2021 Backlog Report

[vladgd]

1. The Outer Worlds



NEW YEAR NEW THREAD, heard this game was on the shorter end, so a good game to kickstart the year with. Had a 6 month hiatus from game 9, to game 10 last year, would like to watch a little less youtube and play a little more game/do something else productive. We'll see how that goes.

Fallout in space basically, dump the 50's aesthetic, with a western meets flash gordon aesthetic, with that bethesda open world vibe albeit smaller and more concentrated, and you got the outer worlds. Honestly not a big fan of the aesthetic, not knocking the game for it, but just not my cup of tea, it does work with what they're selling though. Started with a "stealth archer" build, found out the shooting is absolutely atrocious (playing on ps4, so that may be a factor), read that allies and diplomacy are actually really good in this game, started a new character.

Max leadership, max diplomacy, my character may have killed less than 10 things in the entire game, the rest was companions...they wreck house...seriously. Very refreshing change of pace for a game of this type, essentially a diplomat who can talk myself out of anything, and when I need to murder, I got two beefcakes with machineguns that are damn near immortal and make things into red mist before anything gets near me. This is one of the few games I can think of where points into speech doesn't feel wasted at all.

While I wasn't crazy for the universe, or aesthetic, the writing was entertaining, and it did feel like it went its own path not trying to be fallout 5. Very solid work by Obsidian, glad to see their original games picking up steam.

[Spectere]

I played through the first section of the Outer Worlds on PC and thought the shooting was…okay. I'd say it's easily better than the first-person Fallout games, but it kind of lacks the punchiness and visceral feeling of something like Cyberpunk or DOOM. It's serviceable, at least. I didn't have any issues with it, but it wasn't anything special.

[vladgd]

If I played on PC the aim issues may have not been as bad, but on ps4...yeah no.

2. Dragon Quest VI



I have been talking about beating this game since...near last February? But at a cost of...over $200.00 usd, used...fuck that. So I bought one of those err R4 devices... because yknow...if a man wants to play dragon quest 4, 5, and 6 on the ds, it will cost literally around $600, and yknow...fuck that.

That said, I did try to play the android version back before covid (I remember playing it in a restaurant) and as well received as most of the dragon quest mobile ports are...I really really really CANT STAND touch controls. Do they work? Yes, do I want to use them for a 25+ hour long game? No, I do not. Then I started again in July or something...and...Didn't really PLAY the game till...two weeks ago?

Game itself, pretty mixed bag. It's got some charm, it's got the Dragon Quest tropes I have come to expect having beaten a few of them now (the mermaids who always speak in rhymes in dragon quest 11, didn't know they did that in past games). It has a "real world" "dream world" theme to it, where you traverse through both worlds, and it gets pretty confusing knowing "ohh I gotta go to the dream world version of x town, or y town is in the real world", so it is what it is. There is a job system like final fantasy 5, or many other games with a job system, but they don't even give you the option of having it till ~1/3 through the game, which would be fine...if advancing in jobs wasn't limited by the level of enemies in any given area. Say you level up pretty decently beforehand, well you just fucked yourself for advancing in jobs because you won't have access to higher level areas till later and thus can't get new abilities...kinda shitty imo, and I think dragon quest 7 does this too...not looking forward to that one.

Last gripe though, isn't specific to this game, but games in general what do this. Say you got a 6/10 difficulty game, get to the last boss, and it's now a 12/10 difficulty game. The fuck does that do besides piss people off? You go through the "final dungeon" get to the "final boss" beat him, now you fight his SECOND FORM, takes a lot more time and effort but you beat him, now for the THIRDDDD FORMMMMM after your resources have been drained, no save points in the dungeon, no health/mana refils, game over means dungeon over again. OK WHATEVER, last guy is hard, he has 3 parts head and two hands. I'm gonna kill the head...cool dead...hand casts kazing (100% chance of reviving target with 100% health)...shit ok I'll kill that hand, barely hanging on but I can do this. OTHER HAND CASTS ZING (50% chance of reviving at ONE HUNDRED PERCENT HEALTH) and it works...alright I can't win anymore, no more mana/items, ILL RESTART. Do that whole bullshit over again, get to third form, KILL LEFT HAND FIRST and try to burn the other befo- IT REVIVES AGAIN FUCK THIS GAME, restart, do it again, fail, drunk rage, almost break things, blabla, im acting like a child at this point.

