2021 In Games
Has it been another year already? 2021 was another stressful year for all of us, and like so many I alleviated much of that stress through the games I played. This year, I played 62 games! Despite feeling like I had less time to play this year, I managed to very nearly match the staggering amount I got through last year. So let's get on with it!
⭐⭐ = Generally Recommended
⭐⭐⭐ = Absolute Must Play
I have also added YouTube links to each games titles. Check 'em out!
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~JANUARY~
⭐
When the Past Was Around was a lovely little narrative Adventure game about love and loss, as so many Indie Adventure games are. It has a very soothing score, and was a nice and relaxing game to unwind with after the hectic holidays had ended. It's not one I would go out of my way to recommend, but if you are into these kinds of games, I'd say it is worth checking out.
⭐
After having played the excellent Metroidvania, Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight, I was excited to dig into the next game in the series. Once I finally carved out the time for it, I found Minoria to be interesting, but not quite as strong as Momodora. Rather than 2D pixel graphics, the game is done in a 3D cel-shaded style. It looks nice, but doesn't quite "pop" the way the last game did. The combat is as fun as the previous game, and there is plenty of exploration to be had in the game's, admittedly brief, runtime. This world has a rather rich story, but I'm not very good at keeping up with lore in most cases. It's looking like there are going to be more games though, so that's exciting! Here's hoping the older games find their way to Switch, too.
⭐⭐
Once I finished Minoria, I decided to finally wrap up Wandersong. It's such a charming and heartfelt game, but the lack of combat/action in a game structured like a typical Platformer made me bounce off of it often. That's not to the game's discredit; it is very clearly meant to be an Adventure game about not fighting. I just wasn't really in the mood for it most of the time. It is for sure worth looking into though, as there just really aren't enough games out there about going on an epic quest as a noncombatant bard. And the developer's new game, Chicory, just dropped on Switch, so you can bet I will be playing that soon!
⭐⭐
What does it mean to be whole? To find that "perfect something" that completes us and gives us meaning? When we build a relationship with someone; when do we fight to stay, and when do we let go? If our partner finds fulfillment without us, how do we move forward? Journey of the Broken Circle is a game about personal growth through relationships, and finding what it is we genuinely need contrasted with what we presume we need. It plays out as a standard Puzzle-Platformer, and is fairly short, being mostly narrative. As a Pac-Man-like "broken circle", you are trying to find anything to fit that little slice that is physically missing in order to make navigating easier. It is incredibly poignant, and one of the better narrative Indie games I have played. I highly recommend this one.
⭐⭐
Nintendo got caught slippin' and selling the entire Captain Toad game with DLC on Switch for $5, so I figured this was the best chance to play through the extra missions not present on the Wii U original. As in 2014, this game remains a delight, and while it is nice that we got fresh stages and DLC on Switch, it's really a shame that we still haven't received Captain Toad 2. Maybe someday!
⭐⭐
I finally finished the first Kororinpa: Marble Mania in January of this year, and it was a delight. I tended to play this in the evening before bed, making it a nice way to wind down at the end of the day. In the game, you roll a marble to the goal using the Wii Remote. I still haven't started the sequel yet, but I am looking forward to it!
⭐
Okay, so I've wanted to play this for a long time, and passed on getting it back in the day, so I decided to just pick it up and give it a go. It's really fun! But it sure does a number on your touch screen, and the controls are pretty involved. Suffice to say, if I put the game down for more than a week, I forget how to play. It's no surprise this one didn't take off as it lacks the simplicity of most Mario sports titles.
⭐
Since Psychonauts 2 was right on the horizon, I figured now was as good a time as any to get through the interquel on VR. So I spent one solitary afternoon playing through it, and as always in VR, had a very nice time. I do recall getting stuck a few times, but I don't think it was too frustrating figuring it out. For sure a must play for those preparing for Psychonauts 2, since that game picks up in the end scene of this one.
