Riona (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rionaleonhart) wrote2018-10-18 05:30 pm
rionaleonhart) wrote2018-10-18 05:30 pm
Entry tags:
- ace attorney,
- ai: the somnium files,
- assassin's creed,
- beyond two souls,
- bioshock,
- bravely default,
- celeste,
- chaos;child,
- chrono trigger,
- dangan ronpa,
- dark chronicle,
- dark pictures,
- dead or alive,
- detroit become human,
- doki doki literature club,
- final fantasy,
- final fantasy ix,
- final fantasy type-0,
- final fantasy v,
- final fantasy vi,
- final fantasy vii,
- final fantasy viii,
- final fantasy x,
- final fantasy xii,
- final fantasy xiii,
- final fantasy xv,
- forgotton anne,
- freddi fish,
- ghost trick,
- gone home,
- harry potter,
- heavy rain,
- horizon zero dawn,
- iji,
- infamous,
- jak,
- katamari damacy,
- katawa shoujo,
- kingdom hearts,
- life is strange,
- mario,
- metal gear solid,
- nemlei,
- neopets,
- nier automata,
- night in the woods,
- okami,
- oxenfree,
- persona,
- persona 4,
- persona 5,
- pokémon,
- portal,
- ratchet & clank,
- red dead redemption,
- riona's slightly scary family,
- shadow of the colossus,
- silent hill,
- spider-man,
- spyro,
- superheroes,
- tales of the abyss,
- the coffin of andy and leyley,
- the last of us,
- the legend of dragoon,
- the sexy brutale,
- the wolf among us,
- the world ends with you,
- transistor,
- uncharted,
- undertale,
- until dawn,
- walking dead,
- when they cry,
- world of final fantasy,
- world's end club,
- your turn to die,
- zanki zero,
- zero escape,
- zoombinis
Procrastination Simulator.
Q: Riona, do you really have time to write mini-reviews of every game you've ever played?
A: I absolutely don't.
Q: And yet.
A: And yet!
Some of these are more just reminiscences than reviews, but I've said at least a line or two about every game. Possibly. I've almost certainly forgotten about some.
For the most part these are listed alphabetically, so you can easily track down any games you're interested in, but games in a series are listed together, so, for example, 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors, Virtue's Last Reward and Zero Time Dilemma are all under Z for Zero Escape, and World of Final Fantasy comes under F. I've put a (LP) next to games I've only experienced through Let's Plays. Flash games, text adventures and electronic versions of card, tile or board games are not included.
Games I first played after originally posting this entry are marked with an asterisk.
*13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim: What an incredible, ridiculous journey. A tornado of wild plot twists and traumatised teenagers. Contained multiple plot developments that left me suspecting it had been created specifically for me. The perfect game if you're me, and probably still a very good game if you're not.
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: I enjoyed this well enough (as you can probably guess from the fact that I've played a fair few other games in the series), but it did suffer from the fact that I played it after being exposed to Danganronpa, which is far more impactful because you get to know every victim and murderer in advance. Phoenix and Maya have a cute dynamic.
Ace Attorney: Justice for All: Franziska is my favourite prosecutor and I missed her a lot in the game after this. Also, this game had a case where the defendant was guilty, which was fascinating.
Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations: Enjoyable enough, but I didn't care for Godot.
Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney: I missed Phoenix as the protagonist, but I did really like the relationship between Apollo and Trucy.
Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth: I'll be honest: I 'ship Edgeworth/Kay.
*Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies: An absolute delight! Having three protagonists made for some great dynamics, and indeed some great shipping opportunities; I enjoy Athena/Apollo a lot. Also, excellent Apollo suffering.
*Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice: It's great to see more of Apollo and Athena! I'm not really a fan of Apollo's new out-of-nowhere backstory, though. I thundered through Dual Destinies with great speed, but I'm dragging my feet on Spirit of Justice.
*Afterparty: I've certainly never played a better game in which the goal is to outdrink Satan to escape Hell. Fun dialogue. Lots of stressful potential to commit faux pas. I'm extremely bad at every minigame except the dancing one.
*AI: The Somnium Files: I've played a lot of weird games about murder, but this is one of the weirdest. Mizuki is great. The protagonist probably wants to fuck his own eyeball. The final scene is the best possible way they could have ended this game.
*AI: The Somnium Files: nirvanA Initiative: I preferred the mystery of the first game, but this one was still extremely enjoyable and ridiculous.
Alex Kidd in Miracle World: I was really afraid of the little Grim Reaper that chased you. Also: WHOSE IDEA WAS IT TO HAVE THE BOSS FIGHTS BE ROCK-PAPER-SCISSORS GAMES
Analogue: A Hate Story: (LP) Forgot about this one! I recall it only vaguely, but I do remember that the revelation of Hyun-ae's identity was great.
Hate Plus: (LP) Forgot about this one! Again, I don't have strong memories of it, but I'm pretty sure I really came to like *Mute. Also, I have to respect the fact that this videogame bullies you into making a cake in real life.
Assassin's Creed: I enjoyed this, but it was so repetitive that I don't think I'll ever be able to play it again. At one point I was nearly at the top of a cathedral that had taken me ages to climb and then just fell off. The people you kill die romantically in your arms and it's the best.
Assassin's Creed II: Possibly the biggest jump in quality I've ever seen between a game and its sequel. Gorgeous music. I loved the weird creepy glyph puzzles.
Assassin's Creed Brotherhood: More of the same, but that's nothing to complain about!
Assassin's Creed Revelations: This felt like a real step down, but it's possible I'd just worn myself out on Assassin's Creed games by the time I reached this one, or indeed that I was just sad about the lack of weird creepy glyph puzzles. All I really remember is that there was a young prince who was definitely, definitely flirting with Ezio.
Assassin's Creed III: Not great on gameplay, but the first Assassin's Creed game where the characters really grabbed me; I loved the weird hostile relationship between Connor and Haytham. Learning about the American Revolution was also interesting; the UK history curriculum tends not to focus on wars we lost.
Assassin's Creed Liberation: (LP) They're never going to release a major-console Assassin's Creed game with an exclusively female protagonist, are they? I watched a Let's Play of this entirely so I could write Aveline into my Assassin's Creed/Sense8 crossover, because otherwise all the characters would be dudes. Fortunately, I liked Aveline a lot!
Assassin's Creed IV: I really enjoyed Edward as a protagonist, I really 'shipped him with Kidd, the Caribbean was gorgeous, and this somehow manages to be one of my favourites in the series even though half the gameplay was really frustrating.
Assassin's Creed Rogue: Very short, but some of the best level design in a series where the level design can often feel a bit slapdash. This one was really well crafted.
Assassin's Creed Unity: This game is widely hated, but I honestly loved it. I liked Arno as a protagonist; I liked Paris as a setting; I liked the murder mysteries; I liked how lively the streets felt on the PS4; I liked how you were forced to be stealthy because the combat system meant it was very easy to become overwhelmed.
Assassin's Creed Syndicate: Probably my favourite Assassin's Creed game, but it's set in my home city and features sibling protagonists, so I'm biased! I enjoyed the lighter tone a lot. The people you kill die very romantically in your arms and it's the best.
Assassin's Creed Origins: I've got barely anywhere with this one because I'm really bad at it! You'd think I'd be able to pick up and play any Assassin's Creed game after playing nine of the things, but apparently you would be wrong.
*Baba Is You: An excellent puzzle game! I'm frustratingly bad at it, but it's great. Haunted me with dreams about being stuck on levels.
*Beacon Pines: This was a cute little game, and it's clear that a lot of love went into it! It wasn't life-changing, but I had a good time.
*Better Half: A delightful little tale of selfcest and attempted murder. The more of Nemlei's visual novels I play, the more convinced I become that they were all made for me specifically.
Beyond: Two Souls: This was deeply, deeply terrible and didn't even have the 'at least it's ambitious in its branching storytelling' saving grace of other David Cage games, but it's fun to play and mock with a friend.
Bioshock Infinite: Interesting (if horrifying) worldbuilding, and the relationship between Booker and Elizabeth is intriguing, but I can't play first-person shooters. I never finished this one. At one point I found a hot dog in a cash register.
*Bloodborne: I found this frustrating and unrewarding and did not get far. Did manage to beat the Cleric Beast, though!
