Board 8 > Mac Ranks 72 Games Played in 2022

(+) Yeah! (+)

Whoa, that's a lot of games! I wish I could say it was because I played more short games last year, and it's partly that, but mostly I just played a lot of games last year, haha. Getting games from the library and using $1 Gamepass deals makes playing games cheaper than ever, so they were basically my main hobby. I kept up a list of everything I played throughout the year, since I figured it'd be fun to make a little summary at the end of the year.

I finished most of these, but there are some I gave up on relatively quickly, and that boosted my stats a little, haha. I'll mostly point out when that's the case.

I'll try going through the topic without posting the unranked list in advance. Let me know if you think it'd be better if I posted the games on the list beforehand. For now, I'll just post what year each of the games was released in.

Year stats:
1987: 1
1994: 2
1997: 1
2001: 3
2002: 1
2004: 1
2006: 1
2012: 2
2013: 4
2015: 2
2017: 2
2018: 2
2019: 4
2020: 5
2021: 5
2022: 36

Hint for 72: playing this multiplayer game where you party up to take down fierce enemies solo didn't do it for me.

72. Monster Hunter World (2018)

I only played this for a few hours, which maybe isn't enough to get a good picture of it, but I can say that the game's really not for me. I didn't like anything about this game. Movement feels clunky - the Clutch Claw is fun to use, but the targets you can use it on are very limited. Attacking with weapons is slow (I tried 3 or 4, maybe I should've tried more, but oh well). Tracking down monsters in a big map is boring. The monsters have lots of HP and fighting them isn't interesting, and chasing them down when they run away makes it extra boring. Way too slow and methodical in general. The environments aren't particularly interesting, and they get reused a bunch. And on top of that, the story/characters are basically nonexistent wastes of time. I feel like maybe it'd be more fun multiplayer, though I doubt I'd ever play that way? From what I've heard, Rise seems more fun since it sounds more fast-paced? I'm not exactly excited to play it now though.

Next Hint: Making a game starring the villain of the series was a genius idea, but this RPG insisted on wasting time on other nonsense.

71. Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story (2019)

This is one of the biggest gaming disappointments I've had in a while. I never played much of the Mario & Luigi series - I got partway through Superstar Saga back when it came out, and then stopped for some reason I don't remember. Apparently it was for a good reason, since BIS sucked! I'd heard a lot of hype for it over the years, but boy did it not live up to that hype. I'll start by talking about the good stuff: Bowser is awesome! Playing as him is great, his dialogue rules, and basically any scene with him is delightful. I always laughed when he got crushed. Being the villain felt like a novel treat, and a natural extension of what we got in SMRPG. Going inside of him was a fun gimmick as well. The other story parts were mostly solid too (other than the stuff with Fawful, who is dangerously unfunny), with being inside of Bowser for most of the game being a neat gimmick. The game looked extremely nice (I played the 3DS remake), and had a solid soundtrack.

For me, what killed the fun was the gameplay. I admire the variety of minigames and such, but honestly, I felt most of them were super dull. They went on far too long, and despite spending barely over 20 hours, BIS felt like it dragged on forever. Battles were interminable, with some attacks taking over a minute to complete - I'm amazed I haven't seen people complaining about battles here in the way they complain about FF summons. Some of the minigames were way longer than they needed to be too. Having to time button presses with attacks or dodges makes battles more engaging, sure, but not in a way l liked at all. I didn't particularly like exploring the world, either. Almost none of the areas were interesting, other than inside of Bowser's body, and even that wasn't too great. Playing this pretty much guarantees I'll never touch another M&L game, since I've heard this is the cream of the crop.

Next hint: What if action RPGs let you simply climb every monster you faced to stab them in the weak point?

tag

I liked BiS a lot when it came out but the gameplay is pretty slow.

Tag.

Also, inspired now to look over my own notes.

70. Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen (2012)

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/5/0/1/AABKTfAAEDZl.jpg

Man, there's so much good stuff in here, surrounded by stuff I hated. It almost feels like a big open-world RPG created by a team that never played anything else in the genre before since its strengths and flaws are somewhat unique for a 2012 game. Primary among its flaws is the fact that its slow. Getting anywhere takes forever, and there are limited fast travel locations. I get why they made the system where you have to plant fast travel spots yourself, since that part's kinda fun, but I wish they'd given you many more Portcrystals to place and expand fast travel further, since running to various locations is pretty boring. Additionally, minibosses (and some bosses) feel incredibly damage spongy. The worst example of this for me was running into a Golem that was the boss of a side quest when I had an all-mage party. You have to hit its weak points to damage a golem, and it's immune to magic, so it took forever to chip away at while it did almost no damage to me (and it took a while to figure out what the weak points even were in the first place, since my attacks did zero damage to them). Others weren't as bad, but they were still pretty boring. There's also inventory weight limits and sprinting limits, both of which I dislike in games in general, and modded out a couple days after I started.

One of the most interesting parts of the game is the side quests. I wouldn't say the writing quality is outstanding, but it feels like they really tried with them for the most part. Almost all the side quests other than the basic "kill 10 of this enemy" ones have full-blown scripted cutscenes, to the extent that sometimes it was hard for me to tell which was an optional side quest and which was part of the main story (the main story looks like a side quest in your quest log). The game did a great job of making them feel important. The other fun part was the pawn system. You basically get a party of NPCs who accompany you, one of which is permanent and two of which are other players' permanent pawns who you summon. The game somehow makes them feel more interesting than they should be, partly by giving them a ton of quest-relevant dialogue, so they're always commenting on the side quests you're doing or whatever. That's the sort of thing I'd love to see in more RPGs in general.

The combat is a bit of a mixed bag. As I said earlier, it can be really slow sometimes, but there are cool aspects like being able to climb on almost every big enemy and hack at them as you do so, and there's a broad variety of classes and abilities. I mostly played Magick Archer, and my favorite ability was one where you could unleash three arrows that bounced off walls and homed in on enemies. In dungeons with narrow corridors you can waste even bosses real fast with this, so it was super fun. Dungeon design felt very good in general - much better than the overworld design.

The story was just 'okay' IMO, and as one final frustration, I didn't realize until beating the final encounter that you can't do the post-game content after doing so. Overall, I had a bad time with the game, but it shows potential for a sequel, since many of the flaws are easily fixable. The main problem is that a lot of the problems I have with the game are things that other people like, since they appreciate the sense of "exploration" or whatever. Hopefully the devs aren't on the same page as them.

Next game hint: what happens when you put a shooter on skates?

Oh wow I just got Bowser's Inside Story, in part because of recommendations from this board. I hope I like it more than you did lol.

Opinions on Dragon's Dogma seem to run the board, not surprised to see it down here.

andylt posted...

Oh wow I just got Bowser's Inside Story, in part because of recommendations from this board. I hope I like it more than you did lol.

The story and writing are great! Enjoy it for that and you may be a happy camper.

69. Rollerdrome (2022)

Some games just don't click, and this was one of those. The premise is neat - it's a shooter where you skate around on rollerskates, slowing down time as you dodge and kill enemies. You have to do tricks to regain ammo, which is a fun sounding mechanic. In practice, I just could not play it well. The movement frustrated me until the end, and I never really understood the trick system. I feel like it fits into the "genre" of movement-based shooters like Neon White, Severed Steel, and Boomerang X, but all of those were way more fun and felt more natural. Playing Rollerdrome was mainly an exercise in frustration, and even the coolest moments were nothing I hadn't seen before.

Next game hint: Life Is Strange by any other name is not as sweet.

MacArrowny posted...

Additionally, minibosses (and some bosses) feel incredibly damage spongy.

I know we briefly talked about Dragon's Dogma in the past, around the time you finished playing it, so I may have told you this already, but; DD is actually REALLY weird when it comes to enemy HP and the player damage output. I myself had the same exact complaint the first time I tried to play this game, and dropped it for this exact reason, so I know exactly where you're coming from. However, the problem isn't exactly that the enemies are too spongy, it has more to do with gaining levels and upgrading gear.

Basically if you are even a little bit under level, if you invested levels into the wrong classes, if you failed to upgrade your weapon, it can take literally FOREVER to kill bosses. The gap between the lowest relative damage you can deal and the highest relative damage you can deal, even for a casual player, is a lot wider than other action RPGs.

