Started this when I first got a Switch, got round to finishing it this year. Can't say I understand what everyone sees in it - world has nothing interesting in it and the story dungeons are just the same thing four times. Or was it five? I don't remember. Dull.

DIdn't like it. Open world just felt dull and full of copy-pasted stuff. Wasn't fussed about the story. Saying "wretched dung-eater" is funny but that's all I've got.

Obviously took a ton of work to get it looking and sounding like it does, but I don't think the gameplay is very exciting. It never feels like I'm doing anything to bosses, either - even with damage modifiers it seemed like they would enter their next phase at a predetermined point. Gimme a healthbar at least!

Replay. Thought this was pretty weak when it came out, opinion remains unchanged, but the Batgirl DLC was good.

I have no love whatsoever for FFVII. This was free on PS+, so I decided to see if things would be different after nearly 20 years and a different combat system. Nope! I think I might like this even less.

Did the Golden Deer route. Tooooo long for what it is. Not bothered about most of the characters either. I liked Awakening well enough but I don't think I have it in me to play Fire Emblem regularly.

Played for 10 minutes and refunded it. If I want to waste my time I've a million other pointless games and they let me press an attack button.

Replay. Didn't like it on release, didn't like it now.

Replay. I first played this on PS4 when I didn't have PS+ so pretty much the only thing I could do was the campaign or the arcade mode things, so obviously I thought it stunk. Having played it on PC now the online modes are definitely fun but the stripping out of things like KDR stats, maps decided by player choice, etc. are completely vile to me. If this is what multiplayer shooters are like now I'll pass.

Replay. Not really sure why I went back to this. I think it was because I had been saying "Deathstroke the Terminator" out loud a lot and thinking it was really funny.

Avoided this for ages because of the shift to JRPG combat, finally gave it a go since it was free on PS+ and confirmed my fears. Just don't enjoy it at all. The battle UI looks insanely cheap as well.

I like to catch Pokemon and also evolve them. Held together by spit and hope, but it was pretty fun!

Played a bit of the first game in this reboot series and decided it was very Not For Me, but I gave this a bash after seeing it go for dirt cheap and enjoyed it a lot more. Maybe due to all the actual tomb raiding/adventure stuff in it. Avoiding ancient temple deathtraps: fun! Who knew! The bit where Lara Croft gives in to her Dark Passenger is funny, though sadly I think you're meant to take it very seriously.

I've only played up to the initial reveal - it seems cool but I'd rather play it on PC.

Watching my cousin play this traumatised me as a kid, finally decided to face my demons and play it. Inventory management and backtracking are not very exciting - dropped it with no plans to return after getting out of the police station.

It's LEGO Star Wars. It's fine! You run around doing simple things, you chuckle at the deserved light ribbing it gives these movies.

I liked The Stanley Parable. This was more of that. I liked it!

The good shit. Easy pick for my GOTY. Have went back to it all throughout the year, some of these new goal and costume unlock requirements are total murder.

Replay. Never finished it originally so I restarted and went through it. It's fine since it really is just trying as hard as it can to be a SotN clone, but as is the case with every SotN clone, it's not as good as SotN.

Easily the best Turtles beatemup, just brimming with personality. Went through singleplayer and with four players and had an absolute blast. Best OST of the year easily as well.

Replay. Had to do Tekken Force as part of the book. I don't like Tekken.

DIdn't really care for the style and the forced walking segments are a totally nonsensical addition, but there are some good boss fights here even if they run out of steam towards the end (final boss is really shitty). Don't know if it was just my control setup or what but I felt like I was fighting against an auto-aim a lot of the time in the ranged parts.

Got tricked into playing this by friends (i.e. they said I should and I agreed despite knowing better). The first one sucked, this one is even worse.

Not really that into it. Not bad, but not very interesting either. Fast forward for cutscenes is good, but a skip button would be even better.

First half is a fun Ninja Gaiden clone, although nowhere near as hard. Second half is a really boring Metroidvania. Fun game that turned into a horrendous slog.

Feel like I missed some controversy over this maybe? Had never heard of it but it showed up on an itch.io page I was on so I gave it a bash. Played it for 10 minutes and don't see myself ever going back to it.

Replay. Originally played it on PS5, finally grabbed it on PC so I have all the levels from 1 and 2 as well. The whole trilogy is just really good - I'm glad they shifted towards a more spy thriller-like world. Also some of the funniest games released in the last few years; every time Tobias Rieper speaks at length I crack up.

Replay. Semi-regular runthrough - I didn't write anything about it at the time because I honestly wouldn't know where to start. It's just one of my favourite games ever and hit me like a truck when I was younger. The ending of the words is ALMSIVI.

Didn't play this at the time because I assumed it would be crap. It's okay! The open world is a bit naff but the parkour is still really fun.

