has its highlights and standout moment but the final few hours are basically stunning scene after stunning scene with Masayoshi Soken basically putting out musical bangers for fun. 

Final Fantasy XVI is a weird one. Some low lows, some very high highs. It's at once slightly disappointing and everything I wanted. It has one of the best cast of supporting characters in an age, some of the best music, some of the best fights, and some of the worst pacing. It also has some truly moving relationships, some absolutely stunning voice acting, some hilariously bawdy cursing. 

Active Time Lore - pause the game to get some info on who everyone is, and what they are talking about! - is an absolute revelation. The weapon upgrade and item systems are just pointless crap. The hunts are great! The dungeons are...not always the best. 

If someone said this game was a [10] , i'd get why. If they said it was a [5], i'd get why. For me, it's a [9].

Next / The To-Play List:
Growing my Grandpa
Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty 
The Forest Quartet 
Spare Parts: Episode 1 & 2 
Unpacking
NUTS
Super is Hot
Neurocracy
Evolution
Slasher U
Cannelé & Nomnom - Defective Agency
Druidstone
Prodigal
Mary Skelter 2
Scanner Sombre
Recursed
Kine
Vomitoreum

26.Metal Gear Solid 3- 12 Hours - 8/10 - Xbox Series X

So better than 2…still nowhere near the first. Whilst I did enjoy all the Bond type cheese and clever exchanges, it’s just building up to the interactive movie that 4 is with so much nonsense that I ended up skipping the vast, vast majority of the cutscenes. A lot of the systems are interesting but strange going back to as they seem so very simple in comparison to something you’d find in a game today.

Really enjoyed it, and it could simply be too much Metal Gear but it was another one that felt too much like a slog towards the end. Still a good 8…

2022:Final Post

For list of games played in 2022, click any of Parts 1-6 below. List removed from Part 7 onwards.

2023
Part 1: Games 1-3 (plus 2022 hangovers) (Judgment, Vampire Survivors, Miles Morales)

Part 2: Games 4-39 (Vaporum: Lockdown, DMC5:SE, Lost Judgment, Roadwarden, Yakuza Kiwami 2, Against the Storm, RE: Village PSVR 2, Tentacular, Destiny 2: The Witch Queen, Destiny 2: Lightfall, Tyranny, Lunacid, Pile Up!, Synapse, Far Cry 6, GTA 5, RE4 Remake, Tchia, Scarlet Nexus, Pistol Whip, Olli Olli World, Nier: Replicant, JETT: The Far Shore, Rune Factory 4: Special, Horizon: Call of the Mountain, DQ11:EoaEAS - Definitive Edition, Legend of Grimrock 2, Baldur's Gate 3, Whitewater Wipeout, Casual Birder, Pick Pack Pup, Crankin's Time Adventure, Direct Drive, Legend of Etad, Reel Steal, Recommendation Dog) 

Part 3: Games 40-43 (Dungeons and Puzzles, The Bookwalker, Chambers of Devious Design, Super Corporate Tax Evader)

Part 4: Game 44 (El Paso, Elsewhere)

Part 5: Game 45 (BABBDI)

Part 6: Games 46-54 (Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail, Teardown, Humanity, Walkabout Mini Golf, Shadows of Doubt, Omaze, Demon Quest 85, Slay the Spire...again)

Part 7: Games 55-61 (Vignettes, Froggy's Battle, co-open, Fatum Betula, Executive Golf DX, Questy Chess, He Fucked the Girl Out of Me)

Part 8: Games 62-65 (Crusader Kings 3, Football, Tactics & Glory, Backpack Hero, Starfield)

Part 9: Game 66 (Salamander County Public Television)

Part 10: Games 67-69 (Tangledeep, Jupiter Hell, Final Fantasy XVI)

2 quick reviews today as I continue to work through my to-do list without becoming too distracted by other games. 

70. Druidstone: The Secret of the Menhir Forest

So I bought this because it is, apparently, made by the Legend of Grimrock peeps. Like LoG, it's old-school in many ways, harking back to classical turn-based RPGs, but unlike LoG...I wasn't a fan. And that kinda sucks, because I really wanted to like this. 



Druidstone is a top-down turn-based strategy RPG where you control a party of 3 (though it's 4 later) on smallish maps to complete some kind of objective. That objective might be to light X number of fires, escort an NPC to safety, reach a certain point etc. 

On each map there's also bonus objectives, which add some nice player opt-in risk/reward mechanics. Complete the mission without a character dropping to 0HP, open 2 chests before the last turn. To complete a mission, you just have to finish the main objective. But bonus objectives give gems, which can be used to upgrade character skills - this might increase power or number of uses allowed per combat. Some skills can be used infinitely, while others have limited uses in each mission. 