For this reason it's extremely easy to fall into the trap of accidentally trying to fight a boss that you simply do not have the stats to fight... and the game gives you no direction or feedback other than the fight simply being boring and feeling impossible. So you don't very easily think like 'oh maybe I need to do 4 different things to get my damage to increase properly' you just think 'wow enemies in this game have WAY too much HP.' There are even cases where if your build outright sucks, even hitting regular enemies can take forever to kill them -- but then you gain a few levels and you're oneshotting them even with a sucky build.

On the reverse side, if you do upgrade your weapons and level up properly, the game feels like it's more properly balanced. You can kill bosses fast; Not too fast, but still within a reasonable time. Your starting class has a big influence on your stats, and your current class when you gain a level also determines what stats you will gain. Anyway I talked way too much about it already, and this isn't really me saying that you need to go play the game again in order to properly enjoy it. I also think the game has a lot of flaws and don't particularly love it. But maybe if anyone is reading your write ups and hasn't played the game yet, it might be interesting for them to know that there IS a way to make the experience a bit better - at least with regards to enemy damage sponging. Most likely you just need to upgrade your weapon, and gain a few levels. Gaining a bunch of levels in a crappy class will make the process take longer, while gaining levels in an "optimized" class will help you keep up with the enemy level curve with less grinding.

Yeah I can see why people like it more on replay

oh nooo I gave the wrong hint this is actually ex-Quantic Dream devs whoops

Note: Rollerdrome is the last game on the list I dislike. Everything's at least mediocre from now on!

68. As Dusk Falls (2022)

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/8/2/4/AABKTfAAEDeo.jpg

Pretty much just played this since I wanted something short to go through while waiting for Xenoblade to come out, and it fulfilled its purpose despite keeping going after what felt like the natural ending point. The game's from ex-Quantic Dream devs, and it's the same type of game, though this one's probably a good bit less interactive than anything they've done. The only gameplay is making choices (which are fairly few and far between), along with maybe half a dozen scenes where there a few things you have to click in the background of a room. The choices in the game are almost all quite good, and seem to have major consequences. I kinda wish there were more minor conversational choices though. Getting to make those in games like these is always fun, even if they don't have any effect on anything. The story of the game is... okay. The first half is pretty straightforward, but the second half is more interesting. The characters are also okay. Really, the biggest attraction is looking at the flowchart and seeing all the possible alternate outcomes for the choices you made. The flowchart's displayed after every chapter, and looking at it always gave me joy.

I've seen a lot of criticism for the graphics, but I thought they were fine, if probably worse than regular 3D graphics would've been. The weirdest thing is how there's a crazy event that happens after beating the game and feels like a cliffhanger. Not sure what the goal is there.

Next game hint: after playing cool music Tetris first, this felt a little bit obsolete.

Tagging on this one. 'sokay, Monster Hunter ain't for everyone.

67. Lumines (2004)

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/8/9/AABKTfAAEDix.jpg

Not sure if I should even give this a writeup, since I only played for like an hour and a half and didn't beat it, but oh well. Lumines reminds me a lot of Tetris Effect (no surprise, since it's from the same dev), but it didn't connect with me nearly as much. The first problem is that I just don't like the gameplay as much. It's fun when it works, but it's so similar to Tetris that I can't stop trying to play it like Tetris (think Tetris but your goal is to make squares rather than lines, and some of the blocks have different shapes). I never really got over my instinct to try to make lines, though I did figure out some strategies as I went.

The thing that discouraged me from persisting is that as you go, the visuals and music change, which is a fun way of keeping the game fresh even as the gameplay stays the same. Makes for a cool audiovisual experience. Unfortunately, it's the same order every time, so I ended up getting tired of doing the same stages over and over (you start from the beginning every time). The 'stages' are much shorter in Tetris Effect, so I didn't get tired of them despite it having the same pattern. The furthest I got in this was level 10 or so? I can tell this is a pretty good game, and I'd probably enjoy it more doing one run per day or something, but that's just not how I play games, so I ended up giving up on it. At least it led to the dev making Tetris Effect.

Next game hint: the FPS that modernized the genre (2001) (I think I'll start adding years to the hints now since they're too hard without)

I was a fan of Superstar Saga but I never really got the love for Bowser's Inside Story, which I didn't like at all and was my least favorite in the series. As far as I'm concerned none of the games after Superstar Saga managed to capture the same level of charm and fun exploration.

