Not too much time for gaming this year. I hope to revisit the stuff I didn't finish, and there is so much I still want to play but might never get around to.
4. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
This game seems good, but will probably end up being my least favorite Souls game. It's a lot more demanding than the others as an action title, and I wasn't able to progress too far in it. I respect it for being different, and whenever I have more free time to dedicate to getting good at a game I might give it another shot.
3. Trials of Mana
I've seen mostly universal praise for this remake, and while I liked some things about it, I still prefer playing the original. ToM feels like every other action RPG now and has a bit too much micro management going on for my taste. The original had a lot of problems, but I'm not really satisfied with a game that feels so stilted and derivative being the "improvement." Questionable changes to character models and such too. Maybe I'm being overly negative. I did like the addition of jumping and added exploration in the game. It's also nice that it tells you what different classes will do in advance.
I'm very happy the game finally got an official release here, all told.
2. Night of Full Moon
A fun roguelike deckbuilding game with cute graphics. I only played the first major "dlc" pack (the whole game is DLC). Haven't tried Slay the Spire yet, but this is supposedly derived from it. The game doesn't break any new ground, but is a great time waster on the phone when you only have minimal time for games. Each class has different types of cards it specializes in, and this is really cool until you realize the standard "thin down and draw deck" strategy is better than actually using most cards in the game. It ranges from too easy to unfair without much inbetween. Usually, the only reason I met any challenges in the game was bad luck with abilities early on. If it sounds like I'm being negative, that's because most of the pleasure in this game was mindlessly clicking cards and sometimes finding completely broken combos. I can't really describe that in a way that sells the game. Sill, I'd recommend it. I was playing the game for most of the year on and off.
1. Final Fantasy VII Remake
I didn't anticipate this actually being good, but I'm overjoyed that it is. There are hundreds of reviews saying literally everything I could say about it already, including Tim Rogers' 3+ hour opus. Needless to say, I'm super excited for Part 2. It's great that we have a "remake" but the original still gets to stand alone as its own unique thing. As someone who has lost a lot of faith in Square-Enix lately, I'm even looking forward to FFXVI after this one.
The soundtrack is also album of the year!
.... Yeah, that's it. Not in-depth, I know. It's getting harder and harder for me to think about games with any kind of analytical hat these days.