Replay. Mate asked me to play it over Fightcade with him so I obliged. Never been a fan. Great character art though, bring back giant shoulderpads Jill Valentine.

Sublime remake package. I've played this so much this year. THPS gameplay has aged like a fine wine.

I'm sure I would have had fun playing it but I honestly cannot remember anything about this game. Whoops!

Played this with some folk during a Work Get Together. Knowing you can't win but can deny someone else their shot is intoxicating.

Replay. This close to being a perfect videogame. It really is just stupidly good. Play it now if you haven't already!

Tried this out because I thought the combat would be enough to see me through, but it's not really that good and it would have to be very good to help me power through all this Latest Anime Season guff.

It was free, which is fitting because after playing I can tell you that this game is worthless.

Replay. One of the best games ever made. If you've never played God Hand, please go play God Hand.

Same story, sitting for ages, finally finished. I didn't like this nearly as much as the original but ate up all the first game fanservice like a champ, so it's all good by me.

Don't like Guilty Gear at all but played this with some friends who were trying to get into it. If I played it I would main Venom.

Replay. Decided to just go through a bunch of the Arkham games after Origins. Still solid! Had never played the DLC so I gave that a bash, it is definitely less good. Just remembered the reason I played these was because I was rewatching all of Batman TAS at the time. Still a great show, I recommend doing the same.

Meanwhile, a Castlevania 3 clone. Also fine. Good music!

The only thing I can remember about this one is the name Duff McWhalen, which is funny. Maybe I shouldn't have played so many of these one after the other.

Replay. It's Streets of Rage 2, you know the score. Easily one of the Mega Drive's best.

This is pretty cool but I'm not into Mortal Kombat so I couldn't be bothered finishing it. Probably really fun with two players.

Replay. Can't remember why I went back to this but it's always a good time. juddajuddajudda
(me seeing this actually runs on a Windows 10 PC: IT'S WOOORKIIIINNNGGGG)

Fuckin hell

Replay. Playing it alongside all these other games in the genre, you can see how basic it is in terms of level design and so on, but it really is just the coolest game of all time. The style, the sound, all of it really plants you directly onto the streets as you plant crims directly into the street. Love it.

Part of my ongoing quest to play every Mega Man game. Thought it was decent enough, but my save corrupted somehow and I haven't been holed to restart it yet. Maybe one day.

I have nothing but disdain for this. Genuinely repellent to me.

Replay. Couldn't stand this game when it came out, can't stand the franchise in general. Anamanaguchi can also go away.

Replay. I like this game still! The not-Conan world is really cool, love the big turtle village and the eagle stage.

Replay. Designed by Cenobites. You know how everyone talks about the Turbo Tunnel? Real testament to just how bad the Turbo Tunnel is that you never hear anyone talk about the level immediately after it which is even worse.

Replay. Now this is a Castlevania. Great game and the story - WW1 as an impetus for Draculaic resurrection - is a hoot.

Arcade version. Didn't like it as much as the NES version, just felt a lot shakier overall.

You can learn the bassline for the Pepsiman theme very quickly! Try it!

Wasn't too keen on where this one ended up but it's an interesting take on FMV games nonetheless. I would watch all of the movies in it.

Replay. The worst of these Konami licensed games, I think. Just total guff.

Definitely has more effort put into it than a bunch of the other licensed musous but I will never understand why they keep removing the ability to jump from these.

Replay. Now THIS is charm!

Also very cool! Good name to say as well. GUNSTAR

Replay. Man, it really does suck that hitting objects takes health, doesn't it? A very punishing game, but the presentation is just so cool. I was obsessed with it a kid, right up until I got the bad ending in it, at which point I was too disquieted to play it again.

Cool game! Doesn't scare me at all, which is maybe not a good thing, but I like Junji Ito and have always been vaguely intrigued by Uninvited, so the game's style works for me.

Can't really remember any of the tunes from this. Wanted to like it more than I did.

Played the Mega Drive version as a kid so I went for the arcade version here. Similarly clunky and not really all that fun, but all the monster transformation stuff is still cool and the voice clips are always funny.

Played the original and thought it was boring as hell. In years since I've seen a lot of people talk about how good it was, so I thought I might not have given it a fair shake before and tried this out. I was right the first time.

Replay technically, although last time round I only got as far as the first time you're actually able to move about and said fuck this. A lot of my friends hold this game in very high regard so I'm giving it another go, but went and did other stuff immediately after finishing the first chapter. I'll keep trying but Suda has yet to make a game I've enjoyed.

Another game I'd had sitting for ages and finally got around to finishing. The final stretch of this had me dancing about like a madman. Real highpoint of the series stuff.

It's pretty cool, isn't it? I noticed the other day that I've finally been knocked off the top of my friends list by a few seconds. Raging. Will have to go back to it!