Two days later, I think I should stop drinking, be cool and try again. This time open a word document, to track the damage I do to both hands, so I can get them down to kill them in one turn so they cant revive eachother (full health rez is almost like the boss gets a second chance but your mana is still empty), accidentally kill the left one too early...two turns go by, ai DOESNT RES, kill other hand, super lucky, burn head, boss dead, extremely long end sequence, FIN DONE. I'd say fuck this game because of that, and yeah, fuck this game, but it was alright I guess.

It's a step up from 2, it has all the bells and whistles you'd expect from a dragon quest, but it's got more cons than pros imo. Not a bad game, but kind of hard to recommend when there's better options out there. I am very happy to have this one over with, been on my mind for almost a year now.

NEXT

[vladgd]

3. Doom Eternal



So...remember Doom (2016) being like really good, like, really really good? Despite the positive reception Eternal got, I was a bit skeptical, then like I played the game.

I don't remember the last time my heartrate went up so high from playing a videogame. This is a hard game, a very hard game. This game gives you a lot of tools, and expects you to use ALL of those tools, or it will kill you. Just listing what the doomguy can do in this game at any one time is uhh...double jump, he has a dash with 2 charges that recharges VERY FAST (a second, second and a half?), super shotgun has a grapple which you can use to sling yourself around, frag grenade which can be upgraded to re detonate on kills and upgrade for 2 charges, frozen grenade on A SEPERATE COOLDOWN from frag which freezes things in place and they take more damage, flamethrower which gives you armor from kills, glory kills are back and do 2 of those to charge your melee for a "blood punch" which does a ton of damage and good for breaking enemy parts, great for super heavies, chainsaw returns to give you ammo which you need since your max ammo is I think less than half that it was in 2016 which really sucked but the last pip of the chainsaw will recharge in ~20 or so seconds making ammo not that big a deal, crucible sword which is a one hit kill on everything with finite charges "cough" sans marauders "cough"...and all of your guns which have 2 mods each and you can swap super fast...

To compensate for the player having so many options, they throw what feels like twice the enemies at you from the last game, and they are all more aggressive, and do more damage...For example the first boss in this game, the doom hunter. He was pretty hard, and I felt pretty good when I beat it...then without warning, they immediately dump you with no checkpoint to another arena with TWO doom hunters...at the same time...ohh boy...then that enemy becomes a normal enemy in later levels...yep. Something about the game screams git gud, and I mean this in a positive way. Very fast, very frantic, and very fun when you rebind all of your keys and figure out how to play. Protip, bind dash to a mouse thumb button so you can dash in any direction easier, L ctrl is fine, but dashing left is awkward with the default setup.

Funny side thing, in the first third of the game I was relying on the plasma rifle hard. It feels a lot better than it did in 2016, then after I got the ballista/super shotgun, I don't think I wasted my cell ammo on this for the rest of the game. It is a great gun, but super shotty/ballista combos are incredible, and I almost think the game is impossible to beat without mastering the combo. Turn an arachnatron or mancubus from a serious threat into a joke, it's a game changer.

I could splurge about the game for a while, but I shouldn't be writing an essay, so I'll end at a few of the cons and wrap up.

-the platforming for the most part feels good, it breaks up the action, but sometimes its hard to know where to go, and you end up eating cheap damage from it

-the extra lives system that they added to this game because it was a lot harder than 2016 REALLY DID HELP, but, kinda feels like a "rich get richer" style system because lives are lost permanently THROUGH RELOADS...so if you rebind your keys (which you should) and trying to adjust, and eat a death...reload checkpoint, that life is gone baby. So the extra life system while helpful, made the game actually a lot more stressful than it normally would be, say you have 2 lives, and lose them both to a boss...now you really have to git gud because you just lost your 2 chances and have one try for your second attempt. Feels like a system to help people who are a bit above the curve, while being mentally degrading to those who aren't gifted in the fps genre. Thankfully after I got a hang of the game the bosses were all single attmepts, but...