Bravely Default: This became a bit repetitive in the second half, but I really loved it. Loved the characters (especially Edea), loved the battle system, loved everything about it. (Well, almost everything. I have very little patience for the 'hilarious pervert' character type, although I did eventually warm to Ringabel.) When the title screen changed, I got chills.
Bravely Second: This was good fun, but it didn't quite match up to Bravely Default for me. To be honest, that's probably in part because the composer changed (the soundtrack for the first game was so good), but I also didn't feel quite as challenged by the battles in Bravely Second. It's possible I weirdly missed Ringabel being ridiculous, although I did like Yew.
*Bravely Default II: I didn't play this for a while because reviews had me afraid that it would be too hard, but in the end it had an enjoyable level of challenge! The game isn't anything life-changing, but I had a good time, and I really like how close the party members feel. B'n'D is a strong contender for my all-time favourite minigame; I spent a lot of time neglecting the plot in order to play cards with everyone.
*Candy Scabs: Tiny, cute little Hallowe'en visual novel! I don't love it as much as I love the rest of Nemlei's work, but I got invested nonetheless.
Catherine: (LP) You know, there aren't enough videogames in which you can get murdered in your dreams by a metaphorical representation of rimming.
*Celeste: I wasn't expecting this game to be so charming! Difficult but rewarding. It's challenging, but it's rarely frustrating; it genuinely wants you to succeed. I often go back to replay this one; it's satisfying to see how much I've improved!
*Chaos;Child: An interesting but odd visual novel that swings wildly between tonal extremes. Horrific murder! Weird fetishistic fantasies! You never know which you're going to get. Contains the horniest protagonist I've ever seen in a visual novel, which is saying something. Extremely poorly paced. Good agonised voice acting.
Chrono Trigger: Released in Europe at last with the DS version! This game had a lot of charm. I loved Ayla.
Civilization II: The real challenge in Civilization II was seeing how long you could play legitimately before giving in and activating the cheat menu. I never won a legitimate game. I loved the exploration aspect. We (by which I mean my brother Joseph and I) had an expansion pack that let us create our own units; my favourites were the poorly-drawn car with the words 'WE LIKE CAR' hovering around it, to make it clear that it was a car, and the bright red volcano slugs that exploded and turned the entire area radioactive. (The car unit was called Mission Car; I was trying to model it after the car used for SeeD missions in Final Fantasy VIII.)
Chromadrome 2: Very therapeutic; sort of put you in a trance, assisted by the music (NB: the gameplay footage on this video is not of the game itself).
*The Coffin of Andy and Leyley: I am absolutely obsessed with how weird the relationship between these siblings is. Awful and intimate and fascinating. I love the artwork, too!
Dancing Stage Fever: A Dance Dance Revolution game under the inferior European Dancing Stage name. This was great fun, even if it was a pain to haul out the dance mat every time we wanted to play it and I ended up hearing 'Come On Eileen' far too many times.
Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc: First experienced through orenronen's fan-translated screenshot Let's Play. I got incredibly invested and eventually played it myself. Hugely enjoyable, and I'm very fond of Naegi, but it does hold your hand a bit too much at the start.
Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair: My favourite game in the Danganronpa series, which is high praise, because I adore this series. Hinata is such a great protagonist. Komaeda is such a great... whatever Komaeda is. The minigames can get frustrating, particularly Hangman's Gambit, but it's got the most well-balanced murder mysteries in the series: not too simple, not too complicated.
Danganronpa: Ultra Despair Girls: (LP) Probably best skipped. Waaaaaay too creepy, and also lacks the 'murder mystery' aspect, which is one of the best aspects of Danganronpa. Some nice character development for Fukawa, though, and I enjoyed her interactions with Komaru.
Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony: I don't love the cast as much as I do those of the other main Danganronpa games, and the mysteries could be a bit overcomplicated, but this was still a great time. It has the stupidest ending to a videogame I have ever seen, and I love it. I was shrieking in incredulous delight at the screen. Also, the Love Hotel is the perfect concept and I want it in every videogame.
Dark Chronicle: The plot and characters are nothing special, but the music is gorgeous, the style works really well and it's fun to play. The dungeons could go on a bit too long.
*Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan: An imperfect but promising start to the anthology! Better than people give it credit for. The branching is a lot more ambitious than Until Dawn's, and the co-op concept is extraordinarily cool. I'm extremely relieved that everyone lived in my playthrough. (Well. Technically.)
*Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope: This game absolutely scared the shit out of me. Great atmosphere, great monster design, fantastically stressful. I hated the entire experience, while also being fascinated by it. I think I'll watch Let's Plays for the rest of the series, though; I really couldn't handle playing this one!
*Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes: (LP) An impressive step up for the series in graphics, animation and writing! I think the protagonists were a bit too well equipped for the threat they were facing, though; I feel that horror games tend to work better when the characters are out of their depth.
Dead or Alive 2: I had a lot of fun playing against my brothers on this! I really liked the countering system; it was very easy to grasp. Joseph usually played as Zack or Leon; I wasn't particularly fussy, but I remember I liked Kasumi and Hayate and hated Jann Lee.
Dead or Alive 5: This game's plot is the most overblown thing and it's absolutely hilarious. Clones! Explosions! All peppered with paper-thin excuses for the characters to fight each other and breasts that zoom around independently even when the owner is at rest. At one point two guys throw down because one insults the honour of the other's motorbike. I love it.
*Deltarune: Only the first two chapters are out so far, but I'm so interested to see where this is going! I love the addition of party members; it does great things for both the battle system and the character interaction.
Detroit: Become Human: The best David Cage game by virtue of not being entirely straight-faced. When there's a bit of humour allowed, your stories don't have to feel like a constant awful slog! The humour's mainly confined to the Connor storyline, which is noticeably better than the other two. Presents some great opportunities for horrible fanfiction, which I have happily exploited. Playing it is horrendously stressful, even though I watched a Let's Play first.
Devil May Cry: Forgot about this one! I still remember very nervously queueing up to buy this 15-rated game when I was only thirteen, but I got away with it! This game was trying so hard to be cool and it was hilarious. (Battle rankings included 'cool' and 'stylish'.) I also remember the cutscene where you obtain your sword, and by 'you obtain it' I mean 'it impales you through the chest'.
*Divilethion: Really enjoyed this dark, funny little visual novel! My only complaint is that it ends when the story is getting started; I'd love to see a longer version. In a sense, though, the developer's later title The Coffin of Andy and Leyley does feel like a longer version; there's a lot of thematic common ground!
Doki Doki Literature Club!: (LP) This game contained a scene that upset me very badly, but at least the creators were responsible enough to put a 'hey, this game may look cute but it's seriously upsetting' warning at the start, so I knew what I was walking into. Surprisingly good poetry! It's hard to find poetry that's not terrible in works of fiction, but whoever wrote the poems for this game is evidently an actual poet. Tries a little too hard to be shocking, but does have a bit of heart behind it; I don't feel it exists solely for the shock value. I worry a lot about the protagonist and it makes me sad when people blame him for what happened.
*Donkey Kong Country: I can see why the Donkey Kong Country games are remembered so fondly - they have a lot of charm and personality - but, wow, I don't miss 1990s game design. Without the Switch emulator's save state and rewind functions, this would be absolutely unplayable.
*Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy Kong's Quest: Even more difficult than the original! I have no idea how anyone ever finished this game in the SNES days; it's clearly impossible. (I always thought Diddy and Dixie were siblings, but apparently they're just friends? The Kongs aren't a single family??? This is blowing my mind.)
*Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble: I think this might be the earliest game I've ever played with a female protagonist! (Dixie was also playable in Donkey Kong Country 2, but she's not presented as the protagonist in the way she is here.) Wait, no, apparently the first Freddi Fish game precedes it. In any case, Dixie's a great early female videogame protagonist; she's not sexualised and, although there's very little story or dialogue in the game, her animations give her a lot of personality.
Drawful 2: This is a great, great game to play with friends. We usually play a couple of rounds whenever we have guests over and end up laughing pretty hard.
*Dream Daddy: (LP) I was surprised and impressed by how enjoyable this was! Amanda's the best, and I got extremely invested in her relationship with the protagonist.
Dynasty Warriors 2: (LP) Forgot about this one! Not technically a Let's Play, but I have fond memories of watching my brother Joseph play this. I was impressed by its vast crowds of enemies.