⭐
I had been anticipating this game since it was first revealed by Yacht Club (the Shovel Knight team) years ago. Apparently, it was going to be their first title as a publisher, and they helped out with minor dev work on it. It looked incredibly fun, but in the time since its initial announcement, The Messenger, my 2018 GOTY, released. Cyber Shadow had some big shoes to fill if it wanted me to not compare the two, and unfortunately, it didn't quite make the cut. While the fast paced combat generally feels tough, but fair, there are moments where the difficulty spikes heavily, and attack and defense buffs rely on you playing well. I eventually hit a wall, like a literal wall covered in enemies, and was unable to progress. It didn't help that the game released right before Ys IX and Super Mario 3D World. I ended up dropping this game and not having any desire to return.
~FEBRUARY~
⭐⭐
IT'S HEEEEEERRRRREEEEEE! A brand new Ys game approaches! While I didn't find this new entry as compelling as the last one, Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana, I still had an absolute blast playing it. The fast-paced button-mashy combat is incredibly exhilarating, though I did find the game to be easier than past games. It's clear the team at Nihon-Falcom want you to play at the higher difficulty levels, so I might do that next time I fire it up, especially since it supposedly takes advantage of PS4 Pro/PS5's extra power, something I did not have at the time. Generally, Ys games have self-contained stories. You will learn a little about the larger history of the world, but outside of people having "heard of a red-haired adventurer", there's not much continuity between games. Out of the gate in Ys IX, Adol gets arrested by the Romun empire and questioned about all the trouble he's caused in previous adventures. While it's cool to see the series start to work with the larger world, it doesn't really go anywhere with it. It does feel like it could be setting something bigger up at least. The narrative arc of the game also does some really interesting things, but the twist this time didn't really land for me. It felt too obvious, and there didn't seem to be any real consequence to it. Perhaps that was a result of the grandiose ending of Ys VIII having far too much consequence? As always, the star of the show is the music, and while there isn't one single standout track like there usually is, there are a lot of really great tracks to hear. If you like Action/JRPGs, you really can't do better than the Ys series, though I don't know if I would start with this one? Maybe try Ys VIII first.
(WiiU, Switch [Bowser's Fury])
⭐⭐⭐
Waaaaaay back in 2013, we were experiencing Mario fatigue. There had been a new mainline Super Mario game every year since 2009's New Super Mario Bros. Wii, with TWO new games releasing in both 2012 and 2013. Super Mario 3d World was at the tail-end of this Mario Mania, and despite being every bit as clever, warm, and lovable as 2010's Super Mario Galaxy 2, the game didn't do enough to distinguish itself from all the New Super Mario Bros. games at the time. So any excuse to revisit a game that has managed to live rent-free in my head all these years later is a good one, and this game hits super different in 2021. It's so good! The platforming challenges are so fun and memorable, and the music is fantastic. It's a great contrast to Super Mario Odyssey, and the two manage to compliment each other well.
Which makes Bowser's Fury all the more fascinating. Merging the open environments of Odyssey with the more restrictive moveset of 3D World somehow really worked! This bite-sized Mario adventure was incredible to experience, and frankly, I hope for more smaller adventures like this in between bigger Mario games since they generally take a long time to come out. It's been over four years since Odyssey!
⭐⭐
I played this game casually back in 2008, and felt like revisiting it after seeing it on sale in the eShop. It's a fun exploration-driven racing game that I tend to recommend a lot, and I've been playing it off and on throughout the year. Probably not looking to beat it or anything, but it's a nice game to boot up every once in a while. Shame it takes like, five minutes to boot up on Switch though.
~MARCH~
⭐
Laid-Back Camp is a super chill anime about girls going camping, and it's such good energy. I was excited to give the VR game a go and see what it was about, and while it was cute, there really wasn't much to it. I get it's basically just an interactive anime episode, so I don't know what I was hoping for. There's two of these, but I decided to skip on the other one. I'd probably be less upset if this game weren't $20. For $10, it's fine. Anyway, skip the game, but watch the anime.
⭐⭐⭐
As an avid fan of Metroidvania games and pixel graphics, this game caught my eye when it dropped on Switch, and it turned out to be one of the best Castlevania-inspired games I have ever played. The atmosphere, the combat, the music just ooze IGAvania, so if you're feeling that itch and Bloodstained didn't quite scratch it, give this a go. Given that Touhou started life as a Shmup, the bosses are heavy on bullet-hell style attacks. The fights are tough, but while I normally get frustrated from bosses with pattern-based attacks, learning these fights was really fun! It just made me think about how much better a game like Hollow Knight could have been if I felt like I had just a little more room to breathe during the boss battles.
