LogFAQs > #932315821

(TL;DR: I'M A FUCKING NINTENDO SHILL AND I HATE STUFF THAT'S NOT AN INDIE GAME AND IS TOO COMPLICATED AND INVOLVED FOR MY STUPID BRAIN)

(WARNING, TOO MANY WORDS INCOMING, SKIP THIS PART, IT WAS A MISTAKE)

Few things before I get rolling on this thing:

About me. I am the epitome of what you would get if you plucked someone straight out of 1995, dumped them into 2020, and told them to figure out their gaming tastes in a world that left them behind 25 years ago. I largely gravitate to Nintendo, the gaming company of my childhood, and weird indie shit that I can buy for 5 dollars on Steam.

I do not own a PS3, PS4, or Xbox One. Whoops! I realize that this means there's a lot of really, really good games that I simply have not played, and I regret that greatly. I just don't really have the money to put into getting a PS4 right now, and even if I did, I'd also have to have the money to buy games for it, and based on what I know my gaming habits to be, it doesn't seem like a great investment. Maybe next decade I will be more on top of things, but for now, representation from these consoles will be low.

This does mean, as a general rule, I don't really "do" your typical AAA titles. Aside from the fact that they tend to cost 60 dollars, I don't really know why this is. I think that the huge, epic adventures and dark, realistically modeled worlds just don't really interest me much - I don't manage to maintain the attention span for them, and they don't really absorb me into their worlds. I have exceptions, but they're few and far between.

Two examples of major releases this decade that I just didn't vibe with, and didn't show up on my list - Dark Souls and Skyrim. I really wanted to like Dark Souls, and I really admire so many things about the game's design; I like the way the world is designed, I like how challenging it is, I like the blend of combat and RPG elements. Were I writing an article for the internet about the best games of the 10's, Dark Souls is on it. But I just didn't really like it on a personal level - the cold atmosphere and muted colors of the world were a turnoff, and the character-action style of gameplay just wasn't really my thing, I couldn't beat one of the bosses early on and I gave up. Same for Skyrim - I really tried to like it, I loved the idea of having this open world adventure where I could go all sorts of places, but I just couldn't really get hooked on it, and I couldn't tell you why. This should give you a kind of idea of the games I tend to avoid - the Fallouts, Assassin's Creeds, and Grand Theft Autos of the world do not appear on this list. Again, there are exceptions.

Anyway, that's just basically a bunch of words to excuse why I didn't play a lot of the most popular games this decade and instead played some weird indie shit. Like, just so we're clear, here's the distribution of games based on the console I most played them on:

PC: 60
3DS: 17
Switch: 6
Wii U: 5
DS: 3
Wii: 2
Xbox 360: 2
Vita: 2
Android: 1
PS3: 1
PS4: 1

lol

(I really wish I could have added 'Arcade' to this list, but the two arcade games I liked enough to add to this list, Jubeat and The Bishi*Bashi (look it up), both came out in Japan in 2009. Damnit.)

Stuff that's well-represented on this list:

- Games that are cute and colorful. I really like cute shit. The more fun and optimistic the game's tone, and the more colorful and stylized its visuals, the more likely I am to be drawn into it. The vast majority of games on my list are vibrant and pleasant - I like to come out of a game feeling warm inside instead of feeling like I need a shower.

- Puzzle/strategy games. Good lord, I played a lot of puzzle games I really loved in the 2010's! I had no idea I liked puzzle games that much, but there were a hell of a lot of really good ones.

- Story games. Although visual novels and highly narrative adventure games have been around for a long time, I feel like the 10's have broken a lot of new ground in ways to tell interesting stories. I don't care if a game has minimal gameplay - as long as it uses its medium in a interesting way to show me something cool, whatever it is, I'm here for it.

- Platformers. I love a good platformer. I have since the 80's. My love of platformers will never die.

- Roguelites. If I am known for anything, this is probably the thing I'm known for I guess? I like games that have a good challenge, and I love games that change every time you play them for a good dose of replayability. This genre has basically come into existence in this decade, and I find that losing your entire run if you die really ups the stakes, which encourages good play.

- RPGs, sort of? Weird ones though. I don't really play the big 'prestige' JRPGs like your FF's and KH's. I played a bit of DQXI but didn't get far enough into it to make a judgment. There's a couple of Tales games I should have played but didn't get around to. There's still some RPGish things on this list though.

- Nintendo. I mean, it's not by accident. I've loved Nintendo's franchises since I was a kid, and they're the one prestige game publisher that still frequently produces the kind of stuff that I like.

- Couch co-op/multiplayer. Love playing stuff with friends, especially when it's the same room. This tends to lend itself to a lot of memorable gaming experiences.

- Retro shit. Take me back to 1995. I want to live there.

- Games with soundtracks that absolutely rip. I will keep coming back to a game for music alone.

Stuff that's not well-represented on this list:

- Games that are dark and bleak. There's a few on the list, but for the most part I don't really go for this - it doesn't really keep me in the mood to keep playing.

- Games with realistic, non-stylized visuals. Just not super interested. Again, I'm a 1995 kid here, I have sort of a set idea in my head of what a game "looks" like, fair or not, and the more realistic a game gets, the less I tend to get absorbed it.

- Prestige AAA franchises, unless it's Nintendo. Like I stated above, I just don't really do 'em. Even if they're on PC, my PC is kind of garbage so I can't run them anyway. I really wanted to play The Witcher 3 since it's on sale for cheap right now, but I don't have enough RAM.

- Character-action, fighting, racing, real-time strategy. Just some genres that usually fall out of my purview. It's cool if they're your bag!

- FPSes. I actually like FPSes, but I haven't played that many this year that made the cut.

- Online games, especially MMOs. To say that I don't have the time for them would be a lie, it's more like I don't have the attention span and the emotional energy for t