-Marauders. This specific enemy was cause for much butthurt on the internets as one of the few flaws to doom eternal. This enemy is straight up harder than the bosses in this game. In a vacuum, the marauder is ok, it's like a duel between you the slayer, and a near equal...but...they really break the flow to the combat. These guys are like the doom slayer, they are very fast, very small (hard to hit) also they are immune to damage straight up, if you hit them with anything, they block it, and summon a cyber ghost wolf thing to fuck you up. Get too close, they shotgun you, get too far, they axe laser (whatever it is) you, say fuck it and get out of dodge to try to kill the other enemies first, THEY RUN AFTER YOU VERY FAST SO YOU BETTER TRY AND BE FASTER. What you do is have to get them in a goldilocks zone too far from shotgun, too close for laser axe where they go for a melee windup, their eyes flash green, and you got about half a second to hit them. If you play like a normie and just go full auto for a bit, it's going to take forever to kill them. These guys force you to (preferably get the quick weapon swap skill, and preferably NOT play the console version) to do more advanced stuff like weapon switch combos. They flash green, you immediately super shotgun to stagger, instantly swap to ballista to shoot, and if you're fast enough swap back to super shotgun for another blast, if you're too slow, he'll block it and summon a wolf. Do that like 3-4 times depending on your aim, and it'll stagger for a glory kill. BY THE WAY THERES USUALLY OTHER ENEMIES TRYING TO MAKE YOU DEAD WHILE YOU DANCE WITH THIS MAN, so have fun. You could just use the bfg to kill him...except he's immune, you could just use the crucible and its one shottting doom hunter/cyberdemon/archvile powers....HES IMMUNE, you gotta play HIS game at HIS pace. The only enemy in the game that forces you to play his game, totally changes the flow of combat for the worse imo. That's enough butthurt though, there's like probably less than 10 of em in the whole campaign (hurt me plenty, im not good enough to play ultraviolence) so while they suck, more than half of em spawn in areas with not a whole lot of other enemies so they are "managable".

Minor cons aside, this is a very fun game, they take what the last game did and went bigger badder and more badass the whole ride. Rebinding my keys and learning the art of the weapon swap (seriously look up high level gameplay of people playing master levels or something, the gunplay is unreal), kinda has me hoping more fps start to adopt this more classic arena fps style of play. I can't recommend it enough to anyone who enjoyed Doom 2016, it has exceeded expectations. Some of the best movement and gunplay I have experienced in an fps.

[Spectere]

Pretty much my only complaint about Doom Eternal was the "try again, loser" platforming. It feels fantastic when you're leaping over giant chasms with a clear end goal or direction, but having to do what occasionally feels like mid-air puzzle solving is a bit bleh. I was kind of ambivalent to it in the long run, I guess.

I honestly didn't mind the marauder all that much. I felt that the game mixed him in with other enemies gradually enough that I was able to work out a good rhythm (shoot the background enemies, see the green flash, and then quickly pelt the marauder). I'm sure I'll change my tune when I start doing a UV run, they seemed alright to me in HMP. That said, I do agree that the BFG and crucible should be able to damage him regardless of his state. I kinda feel that the resources for those two weapons are limited enough that giving the player the option to use them to down swathes of demons or use them to deal with a marauder would have been a good middle ground.

One other thing that I really wasn't crazy about is the way the game handles slayer gate keys. The game tells you that you can turn on cheats to go back and collect missing things, but last time I played they didn't mention that slayer gate keys were an exemption. I get that they want you to do the slayer gates without cheats, but couldn't they just temporarily disable cheats when you enter the gate or something? Or, at the very least, let you know that you couldn't collect the keys? Seems like a really odd oversight to me.

Still, I don't think I've played a game as fast and frenetic as Doom Eternal. I can understand why some people wouldn't like it do to its unrelenting intensity, but I seriously love it.

Also, I think I'd be remiss in not bringing up just how awesome the underlying game engine is. The game seems to run crazy smooth regardless of what you're running it on. I suppose it makes sense, given that the Switch was a target platform of both 2016 and Eternal, but I think it's still safe to say that id has solid engine tech on lockdown. Kind of a shame they don't license it out anymore. If it had adequate tooling it would probably be solid competition for Unreal Engine 4.

[vladgd]

The game seems to run crazy smooth regardless of what you're running it on. I suppose it makes sense, given that the Switch was a target platform of both 2016 and Eternal, but I think it's still safe to say that id has solid engine tech on lockdown. Kind of a shame they don't license it out anymore. If it had adequate tooling it would probably be solid competition for Unreal Engine 4.