⭐⭐
Let's get this out of the way: this is the worst Zelda game. Not just my least favorite. This game (while still great!) suffers from poor dungeon design, overuse of incredibly bland BGM, a dull and empty overworld, and some control issues that would be improved in the follow-up, Spirit Tracks. As I said though, this game is still really fun, and I don't mean to discredit anyone's enjoyment of it. Also, now that we are several years divorced of touch-based NDS control schemes, all the quirky ideas feel fresh and novel again! In 2007, having to control Link entirely with the touch screen was exhausting. But now it's cool, because
~~~~tWo ThOUsaND SEveN Is ReTRo~~~~
~APRIL~
⭐⭐
After years of waiting, Stick Fight finally dropped on Switch, and my friends and I had some fun beating each other up in a video game. Not much to say about this. It's cheap and fun. Check it out.
⭐
Taking heavy inspiration from Donkey Kong Country 2, aka The Best One, Kaze and the Wild Masks is a fun 2D Platformer that almost lands on its feet. While I adore DKC2 and wish there were more games like it, games like Kaze and the Wild Masks and Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair manage to emulate the look and design of DKC2 without properly aping its feel. There's something really special about the way DKC2 feels in your hands that no other game compares to. That said, if you aren't a picky shit like me, and like Donkey Kong Country, you'll probably really dig this game. Despite my negativity, I do recommend it. It's fun!
⭐⭐⭐
This is one of the most hilarious games I have ever played, and easily in the running for my 2021 GOTY, despite the fact that it only dropped on Switch this year, and has been on PC for longer. It's a Point & Click Adventure game full of minigames where you attempt to help poor Pat to foil a hit put out on him by his family, who is very obviously just trying to throw him a surprise birthday party. I can not recommend this game enough. Go play it and laugh!
⭐⭐
It's a PS1 throwback 3D Platformer! It's $1! It's super cute and fun, with pretty solid replay value. They even added some fan created levels later in the year. If you have a Switch and like Platformers, just spend the dollar.
⭐
I finally finished Picross 2 for Game Boy this year. I've been much slower at finishing these in recent years, as I am playing games before bed a little less. After finishing this, I picked up a Switch Lite so I could move on to playing through the Switch Picross games, and always have a Switch at my bedside. Handy!
⭐⭐
I enjoy subversive/meta style Adventure games, so I picked this up because it looked fun in the Nintendo Direct I watched. And it's pretty solid. Some of the puzzles are a little tough, but the humor is solid, and the writing is overall pretty good! I'm not going to spoil the concept beyond the title, because there's some cool surprises, but essentially, you boot up the game only to be told there is no game. So, you go poking around to make a game anyway. As you do.
⭐⭐
Boy I sure do like my moody, emotional narrative Indie games. In Lost Words, a young girl is given a journal by her grandmother to encourage her writing. You alternate between exploring the normal journal entries and navigating the fictional story she creates in between entries. It's a beautiful story about finding your voice, cultivating skills, and coping with loss. One of the highlights of the year for me.
⭐
This was another Nintendo Direct reveal that caught my eye, but one that unfortunately didn't deliver. It's an interesting enough story about dealing with the trials of being a creative while also navigating the costs of adulthood, but a lot of the jokes and writing just don't quite land. The gameplay is solid and interesting, but not very deep. It's mostly concerned with its story, and trying to do the meta thing by aping Earthbound and Undertale. A solid effort, but not quite there.
~MAY~
⭐⭐
The day we have been waiting for for 22 years is finally here. A sequel to Pokemon Snap! It's pretty much everything you would want a modern take on Snap to be. They even added a bunch of new content a few months later, though I have yet to check any of that out. Honestly, if I had to fault the game for anything, the challenges given to you by the NPCs are often too tough to parse out, or make happen. I couldn't do it without a guide, and attempting to do all of them as soon as they popped up made the game tougher to enjoy. About halfway through the game, I stopped doing the challenges, and started having a lot more fun. I do miss some of the flourishes of the original, and wish the sound design had been a little more, idk, "poppy"? There was an Arcade-like feel to the original that isn't quite here. Still though, the game is great, and a fun, fresh Pokemon spin-off is what I've been waiting for.
