my 2021
some of these remain unfinished, and there's even more stuff i've tried, though not enough to feel like it should be listed here. i remain the absolute worst about finishing games. that said, these are the games i played the most this year, and/or found the most interesting and exciting...
25 Games
i'm not sure there's ever been a game with better writing—and writing prepared to bend to your choices. the human mess of harrier du bois smashed up against the mess of the world and the case he's on is just... a perfect storm of real shit. both makes me want to be a better person and to stay fucked up until that tequila sunrise.
as a port this absolutely leaves some things to be desired, especially compared to the much cheaper and better persona 4 port. still, what it is is a fairly solid port with some strange drawbacks as well as some qol changes that are undeniably more respectful of your time: choosing skills in demon fusion (instead of relying on rng), suspending anywhere you want, etc. it was a nice enough excuse to go for a true demon run and nod my head with the tunes all the way along. also, i modded in the battle music from raidou kuzunoha 1 on ps2 so it plays during the fights with raidou (instead of dante's music)...
ah, to feel an ache in my heart pierce through the fog of my depression. a masterpiece of hurt.
i have such a weird and spotty history with this game i feel should have been important to me in the mid/late '90s as chrono trigger was. one of the difficult things about emulation, historically, is that is has been somewhat unreliable, feeling more like a dabbling in ephemera than the rock-solid experience of playing a cartridge on a real console could be... that's changed a bit by now. in any case, stepping out into the underworld to be greeted by this music feels as familiar and nostalgic as the most intimate game experience from the halls of memory. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jl9xEpwNMdY
i've been playing this game for years. i originally played ~20 hours of it back when it came out on ps1, only to be cut short by a move to california... several years ago, now, i picked it up again and since then i have dipped in here and there to play through a bit more—which is ideal, given the episodic nature of the stories within. i am, however, reaching a point where i'm nearly finished piecing the forgotten world together, and 2022 may be the year i finally bring this absolute epic to a close.
yeah, you know, this is a game i hold in higher regard than dread because, frankly, it's just more interesting as a piece of art. you can read my review to see why i think so. :)
THIS is the vibe i want from cyberpunk. 100%
dread, meanwhile, is a fantastic video game. it's not without some drawbacks and the lore and themes at play are fairly expected metroid stuff at this point, but that's really quite fine with me and i think it's a great time with some of the best controls in the series and a host of truly thrilling boss fights.
perhaps an odd thing to say about a punishing mystery dungeon roguelike: this game is like staying in bed on a saturday morning.
by appearances this may seem like a fairly middling jrpg of sorts, but man... the vibe is so strong. it almost feels like it comes from the mindset of a dos-era pc game more than it does sfc. maybe that's just me, though to be sure this is one which stands out from the crowd in its own way.
crazy that i never got around to even trying this until recently. more than a seiken densetsu, let alone a final fantasy, this feels like a more castlevania-ish link's awakening and it rules.
probably the best druaga despite the importance of the original? there are a bunch of untranslated games i'd love to try, but i mean how do you get comfier than a mystery dungeon game on ps2?