Though, to be fair I don't exactly consider Superstar Saga a must-play or anything either.

MacArrowny posted...

Next game hint: the FPS that modernized the genre (2001)

Halo?

Lumines is good shit. Put close to 100 hours into it since I got it on Switch 2 years ago. Definitely an adjustment from Tetris bit once you make it, the flow is just as satisfying

Yeah, Lumines definitely has some good feeling moments when you're in the groove.

MacArrowny posted...

Next game hint: the FPS that modernized the genre (2001) (I think I'll start adding years to the hints now since they're too hard without)

Red Faction

66. Halo: Combat Evolved (2001)

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/5/7/AABKTfAAEDj1.jpg

I played through Doom and Quake for the first time last year, and now I moved on to Halo, the "evolution" of FPS combat. I've played it multiplayer before, but never went through the campaign. It's interesting to compare this to those classic games, though they aren't that similar, especially due to Halo's focus on story. Halo's story is solid, and does a good job driving you to play more, but it's not amazing or anything. Cortana is more of an exposition machine than a character most of the time, and Master Chief only has dialogue on like three levels for some reason. The game feels like it's trying to be extra cinematic in general. Even outside of cutscenes, there'll be parts where the screen goes extra widescreen for dramatic effect (the timing is usually poor though so this didn't often work for me), and sequences where stirring music cuts in. The music was a useful gameplay cue too, since it meant a big fight was about to happen.

The combat was generally alright, and the basic mechanics of combat are fun. Only having two weapons works for the game, but I don't feel like the limitation makes it more fun in any way. The weapon selection is alright, though most of them aren't particularly exciting to use. Combat encounters aren't super well designed and feel repetitive, definitely not on the original Doom's level. Regenerating shields are an interesting mechanic, and I can see why they went with it - it means you can count on the player to have full shields every encounter, without having to litter the game with health packs. But ducking behind cover to let the shield recover during a fight is boring and bad. Not sure how that issue could be fixed. The level design was my main problem with the game. Lots of levels are huge for whatever reason, but that mostly makes it easy to get lost. There's tons of repetition in order to make those levels big, too, with identical areas that made me get lost even more. I guess levels this big were a novelty for the time, but the design is way behind the better '90s FPSs. Kind of a letdown overall.

Next game hint: what if Zelda 1 was even more mysterious? (2022)

65. Tunic (2022)

I feel like this is a good game, just not one I enjoyed that much. Probably the strongest thing about it is the world design? Everything is well constructed, and the way it hides secrets in plain sight is pretty nifty. Everything's connected well. I didn't find exploring it to be too fun though, because it doesn't feel that open and sometimes you don't get maps until later than I feel like you should (and accessing the maps can be a bit of a pain since there are so many). I often was unsure where to go and resorted to using guides because I'm a piece of shit that way. The storytelling is pretty cool - it's interesting trying to figure things out in a language you can't understand. But there's only so far you can go without being able to understand what people are saying, so it generally ended up moderately enjoyable more than anything.

It mostly feels good to play, but the combat's not amazing. It's a little harder than I'd like, too, especially since I never really figured out the card system - I wasn't interested in engaging in trial and error to figure out what they did. Thankfully, there's some easy mode accessibility things that can be fun for the areas that are a pain. The movement upgrades you get are both very fun at least. I enjoyed using them very much - they weren't particularly unique, but they feel good to use. Getting the true ending requires solving a bunch of puzzles, but I just ignored that and watched the ending on YT whoops. Other than that, the music/sound were pretty good and there were some fairly cinematic parts. The variety in environments is excellent too. Can't say I liked the game that much, but I didn't dislike it and there were some fairly enjoyable parts.

