Lurker > transience

I played the Gestalt demo the other day but the tone is not for me. I'm not familiar with Crowsworn but it sounds like I should look into it!

edit: hmm, I don't think it would make the list but it's hard to say. it seems far off still whereas these other ones have playable demos and are coming soon. I do have one that's nowhere near ready but the aesthetic matches my taste a lot more.

15 - The Rogue Prince of Persia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GN4ErNC4iw
Genre: Roguelite
Release: Out in early access, TBD for final release
Platforms: PC, but surely coming elsewhere when complete

It's weird. I'm not really a Dead Cells guy (I've done a few runs but that's it) and I haven't kept up with the Prince of Persia series, ever since it went to 3d with Sands of Time -- and yet I'm kind of fascinated by this weird mashup. It's an unholy marriage that feels like fanfiction, and yet the idea of pairing a roguelite with Prince of Persia's rewind mechanics is about as good of a fit with the roguelite genre as you'll find. Even the name feels like an abomination.

I find myself eavesdropping on this game occasionally, just confused that it exists and trying to find some hole to poke in it. You kinda can't though: the Dead Cells devs are as solid as there is when it comes to roguelite action combat. One day this'll hit 1.0 and I'll finally jump in.

16 - Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuvEeX_ljuk
Genre: Metroidvania
Release Date: 7/18/24
Platforms: PC/Consoles

The shorthand for this game is easy: take Hollow Knight's core, give it The Messenger's movement tech and the overall aesthetic feel of Okami. Bo isn't especially original and doesn't shy away from taking inspiration from others, but it looks good and plays well.

If anyone is looking for a Silksong holdover, you could do a lot worse than this game. There's a demo that's pretty good if anyone is looking to check it out.

17 - Fantasian Neo Dimension
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuAAo-S2Hvw
Genre: JRPG
Release Date: Winter 2024
Platform: PC/Consoles

First of all, wow, what a dumb name.

I *love* Fantasian. It's probably my favorite JRPG of the last 5ish years - this or Chained Echoes, but probably this by a hair. It has a throwback PS1 feel that you just don't find in other games thanks to its lovely prerendered backgrounds. The gameplay systems are a ton of fun. The story is interesting, too -- well, up to a point.

A lot of lapsed JRPG fans don't know how good it is because it's been locked behind a mobile subscription service. This is fine by me because I spend a lot of time poking at mobile games, and the game played well there for my tastes. But I can't blame people for wanting a traditional experience with a traditional RPG. For that reason, this thing being unlocked and brought to a new audience is such a huge deal. I hope people give this a real shot when it hits because it's super fun.

But there's one other thing about this version. Fantasian's single achilles heel was that the second half of the game is *brutal*. It's hard on a level that no JRPG dares to be. You have to find every item and play an absolutely perfect fight to even have a chance vs. standard story bosses. It's insane. I kinda liked it because I liked the systems so much, but your random fan who likes FF9 and plays this is going to side-eye it real hard when it demolishes them out of nowhere.

Neo Dimension is adding a 'normal' difficulty mode, and I love that they are calling it normal instead of easy. They're admitting they went way too far and fixing it for the regular people. If you live and breathe JRPG mechanics like I do, then play it on hard because it's rewarding for a certain type of sadist. But otherwise, have fun with this Sakaguchi gem.

18 - Ace Attorney Investigations Collection
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLFMaakr_xg
Genre: Adventure
Release Date: 9/6/24
Platform: PC/Consoles

One of these Ace Attorney collections always finds its way onto the back end of my lists. It's good to have them on surviving platforms like PC! I always think I'll get them when they get announced but rarely do, just because I have them so many other ways and don't need to spend money on them.

But this one is notable because it'll let me finally retire my original DS. The one missing game on the 3DS was Investigations 2 and now it's here and available to play on a long-term platform, officially. Mind you, it's got all new names for the characters and I don't know if I'll ever accept it after referring to these characters as something else for a full decade now. Maybe the story is even different? I'm kinda afraid to have my worldview shattered.

Oh, and Investigations 1 is here too. Yay, I guess.

