Board 8 > TheRock's 2022 Quest to Clear my Backlog (Part 1)

(+) Yeah! (+)

So I mentioned this in discord, but I said I was gonna dedicate the entire year to clearing out my backlog.

I'm gonna go back on that a little bit, but the plan is now after the Steam sale finishes up, I cannot buy a single new game until I complete 10 games I already own. And another 10 if I want to buy another one. And so on and so forth.

For me, I have an extremely bad habit of getting incredibly far into a game then giving up towards the end, sometimes for the weird reason of not wanting the journey to end (when leaving the game and not coming back effectively ends the journey anyway).

I'm gonna have some cheap ones early thanks to being in the final dungeon of several games, but this is my plan to follow through with on the entire year.

1st Game Beat of 2022: Tales of Arise

This is a game I really, really wanted to like more than I did, and it seemed like it was well on it's way. But the second "half" (more like quarter) of the game felt so damn rushed and was so exposition heavy that you could go hours without doing much more than walking and seeing a cutscene. Why these revelations weren't more spread out I'll never understand, especially since it was on the shorter side of things for a Tales game. Almost like they were running low budget-wise and had to rush things.

Final Rating: 7/10

2nd Game Beat of 2022: Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth

For a game on a shoestring budget and rather horribly translated, this is was a lot of fun. All my favorite Digimon from the old anime, plus a bunch of new ones. It's weird to see a Digimon game take this odd Persona-esque vibe to it but it works shockingly well. I feel like a lot of the melodrama was actually pretty well done compared to ToA which I just finished up. And though it only has a few different tracks repeated throughout the game, the soundtrack is pretty good. Gameplay was pretty straight forward and I didn't realize how stacked my team was by the end when I took down the final boss in... 2 turns, I think? Don't have any desire to play the other Cyber Sleuth game, especially hearing it's just a side story that occurs during this one. I'm sure it's fine but I put over 100 hours into this one and I think I'm comfortable walking away from it.

Final Rating: 7.5/10

Also giving Tales of Berseria another shot and will probably finally play Tales of Symphonia.

Btw I haven't given up on this, just no updates since I'm mostly starting games more than finishing them.

Being sick has put this on pause.

Next game is probably gonna be The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles. I'm finishing the 5th case of the first game. Which I'm actually enjoying (a lot of people have this game is bottom tier) so I'm really looking forward to the sequel (which most people seem to love).

Haven't made much progress without much time to play

Still making progress on the Great Ace Attorney. It's slow but I'm halfway through the second case.

Pretty sad that I'm only on the third case, but slow progress is still progress.

Onto the 4th case.

5th and final case.

3rd Game Beat of 2022: The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles

It's hard to get into too much detail about these games without getting two spoilery, but I feel like all the gameplay additions were nice touches without being essential game changers. Sholmes' Deductions are a nice way to break up the monotony of long investigations, although sometimes they were unwelcome padding to draw them. The juror system was kinda dumb, but it was a fun dumb most of the time. What drives this game is it's characters, as it's by far one of the top-to-bottom best casts create in the series. A great protagonist, a top-tier assistant, and honestly a top 3 character ever in prosecutor Barok Van Zieks. Probably the best 2nd and 3rd cases in the history of the series, but I ain't gonna lie: I think that probably hurt cases 4 and 5 for me, because of how heady and weighted the previous cases were. I guess I was used to the old AA series using 2 and 3 as unrelated cases to provide a mixture of levity and character development without the long running plot. I'm not saying it's better, but I think something like AA3 wouldn't hit quite as hard with cases 4 and 5 if Dahlia was an important figure in 2 and 3. Not to say they weren't great cases, it was a very satisfying until Hologram Sholmes showed up and I knocked my rating down 0.5 points. I'm also not as down on the first game as other people are, so GA2 didn't feel like some massive jump from GA1. The first was pretty good. The second was great.

Final Rating: 8.5/10

Working my way through Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition.

I remember not liking the battle theme change, but the more I listen to it the more I dig it.

Also the music in Mechonis is really, really good.

Clearing out some sidequests, didn't realize how little of Colony 6 I had rebuilt at this point.

I never got big on the affection or trading elements of the games.

I'm actually trying to think of some shorter games I could go through simultaneously. I technically broke my rule about clearing out 10 games before buying a new one (since I bought Triangle Strategy) so I should beat some games that won't take 40 hours to beat.

TheRock1525 posted...

I'm actually trying to think of some shorter games I could go through simultaneously. I technically broke my rule about clearing out 10 games before buying a new one (since I bought Triangle Strategy) so I should beat some games that won't take 40 hours to beat.

I did this in January and February. Finished a whole mess of 2-5 hour long games. Felt really good to knock out over a dozen games. Also, some I played for a few hours and went "okay, I get this but it's not worth my time".

Haven't made any progress on anything, have hardly gamed.

4th Game Beat of 2022: Kirby Star Allies

This is definitely a game built around multiplayer, but when 4 players are on the screen at the same time it just seems like a huge clusterfuck. So many times I had no idea what's going on with all the characters and particle effects. I guess you could play the game solo but the "star allies" are supposed to be a key feature of the game design. Also, the levels felt a little uninspired and the main game too short. That being said, Kirby games are always a pleasant, minimal challenge experience so it wasn't all bad. Hopefully the Forgotten Land is more inspired.

Final Rating: 6/10

Been mostly playing Triangle Strategy.

Currently playing Triangle Strategy, Kirby and the Forgotten Land, and Tiny Tina's Wonderlands.

Still the same three.

I wonder if I should keep this topic going considering I'm literally playing nothing but games that weren't in my backlog lol.

play elden ring

but i am very bad at souls games

yeah but you're also bad at clearing your backlog

i'm bad at a lot of things

TheRock1525 posted...

For me, I have an extremely bad habit of getting incredibly far into a game then giving up towards the end, sometimes for the weird reason of not wanting the journey to end (when leaving the game and not coming back effectively ends the journey anyway).

*gets you a 'Hell Yeah'*

It's frustrating to know you're near the point of no return, but could still do limited/endless amounts of side stuff before you complete just because it's still there. Or missing something late in the game and needing to shelve the fame for a while so you forget why you were reticent about finishing (helped me immensely with some Trails games... every entry until Cold Steel II I had to put down for about a year before I could finish. Then I would new game plus, enjoy the hell out of it, get all the missables, go on a final date with everyone, etc. and beat anew before moving on to next entry).

I used the Video Game Challenge to clear a lot of backlog (including finally finishing Secret of the Stars and Terranigma after 20 years), but haven't had any categorical motivation. It helped a ton when my backlog was bigger and more varied. And also full of games I had lots of fun playing as opposed to games that... are still backlogged for a reason. Or are survival/open world/farm sim games (Subnautica, Core Keeper, My Time at Portia) that... too much to do and see, no time to try and beat.

Looks like Triangle Strategy will be my next finished game. Which wasn't a backlog game but still...

Bumpo.

Nothing new to report.

I wonder how bad it is that I'm dedicating my time to a F2P game while trying to clear out my backlog.

Hey, I guess this counts in a way! I started it back in 2011.

I feel like I should let this topic die since I've completely violated the spirit of it.

Keeping it alive until I figure out what's next.

So I'm technically working on beating a version of a game in my backlog.

bumpo