*Earthbound: (LP) Very fun and charming! It was interesting to experience this game (viazarla's screenshot Let's Play) after Undertale. You can really see that Undertale is a direct descendant; they're very tonally similar.
Electronic Young Telegraph: This was a monthly 'interactive computer magazine' that my dad used to bring home on floppy disc every month. Puzzles and games and quizzes. Joseph and I would play it together (I remember playing a lot of the games in this entry with Joseph but not many with Fred; I suppose Fred was too young to play with us at the time). I remember it only vaguely, but it was fun! One of the editions had a tiger-themed electronic board game I was really into.
*Exit/Corners: I can't believe this was free! So much love and effort has obviously gone into this game. I really enjoy Ink as a protagonist.
EyeToy Play: Forgot about this one! The EyeToy was a short-lived gimmick, but a fun one. I really enjoyed the rhythm action minigames, and the one where you have to wave your arms around to defeat the ninjas. Oh, God, I've just remembered the minigame where you clean windows to the tune of 'When I'm Cleaning Windows'. Immediately stuck in my head.
*Dissidia Final Fantasy Opera Omnia: I drop in and out of this mobile title. I'm wary of gacha games, but at least this one gives away enough free resources to be playable without paying, and it's good to see characters from different Final Fantasy games interacting. Makes better use of Final Fantasy Type-0's concepts than Final Fantasy Type-0 did.
*Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin: (LP) Occasionally hilarious, but so sparsely and weirdly written that I couldn't really get invested. Which is a shame, because I think I'd really have liked Jack in a game that had more care put into its writing! From my brief experience with the demo, I found the gameplay frustratingly difficult.
Final Fantasy V: I really liked Faris but never finished this one.
Final Fantasy VI: Very charming, looked great, wonderfully lively localisation. Too many characters to feel focused, but still a great instalment in the series. I'm still really confused that I ended up shipping Celes/Sabin.
Final Fantasy VII: Really interesting plot, but the graphics, translation and game design issues hamper this game. I'm hoping that the remake will address those issues and really let this game shine, but I'm scared that the remake team will forget how much fun Aerith is.
*Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII: Reunion: The plot is ludicrous bullshit and Aerith's characterisation is disappointing, but I'm having a good time with this! I originally experienced Crisis Core via Let's Play in 2015, and it gave me a new appreciation for Final Fantasy VII.
*Final Fantasy VII Remake: Exceeded my expectations in almost every way. Gorgeous and fun. I love it. Aerith is the best; turns out I needn't have worried about her portrayal at all!
*Final Fantasy VII Rebirth: I think this game could do with some streamlining - there's so much of everything that it ends up feeling a little exhausting - but I still had a really good time with it. Love the characters. I was startled to realise how big a Cloud/Aerith shipper I appear to have become at some point.
Final Fantasy VIII: I can say without exaggeration that Final Fantasy VIII changed my life for the better. I'd be a different person without it. As an actual game, it's a bit of a disaster. I don't care. I love it. Squall is one of my all-time favourite characters. I think Squall/Zell was my first 'ship. Balamb Garden is still very much my videogame home. I used to draw my own Triple Triad cards, photocopy them, back them with cardboard and play with my friends at school. The only videogame I've ever bought three times.
Final Fantasy IX: Oddly enough, I'm not that big on the individual components of the game - the battle system's too slow, the cast's not one of my favourites - but somehow they come together to create something perfect. I love Final Fantasy IX. But I particularly love Chocobo Hot and Cold.
Final Fantasy X: It's strange to remember how awed I was when I first saw Final Fantasy X's graphics. In my thirteen-year-old eyes, it was indistinguishable from real life. One of my favourite Final Fantasy storylines. Yuna's another of my favourite characters of all time.
Final Fantasy X-2: This went in an odd direction, and it bugged me that this game with an all-female party felt so extremely targeted towards men, but I do remember enjoying it, and I wrote a fair bit of fanfiction. I keep meaning to replay this game; it's been ages!
Final Fantasy XII: The plot sort of lost its way and dragged in the middle, but I really loved Balthier and Fran, and a lot of care went into the localisation.
Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings: Cute, but not enough Balthier, and I'm the worst at strategy games. I did like Tomaj, though.
Final Fantasy XIII: My favourite cast in the entire Final Fantasy series, a great battle system, fantastic music, gorgeous visuals, a really interesting story of people being forced into teaming up to fight against the inevitable. It's a shame there's not really any variety to the gameplay, but I still adore this game and I'm sad that it's so hated by the fanbase.
Final Fantasy XIII-2: Fun, but I wish Noel and Serah had had more characters to bounce off, and I hated that it retconned the ending of Final Fantasy XIII.
Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII: I don't think I'll play this again; it's just sidequest after sidequest, and Lightning has no party members and has explicitly had her emotions removed, which doesn't make for interesting interactions! But I did enjoy how magnificently stupid the ending was.
Final Fantasy XV: An absolute mess of a game that I love with all my heart. The photography is great. The boys are great. The gameplay is fun. The villain is probably the best in the series. A really lovely, moving depiction of friendship, set against a disaster of a plot. The first game I ever platinumed.
*Final Fantasy XVI: In strong contrast to Final Fantasy XV, this is a polished, well-made game I don't love. I liked the battle system and found the world interesting, but it never entirely clicked; the characters didn't really grab me, and the pacing suffered from the distribution of sidequests. Overall, I'd say I enjoyed my time with it, but it's not really what I look for in a Final Fantasy game.
Final Fantasy Type-0: Interesting concepts, but it never really explored them, and it had waaaaay too many characters, none of whom were given any depth. The battle system was fun, though.
World of Final Fantasy: This was cute, but I wasn't that into it, sadly. Even though you could put a Chocobo on your head. That was a very good feature. I usually love fictional siblings, but Lann never felt real to me; he just seemed like a punchline.
*Firewatch: (LP) Interesting game! Very atmospheric and, at times, very unsettling. Feels sort of literary fiction-esque in a way I'm not used to seeing from videogames. I was struggling for a while to work out whether it was a horror game, but in the end I think it's more of a mystery; it ends up giving clear answers in a way that feels incompatible with horror. I ultimately found the story a little unsatisfying; it feels more 'this is just a series of events' than 'this is a crafted story'. Which makes it feel realistic, I suppose, but realism in fiction has its downsides!
*Forgotton Anne: An interesting, weird little game. The gameplay was frustrating at times, but I enjoyed the visual style and the character interactions. I ship Fig/Anne a lot and I'm sad that I'm the only person in the world who's written fanfiction for it.
Freddi Fish and the Case of the Missing Kelp Seeds: I loved this as a kid, but I bought it on Steam recently and, tragically, it doesn't hold up so well when you're an adult! It's not a bad game, but it's very much a game for kids.
Freddi Fish and the Case of the Haunted Schoolhouse: Two things immediately come to mind when I think of this game: the 'heading off to school' song, and 'YOU JUST NEVER KNOW WHEN A PAIR OF PLASTIC-COATED SAFETY SCISSORS MIGHT COME IN HANDY.' I think this was the game in which I learnt Freddi was a girl and I was astounded.
Freddi Fish and the Case of the Stolen Conch Shell: I'm pretty sure this was the first game I ever played with a variable narrative (the thief was randomised on each playthrough and you had to collect clues to deduce who it was), and it blew my little mind.
Ghost Trick: A little masterpiece of a game. Great characters, great style, great story. Almost, almost perfect; it's a shame about the escort mission in the dark. Holds the record for the largest number of times I've shouted 'WHAT?' at the screen.
Gone Home: This was cute! I loved how much personality there was in the house. I feel bad for the family, though.
*Gris: So beautiful. Just ridiculously beautiful. I loved how you found new abilities (and colours!) as you progressed, and how it taught you its mechanics without words.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Game Boy): A solid little RPG, as far as I recall!
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Playstation): Completely different from the Game Boy version! I was fully aware that this was not a great game and enjoyed it hugely anyway.
Heavy Rain: (LP) Hilarious to watch an inexperienced gamer play. I got Rei to start playing it and I laughed extremely hard and I'm pretty sure I haven't been forgiven yet.