19 - Nova Roma
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU5GB-PUDz4
Genre: Builder
Release Date: 2024
Platform: PC

I'm always looking for a building game, but not something complex with a million options like, say, Cities: Skylines. That's too much for me. I like a sweet spot of town building without creating a megalopolis.

Nova Roma is my current focus, a Roman-themed builder where you do more than just build the structures, but also deal with expansion and laws and sometimes gods smiting you. Reading the game description reminds me of the simulation aspect of Actraiser, which is probably a bad bar to set but it's cool that there's more than just standing up an aqueduct. This game has been silent for a while so I'm not sure it hits in 2024, but hopefully it does and it's good.

20 - Hollow Knight: Silksong
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSfuFlhsxZY
Genre: Metroidvania
Date: hahahaha
Platform: PC/Consoles

As I say every year, I'm not the biggest Hollow Knight guy. This damn game has cast such a long shadow and every modern 'vania aspires to be it in some way. It's good, just not my favorite in the genre. I like my games in this space to be a little more free flowing and friendly. I don't think Hollow Knight is overly hard but it is a little more restrictive than I'd like.

But man, Silksong's eventual release has become such a running joke that I just need to know. What is this game? What is taking so long? Is this game so successful that this is going to be the uber-game with everything packed into it and feel like a big budget thing? It wouldn't be the first game that was a smash hit and had a hard time following up. Or, maybe it's going to redefine the genre. Everyone is going to play it, that much is certain.

I just want to see it because it's going to influence what is probably my favorite genre for the next several years.

21 - Tiny Glade
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-Pmal2UupI
Genre: Builder
Date: Q3 2024
Platform: PC

Tiny Glade probably isn't much of a game. It's more of a toy, something to play with and feel good. There doesn't seem to be much of a goal to Tiny Glade as you're just reshaping an environment with easy to use tools that just kinda work. You're not saving the world or trying to make a meter go up or anything. It's just a cozy little experiential thing.

I played with the demo and it's incredibly limited with what you can do in it, but you can get the sense of reshaping the world and making something that feels good. Tiny Glade probably doesn't have a lot of staying power but I have an infinite number of games I could be playing that are excellent at wasting my time. Maybe sometimes I just want to draw on a video game canvas with brooks and trees.

22 - World of Goo 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCVZI8MZRP4
Genre: Puzzle
Date: 8/2/24
Platforms: Switch, PC (Epic exclusive)

It's freaking World of Goo 2! Nothing brings me back to the late 2000s like the words "World of Goo", trying to get Wii Remotes to make a bridge and failing miserably (and brilliantly). That original game had some really high highs thanks to an amazing soundtrack and really good game feel. It's also a game I haven't revisited in a decade.

I can't believe they're making another one. Does this concept still hold up? It feels insanely out of date in a world where I'd expect this kind of thing to be an iPad game, or some kind of touch device instead of a mouse. But maybe it's awesome? I have to believe they have some kind of idea, to come back to it after 15 years. You look at the trailer and it looks the exact god damn same! It's crazy. I want to know. I need to know.

I flipped through like 20 minutes of gameplay footage and it looks kinda gross, like I couldn't even tell what was happening and everything is so grungy. hopefully it feels better when you're actually in it.

23 - Akatori
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q23C-ubF9E
Genre: Metroidvania
Date: TBD
Platforms: PC, Switch

There's a ton of indie-vanias coming out these days. They generally separate into two schools of 'vania: 2.5d games with hand-crafted art and classic pixel-based 2d games. Akatori is very much in the latter camp: a melee-focused action platformer where you're doing crunchy combos with rolls, backdashes and all of that cool stuff. The main movement mechanic is a staff that you can throw to make platforms or bounce off the ground and there is a ton you can do with that.

I've played through the prologue of this game and it's good. It probably won't blow you away unless you're really into combat-focused 2d action games, but it's solid and fun. It'd be a gem if there weren't a million of these kinds of games coming out, but it's still pretty good even with that.