That's another thing I forgot to mention. I recently bought a 50 inch 4k tv (I didn't know they were actually really cheap now a days), and I use it as a secondary monitor...Eternal runs great on my machine IN 4k. With the god tier soundtrack, having the game run (97%, some minor hitches on two levels, but I do emphasize minor) buttery smooth at high resolution on a big monitor, really top notch audio video experience. The only thing I can't do is stream the game in 4k, since it's about as much as my machine can handle, aim gets sticky and unplayable when I try streaming. Could be a fixable problem, but I have been too lazy to troubleshoot, not a serious issue though.

With slayer keys, I thought they just made them invisible, did that mean they were also not collectable? If so, calling bullshit. Because I swear I read on a tooltip somewhere that cheats are disabled in slayer gates, implying you can replay a level with cheats, to play a slayer gate, and it'll disable them just for the gate. I got all of my slayer gates first run so I cant go back to verify, but I was skipping many of the optional encounters since failing once or twice nukes your ammo and hunting for more is annoying, with cheats tho...might boot the game up and play around with it.

And I'll be honest, my rage with marauders wasn't with all marauders, but there was one in Necrovol part 2? that spawns after an archvile (which spawned after a doom hunter), and I had no lives...so I had to retry that entire battle 3 or something times because of that single marauder. AKA a git gud or die trying situation. Nothing too bad, but I did have a minor ragefit.

This game had me semi interested in playing some other single player fps MAYBE, looking at wolfenstein new order ($20usd on steam) and I may impulse buy that sometime in the future. This game may have did what persona 4 did for me with jrpg's, rejuvenate my desire to play an entire genre of game I had neglected for many years.

[Spectere]

With slayer keys, I thought they just made them invisible, did that mean they were also not collectable? If so, calling bullshit. Because I swear I read on a tooltip somewhere that cheats are disabled in slayer gates, implying you can replay a level with cheats, to play a slayer gate, and it'll disable them just for the gate. I got all of my slayer gates first run so I cant go back to verify, but I was skipping many of the optional encounters since failing once or twice nukes your ammo and hunting for more is annoying, with cheats tho...might boot the game up and play around with it.

The keys were definitely hidden and uncollectable when I tried this. They still appear on the map, but you can't see them in the world itself. Maybe the slayer gates function like that if you've already collected the key for the level, but if you haven't fetched the key yet you won't be able to unless you run through the level without cheats.

Last time I played was before The Ancient Gods released so it's also possible that they may have changed it when the expansion was released.

And I'll be honest, my rage with marauders wasn't with all marauders, but there was one in Necrovol part 2? that spawns after an archvile (which spawned after a doom hunter), and I had no lives...so I had to retry that entire battle 3 or something times because of that single marauder. AKA a git gud or die trying situation. Nothing too bad, but I did have a minor ragefit.

Ah…yeah, that one was seriously dickish.

This game had me semi interested in playing some other single player fps MAYBE, looking at wolfenstein new order ($20usd on steam) and I may impulse buy that sometime in the future. This game may have did what persona 4 did for me with jrpg's, rejuvenate my desire to play an entire genre of game I had neglected for many years.

New Order was pretty great. There are some parts that I wasn't particularly crazy about, but in general I felt it was a solid 8-9 out of 10 experience.

Haven't played Old Blood or New Colossus yet, but my dad really liked them. New Colossus is apparently a pretty big step up in difficulty, so if you move onto that one you'll probably want to step it back by one notch.

I heard Youngblood is trash. Can neither confirm nor deny.

[vladgd]

4. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order



This was a big surprise for me. First off, back in november there was some game sales, and I snagged outer worlds, ff7r, and jedi fallen order in one swoop. My ps4 has limited storage (500gig) and so I would install a game, beat it, uninstall, put the box away, blablabla. Technically Death Stranding was first...bought that one a while ago...but my breakup with the ex and moving house postponed that game.

Preamble aside, I started playing this game last week, calling it "star wars dark souls" to co workers. And uhh, while very true, it's got platforming elements like an uncharted game with an upgrade system/level design of a metroid game. While I actively DO NOT LIKE the uncharted series at all, this game isn't a third person stop and pop shooter, it's a dark souls influenced action game, with kind of a lot of enjoyable level exploration/platforming. And uhh, it's hard to stop playing. I had expected this game to be "mmm aight" but what I got was a DAMN FUN hard to put down experience. I can't recommend this game enough to any star wars fan looking for a new game to play.