Hercules Action Game: I remember this being good, although I'm not sure how discerning a gamer I was at the time! Joseph and I were stuck on the centaur fight for ages (you're supposed to jump on his back).
Hercules Animated Storybook: I played this long before actually watching Hercules. I remember finding 'Go the Distance' very dull, which is incomprehensible to me now; it's so fun to belt out dramatically!
Higurashi When They Cry, Chapter 1: Onikakushi: I got this visual novel because I was promised I'd be able to watch a sympathetic teenager have a horrific paranoid breakdown, and it more than delivered.
Higurashi When They Cry, Chapter 2: Watanagashi: More excellent suffering. I sort of ended up 'shipping Keiichi/Mion in this one.
Higurashi When They Cry, Chapter 3: Tatarigoroshi: Incredibly bewildering! Although later instalments have cast a little light on what might have happened, at least. Escalates the bodycount and poor Keiichi's suffering to heights that border on the hilarious.
Higurashi When They Cry, Chapter 4: Himatsubushi: NO KEIICHI, TERRIBLE INSTALMENT.
Higurashi When They Cry, Chapter 5: Meakashi: All I can think of when I think of this chapter is the scene where Shion spends ten minutes psyching herself up to rip her own fingernails out.
Higurashi When They Cry, Chapter 6: Tsumihoroboshi: Incredible, perfect story of friendship and murder and the odd ways in which they intersect. Best power-of-friendship scene I've seen in my life. By far my favourite Higurashi instalment so far.
*Higurashi When They Cry, Chapter 7: Minagoroshi: Suffers a little from coming after Tsumihoroboshi, which is perfect and which it could therefore never live up to. The ending is extremely upsetting, which is saying something in this series.
*Higurashi When They Cry, Chapter 8: Matsuribayashi: Not enough focus on the kids! I do really like the compassionate attitude this series has towards people who've made mistakes, though.
Horizon Zero Dawn: Stunningly gorgeous; fascinating story. I didn't have any fannish feelings about this game, but I really enjoyed my time with it.
*Horizon Forbidden West: This was wonderful! It felt so good to come back to this world. I really liked being able to talk to all my friends at the base; it felt a little less lonely than the first game.
*Hypnospace Outlaw: An incredible 1999 Internet simulator; so much effort and love went into it! Intensely absorbing and surprisingly stressful at times. At times it was a little too hard to work out what I was supposed to do, but I enjoyed this game a lot.
Iji: I liked the pacifism option and the way the game changed if it noticed you were trying not to kill any of the enemies. If I recall correctly, though, a pacifist playthrough basically just entailed walking through every level, which is slightly weird game design. Still: interesting game, good music, and it was refreshing to see a female protagonist.
*In Stars and Time: Interesting game! I found the lack of colour surprisingly offputting at first, but I got used to it before too long. The writing is charming, and I like the battle system, but I struggled with some aspects of game design; it was often unclear where you were supposed to go next. Really captured the frustration of being caught in a time loop, which enhances the storytelling but detracts slightly from the gameplay experience. Despite my quibbles, I liked this game a lot overall, and I'm looking forward to seeing what else the developer does.
Infamous: I hated this game immediately and inexplicably and never played more than an hour. I hated the animation, I hated every character, I hated that it went 'ooh, time for a WEIGHTY MORAL CHOICE: do you want to be half-decent or just be a dick for no reason?', I hated everything but the cool comic-book cutscenes. I was reluctant to try other games in the series, but then...
Infamous: Second Son: I loved this game immediately. Siblings! One holding the other as he panics over suddenly having stigmatised powers he doesn't understand! The powers were all great fun, too. This game was a joy to traverse.
INSIDE: I played about half of this at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
th_esaurus's house and it was extremely creepy. Very well-crafted, but also very upsetting!
*Jack-in-a-Castle: Went back to try Nemlei's earlier work after falling in love with The Coffin of Andy and Leyley, and this is an impressive debut! Not world-changing, but I enjoyed my time with it. Very cute, with fun writing and a charming, distinctive art style. Nemlei is very good at creating a sense of chemistry between characters.
Jak & Daxter: Colourful, fun platformer. It's good for what it is, but I can't replay it now because I'm so used to its sequels!
Jak II: The Jak series did a hilarious about-face at Jak II and went 'okay, now these games are DARK and EDGY and Jak is FILLED WITH RAGE' and, I'll be honest, I ate it up. The difficulty also suddenly rocketed through the roof! I somehow love Jak II and Jak 3 while simultaneously hating every individual mission; they're so hard!
Jak 3: Jak and Ashelin made out for absolutely no reason at the end and I'm still puzzled by it. Also puzzling: the switch from Roman to Arabic numerals in the title.
*Journey: I was worried about the online multiplayer aspect of this game, but it won me over! I absolutely bonded with a complete stranger and I was a fool to think I wouldn't.
We Love Katamari/Katamari Forever: The Katamari games are great and ridiculous, but I can't play them for long because they give me motion sickness. If you play too much, you'll start looking speculatively at objects in the real world and considering the order in which you'd roll them up.
Katawa Shoujo: Considering that this is a dating sim set in a school for disabled teenagers and originating from 4chan, this was a lot better than I was expecting it to be. I finished Lilly and Hanako's routes but never got through the others, even though I really enjoyed what I played of Shizune's. Too much romance and not enough murder, I suppose. Danganronpa, Zero Escape and Higurashi are visual novels more suited to my tastes.
Kingdom Hearts: There's so much warmth and heart (ha) in this series. I 'shipped Sora and Riku so much when I was fourteen, and, let's be honest, nothing has changed in the intervening sixteen years. The ending still makes me cry.
Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories: Probably my least favourite instalment in the Kingdom Hearts series, but I do like the themes of memory and identity it introduces.
*Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories: I'm still not the biggest fan of the card battle system, but it's great to see the cutscenes remade in 3D! The replica's story is so fascinatingly tragic.
Kingdom Hearts II: I still love that Kingdom Hearts II is the third game in the Kingdom Hearts series. An improvement on the first game in many respects, but I felt they toned down the exploration a little, which is a shame.
Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days: Still the hardest I've ever cried at a videogame. I had to pause to mop my face up so I could see the screen.
Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep: WHY IS EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS SERIES OF RIDICULOUS DISNEY GAMES SO SAD
Kingdom Hearts Re:coded: I have my issues with Re:coded, but it was the game that made me realise how much I love Sora as a character, so I'll give it credit for that.
Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance: Or Doodly Deedly Dum, as I tend to call it; it's not like it's any more ridiculous. This is my favourite Kingdom Hearts game because it is all about the deep and abiding love between Riku and Sora. I have simple needs.
Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep -A fragmentary passage-: Possibly the stupidest Kingdom Hearts name yet, and it's up against strong competition. Ginger watched me play and laughed uncontrollably when, after most of the (short) game had been about a teenage girl's depression and despair, Mickey Mouse suddenly came out of nowhere.
*Kingdom Hearts III: There were things I wanted and didn't get from this game, but I had an absolute blast with it anyway. Better animation than previous Kingdom Hearts games, unsurprisingly; better writing, which was a surprise.
The Last of Us: Wonderful, wonderful game. It would be nothing without Ellie; she's one of my favourite fictional characters of all time, and she's absolutely crucial to everything that makes The Last of Us work. I've said before that it's a story about Joel coming to love Ellie, but it's also a story about you coming to love Ellie; if you don't care about Ellie, the game falls apart. The bow is the best weapon.
The Last of Us: Left Behind: A lovely depiction of post-apocalyptic human connection. I love watching Ellie and Riley goof around.
*The Last of Us, Part II: A divisive game, but I enjoyed it! I don't think it deserves anywhere near the amount of vitriol it's getting. I don't love it as much as I loved the original, but it's very well-made, it had an emotional impact and I had a good time playing it. I still love Ellie.
The Legend of Dragoon: I never finished this, because my memory card broke, but I enjoyed it! The translation was a bit awkward, as far as I recall, but the battle system was fun. I remember reading a scathing review of The Legend of Dragoon that compared it unfavourably to Final Fantasy, and I was OUTRAGED, but that review is probably the reason I checked out the Final Fantasy series, so, er, I suppose I owe it something.
Lemmings: Just remembered that Joseph and I used to play this! What a weird, dark game. I never felt good about making lemmings into blockers, thus condemning them to death in order to save the others.