⭐
By some insane miracle, we got remakes to the Famicom Detective Club games that released in Japan on the Famicom Disk System over 30 years ago. I played the first game, The Missing Heir, right away and found it to be really compelling. There's not much to it gameplay-wise. It's a fairly straightforward Visual Novel. I don't know that I would recommend it to people looking for a really compelling story, especially with the insane options available on Switch, but to those curious about an old, unknown Nintendo title, it's worth checking out. If you are only going to play one of these, I found The Missing Heir to have the more interesting story.
⭐
Not content with a single Visual Novel in the month of May, I picked up Kotaro Uchikoshi's new game, World's End Club. It began life as an Apple Arcade game, and finally dropped on Switch, and I am sad to say, that this game's story does not hit as hard as the Zero Escape games or A.I. The Somnium Files. I found the characters and their conflict uninteresting, and the Platforming-style gameplay dull. After several hours, I put down the game. I'm actually pretty upset I jumped on the collector's edition, but with the creators of both Zero Escape and Danganronpa behind it, this game should really have turned out better.
~JUNE~
⭐⭐
I decided to wait to play this until the Limited Run physical edition shipped, and it was pretty fun! Sort of a cross between Mega Man, Metal Storm, and Blaster Master, Panzer Paladin has you control a mech and fight with weapons you find while adventuring. Weapons can break, but can also be broken for temporary and permanent stat boosts. To save at a mid-level checkpoint, you have to sacrifice one weapon, so you are constantly having to adjust strategies based on what you have available. There's also multiple endings based on choices you make, and I screwed up the final choice on accident because I am an idiot, but the final few stages are Dr. Wily-esque, which means once you beat them, you have to start those from the beginning if you want to do it again! So I watched the good ending on YouTube. Great game aside from that.
⭐
I am always on the lookout for fun party games on Switch, and this one turned out to be really fun! The concept is that it is a 4-player split-screen FPS where all the players are invisible, so you have to look at the opponents screen to find out where they are. All the areas are color-coded to assist with this. It's super evocative of old PS1/N64 multiplayer games.
⭐⭐⭐
This is another one of the better games I played this year. In Alba, you are visiting your grandparents on the island where they live, and exploring the wildlife that lives there. The island hasn't been as touristy lately, and some areas have fallen into disrepair. So you use your camera to take photos and convince people to help touch up the quality of the island so tourism rebounds. It's really cute.
⭐⭐⭐
Have you ever played Mirror's Edge? Okay now imagine Mirror's Edge with a grappling hook. Yes, it's just as incredible as you're picturing. There's no story or anything, it's just an Arcade Platformer where you go for better times. It's crazy fun though. I didn't get super far in it, but had a blast playing it.
~JULY~
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity: Expansion Pass 1
(Switch)
⭐⭐
I never thought I would like brain-dead Hack & Slash games, but I guess they just needed the right spin to get me hooked. After putting down Age of Calamity late-2020 to focus on other games, I returned to it when the first DLC pack released and also wrapped up all the post-game content. I didn't go so far as to max out everyone's stats, but I did collect all the Korok seeds and complete every mission. It was a lot of fun, and not the last time I would visit the game this year.
⭐
The Girl Who Stands Behind is the second Famicom Detective Club game, and the first chronologically. I'm not sure which order they intended the remakes to be played in, but I opted for original release order. While I found the narrative of the first game a bit more compelling, the second does have a little more puzzle solving and interaction, so some may find that more engaging.
⭐⭐
Dimension Drive is a rad Shmup where you warp between two different dimensions to progress through vertically scrolling levels. I'm a sucker for a vertical Shmup with a solid hook, though honestly I haven't played too much of it yet. I need to play more!
⭐⭐
Hey, you! Yes, you! Do you struggle to say "No!" to others? Is it hard for you to set appropriate boundaries? Do you want to overthrow the capitalist overlords and dismantle their systems of oppression? Then I have just the game for you! In Say No! More, you can do all this and MORE! Don't wait, check out Say No! More, today!