Choices are not permanent, thankfully, and you can freely remove gems and slot them elsewhere, allowing you to experiment and also tailor your setup for each mission. Missions are short too, and accessible via a world map, where you can choose from a selection of missions available, or replay old ones to complete bonus objectives and get a better outcome. 

Skills are well thought out, the story and characters are basic but inoffensive, the game looks nice, upgrading is player-friendly, it has risk/reward mechanics for extra optional challenge. That's all great, so why oh why did I really not enjoy my time with this game?

Put simply, it's a trial-and-error puzzle game, not a TTRPG. Enemies are constantly spawning in missions, with more and more arriving each turn, and there's often strict limits on how many turns you can take to complete a mission. The longer you take, the more likely to be overwhelmed. You die.

So, you figure out a safer way to beeline to an objective, only for an optional mid-boss to spawn in the area you had thought safe. You die.

You realise that you need to turtle behind the tank character and move as a 60% pace, just to get the one character capable of completing an objective to the location. The character still gets caught out by a million archers. Can't complete objective. You die. 

There's no victory from the jaws of defeat here. No last gasp mega play that completely turns the tide of battle. It does the Xcom 2 relentless struggle thing, without the tactical flexibility that Xcom 2 also offers. There is, at least until you level up some skills, a best solution to the level and you are expected to die until you find it. 

You are expected to learn enemy attacks and reach by dying. You learn spawn locations by dying. You bang your head against a wall until you see the solution to the puzzle, and these are not puzzles that can be thought through carefully on first glance. 

For some people this will be great - a strict, punitive, strategic puzzler, dressed up as a TTRPG. For me, I had an awful, miserable time, made all the worse by me liking so much else that the game does, and having real affection or the team. Boo. [3]

71. Mary Skelter 2

I've talked about how much i like tile-based first-person Dungeon Crawlers before. I mean hey, I mentioned Legend of Grimrock right up there in the review above. These games are My Jam!

I am also a Weeb, with a high tolerance for very anime things which I know isn't for everyone. I like Disgaea and Tales and Persona and a whole bunch more besides. I mean, I was playing the Hatsune Miku games back on the PSP! 

So, i know what this tier of game is like, the low-mid budget Japanese 2nd tier RPG. I know they're gonna have really bad tutorials which consist of JPEGs with a bunch of different fonts, proper nouns and arrows. I know the story beats. I know the weird mix of hyper sexualisation (Send your partner into MASSACRE MODE by LICKING THEM - this is a real thing) and innocent prudishness (Do you think character x likes me?). I know these things.



So, did I enjoy this? Kinda, but not really.

Mary Skelter 2, like many of these games, suffers from some pretty poor pacing in the early hours. With constant dialogue scenes being interrupted by constant tutorials, though there are at least a couple of nice highlights which is some of the environment design and the music. 

The combat system is...ok. I'm not a huge fan of it, but it's not the worst system I've come across (hello to Omega Quintet, you fucking suck). The characters are...ok. I like that each character has a special action they can perform in dungeons, which at least adds some variety to traps, secrets and traversal.



So, it's fine. Not great. Unfortunately, as with many B/C-tier games outta Japan, the PC port is Not Good At All. Weird control and input decisions, random crashing, issues with full-screen and windowed mode (though still better than Starfield lol). It's just a bad PC port and an average game, and it's hard for me to recommend this when there are better examples of the genre available. [4]

Next / The To-Play List:
Growing my Grandpa
Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty 
The Forest Quartet 
Spare Parts: Episode 1 & 2 
Unpacking
NUTS
Super is Hot
Neurocracy
Evolution
Slasher U
Cannelé & Nomnom - Defective Agency
Prodigal
Scanner Sombre
Recursed
Kine
Vomitoreum
Moonring
Etrian Dyssey III HD
Hitman: World of Assassination

I make it sound worse than it is, I think.  I'm glad I played it.  You gotta give a chance to these indies.

I really need to get back to the SF6 Yakuza mode.

Review of Robocop seems about right. Seemed to make a strong first impression with a lot of people, when it first started to get some coverage, primarily due to how crunchy and satisfying the combat looked, but I wasn't sure how much game there was there. A generous 6 sounds alright and enough for me to bite when it hits the right pricepoint or ends up on a sub service.

2022:Final Post

For list of games played in 2022, click any of Parts 1-6 below. List removed from Part 7 onwards.