Life Is Strange: A little too bleak and upsetting for me at times, but I enjoyed this a lot; it has engaging characters and a wonderful sense of atmosphere.
Life Is Strange: Before the Storm: (LP) I loved Chloe and Rachel's dynamic but wasn't that keen on the plot stuff about Rachel's parents. Chloe and Rachel's relationship was by far the strongest part of this game. The ending felt strangely rushed.
Life Is Strange 2: We're only one episode in and this is the best game ever made, by which I mean it's perfectly crafted to appeal to me personally. (Update, four episodes in: this continues to be perfect for me, although my level of intense emotional investment makes it very stressful. I love Sean with all my heart and I'm very nervous about how this story might end.) (Update, having finished the game: this is the hardest a work of fiction has made me cry in eight years and I can't stop thinking about it.)
*Life Is Strange: True Colors: I enjoyed this game, but it set up a romance with fascinatingly dark potential and then left that darkness severely underexplored! I suppose that's what fanfiction is for.
Looney Tunes: Martian Alert!: Switch between lots of Looney Tunes characters with different abilities! I remember this being good solid fun, although this was in the Game Boy days and I'm not sure how discerning my taste in videogames was.
*Lorelei and the Laser Eyes: Stylistically weird and interesting, but frustrating in many respects. I played this with a friend, which is probably just as well; I doubt I'd have stuck it out to the end alone.
Magic Carpet 2: Joseph and I used cheat codes to give ourselves all the most powerful spells and then just arsed around happily, never actually progressing the game. Good times.
Mario Kart Wii: Nintendo's generally strong on making games that are fun to play with friends, and this is no exception. Some people complain about the 'making things easier for people who are far back' aspect, but I like that it means no one ever feels like they're out of the running.
Mass Effect 2: Forgot about this one! I gave it a try, but I found it confusing and frustrating and never got far; I was terrible at the combat, and I struggle to get invested in protagonists when I feel they don't have a defined personality. I don't know what it is about BioWare RPGs, but I always seem to bounce straight off them. I suppose the fact I tried to start with the second game probably didn't help, but the first game wasn't available on any console I owned at the time.
*Master Detective Archives: Rain Code: What a weird game. I had a great time; it really helped to fill the Danganronpa-shaped hole in my heart, even if I prefer Danganronpa's mysteries overall. Yuma is endearing, his dynamic with Shinigami is great fun, and I love that he has a big crush on everyone.
Metal Gear Solid: I was embarrassingly bad at this game. It amused me when I accidentally ran into the wires in the Ocelot fight and got blown up and the Game Over screen shouted 'YOU IDIOT' at me.
Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance: Forgot about this one! I played a bunch of it in one sitting at a friend's house. All I really remember is that the plot was ridiculous and the dynamic boss battle themes were rad.
*Metaphor: ReFantazio: What an incredible surprise of a game! I had never heard of it until the demo came out, and it really sucked me in. Love the writing, love the gameplay. Strohl is my boyfriend. I'm having a blast.
Minesweeper: I felt really bad when I mineswept badly and the little smiley face got killed. It looked so nervous whenever I clicked!
*Minit: I'd heard this game spoken of positively, but I found it frustrating and dull. I ended up deleting it so I wouldn't be tempted to go back and continue playing.
Monty Python's Complete Waste of Time: Lived up to its name, but enjoyably! Monty Python games were very odd and very fun to explore.
Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail: I used to play this all the time with a primary-school friend of mine when she came over to my house, and one day she came over and said we couldn't play it because it was blasphemous and I, having grown up in a secular household, was really confused. It contains one of my favourite videogame jokes: at one point, if all the characters get killed, the game asks you if you want to continue from the same place, and if you say 'yes' it just shows you all the characters getting killed again. There was a 'spank the virgin' minigame we were definitely too young to be playing. At one point I accidentally set the Black Knight's tent on fire and was terrified.
Neopets: Neopets was basically a videogame, right? I was on this website all the time when I was twelve to fifteen. Shoyru was my favourite Neopet; at one point I owned three Shoyru, which is striking, given that you're only allowed four Neopets at a time. I once wrote a poem about one of my Shoyru for school. (There are still two Shoyru on my account (which still exists!), but I transformed the third into a Xweetok; I got Lab Ray access because I was LOADED in the early-2000s Neopets economy.) It was very exciting when I turned thirteen and was allowed to access the message boards. I spent a lot of time on the roleplay boards. Someone on Neopets maintained a hilarious site for horse (or 'equine', no horse roleplayer ever actually said 'horse') roleplayers which was just a list of terrible flowery terms that they advised you to use. Why say 'eyes' when you could say 'orbs' or 'oculars' or 'lanterns' or 'twin pools'? Why say 'ears' when you could say 'acoustic apparatus'?
*Neva: Gorgeous game, and I got very attached to Neva! Much tougher than I was expecting, though. I ended up very grateful for the opportunity to turn the difficulty down at any point.
NieR Automata: This was a good game and combat was fun and it managed to genuinely surprise me, but I can't say for certain whether I liked it. Very strange, very dark. Jackass is the best character. I was spoiled for how you beat the final battle and wish I hadn't been.
Night in the Woods: I played this when I was neck-deep in an existential crisis, which wasn't the best idea I've ever had, but it's well-made and funny and heartfelt and gorgeously soundtracked, and I enjoy what a disaster Mae is. Friendship!
*No-Good Noelle: Easily the most stressful of Nemlei's visual novels, largely because 'you're short on cash and bad at your job and you've fallen out with your friend and some creepy guy won't leave you alone' are such grounded, realistic problems to have. I did the Ivy route first and was reluctant to go back for the Yule route, because Yule unsettled me so much, but I had a good time with the Yule route in the end.
Noddy's Playtime: I played the 'driving around Toytown' bit so much as a child and yet never - not once - realised that you could access minigames by parking in the right spots. As an adult I discovered a blog post about the minigames and was astounded. I wish I could go back and tell my younger self about that. I thought it was just a driving game!
Okami: One of my all-time favourite games. Enjoyable to play, beautiful soundtrack, gorgeous visual style; everything looks like a brushpainting and it's incredible. It's rare for me to love a game if I'm not particularly into the characters, but Okami managed it.
Okamiden: Stronger on character than Okami, but the move to DS meant the visual style lost a lot of its impact, and that was such a huge part of Okami's success.
*Omori: Wonderful. Agonising. Had trouble sleeping at points while I was playing this. Left me with a lot of half-formed thoughts and emotions it's difficult to express. This game is going to haunt me.
*Ori and the Blind Forest: Very pretty! Very hard, but just satisfying enough to avoid tipping over into frustration. I played it on easy mode, and it was still extremely tough.
*Ori and the Will of the Wisps: Like its predecessor, this was very pretty and felt great to play. It also had some very good additions, and I was a lot more invested in the story. Unfortunately, I really didn't like the ending!
*Outer Wilds: An interesting space exploration game I'm upsettingly bad at. I fell into the sun so many times.
Oxenfree: I really love the dialogue in this game, and the visual style is really interesting. Alex is great, and I love watching her bond with her new stepbrother under pressure. I wish you could move a little faster, though.
*Oxenfree II: As in the first game, the dialogue is lively and enjoyable to listen to! I didn't get nearly as invested in this game's characters and their relationships, though. The plot reveal through abruptly being presented with a dialogue option was a really clever idea.
Pac-Man: oh no, spooky ghosts. Wasn't there a Pac-Man cartoon once? I'm pretty sure I used to watch that.
The Path: (LP) Strange and atmospheric and unsettling and fascinating. A part of me feels that I dreamt this one.
*Persona 3 FES: I don't love this as much as I love Persona 4 or Persona 5, but it still kept me entertained! The themes and tone are fascinating, and I like Akihiko a great deal. I also found going through Tartarus strangely relaxing.
*Persona 4 Golden: I played this after Persona 5 and was afraid it wouldn't measure up, but my fears were unfounded; I had a great time! 'Issue-ridden teenagers forming intense friendships against a backdrop of murder': my catnip. I enormously love Yosuke and enormously don't love Teddie.
*Persona 5: This game has some serious flaws, but I love it passionately. The battle system is fun, the visuals are ridiculously stylish, the music is great and I love all these kids. I played it for a hundred and forty hours and had an absolute blast.