Next game hint: a classic adventure series returns (2022)

God of War: Ragnarok?

probably Monkey Island

64. Return to Monkey Island (2022)

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/5/7/AABKTfAAEDm9.jpg

Ah, how foolish my addiction to playing new games is. Probably should've just played the original (this is the first in the series I tried), especially since it apparently got a fairly modernized remake? Ah well. This game was mostly pretty alright. I'm not huge on the adventure game format, but it's pretty painless here. Playing with a controller actually felt better than M&KB to me, so I switched to that, and navigating around was generally pleasant. I wasn't huge on the puzzles, but some were okay and fun to solve, and it was neat how a couple had multiple solutions if you were creative. There's a new art style for this one that people were up in arms about. I thought it worked well enough for the most part, other than Guybrush's face, which looks terrible. Not sure why everyone else looks so much better. The story/dialogue were alright. Generally mildly amusing, but didn't really make me laugh that much. The ending was trash, though, and brought my score of the game down a fair amount. I could see what they were going for, but it was executed very poorly, alas.

Next game hint: What would make a better adventure game? A robot, of course. (2022)

Stray.

63. Norco (2022)

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/5/5/5/AABKTfAAEDqD.jpg

Before playing Norco, I'd heard comparisons to Disco Elysium and Kentucky Route Zero, which filled me with excitement and apprehension, since I love DE and hate KRZ. Fitting that the game ended up middling I guess? Though I see the similarities to DE more than KRZ, I think. It has a similar focus on interesting writing and descriptions, though they're not on DE's level. Part of that is probably due to the lack of voice acting - DE's voice acting was incredible, and there's no voices in Norco. Norco's probably at its best when people are having interesting conversations, of which there are a fair few, since its narration isn't all that special.

I feel like Norco does a good job at making the overall story interesting - there's a lot of fun mysteries that get introduced early on, and the answers to those mysteries are generally great. It suffers a bit more with characters though. I don't really care about any of them, other than maybe Leblanc, and even he took some time to grow on me. He benefits from his humor hitting more often - the game has a fair amount of jokes, but many of them aren't that funny IMO (with some incredible exceptions, like the cat part, and Leblanc's transformation).

Finally, though it's a heavily story-based game, there is a decent amount of gameplay in Norco, most of it bad. The 'puzzles' aren't good, the JRPG battles are okay but kinda feel like a waste of time, and the boat sections are godawful. It also seems fairly buggy - there's one room where it crashed three times on me, despite playing over a month after release. It's also a lot less open than it feels like it should be - there are a few sections where you get to explore at your own pace, but only a few. Your choices in general are pretty limited and seem insignificant. Compared to something like Disco Elysium, it just isn't on the same level.

Next game hint: a platformer that benefited from being played co-op but is pretty weak compared to the entry in its series that came out in 2022 (2018)

62. Kirby Star Allies (2018)

I dunno about this one. I played through it co-op with the same friend I played Return to Dreamland with, but I think KSA was less fun in general. Kirby games are easy in general, but this one was painfully simple. We almost never died, even later on, and there's basically no exploration, just straightforward paths. I like easy games - I often play games on easy mode! Still, there's such a thing as being too easy. Adding secret switches was fun, but they're practically unmissable. The gimmick of having four people with you all the time was fun, but it would've been more fun with four people controlling them.

Probably the most good thing about the game is that it has lots of powers you can combine. Doing so is fun. Other than that it was the basic general enjoyment of being a Kirby game, and Kirby games are generally fun. There's also something of a story, but it's not interesting. The graphics are fairly pretty, which is nice? I dunno, I wish this game had something more to it to grab me. Thankfully, Nintendo realized that as well, and Forgotten Land is the game Kirby fans deserve.

Next game hint: from a game with four main characters to a game with seven main characters (2022).

time to live a live?

MacArrowny posted...

65. Tunic (2022)
I often was unsure where to go and resorted to using guides because I'm a piece of shit that way.

ouch

Getting the true ending requires solving a bunch of puzzles, but I just ignored that and watched the ending on YT whoops.

OUCH

61. Live a Live (2022)

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/8/8/0/AABKTfAAEDvI.jpg

First of all, fuck this game. I ran into a softlock in the last chapter, where I saved in a dungeon, and it turned out I couldn't escape that dungeon without fighting a difficult boss I was way too underleveled to win against. My last extra save was about 45 minutes back, and the auto-save saved in that dungeon too. Without that one issue, I would've rated the game a good deal higher. This game has a bunch of archaic design decisions like this, stuff I really wish they'd modernized more for the remake.