Great job Respawn, looking forward to the sequel.

[vladgd]

5. Monster Hunter Rise



It had just occurred to me, that I counted monster hunter world that one year...I seen credits in this game, thus, it counts for the list. I'd call it a freebie if it didn't take me 45 hours...+howeverlong I will keep playing the game after that...

It's monster hunter, what's not to like.

[vladgd]

6. Death Stranding



Well...It's been a while...

I started this game JUSTTTTT after covid then quickly stopped barely an hour in. Been telling myself to come back since march 2020, last 2 months I've been saying I'm going to play it...and more nothing. However, finally, I did, and...59 hours of playtime later, I beat it.

Seeing reviews at launch, people expected the next metal gear from hideo kojima, only to get UPS man simuator with not that much shooting? HORRIBLE GAME!111

Yes this game is basically man deliver thing to place over and over again, but like, here me out...it's...fun...

If game where you go down hallway pointing crosshair at bad man and holding a trigger to make bad man fall down is ok, then why not game about carrying a bunch of stuff from point A to point B where the space in-between is a vast wilderness with the environment being an adversary on its own?

When I hit chapter 3, and started building highways turning a 30-40 minute job into a 2-3 minute job...I couldn't put it down. I finished the game yesterday with a 16 hour session. I DO NOT PLAY GAMES FOR THAT LONG ANYMORE. Even being away from the game I would think about what I wanted to do when I was able to play again. If metal gear is dead, then I am ok with what kojima is doing because this is a 9/10 type of game in my book. Why it took me so long to get going is on me and me alone, but I am glad to finally experience this game. Most fun I have had playing a video-game in a good while.

Fuckin buy it on sale or something since it MIGHT not be your cup of tea but if it is, it's a damn fine cup of tea.

BACK TO THE GRIND BABY, NEXT!

[vladgd]

7. Captain Toad Treasure Tracker



When I first seen this game on the Wii U I thought "awe man, I want to play that but I ain't getting a Wii U for it"

So they ported it to switch, where...I didn't buy it till I was drunk the other day and said fuck it. Well uhh, I beat it.

Watch video of the game, and it's pretty much that. Each level is very short with 3 diamonds to find, an end goal, and an optional objective. You can also enter the level to find pixel toad as an additional optional objective to complete.

The game itself is very aesthetically pleasing, it's almost like each level is its own diorama. The gameplay is fun, and hard to put down. Not too challenging, but some of the levels/objectives are pretty tricky. It's got enough to it not to be boring imo. It's also got a 2 player mode which I will try to get the girlfriend to try later on, but I have yet to try that out. The only real con with the game to me is some levels require you to use the onscreen cursor to manipulate the map, which if using a pro controller uses the motion sensor, and...it isn't great. Playing on portable mode you can just touch the screen, so for certain levels I almost recommend using portable mode just for those. It didn't kill the game for me, I played pretty much everything with the pro controller mostly fine, but Nintendo "innovation" isn't my cup of tea.

Game has just shy of 80 levels which doesn't take too long to blast through, but if you want to do all of the optional stuff it's a healthy chunk of game. Beating the main game unlocks a bonus chapter which has super mario odyssey inspired levels to start, then blocks of old levels with unique twists. AS WELL AS A DLC CHAPTER, which I haven't touched yet, but I think they're asking for only $7, so I might nab it whenever I got the itch to play some more. With how bitesize this game is, pretty easy to turn on play for 20 minutes and walk away satisfied, so I probably will come back to this game to complete more optional stuff.

Pretty happy it lived up to my expectations, been wanting to play it for quite some time now.

Not worthy of its own post, I have also been playing more baba is you, logging over 32 hours on my file...not sure I'll beat it, not sure I even CAN beat it. But it's just a fantastic, if not VERY VERY VERY HARD game. Game starts out simple and cute, but it's legit hard. IF I can manage to beat it, it'll be the hardest game I'd completed out of every single game I have logged in these threads so far, not even joking. But since I don't think that'll happen, It's just fun to pop on from time to time and bash my head against a wall attempting to make some progress. So far I "completed" all of the main worlds, and was kinda confused why the game didn't roll over and say I beat it, but beating whatever number out of whatever number of levels in a world to get the macguffin to unlock another thing, for all worlds doesn't count for "winning". I have since got to a secret world, which in turn has another secret world within it...so I ain't sure where this game is going but it feels like going to star world which leads into the special world in super mario world, only a lot harder.