*Persona 5 Royal: The extra content in this game catapulted me into loving Akechi, to my surprise and delight; I just found him mildly aggravating in the base game! I strongly prefer the original game's ending cutscene, though.
*Persona 5 Strikers: This was a fun little diversion! I don't think it was a necessary sequel, but it was good to spend more time with these characters. This game's version of 'Last Surprise' is an incredible remix of an already incredible song.
*Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth: The dungeon crawling is slightly tedious at times and there are some characterisation issues, particularly with regard to Akihiko, but I was delighted to spend more time with Yosuke; I'll happily overlook some flaws for that!
Pokémon Red: This was such a well-crafted game. The Pokémon formula hasn't changed much, but that's because they really did get it right right from the start. This was the first RPG I ever played, and I had no idea how to progress at the very beginning. Oak wasn't at his laboratory! What was I supposed to do? Was I meant to... wait for him? It didn't occur to me that I was supposed to try to leave town. Bulbasaur was my first starter and is still, of course, the best Pokémon.
Pokémon SoulSilver: I loved the 'your Pokémon follows you' aspect and I'm a little sad they didn't keep it up for future games. Cyndaquil was my starter here. I made the mistake of trying to breed for a female Eevee in this game and ended up with twenty-five male ones.
Pokémon White: I thought it was a great idea to have exclusively new Pokémon until you defeated the Champion; it forced you to get to know and love the new generation. I really liked my White team.
*Pokémon Sun: A good, solid Pokémon game. My battle team ended up being unusually unbalanced because I kept seeing Pokémon and going 'I WANT THAT' with no regard for type. The plot is surprisingly wild, but the protagonist feels like a block of wood; I didn't really feel present in the world. I love Gladion and nobody is surprised.
*Pokémon: Let's Go, Eevee: A genuine delight. I haven't felt this much sheer joy in a Pokémon game since the first time I played Pokémon Red. Everything is cute as hell, seeing the familiar locations in new graphics is incredible, seeing (and being able to avoid) Pokémon in the wild is great, and, while I wasn't sure at first about the capture mechanic, I think the game ultimately benefits from cutting down on battling.
*Pokémon Shield: Very cool to see a Pokémon region inspired by the country I live in! I warmed up to Hop enormously over the course of this game.
Pokémon Pinball: This was a genuinely great pinball game! My brothers, my dad and I all used to fight over who got to play it. I rediscovered the cartridge relatively recently, and it still holds up.
Portal: A perfectly crafted little puzzle game. Unfortunately I've only played it on PC, where I struggled with the controls and was never able to beat the final boss.
Portal 2: My favourite puzzle game, and a candidate for my top ten games of all time. Very funny. Astonishingly satisfying ending.
Professor Layton and the Curious Village: An enjoyable diversion, although I was never compelled to check out the rest of the series. At one point I got absolutely furious with a puzzle, convinced the 'canonical' answer was wrong, and was very embarrassed when Joseph pointed out to me that it was in fact correct.
*The Quarry: (LP) I enjoyed this a fair bit! It didn't fannishly grab me in the way Until Dawn did, but I was engaged and invested in the characters' survival. Very visually impressive, too. Travis and Laura had a fascinating dynamic. (EDIT: Four fics later, I'm forced to admit that I lied; this game absolutely fannishly grabbed me.)
Quiplash: A great game to play with friends. The pressure to BE HILARIOUS IN A SHORT SPACE OF TIME can be stressful, but the results are a delight.
Radiant Historia: Forgot about this one! I never loved the characters, but the music was great, the battle system was interesting and some of the game overs were sort of hilarious.
*Raging Loop: Absolute bullshit. Just complete nonsense. Quite possibly written by aliens with only the vaguest idea of how human beings interact. I was entertained but bewildered throughout.
Ratchet & Clank: The Ratchet & Clank series was good fun and full of humour, but the games were often very difficult! I never enjoyed this series quite as much as Insomniac's previous Spyro the Dragon series, but I still had fun.
Ratchet & Clank 2: I think this was the game that introduced the concept of upgrading weapons with use, which was a great addition.
Ratchet & Clank 3: I'm heartbroken that they dropped the perfect original name of Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal for the UK release. My favourite weapon was the one that turns your enemies into ducks that lay flaming eggs, then run at your other enemies and explode.
Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time: Oh, man, I never finished this one! I should go back to it one day; I remember it being very funny. (EDIT: I did, in fact, go back and finish this, and I had a great time.)
Red Dead Redemption: One of the first open-world games I ever played. I was absolutely awed by this huge, beautiful world. I liked Marston and Bonnie (and my horse!), but the world was definitely the main draw of Red Dead Redemption for me. By this point I've played too many open-world games and I'm exhausted, but at the time it was just an incredible experience.
*Red Dead Redemption II: I can't say for certain that this is a good game, but it's definitely a good something. I've never seen the illusion of a living world carried off so effectively. I love my horse and I love the world and I'm increasingly fond of Arthur Morgan.
*The Sexy Brutale: Interesting game! I was going 'this is a neat concept, but I'm not really emotionally invested' until the ending, which was wildly up my street and made me like the entire game more.
Shadow of the Colossus: This game absolutely terrified me. Everything was so vast and empty. I regret turning so often to walkthroughs, but I was so scared of the colossi I couldn't bring myself to fight them without foreknowledge! Good horse.
*A Short Hike: I really enjoyed this! A very charming, low-stakes little game with a lot of personality.
*Silent Hill: Finally played this, over fifteen years after playing Silent Hill 2 for the first time! I was really impressed by the atmosphere and environmental design, given the limitations of the hardware. Silent Hill is very much a story about the town, though, and I prefer the approach of Silent Hill 2, which uses the town to tell a story about a person.
Silent Hill 2: Screwed up both my aesthetic tastes and my taste in fictional characters forever. I tried to replay this one recently and couldn't because I was too scared. (It also really freaked out the cat, for some reason. She must have not liked the sounds.)
*Silent Hill 3: Heather is great; she has so much personality in her observations! At one point I thought I had to get hit by a train to progress, which turned out to be a mistake.
Silent Hill 4: I played this withdracothelizard and it was TERRIFYING. Monsters aren't supposed to follow you between screens! That's not fair! I DON'T CARE IF IT MAKES SENSE; IT'S NOT FAIR.
Sonic the Hedgehog: We had this for the SEGA Master System II when I was a kid. I couldn't play it myself because I couldn't handle the responsibility of having Sonic's life in my hands, so I made Joseph play so I could watch. Sonic once went so fast he zoomed off the screen and the camera panned over the entire level, desperately trying to catch up, and eventually found him at the end, having already beaten it. I definitely remember this happening, although it does admittedly sound implausible.
Sonic the Hedgehog 2: We were stuck on this for ever because we didn't understand the hang glider. Still, we were happy enough discovering all the weird glitches in this game. Sonic could turn invisible and run through the clouds if you jumped in the right place.
Soulcalibur II: Forgot about this one! I used to play it with my brothers sometimes, although I found Dead or Alive 2 more compelling. The way Voldo moved was really creepy.
*Marvel's Spider-Man: This was an incredible, delightful surprise of a game. The writing is great, the characterisation is great, the gameplay is great. Shot (webshot?) straight into my personal top ten. One of the few games I've platinumed.
*Spider-Man: Miles Morales: I was delighted to have more Spider-Man to play, even if Miles Morales is a shorter game! New York is beautiful in the winter. Miles Morales is an endearing kid, and I love how thrilled Peter Parker is to have someone to share all this Spider-Man stuff with.
*Marvel's Spider-Man 2: Another great Spider-Man game! The characters and their relationships are so well portrayed. Delighted to report that this solved one of the few issues with the original game, i.e. 'not enough homoeroticism between Peter Parker and Harry Osborn'.
Spyro the Dragon: Before we got any Sony consoles ourselves, I went over to a classmate's house and watched her play this, and I thought it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. This was my first purchase when Joseph got a PS2 for his tenth birthday. I loved being a tiny purple dragon, but it was difficult!
Spyro: Year of the Dragon: A huge step up from the original Spyro! I loved exploring every corner of the levels to find hidden gems and eggs and minigames, and I was extremely pleased that Spyro could now swim. I'm looking forward to the remaster.