The main problem with the game in general is that you spend way too much time in slow battles. The battle system is interesting and can be fun, particularly in the boss battles, but even those got kinda dull by the time I was in the later chapters. I felt like it needed two things here: a lower encounter rate (combined with more XP from battles), and/or a turbo mode to make the battles faster. The animations in battle are nice, but they're also pretty long. Some of the chapters have random battles instead of enemies on the map too, which is unfortunate. Wish they'd fixed that in the remake.

Thankfully, the other aspects LaL are quite a bit better. All the separate chapters of the story are mostly quite unique, which keeps the game feeling somewhat fresh as you play it. I liked the more unique ones the most. The Wild West, Present Day, and the Distant Future all eschewed typical RPG progression to focus on something more unique, and benefited greatly from it. Even though Present Day is 90% fighting, the way it's presented (like a Street Fighter game) makes it pretty compelling, and since it's all boss battles, the fights don't feel like a waste. The presentation was quite nice in general. The graphics mostly looked like an extremely nice SNES game, but more expressive than those sprites could be. Some of the cutscenes were pretty impressive.

The story and characters were a bit less impressive. I think they benefit a lot from the presentation - getting a bunch of different short stories makes it so they don't lose the player's interest, but at the same time, I don't think most of them were that incredible. The Wild West was good, but it also felt like a standard Western. Every tale was enjoyable in its way, and I don't have anything against them. I wouldn't say they'll stick with me though, and none of these characters will be favorites. The biggest standout might be the twist with the middle ages chapter, where the protagonist turns out to be a rapist asshole, but we couldn't tell because he's a silent protagonist. The Distant Future had some fun drama too, though the truth was pretty predictable to me. It all comes together as something pretty neat, but it certainly didn't live up to the hype.

Next game hint: It's pretty absurd that it took me this long to finally beat the first game in my favorite series (1987)

MacArrowny posted...

Next game hint: It's pretty absurd that it took me this long to finally beat the first game in my favorite series (1987)

Monster Girl Quest 1

...Ys I?

i don't know your favorite series i just tried to think of a game that might fit the year >.>

Maybe using the Japanese release date was cheating :p

60. Final Fantasy (1987)

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/9/3/2/AABKTfAAEDv8.jpg
Back in the day (sometime in the 90s), I tried playing FF1 on emulator, as I'm sure many fans did. I didn't get far - I think I played for a bit, did some random battles, died, and gave up. I didn't even beat Garland, maybe? It felt overly grindy and it's not like the story had much to offer as motivation. Thankfully, the Pixel Remaster fixes a lot of issues with the game (though a lot of the fixes were already there in the GBA/PSP versions). XP gains are more generous, there's a great map system, it adds an excellent autobattle functionality, and everything is just more refined with a nice modern coat of paint. It's probably a bit too easy now (I never got a game over, and very rarely had characters die in battle), but I don't generally find that to be a problem with JRPGs. Most parts of the experience are pretty cool. The story is simple, but it gets the job done. The way it hints about where to go next is neat, even if I did resort to a guide several times (taking notes would probably be the way to do this back in the day, I guess). The dungeon design was good. The game's fast-paced (took me ~12 hours). Combat, leveling, equipment, and the class system are all solidly designed.

The one issue I had with the game is that there are way too many random encounters. I don't think the encounter rate was particularly high for a game of that era, so I might just not be as tolerant of random encounters anymore, or maybe the auto-battle setting just makes them more boring. Auto-battle speeds up battles too, so I almost always used it, since I felt like I was wasting time otherwise. I had to find other stuff to do while playing since it was so dull. I wish the Pixel Remaster had added random battle settings of some sort - setting it to half encounter rate or being able to turn them off entirely would've been quite nice, and maybe then I wouldn't have been quite so overleveled. Regardless, it's nice to have finally beaten the first game in what was my favorite franchise for a long time.

Next game hint: I played four Metroidvanias last year. This was the newest and worst of them, offering nothing but atmosphere. (2022)

Ender Lilies?

FF1 is the first game in this ranking that I've played! I played the GBA version and not the pixel remaster, but still. I agree with most of your comments. I never had a problem with the random encounters, though. Auto-battling sounds handy, but it also sounds like it might've soured you on the combat by making it boring. Or maybe the GBA version just has a better encounter rate, I dunno.