⭐⭐
What is this, a redemption episode? This year, I found myself replaying two of my most maligned Zelda games: Phantom Hourglass and Skyward Sword. In both cases, I found the games mostly pleasant to revisit, and my overall opinion of each improved. For Skyward Sword in particular, I found myself shocked at how much I adored the score, which I had initially thought to be a little lifeless overall, with only a couple standout tracks. I think I was still stuck on the way melodies for Zelda had been written up to that point, but looking back, it really has a lot to offer. Most people you ask will say Skyward Sword's weakness lies in its reliance on motion controls, but I would strongly argue that that is the game's strength; especially now that the JoyCons vastly improve the versatility and reliability of actions. No, the game's real weakness is its linearity and handholding, the latter of which is wonderfully addressed in this remaster. Fi manages to be a narrative companion and SOLELY a narrative companion, which makes her far more likeable. Puzzles are not spelled out to me, and I am not being constantly told where to go. While you can still use dowsing like a waypoint, I found navigating the world much better without it, only using it for a few treasure hunting quests. I actually never got around to trying the button controls, so I can not speak for their implementation, but unless something is preventing you from doing so, motion controls are really the only way to play this game, and to avoid them is to genuinely miss out on what this game is trying to do.
Ugh. I still can't believe I like Skyward Sword now.
⭐
So one day I found this cute little Arcade Platformer that really reminded me of Bubble Bobble, and it's really fun! Haven't played a lot of it yet.
⭐⭐⭐
In the last week of July, I finally got my hands on a PlayStation 5, and decided to break it in with Astro's Playroom. I already adored Astro Bot: Rescue Mission on PSVR, so I knew I'd love this just as much. In a cruel twist of fate, and some absolute bullshit by Sony, the studio that made these games was shut down, so who knows if we'll ever see any more of this.
⭐⭐
Naturally, the first thing I had to actually purchase for my PS5 was the Final Fantasy VII: Remake DLC starring Yuffie. While a short jaunt, the game was still packed with just as much fun and emotion as the main game. I might replay the main story again whenever Part II actually gets a release date, so I can see it in all its PS5 graphical glory. But for now, I'll just wait patiently for the next part, I GUESS.
~AUGUST~
⭐⭐⭐
Here it is ladies and gents, my 2021 Game Of The Year! NEO: The World Ends With You was 100% the sequel we were all waiting for since the 2008 original came out of nowhere and stole our hearts. The battle system, despite being less involved than the NDS game, manages to be every bit as deep and exhilarating. The new characters are fantastic, and the old cast gets brought back in ways that feel organic and interesting. Shoka is an absolute gem. Rindo has the energy I want to take with me into every day. And the soundtrack! THE. SOUNDTRACK. While we get some old standbys like Twister back, the new tracks are truly the spotlight here. The first game was mostly JPop and Electronic, but the new game brings in more Rock and Metal to diversify the sound a bit and give the experience a little more edge. Takeharu Ishimoto is one of my favorite composers, and he absolutely kills it once again. God, I just can not say enough positive things about this game, I can't believe Square-Enix didn't believe in it enough to get the word out there about it. Please play this game, it's so so so so so good.
~SEPTEMBER~
⭐⭐
After ten long years, the best 3D Sonic game finally gets the respect it deserves!
Or at least it would have, had it not launched in a kind of rough state. Once again, Sega fails to give an external team the time and resources they need in order to push out a polished product. They've been working on it, but the damage is done, and one of the best Sonic games ever once again gets disrespected. Anyway, if you like Sonic, go play Sonic Colors Ultimate. The game is great, the soundtrack rules, and it's got the actual best song ever, Speak With Your Heart. There was a save glitch early on with the PS4 version, so I didn't 100% it this time, but now that it's been patched, I plan on going back. Sonic Colors was the first Sonic game that let the characters just be silly. For a long time, Sonic took itself way too seriously. Sonic Boom is the best iteration of Sonic the Hedgehog, and that lighthearted tone started with Colors.
⭐
I adore the WarioWare series, and was really excited for a new entry on the Switch, but the gimmick in this one just didn't do it for me. Most games have some kind of weird way that you interact with the game, whether it's tilt, touch, microphone, camera, or motion. But in Get It Together!, each character in the game controls slightly differently, allowing for multiple solutions to every microgame. It's a neat concept, but it made the game a little too convoluted for me, and honestly made it feel even less accessible than any previous entry. I hate to tell people to skip an entry on a less-loved series, but this is absolutely an entry you should skip.