*Spyro Reignited Trilogy: An absolutely perfect remake. This looks the way the original Spyro series looked in my head, even though the actual original graphics can't have been anywhere near as good. All these years later, it still feels great to play.
SSX: We had a demo of this, and it was so much fun that we had to buy the actual game. Great decision. What an excellent snowboarding series. Joseph always played as Elise. I loved Untracked and its music ('Finished Symphony' by Hybrid, a band best known for being the reason Linkin Park had to change its name from Hybrid Theory).
SSX Tricky: IT'S TRICKY TO ROCK A RHYME TO ROCK A RHYME THAT'S RIGHT ON TIME IT'S TRICKYYYYYYY IT'S TRICKY TRICKY TRICKY TRICKY. Still fun, but I was a little sad that they were just the same tracks with makeovers. This was the game that introduced Psymon, who became the character I generally played in SSX. Bizarrely, I once wrote fanfiction for this snowboarding game. And I still remember the title of the fic, even though the title was 72132659.
SSX 3: New tracks! My personal favourite SSX game. Still looks surprisingly good for a PS2 title. I loved the worldbuilding text messages and radio chatter.
The Stanley Parable: (LP) Forgot about this one! But I love it. The narrator's voice is a work of art. I was very struck by the part where a self-destruct countdown triggers, and, if you run around pressing buttons, the narrator laughs at you. You can't stop the countdown. This is not a challenge; it's a tragedy.
Super Mario Land: You could not save this game and it was really frustrating. Who has the time or the skill to play through the entire game, start to finish, without a game over?
Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins: So much better than its predecessor. This was fun. I really liked the floaty level in space.
Super Smash Bros Melee/Brawl: The Super Smash Bros games are great fun, unless you're playing against people who are actually good at them, which is awful. I always play on Random, but my favourites to play as are Sheik and Kirby.
Tales of the Abyss: This was really charming and I need to get back to playing it! The plot is absolute nonsense, but the character interactions are fun.
*Tales of Berseria: The 'a group of ruthless villains and the small child they're all intensely fond of' party dynamic is great, but it's a shame that the 3D animation is so stiff and awkward. I'm constantly aware of how much more effective the storytelling could feel with stronger animation.
*Tangle Tower: The resolution was a bit confusing, but this was an extremely fun, charming, polished little murder mystery game!
*Tell Me Why: (LP) Not technically a Let's Play; I watched my housemate Ginger play this. Slow-paced, but I really liked the twins and their relationship. Gorgeous scenery.
Tetris: Or Super ACiD Block Attack, which was still Tetris; they just weren't allowed to call it Tetris. It's... it's Tetris. It's good. It's Tetris.
Theme Hospital: I always thought the very snide assistant who popped up in the lower right was a woman, and was confused, two decades later, to look her up and discover she'd been a man all along. I suppose, as a child, I just went 'long hair, that's a woman' and failed to clock the receding hairline.
Tomb Raider (2013): In terms of gameplay, I might actually prefer this to the Uncharted games; in terms of story and character, though, it's far less fun. It just takes itself too seriously. It also wouldn't let me invert the X axis and consequently gave me motion sickness.
Transistor: I'm very bad at this game, but it's gorgeously stylish and I love how in love with Red her sword is.
*Umineko When They Cry: What an intense, bizarre, brilliant experience. Taught me magic. I think this one will stay with me for a long time.
Uncharted: I liked Elena but wasn't really into this game or its interminable gunfights. However...
Uncharted 2: An astonishing improvement in every way. This was where the Uncharted series really found its feet as a ridiculous action comedy/tourism simulator. Also it opened with Nate in the Himalayas, simultaneously bleeding and freezing to death, which I was pretty into. Terrible final boss battle which makes me perpetually reluctant to replay this game.
Uncharted 3: Also great! Not enough Elena, but there were some lovely Nate-and-Elena moments, and I loved discovering Nate and Sully's backstory.
Uncharted: Golden Abyss: (LP) Forgot this one! Which tells you how memorable it was, really, given that it didn't come to mind when I was listing all the other Uncharteds. Nate had some good lines, but I missed Elena, and I missed the person Nate came to be after getting to know Elena.
Uncharted 4: A step down from 2 and 3 for me, because I intensely resent Sam Drake's existence and it forces you into too many frustrating gunfights towards the end, but still a good game. Gorgeous scenery. Includes the 'Elena mocking your videogame skills' sequence, which may be my favourite scene in the series.
Uncharted: The Lost Legacy: Gameplay-wise, possibly the best in the series! I did miss Nate and Elena, though. This falls squarely in the middle of my personal ranking of Uncharted games: 1, 4, Lost Legacy, and then 2 and 3 are fighting for the top spot. Sam's more bearable when Chloe and Nadine are just dunking on him non-stop.
Undertale: Fun and endearing, with an excellent soundtrack and a fascinatingly dark underbelly. One of those games I read up on for ages after finishing it, because there was so much interesting stuff in there. I still can't get over how much the fandom wants to bone that skeleton.
Until Dawn: Scared me so badly I had trouble sleeping for a while. These teenagers are all awful and I love them. Please don't ask me how many times I've watched Mike getting his fingers caught in a bear trap.
*Until Then: I absolutely loved this. Great writing, a lot of heart, plenty of weird memory stuff and teenagers having a terrible time. It was interesting to play a game set in the Philippines, too!
Wacky Wheels: The best driving game. Joseph and I had fun exploiting weird glitches (a lot of my memories of playing games with Joseph involve exploiting weird glitches); on one track you could jump over the barrier and drive over the horizon to find a creepy empty replica of that track. In retrospect, the fact that all the power-ups were hedgehogs you ran over to collect was really dark!
The Walking Dead: I still haven't played past episode two. I'm never in the mood for this game because it's so stressful! I do like Lee as a protagonist and his relationship with Clementine, though. I still haven't forgiven this game for not letting me say 'yes' when Clementine invited me to pet a cow with her.
Watch Dogs 2: The game's humour is fun, but I can't make any progress because I am the absolute worst at actually playing it. I like the tentacly octopus hoodie I've put on the main character. I like that you can stroke dogs. I struggle to enjoy or understand the gameplay. I did laugh watching Ginger play it, though; their first action in the game, upon spotting a rainbow flag, was to take eight selfies in front of it.
We Know the Devil: (LP) Forgot about this one! A short, strange and interesting visual novel about three teenagers staying overnight in an isolated shack at summer camp, waiting for the devil to make an appearance. My favourite of the trio is Jupiter, incredibly repressed and desperately trying to be a good person.
*What Remains of Edith Finch: I watched Tem play this for twenty or thirty minutes, and it gave us both such terrible motion sickness that we swore never to touch it again. I don't even like thinking about it.
The Wolf Among Us: I never finished this, because it kept freezing, but from what I played I liked Bigby and 'shipped him a lot with Snow White.
The World Ends with You: One of my all-time favourite games. So ridiculous, so stylish, so much fun! Joshua is a delight in how unashamedly awful he is. A crucial game mechanic is the ability to feed your protagonist ice cream until he's brave enough to wear a bondage dress. The DS battle system is hugely overcomplicated and I love it anyway.
*NEO: The World Ends with You: This game's a bit of a mess and sort of overshadows its new cast by bringing back characters from the first game, but it's also a lot of fun, with extremely lively dialogue. Fret is the best and is also definitely in love with everyone.
*World's End Club: The gameplay is awkward and the characters are largely one-note, but Aniki is a perfect emotional disaster of a kid, and I have to respect the sheer weirdness of creating a plot-twisty murder game apparently aimed at small children. I was very confused, but I certainly wasn't bored.
Worms: Armageddon: Good competitive fun! I always liked the Holy Hand Grenade, and the worms' silly little voices. 'Oh no!'
*Your Turn to Die: 'A bunch of people are abducted and put through traumatic, murder-filled trials for mysterious reasons' is my favourite genre. Keiji and his dynamic with Sara fascinate me. Lots of great fodder for horrible fanfiction, which the fandom is cheerfully exploiting despite a sizeable faction trying to claim 'you can't write that; it's morally wrong!'
*Zanki Zero: Last Beginning: The gameplay can be frustrating, but everything else about this game is ridiculously up my street. Strangers thrown together and forced to bond through adversity! Guilt-ridden characters! The ability to pair the characters up in any and all combinations!Tentacles! I ship everyone/everyone and I'm glad the game encourages me in this.