Or maybe I've just gotten tired of JRPG battles in my old age. My preferences are a mystery.

Isquen posted...

Ender Lilies?

Could be Ghost Song, "good atmosphere but underwhelming gameplay" is mostly what I heard about it.

MacArrowny posted...

Next game hint: I played four Metroidvanias last year. This was the newest and worst of them, offering nothing but atmosphere. (2022

Elden Ring

Tag. Thinking about doing a ranking like this myself.

My favorite game on the list so far is Dragon's Dogma. I don't remember the bosses/minibosses being particularly HP spongy, but I did run from a lot of them until later in the game. I should probably go back and beat FF1 at some point, but the last time I tried I got TPK'd by a random encounter in the ice cave before I even got a chance to take an action and that set me back like 45 minutes of progress. Immediate "fuck this game I'm playing something else" lol

Kenri posted...

Tag. Thinking about doing a ranking like this myself.

My favorite game on the list so far is Dragon's Dogma. I don't remember the bosses/minibosses being particularly HP spongy, but I did run from a lot of them until later in the game. I should probably go back and beat FF1 at some point, but the last time I tried I got TPK'd by a random encounter in the ice cave before I even got a chance to take an action and that set me back like 45 minutes of progress. Immediate "fuck this game I'm playing something else" lol

Pixel Remaster has a great auto save system so listing progress is less common

Ice Cave was even more dickish on the original NES cart.

"1 damage? Ha, chumps."
"Slain..."

59. Ghost Song (2022)

Checked this one out due to currently having Gamepass, it getting really good reviews, and me always being in the mood for a good Metroidvania, and while it was a somewhat enjoyable game, it certainly didn't live up to the praise. Not sure why this of all Metroidvanias was one that got an enthusiastic critical reception - Islets came out not a couple months earlier and is rather better, I would say. I suppose the strongest part of the experience in the atmosphere. It's nice and dark, with a real Metroid-y feel. There's more of a story though. There's a camp with several people you get to talk to, and you often chat a little with people you find out in the world, too. The story parts are generally enjoyable, except maybe the ending, which isn't too hot. There's decent voice acting, which is nice but can be slow at times (lots of '...' lines). The game has some Soulsy elements too, which I wasn't a huge fan of. Losing your currency when you die doesn't add much to the game, and neither does losing part of your health bar. Enemies can be bullet spongy.

Combat feels pretty good, for the most part. There's a neat mechanism where your gun overheats and fires more slowly after you fire for a while, but your melee weapons do more damage while your gun's overheated. Encourages variety. The dodge is pretty fun too. I found some bosses a bit more tough than I'd like, but the difficulty goes down a lot after you've done a couple things in the main quest due to powering up, so that aspect wasn't too bad. Exploring can be a bit tedious sometimes, though. You get a sprint powerup, but it barely makes you go any faster and it consumes stamina, so I basically never used it. Running around everywhere should've been faster - just have the sprint be permanent and not consume stamina. The powerups in general are basically fine. The movement powerups are pretty basic, with the highlight being that the dash is also an air dash, but they're nothing new for Metroidvanias. There's a lot more weapon powerups, and those are a bit more interesting (you swap between them). I didn't use a ton (you can't have very many equipped at a time), but there was a fun one I got where you shoot out flies that fly around and kill enemies. Overall, it's a pretty solid experience, which I guess the critics liked because of the atmosphere? But I definitely wouldn't recommend it, since there's dozens of better examples of the genre.

Next game hint: Hail Satan (2022)

Well that's gonna be Cult of the Lamb.

The hint could actually have applied to one other game on my list, but maybe that one's less popular :p

58. Cult of the Lamb (2022)

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/2/6/AABKTfAAED2G.jpg

Y'know, I really liked the original Actraiser (played it on the Wii VC), and this feels like a modern equivalent to that. Half management sim (of a cult), half roguelike hack&slash dungeon exploration, CotL does a neat job giving us two entirely different gameplay systems to occupy the player. Unfortunately, even though it only took me ~13 hours to beat the game, it still felt like it got old long before that. For the first few hours, the upgrades to your town/cult are fun enough, since you get new buildings that add new systems and such, but then the upgrades get a lot more rote (instead of harvesting stone, you can harvest stone very slightly faster), and they turn into busywork, doing stuff like forcing you to talk to every single cultist multiple times, which I got tired of after a while. For the dungeons, there's not as much variety as a lot of roguelikes have, without a lot of weapons/upgrades. It's not like the dungeons are bad, but in a linear game you're not supposed to play forever, I feel like they could've just made bespoke dungeons that would've been more interesting than what we got.