What a game. Max Payne's Pro Skater. When you hit your groove and are actually doing well, you feel like the coolest motherfucker in the world. Very good idea to rip off Rollerball wholesale, because Rollerball is definitely cool in concept, but is mostly pretty boring outside of the actual match scenes. Very glad I played this!

Completely badass game. I had to remap my controls a fair bit, I wonder what it's like on an N64 pad. Play this.

Replay. The daddy. It definitely shows its age these days but it's still just so cool. Easy to see just how influential it was. What a game!

Another PS+ game. I guess I don't mind Minecraft, but I haven't put much time into this because it keeps trying to get me to do story stuff that I don't care about.

No, no thank you.

My 360 is broken and I couldn't be holed emulating so Black was out of the question, had to settle for this. Is it as good? Absolutely not. It's still Ninja Gaiden though, it's still a good game.

Only just getting round to playing this now with the full release. It's Warband but more, which is fine!

Very cool game. Remake this please.

Played the Japanese version. It's very good! They've refined the SoR formula to a fine art. And yet the best was still yet to come...man...

Finally, a SotN clone that includes one of the most important aspects of SotN: the Alucard Strut. Look at that walk animation! Hell yeah!
Short and sweet, it's a little on the easier side but you could do a lot worse.

A Castlevania that features almost no platforming. Also come on, you don't even fight Dracula!

First time playing the series. The gameplay is cool! There's some niggles - I don't think the crafting system stuff really adds anything - but the core of it is solid. Don't care at all about all the light novel-tier story guff, though, and the designs of female characters are suspect to say the least.

Now we're getting it. Still very playable and has one of the best title themes of all time.

I have no idea what the original cabinet was like for this, but this is a bit of a chore to play on a regular controller. I like the general weirdness of it though, and the invincible Robojacko. However it is unbelievable that it has tons of licensed Jackson music and the zombie level does not have Thriller. What the fuck!

Replay. Same as VSav and COTA. Maybe the most 90s game of all time.

Can't stand turn-based JRPG combat unless it's tactics style, so I thought this would finally be my in as it looked like it had some charm and was an action hybrid. The combat is just too basic for me though and you can really tell the whole thing is a remake of a SNES game. Abysmal dialogue as well. I got a fair bit in so I'll maybe finish it at some point, but woof.

Finally decided to take the plunge and play this. It's guff. Not the absolute worst game ever made, but there's just no reason to ever play this instead of a Mega Man game. Gave up at the Call stealth section, who has the time.

Has some charm to it but the combat was just too bland for me to want to finish it. Maybe one day.

The current era of KOF just isn't for me. XIV and XV feel like they're trying to carry on the Big Combo Game style of XIII, but combos in these games are just not nearly as cool or interesting. Feels like they want you to go down very specific predefined combo routes. I could watch, say, Marvel 3 footage now and there's a solid chance I'll see something I've never seen before; it doesn't feel like this can happen with current KoF. Also this game is ugly as hell. At least there's always 98!

Replay. One of Capcom's many remakes of Final Fight But in [Setting]. This time it's the grim future of...uh...4 years from now. It's fine, mostly gets points for being a little weird. Mack the Knife rules.

Replay. There can be no justice in the world as long as this is stuck on the Wii of all things. No idea why it was exclusive in the first place.

Started it but barely got any way in before I got distracted by other things. I've enjoyed every Ys I've played and can't imagine this one will buck the trend.

Good game. "Mood" stuff is usually thin gruel to me but taking photos of stuff is fun and this gives you a lot of options for taking photos, so I like it. Good soundtrack, good look. The first level of the DLC openly lifts from Johnny Mnemonic, so is very cool.

Fantastic animation ruined by physics and controls unchanged from the 80s. I've no idea why folk bother doing stuff like this.

Absolutely not the first game I played this year but the earliest one logged for 2022. Haven't finished it yet; it seems nice enough but just takes a bit longer than I would like.

Replay. Have never liked this game - I guess you can say the RPG elements were worth trying at the time, but I think the implementation here just goes against what's actually fun about the genre. And obviously it directly led to the Scott Pilgrim game, which is even worse.

Not quite as punishing as Revenge, but also more simplistic in level design. That's my only complaint, though - this game rules otherwise. You can tell they're really pushing the Mega Drive as far as it'll go. Looks awesome, sounds awesome, bunch of new movement options, good game.

Very dope. I was halfway through it before I got "Hard Corps". I played as the wolf guy obviously, he has shades.

Cool little idea. I like games with boats.

Golden Axe II - it's like Golden Axe. I like Golden Axe. I like Golden Axe II!

Replay. Started this but then decided to take a break from the Mega Man Marathon to avoid burning out on the Blue Bomber. Got a decent chunk into it though and this is still primo PS1 fare!

Wanted to like this, but I just found it kind of obnoxious, and I don't think it's a particularly good beatemup. Disappointing.