⭐⭐⭐
This game rules. All the fantastic Arcade energy of the Cruis'n games from the '90s, with modern flair. It isn't a deep game at all, and there really isn't much level variety, but you can race as a T-Rex and a shark. You do the math.
⭐⭐⭐
God, these games just enrapture me. There really isn't anything quite like it. To take years of game design sensibilities and flip them on their head the way Undertale did, and then flip those sensibilities immediately after. It's the kind of brilliant commentary on games and how they can be utilized as an art form that rarely existed before the 2010s, and that larger game studios seem to be nearly incapable of doing, or at least lack the interest. Games like this remind me of why I adore the medium. Man, I can not wait for the rest of this game to come out.
⭐
I'm kind of a sucker for short and cute narrative games, and this popped up on the eShop one day and looked nice. It was okay. Pretty standard romantic Visual Novel.
⭐
I played this at the behest of my friend Ryo. It's not something I would normally play, but I had a really fun time doing co-op. We ran through it pretty quickly, so I don't really remember any of the story, and I think we messed up and missed a couple lore drops. The new game is apparently coming out soon, and while I'm not interested in playing it on my own, I'd be down to co-op it if Ryo wanted to again.
~OCTOBER~
Wait, we already have a sequel? It's only been... SIX MONTHS?! Anyway, this game is even better than the first one, with better check-pointing and hot new tunes, including a great vocal track! I'll pretty much buy any game SIACTRO releases at this point, both of these games rock.
⭐⭐
On a whim, I picked up a copy of Diddy Kong Racing, and popped it in one weekend when I wanted something old and comfortable. This was the first game I ever played on my N64. The N64 was the first console I ever purchased with my own money, and after getting it from Wal-Mart, I went to Blockbuster to rent Diddy Kong Racing in December of 1997. My mom's boyfriend helped me figure out how to connect it to the TV, since I had only ever used RF Switches up to that point, and iirc, our TV lacked composite inputs, meaning we had to route it through the VCR. It was a whole ordeal! Anyway, it was fun to revisit this. I forgot how great the music was, but that's David Wise for you. I never did get through the whole game, so I still need to go back soon and wrap up the campaign.
⭐⭐
I haven't played a Monkey Ball game since Super Monkey Ball 2 on GameCube, so I figured a remaster of the first three games was as good an excuse as any. So I picked up the game on Switch with a bag of banana chips and had a fun evening rolling around as AiAi and Sonic. It's still as tough as it was back in the day, but the added ability to slow down time and the removal of lives make it far more manageable. I haven't finished it, but it's a lot of fun!
⭐⭐⭐
IT'S FINALLY HERE! Metroid 5 has finally arrived, courtesy of Mercury Steam, and it is every bit as incredible as we could have hoped. Incidentally, I did not care much for the last game Samus Retruns, as I felt the focus on combat and excessive countering really hampered the experience. Dread seems to address most of my complaints, and is a far better overall experience. Start to finish, it is just a great time, and the narrative beats are incredible. Even if you haven't played Metroid before, I recommend checking this one out.
Hamster continues to bless us with great Arcade ports, this time of Puzzle Bobble 2. I always enjoyed this series, and figured it would be fun to have on Switch. And it is!
The second Age of Calamity DLC dropped in October, but unlike the first pack, it was a bit of a let-down. The new story content was fine, but the final playable characters were disappointing. Instead of letting you play as Purah, you control Robbie with Purah as support. Also, the final secret playable character ended up being Sooga, which while it's cool, he should have been playable in the base game. Final character could have been better.
~NOVEMBER~
This game caught my attention pretty early on, but after hearing about performance issues with the PS4 release, I opted to wait for a potential next-gen version. Now that I have finally played it, I found myself particularly disappointed in the overall gameplay. The third-person shooting mechanics are fine, but the random encounter system paired with the inability to heal except when dealing damage make coming back from a mistake particularly frustrating. If a combat encounter goes wrong early, it is very difficult to turn it around, especially if there are few enemies to draw health from. That all said, the writing and atmosphere in the game are top notch. The Sci-Fi story had me gripped the whole way through, and the tie-in with Alan Wake kind of makes me want to go back and visit that. The Threshold Kids shorts that you can find while exploring are absolutely the highlight of the game.