Ohh and you can get it on mobile...ffs it's a good buy whatever platform you fancy.

...ON TO THE NEXT!

[vladgd]

8. Metroid Dread



Probably seen this one coming but I just polished this one off 100% item completion in 12 hours.

Lets start with the cons.

-"big scary robot sections" not scary, very trial and error, very annoying. Not as big a part of the game as I expected, so they don't ruin the game, but they are my biggest con.

So that's it. This game is straight up awesome, from graphics, to how good the zones look, to the music, to the very VERY polished gameplay you should expect from a nintendo game. This is a very challenging game, probably not harder than the original nes game, but these bosses take from the samus returns book of whup yer ass, then you think you beat them, and they were just getting started. By the time you die, and die, and die, and die some more, the "git gud" levels should be of a high enough concentration in your bloodstream where it almost feels easy. Some of the shinespark puzzles are so precice that it got me thinking of my EXACT INPUTS a few times "go through this area, tap down, slide, enter morph ball mode, one bomb, wait, fall, tap up once, NEUTRAL B, forward. Fighting game training mode vibes from some of these I swear.

No spoilers on story, but let's just say if other m (nobody considers it canon, but using it as an example) treated samus like a crybaby...let's just say dread does a 180. They made samus feel very powerful in this one...especially the end sequence...ohh boy.

I ain't gonna call it better than super metroid(it might be, but new game, honeymoon phase, warped judgement), but I'll say people who don't think this game is worth the $60 price of entry just aren't into good games.

If you are on the fence because of spooky robots, it's not enough to tarnish a TOP NOTCH metroid experience. Definitely one of the better games in the series.

funny thought, if link is zelda, master chief is halo, and samus is metroid...one of these is actually true...

[Spectere]

-"big scary robot sections" not scary, very trial and error, very annoying. Not as big a part of the game as I expected, so they don't ruin the game, but they are my biggest con.

One of my friends and I spent about a half hour trying to crack the code. We basically determined that you have to nail the counter slightly before the spark for it to reliably go off, and considering the timing has some degree of randomness to it, that's a bit tough to do. That said, I did end up getting grabbed by the yellow E.M.M.I. a few times and was able to flawlessly nail the sequence multiple times in a row. Then again, considering that E.M.M.I. is all about speed, it wouldn't surprise me if the parry timings were a bit more fast/consistent as well.

I'd say that my biggest two complaints both deal with muscle memory. I used to casually speedrun Zero Mission when I was in college (by today's standards my best Any% times would be in the upper end of the top 100, so...not bad, really) and even 15-16 years later I find it tricky to adjust to a different wall jump and speed boost/shinespark style. It took me maybe an hour to get used to wall jumping (traditionally, Metroid games require you to pull away from the wall before hitting jump, not pressing into the wall), but I'm really not crazy about having to manually activate the speed booster.

At least it's not just me. I was chatting to someone in an FFXIV dungeon party the other night and they had the same issue.

funny thought, if link is zelda, master chief is halo, and samus is metroid...one of these is actually true...

Goddammit. I never thought about that before, but you're right. XD

[vladgd]

I thought the walljump thing was a bit strange, but I got used to it quickly. Haven't played metroid since samus returns though, so it's been a while. In all honesty, I never was that good at walljump in prior games to begin with...but also never got the hang of infinite bomb jumps till this game, so maybe I got better, idk.  I think as time goes by people will remember the game as one of the goats, I think it's THAT good, at least right now I do.

However, new post, new game..s...

9. Castlevania Harmony of Dissonance



I nabbed this collection before metroid, but metroid came out too soon after for me to do much. Playing harmony since kid me already beat circle of the moon (a fantastic game on its own). This game is a weird mixed bag. Controls are great, the dashing feels super busted and fun, you can just spam it everywhere. You can whip dash cancel infinately, and it never got old. You also get a divekick later, so you're just zoom zoom machine. Hows it a mixed bag? It's probably the only castlevania game with bad music...it sounds like sub nes quality for some reason, its' hard to tolerate. Castlevania games always have good music and this one failed bad in that department. The worst offender however is the castle, you only get like 3 upgrades in the entire game, and theres a lot of backtracking between two castles (that are the same castle, just version A and B). Without a guide, its nes hard to get through, with a guide...it's still annoying to get through. Besides that, the difficulty is on the easy side, with pretty much every boss being a joke. Overall good game, but the exploration lowered my opinion on this one.