2023
Part 1: Games 1-3 (plus 2022 hangovers) (Judgment, Vampire Survivors, Miles Morales)

Part 2: Games 4-39 (Vaporum: Lockdown, DMC5:SE, Lost Judgment, Roadwarden, Yakuza Kiwami 2, Against the Storm, RE: Village PSVR 2, Tentacular, Destiny 2: The Witch Queen, Destiny 2: Lightfall, Tyranny, Lunacid, Pile Up!, Synapse, Far Cry 6, GTA 5, RE4 Remake, Tchia, Scarlet Nexus, Pistol Whip, Olli Olli World, Nier: Replicant, JETT: The Far Shore, Rune Factory 4: Special, Horizon: Call of the Mountain, DQ11:EoaEAS - Definitive Edition, Legend of Grimrock 2, Baldur's Gate 3, Whitewater Wipeout, Casual Birder, Pick Pack Pup, Crankin's Time Adventure, Direct Drive, Legend of Etad, Reel Steal, Recommendation Dog) 

Part 3: Games 40-43 (Dungeons and Puzzles, The Bookwalker, Chambers of Devious Design, Super Corporate Tax Evader)

Part 4: Game 44 (El Paso, Elsewhere)

Part 5: Game 45 (BABBDI)

Part 6: Games 46-54 (Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail, Teardown, Humanity, Walkabout Mini Golf, Shadows of Doubt, Omaze, Demon Quest 85, Slay the Spire...again)

Part 7: Games 55-61 (Vignettes, Froggy's Battle, co-open, Fatum Betula, Executive Golf DX, Questy Chess, He Fucked the Girl Out of Me)

Part 8: Games 62-65 (Crusader Kings 3, Football, Tactics & Glory, Backpack Hero, Starfield)

Part 9: Game 66 (Salamander County Public Television)

Part 10: Games 67-69 (Tangledeep, Jupiter Hell, Final Fantasy XVI)

Part 11: Games 70-71 (Druidstone, Mary Skelter 2)

Some chunky monkeys today. And some good ones too, as I finally want to get round to including a few games that made my final GotY list.

72. Slay the Princess
Not gonna go super deep into this one, save to say that it's from the pair behind the excellent Scarlet Hollow. This is a choice-led visual novel psychological horror romance thing and it's just brilliant. Brilliantly written, brilliantly voice acted, brilliantly funny and dark, brilliantly disturbing. 



There's a princess in a basement, in a cabin, and you arrive to kill her. That's all you really need to know. Genuinely superb work. [9]

73. Etrian Odyssey 3 HD
I can't get enough of tile-based first-person dungeon crawlers and the HD re-release of 3 on Steam was enough to tempt me, as i'd not played much of the first 3 EO games. It's...an Etrian Odyssey game. You make a party, go around a set of dungeons, slay monsters, grind for materials, sell 'em, upgrade your gear and repeat. 

It's not without its quirks - every EO game mixes up encounters or mechanics in some way, and EO3 has some ocean traversal (which takes a while to get going) and some absolutely brutal early encounters. There's one enemy in particular that appears on the first floor or the first dungeon that can absolutely wreck your party, and it's a chastening lesson to learn. 



The dungeons as well have a stupid number of hidden back and forth passages, even by EO standards, and it's wise to basically strafe through the dungeon with your face pressed against the wall in order to find secrets. 

The transition to PC wasn't bad, though, and the draw your own dungeon hook works well enough on mouse, though nowhere near as good as it is on a stylus. Still, I got my money's worth and will happily potter away at this through the coming year. [6]

74. Etrian Odyssey 5
My favourite EO game. I'm back on this on the 3DS so yes I am, in fact, playing 2 EO games simultaneously across 2 platforms because I am a sick, sick man.

Played this before to completion and am now a dozen hours back into a new run. The character balance feels great, the dungeons are now packed with rewarding events to encounter, levels are deviously designed and filled with puzzles. 




It's just...a really good EO game from top to bottom. [7]


75. Shogun Showdown
This is for Face who outed me as a Shogun Showdown owner. 

So yes, the rumours are true. This is bloody brilliant. 

Shogun Showdown is a turn-based roguelike that takes place on 2D arenas with somewhere between 5-10 tiles (generally) right to left. You press A to go left, D to go right, W to turn around, and S to skip your go. So, you move and you do stuff, simple right?

Well, not really. Enemies spawn on left and right sides, and perform actions when you do. Moving is an action, turning around is an action, queuing a move is an action. This reveals the game to follow a similar flow to something like ADOM or a sokoban game - it becomes about understanding turn and action order and manipulating it to your benefit. 

One of my favourite builds in the game is to use the Bo (which turns enemies around) to cause them to hurt each other. It becomes about space manipulation and eventually it's a game of stop hitting yourself. 



This might all make it sound like yet another turn-based deckbuilding roguelike, but it's really more than that. For starters, you're not building a deck with loads of cards - most of my runs revolve around 4-6 cards, if that, and upgrading cards (actions) to make them more powerful or solve combat problems becomes more important than just adding more to your deck. The ability to know exactly what triggers enemy attacks, where they will hit, and what damage they will do adds a huge amount of granular decision making that most games just don't focus on - this game is about the line...the perfect order of actions and moves to combo kill multiple enemies without taking any damage. 