Nintendo released a new Game & Watch unit with three Zelda titles packed in, and I dabbled a bit with Zelda 1 and played through all of Link's Awakening one weekend in November. I enjoyed this unit a lot more than the Mario one. I hope they keep making these.
~DECEMBER~
Finally! A sequel to the solid Collectable Platformer Psychonauts is here! Playing two Sci-Fi secret organization games about telekinetic powers in a row was certainly A Choice, but obviously these games are pretty different. The Platforming in Psychonauts 2 is a ton of fun, even if some of the collectibles are hidden a little too well (a complaint I had about the first game). Like Cotnrol, the writing is top notch, but unlike Control, which is very dramatic, Psychonauts 2 is a comedy. And it is absolutely hilarious from start to finish. I'm looking forward to playing through both Psychonauts games again sometime in the future.
⭐⭐
So I am a sucker for chiptunes and weird retro gaming goodies. Developer RIKI brought together some chiptune composers, many who had made a name for themselves when the Famicom was still relevant, and released three games on the Famicom in Japan that acted as glorified albums you could play. Limited Run Games released these as NES cartridges this year, and they are every bit as lovely as I could have hoped. There isn't really any gameplay in the first two, while Kira Kira acts as an Auto-Run Platformer. We're here for the music after all.
⭐⭐
I had completely forgotten that Blaster Master Zero II had ended on a cliffhanger, so the surprise announcement of Zero III was truly a surprise to me! While I would have played it immediately in July, I opted to wait for the Limited Run release instead. Once I finally had made time for it, I found it solid and fun, but not nearly as strong as Zero II. Honestly, it might have been that the story of Zero II was just more engaging to me. Zero III was a decent end to the story, even if I wasn't fully satisfied with it.
⭐
Arcade developer Westone was working on this Platformer game in the 90s, but never finished it. Now that it is finally out and released, I bought it out of curiosity. It being an Arcade Platformer, I should have expected how shallow it would end up being, but it's a neat piece of history, and I plan on spending more time digging into it. It actually won a world record for longest development time for a game.
I had been putting off playing this all year, so now that I'm rapid firing short games before 2022, let's just get this out of the way. It's a pretty standard Action-Adventure Zelda clone. Lots of fetch-questing and fighting, and a great deal of humor. It's a really good time, and it's only a few hours long, so I definitely recommend it to you if the title has your attention.
⭐
Like Blaster Master Zero III before it, I was waiting on a limited physical release before playing Asha in Monster World. I had been putting off playing through Monster World IV for years, and figured the remake was as good a place as any to start. Unfortunately, nobody told the developers that 25 years have passed since the original, and the game has a retro-feel in a lot of bad ways. I can forgive weird difficulty spikes and a poor save system in a pre-2000s game, but not in a modern one. This game does nothing to improve the original game. Even the visuals, while charming, lack a distinct personality that makes taking them over the gorgeous Genesis sprite-work of the original. Now that I have sufficiently wasted my time, I should probably go back and play the original version so my opinion of this game isn't based solely on a half-baked remake. Also, I spent like $60 importing this only for a NA physical version to get announced after I couldn't back out. Now I have a random European Switch case in my library for no reason. Petty, but whatever, I'm really just unhappy about this game.
⭐⭐⭐
A gaming podcast I listen to, Triple Click, coined the phrase "Soothcore Games" to describe games like Unpacking, and I'm pretty fond of it. In Unpacking, you follow a young woman through various moves of her life, unpacking her belongings and learning about her through them. It's a great time, only a few hours long, and worth everyone taking a look at.
⭐⭐
My final game of 2021 was TOEM, another "Soothcore" game. In this one, you play as a young photographer trying to catch a glimpse of an "aurora borealis" style phenomenon known as TOEM. If you like exploring and taking pictures, you can't go wrong with this game. It's really cute!
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What an absolutely insane year. I don't know how I managed to fit so many games into 2020 and 2021, and I don't really expect to do so every year. 60+ games! That's more than one new game each week! Wild.
2021 SCORECARD
Played: 62
Beat: 46
Beat: 46
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