The highlight of the game is the style. All the cult stylings, with unholy rituals and serving dark gods, are awesome. You can perform rituals to sacrifice your followers when they get too old to be useful (or just for fun), and your followers will love it if you've taught them that dying for the cult is for the greater good, since they'll be with their gods. The animations are awesome. Everything about this game looks very good. There's some silly stuff, like how your cultists will just poop all over the place before you build an outhouse, and you have to collect it to use as fertilizer, or how everyone gets sick from looking at dead bodies and such. That's what pushed me through. The story itself is good, serving one god to take revenge on the four who imprisoned him, but the writing isn't that interesting. None of the dialogue feels that great. This is one of those games where I felt like I was forcing myself to finish it, and almost dropped it a couple times.

Next game hint: what a horrible night to have a curse (2020)

Bloodstained

You are hitting so many games that I want to play lol

MacArrowny posted...

Next game hint: what a horrible night to have a curse (2020)

Castlevania II: Simon's Quest

one bloodstained short :p

57. Bloodstained: Curse Of The Moon 2 (2020)

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/5/6/8/AABKTfAAED54.jpg

Played through this one co-op. The game's basically classic Castlevania (which I was never that into), and not as modernized as I would like. Jumping still sucks, as do stairs. Running around attacking enemies can be fun though, and the big cast of characters is great. Everyone has unique magic powers and a different weapon, and they feel different to play too - different jumps, some can slide, etc. The level design is good, with many different paths to help replayability - which is a good thing, because 'beating' the game requires going through it 3-4 times. This is one of the things I'm not a huge fan of. It's nice that they add content for more playtime, but the content's not particularly good. The later playthroughs are basically all stuff you've done before, so I'd recommend just playing it once unless you really, really love the game.

There's not that much story, but the dialogue that's there is generally pretty entertaining. They're good at keeping it humorous.

Next game hint: sometimes you've got to make a mess if you wanna have some fun. (2022)

MacArrowny posted...

Next game hint: sometimes you've got to make a mess if you wanna have some fun.

Cyberpunk 2077

Powerwash simulator

Splatoon 3

56. Splatoon 3 (2022) https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/6/5/0/AABKTfAAED7K.jpg

This isn't gonna be a particularly fair review, since I basically only played the single player. I heard from a few people that the single player in this was pretty good and more high effort than the other Splatoon games. I'm sure that's true, as there were some pretty fun levels, exploring the overworld was entertaining, and the end of the game was all around excellent. I still didn't love it though. In terms of feel, I'd compare it most to the Ratchet and Clank games, as an animated third person shooter with platforming and a fair amount of weapons. There's some creativity here that the R&C games could certainly learn from (I'd like to see some actual new mechanics in those games), but most of the levels pale in comparison. Aesthetically, it's mostly identical levels floating in the void, and while they benefit from looking colorful, they aren't particularly interesting. Some of the levels can be pretty annoying too, and the objectives aren't always fun (stuff like 'shoot all the targets' is kinda meh). I enjoyed the levels that felt like actual levels much more, and the final level of the game (which is as long as several regular levels put together) is something of a tour de force. The bosses are all pretty fun, and the final boss sequence is damn epic.

In terms of basic mechanics, the game feels great to play. Moving through ink is awesome, and you get some cool limited powers like a grappling hook. Some levels use rails like R&C too, and those are mostly fun as well. The weapon variety is good, though the chargeable weapons don't feel that great in the single player imo, and I wish the game made you use different weapons more often in general. Finally, I should add that I tried a couple multiplayer matches, but it seemed like only the basic Turf Wars mode is available at first? I didn't really get it or have fun. I assume it'd be better with a group, and maybe the other modes are more compelling.

Next game hint: a classic platformer that failed to steal my heart (2002)