24 - Metaphor: ReFantazio
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btHGCpUPjPk
Genre: JRPG
Date: 10/11/24
Platforms: Xbox, Playstation, PC

What a name. Instead of anything in the actual game, it's easier to talk about this thing as the proper followup to Persona 5 and SMT5, and perhaps a game that bridges the gap between those two games. The developer is renowned enough to get my attention and there aren't a lot of higher-budget JRPGs out there, so this stands out.

But.. I'm kind of at a loss when I look at this thing. It feels so dirty and messy, and the combat in the demos that they've shown looks all over the place. I haven't quite decided what the story is really about, or if I'm even supposed to care about it? I don't know. I'm watching it carefully on the side because hey, it's a new game from the SMT devs that's not one of those dumb spinoffs like Tactica or yet another remake of those old classics. But I'm also not sure if this game is for me. Maybe it'll have great music and once you get into the gameplay loop, you're hooked for 70 hours like every other SMT/Persona game. I'm a sucker for these things so I might check it out, but I'll probably wait to hear some fan feedback first.

25 - Undermine 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-7OAiV8QTE
Genre: Roguelite
Date: TBD
Platforms: PC, probably consoles eventually but nothing announced yet

Roguelites are weird. There's a million of them and a lot of them are really good, but they take up so much time and energy with their thousands of items and various permutations that it can feel a little daunting to jump into one. They can feel like a live service game where you can only commit to a couple at a time. I can't imagine a person playing a dozen of these games on loop and ever have the time to play anything else.

That's me with Undermine! I still haven't even played the first one but it's always been on my radar. This one looks like an improved version of the first, an action game that doesn't do any one thing special enough to hook you, but is just super fun. Rather than jump into the first, I've been thinking of getting this one when it comes out since it'll probably feel like a 2.0 version. I'm sure there's a ton of stuff crammed into this thing and you always get your money's worth with these games. That is, assuming you have the bandwidth to actually take it on and get into all the possibilities.

I've made this topic just about every year for the last 20 years so I may as well do it again!

as always, I wasn't sure if I'd find enough games this year to make a full list, but I ended up finding 25 games that I'm curious on. I'll write little blurbs about each of them, nothing too big. most of the things on this list are on the small side, indie games and metroidvanias and small RPGs, that kind of thing, but you probably already expected that coming from me. I also like to wait out games until they're out of early access, so there's a couple on this list that are technically out and fully playable and I'm just waiting for the 1.0 version to jump in.

anyway, here goes!

Verity Gavelle and Eddie Fender

I am going to have the hardest time with this

I'd probably play a new Blow game. I'm not that black and white -- but when a big appeal of the rerelease is Blow narrating the game, I'm out.

it's such a bummer that Blow has turned out to be so unlikable because I really liked Braid. I can't imagine wanting to listen to his commentary in 2024 but I would have been all about this in 2009.

I think I like what I've played so far (only like 5 hours), but man, everything feels like it takes twice as long as it should. random battles, dungeons, bosses -- especially bosses. I just did that mine dungeon that took like, I don't know, two hours? the lack of music reminds me of Xenosaga 1 and that's not great. but, I think I like it so far despite that

Anagram posted...

I dont know how much crossover there is between life simulator fans and Lord of the Rings fans.

a huge amount. my wife is all in on this

who here remembers gamefaqs 2

Leonhart4 posted...

Just means Fandom will have to start running contests

I like it. let's ban politics and vote for Link

foolm0r0n posted...

B8 can be topical if that's what it takes to survive

hard to be topical without a contest in the last 5 or whatever years!

feels like the only way to enforce this is to enforce topicality on all boards and just remove general social boards. good luck!

yikes. I wonder what they think they're saving - gamefaqs isn't bringing in new people or content and the only thing left are vets who have been here for decades. they're just burning down the remains of what's still standing here. if this happened like 15 years ago, I would have been devastated - but now it's just kinda funny.

wait, what will red sox do now

bring back The Chronologist

let's see this "director of trust and safety" try to mitigate what happens when Smash Bros beats Dragon Quest in the next series contest

oh wait we're never having another contest again

I like this game but I have no real idea how any of the mechanics work and just move my guys around until I go from taking 100 damage to taking 0 and win every fight in a rout

chess is the GOAT