10. Castlevania Aria of Sorrow

Kinda didnt expect to be here so fast but uhh, I beat this game in a day. Neither of these games are long, but I didn't expect to go a day. Aira is the old new hotness the castlevania reddit is jerking off calling better than symphony of the night...and there's some merrit. It's a damn good game, a lot slower paced than harmony, having more or less normal movement options. But the music is there, the castle is really good and fun to go around, soul powers are fun, and plenty of upgrades to make you feel more and more powerful as you get through the game. Very very worth playing, and now having beaten all 3 gba castlevania titles, I can say aria > circle > harmony. But they are all good and all worth playing, none of them are all that long anyway.

Snag the collection if you are at all interested in castlevania, plays great on the big tv and plenty of bang for the buck.

With that, there's 10, faster than expected. Another year another surprise...and I think I may have more in the tank...

[vladgd]

11. Breath of the Wild



Few months ago I had a hankerin to play a zelda game, skyward sword was out with real controls so I was gonna get that...but for some reason I seen breath of the wild on the shop and decided to coin flip...

Needless to say the coinflip told me to get this game instead, so Ive been plinking at it for a few months now since this game is looooooooooong. Having finished the game, I can say that it's 2% cool stuff and about 98% filler. I did finish the game with an overall positive impression of the game, however going into the game I knew this wasnt a zelda game. Having beaten the game, this is not a zelda game. 120 shrines is wayyyy too goddamn many, and koroks...I dipped out after like 107. The slate powers do not replace the typical "go to dungeon get cool new item" aspect of a regular zelda game, and outside of instances where I needed to use them, I forgot they were there.

One big complaint + the biggest reason I didn't even pick up the game, weapon durability. You could argue it isn't so bad, but im gonna be honest, the hypothetical blind zelda fan that would say that, is biased and wrong. Later game when you get more weapon slots, you do indeed have plenty to get through most obstacles. But what it does mentally overall makes the game less fun than it otherwise would be. Wanna hit a switch? Have to use some RESOURCE, weapons are finite, bows are finite, and arrows are made unreasonably scarce. Its a matter of finding your least desired weapon and using that. Running around the word and see some weak enemies trying to pester you? I straight up let them hit me over wasting weapon durability on them, and I did this for the ENTIRE GAME...only time I deviated was when I was locked into a room with a lynel while I was on my way to ganon, and I was forced to kill it. They either should have scrapped the weapon breaking idea, or since there is cooking (a mechanic I did actually really enjoy), why not a repair mechanic using monster parts or whatever to mend weapons? And while on that, maybe an indicator of weapon durability...since...its a CORE mechanic of the game...So while the weapon durability does not make the game unplayable, it as a whole makes me make decisions that make the game less fun.

The difficulty is also wack. People complaining about metroid being too hard probably played this game, and the first 20-30 hours of this game is hard enough to make metroid its bitch. I probably died more in this game than I did in dark souls to be honest, every little thing can and will kill you. So after ~90 some shrines, and max rank barbarian armor, and a full arsenal obtained from killing enough white lynels to upgrade said armor...the challenge of the  base game (I know theres dlc stuff and trial of the sword but FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK that) was trivial. They weren't kidding when they said lynels were harder than ganon. Ganon more or less looked me in the face, seen who I am, and dug a hole for himself while he asked the game to play the credits for me. I don't know why I expected more, but with the whole "ganon is in there, you can fight him but you aren't ready, fight him when you're ready" made me think he'd be hard. But being ready, even without all shrines, means cakewalk.

Kinda didn't expect to finish it until much later, but as soon as I started doing divine beasts, it was a boss rush more or less for me. Had a good time, but too much fluff, too many annoying mechanics (rain is another one to come to mind, lets just have a mechanic that makes you unable to do the thing you were going to do, fun!), game could have been condensed into a more focused (yet still big and open world) experience. With a sequel on the horizon I hope they take some of the more egregious problems into consideration. It's still not a zelda game, but for what it is, it's carved out its own unique niche into the open world game pantheon. I enjoyed it as a whole, but it's flaws can't be overlooked.

+1 game on last year, and it ain't a short one either.