It's about understanding that an enemy can hurt you, but they can also be worth keeping alive. Sure, i could kill the spearman in front of me, but once he's dead, the ranged ninja bastard on the other side will throw a shuriken at me and i've nothing in my kit to avoid damage. So, spin the spearman for a turn until my arrow comes off cooldown, then kill and arrow in the same turn to drop both...

This is all early game stuff, and the game slowly doles out more complex skills and challenges. It's fucking good.

So, why did it miss out on my GotY? For the same reason Backpack Hero did before, as did Rhythm Doctor, and why Against the Storm and Lunacid both got good positions this year - I prefer to consider games as proper GotY contenders once they are out of Early Access. I wasn't a fan of Slay the Spire getting nommed every year, and I really like Slay the Spire. There are exceptions of course (hello Shadows of Doubt), and make no mistake - this is a very playable game now. I'm just happy to wait until 1.0 and in the meantime I'll give it the score it deserves in 2023. [10]

76. Brotato
If you like yer Binding of issacs and your action roguelikes, you could do much, much, much worse than this. It's dirt cheap, and very good indeed. [8]

77. Dotage
For a long time this was my front-runner for GotY. I was waiting for the penny to drop and for me find some awful flaw, or for me to get bored of it...but that never happened. I was charmed by it and have been playing it on and off now since July. It was only Baldur's Gate 3 that finally knocked it off its top spot, and that was hardly a fair fight.



A labour of love from a single developer, I've never played a game like this before - or, at least, not this combination of genres in this specific way.

So...deep breath...

Dotage is a village builder, but it's turn based, with survival elements and...it's also a roguelite? It's a weird combo, but it works.

Simply put, you start a village as the village elder. Days are turned into a set number of periods, allocated to work and rest. You build facilities and homes for your village pips (the game's term for NPCs including animals), collect materials, grow...so far so village builder, albeit with a simplified and stripped down turn-based interface.

The thing is...an apocalypse is coming. Ruin is always around the corner, and much of the game comes from trying to avert disaster. A booming town can be reduced to ruin by plague, or fire...or something else. Omens are given to you, the Elder, and there's always a ticking clock.

Pips have simple needs - food, shelter being the main ones - and there's not a million resources to juggle. It's a stripped down, streamlined approach compared to the hyper density of something like Rimworld or Dwarf Fortress. 

It's just...a really fun game that clicked with me super hard for some reason. It seems well made, well balanced, cute and fun and simple and funny and...it was my surprise of the year. It was nowhere near my radar, and then it became a mini obsession of mine. Loved it. [9]


Next / The To-Play List:
Growing my Grandpa
Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty 
The Forest Quartet 
Spare Parts: Episode 1 & 2 
Unpacking
NUTS
Super is Hot
Neurocracy
Evolution
Slasher U
Cannelé & Nomnom - Defective Agency
Prodigal
Scanner Sombre
Recursed
Kine
Vomitoreum
Moonring
Hitman: World of Assassination

Shogun Showdown and Dotage and also Slay the Princess go on The List.

from top to bottom

Nice

hylian_elf wrote:

9. Worldless (PS5) - 10 Dec (11 hrs) ... ... ... Oh, right. Worldless, not wordless. Anyway, mixed feelings about this game, an indie minimalist Metroidlike with not much going on. In fact, I had no idea what was going on mostly. Something about a god and the beginning of a/the world or some other shit. You explore and uncover the map and get further and further as you pick up new abilities, a la a Metroid game. The game world itself is quite small but there's still a fair amount of trudging back and forth which, without decent fast travel, can get tiresome. The onscreen map itself is also a little awkward in that it only shows a dot for a room or area and roughly how it is connected to anotgher room or area - so you could have a dot on the map representing several actual game screesn horizontally and vertically. There are some decent platforming sections and you do get a nice feel of progression. Combat is different to your usual games of this type. Again, you unlock new abilties and weapons etc, but there are a set number of encounters spread across the map so you don't have rooms full of little enemies. This is partly due to the turn-based nature of the fights. The mechanics themselves are sound, but can be cumbersome - there are parries, counters and perfect blocks, all of which don't feel very responsive or fluid enough which can lead to frustration. And there are a few frustrating encounters that almost had me quitting. And I haven't even properly finished the game - just the standard ending. I am missing one piece of a puzzle that I assume/understand unlocks possibly the proper end boss but I can't be arsed to trudge around looking for it. Overall, worth it if you have a spare 6-12 hours (depending on how much you want to find) and nothing else to play. Otherwise, there are better games to play but this is by no means bad. Just not that good. [7]

Ah, knew I had seen this game mentioned somewhere recently - was chatting with Nina and Worldless came up and it rang such a strong and recent bell that i couldn't place. But it was you!