Zero Escape: 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors: Did some really interesting things with the DS and with the fact that it was a videogame! I liked the characters but wasn't especially invested in them.
Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward: So many plot twists that I just got exhausted. The AB Game was interesting, though. The ending was frustrating in its complete lack of resolution.
Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma: Unexpectedly, not having been particularly grabbed by the characters in the previous Zero Escape titles, I got REALLY INVESTED in the characters of this one. One of the most delightfully stupid plot revelations I've ever seen in a videogame.
The Logical Journey of the Zoombinis: Very charming! The harder difficulties were impossible for me when I was a kid; everything seemed entirely random. I wonder whether adult me has the logic skills to deduce how they work. The Fleen level was my favourite. A primary-school friend and I used to draw Zoombini-covered landscapes in MS Paint.
I'm glad I've put this very important and necessary entry into the waiting world.
A: I absolutely don't.
Q: And yet.
A: And yet!
Some of these are more just reminiscences than reviews, but I've said at least a line or two about every game. Possibly. I've almost certainly forgotten about some.
For the most part these are listed alphabetically, so you can easily track down any games you're interested in, but games in a series are listed together, so, for example, 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors, Virtue's Last Reward and Zero Time Dilemma are all under Z for Zero Escape, and World of Final Fantasy comes under F. I've put a (LP) next to games I've only experienced through Let's Plays. Flash games, text adventures and electronic versions of card, tile or board games are not included.
Games I first played after originally posting this entry are marked with an asterisk.
*13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim: What an incredible, ridiculous journey. A tornado of wild plot twists and traumatised teenagers. Contained multiple plot developments that left me suspecting it had been created specifically for me. The perfect game if you're me, and probably still a very good game if you're not.
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: I enjoyed this well enough (as you can probably guess from the fact that I've played a fair few other games in the series), but it did suffer from the fact that I played it after being exposed to Danganronpa, which is far more impactful because you get to know every victim and murderer in advance. Phoenix and Maya have a cute dynamic.
Ace Attorney: Justice for All: Franziska is my favourite prosecutor and I missed her a lot in the game after this. Also, this game had a case where the defendant was guilty, which was fascinating.
Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations: Enjoyable enough, but I didn't care for Godot.
Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney: I missed Phoenix as the protagonist, but I did really like the relationship between Apollo and Trucy.
Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth: I'll be honest: I 'ship Edgeworth/Kay.
*Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies: An absolute delight! Having three protagonists made for some great dynamics, and indeed some great shipping opportunities; I enjoy Athena/Apollo a lot. Also, excellent Apollo suffering.
*Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice: It's great to see more of Apollo and Athena! I'm not really a fan of Apollo's new out-of-nowhere backstory, though. I thundered through Dual Destinies with great speed, but I'm dragging my feet on Spirit of Justice.
*Afterparty: I've certainly never played a better game in which the goal is to outdrink Satan to escape Hell. Fun dialogue. Lots of stressful potential to commit faux pas. I'm extremely bad at every minigame except the dancing one.
*AI: The Somnium Files: I've played a lot of weird games about murder, but this is one of the weirdest. Mizuki is great. The protagonist probably wants to fuck his own eyeball. The final scene is the best possible way they could have ended this game.
*AI: The Somnium Files: nirvanA Initiative: I preferred the mystery of the first game, but this one was still extremely enjoyable and ridiculous.
Alex Kidd in Miracle World: I was really afraid of the little Grim Reaper that chased you. Also: WHOSE IDEA WAS IT TO HAVE THE BOSS FIGHTS BE ROCK-PAPER-SCISSORS GAMES
Analogue: A Hate Story: (LP) Forgot about this one! I recall it only vaguely, but I do remember that the revelation of Hyun-ae's identity was great.
Hate Plus: (LP) Forgot about this one! Again, I don't have strong memories of it, but I'm pretty sure I really came to like *Mute. Also, I have to respect the fact that this videogame bullies you into making a cake in real life.
Assassin's Creed: I enjoyed this, but it was so repetitive that I don't think I'll ever be able to play it again. At one point I was nearly at the top of a cathedral that had taken me ages to climb and then just fell off. The people you kill die romantically in your arms and it's the best.
Assassin's Creed II: Possibly the biggest jump in quality I've ever seen between a game and its sequel. Gorgeous music. I loved the weird creepy glyph puzzles.
Assassin's Creed Brotherhood: More of the same, but that's nothing to complain about!
Assassin's Creed Revelations: This felt like a real step down, but it's possible I'd just worn myself out on Assassin's Creed games by the time I reached this one, or indeed that I was just sad about the lack of weird creepy glyph puzzles. All I really remember is that there was a young prince who was definitely, definitely flirting with Ezio.
Assassin's Creed III: Not great on gameplay, but the first Assassin's Creed game where the characters really grabbed me; I loved the weird hostile relationship between Connor and Haytham. Learning about the American Revolution was also interesting; the UK history curriculum tends not to focus on wars we lost.
Assassin's Creed Liberation: (LP) They're never going to release a major-console Assassin's Creed game with an exclusively female protagonist, are they? I watched a Let's Play of this entirely so I could write Aveline into my Assassin's Creed/Sense8 crossover, because otherwise all the characters would be dudes. Fortunately, I liked Aveline a lot!
Assassin's Creed IV: I really enjoyed Edward as a protagonist, I really 'shipped him with Kidd, the Caribbean was gorgeous, and this somehow manages to be one of my favourites in the series even though half the gameplay was really frustrating.
Assassin's Creed Rogue: Very short, but some of the best level design in a series where the level design can often feel a bit slapdash. This one was really well crafted.
Assassin's Creed Unity: This game is widely hated, but I honestly loved it. I liked Arno as a protagonist; I liked Paris as a setting; I liked the murder mysteries; I liked how lively the streets felt on the PS4; I liked how you were forced to be stealthy because the combat system meant it was very easy to become overwhelmed.
Assassin's Creed Syndicate: Probably my favourite Assassin's Creed game, but it's set in my home city and features sibling protagonists, so I'm biased! I enjoyed the lighter tone a lot. The people you kill die very romantically in your arms and it's the best.
Assassin's Creed Origins: I've got barely anywhere with this one because I'm really bad at it! You'd think I'd be able to pick up and play any Assassin's Creed game after playing nine of the things, but apparently you would be wrong.
*Baba Is You: An excellent puzzle game! I'm frustratingly bad at it, but it's great. Haunted me with dreams about being stuck on levels.
*Beacon Pines: This was a cute little game, and it's clear that a lot of love went into it! It wasn't life-changing, but I had a good time.
*Better Half: A delightful little tale of selfcest and attempted murder. The more of Nemlei's visual novels I play, the more convinced I become that they were all made for me specifically.
Beyond: Two Souls: This was deeply, deeply terrible and didn't even have the 'at least it's ambitious in its branching storytelling' saving grace of other David Cage games, but it's fun to play and mock with a friend.
Bioshock Infinite: Interesting (if horrifying) worldbuilding, and the relationship between Booker and Elizabeth is intriguing, but I can't play first-person shooters. I never finished this one. At one point I found a hot dog in a cash register.
*Bloodborne: I found this frustrating and unrewarding and did not get far. Did manage to beat the Cleric Beast, though!
Bravely Default: This became a bit repetitive in the second half, but I really loved it. Loved the characters (especially Edea), loved the battle system, loved everything about it. (Well, almost everything. I have very little patience for the 'hilarious pervert' character type, although I did eventually warm to Ringabel.) When the title screen changed, I got chills.
Bravely Second: This was good fun, but it didn't quite match up to Bravely Default for me. To be honest, that's probably in part because the composer changed (the soundtrack for the first game was so good), but I also didn't feel quite as challenged by the battles in Bravely Second. It's possible I weirdly missed Ringabel being ridiculous, although I did like Yew.
*Bravely Default II: I didn't play this for a while because reviews had me afraid that it would be too hard, but in the end it had an enjoyable level of challenge! The game isn't anything life-changing, but I had a good time, and I really like how close the party members feel. B'n'D is a strong contender for my all-time favourite minigame; I spent a lot of time neglecting the plot in order to play cards with everyone.
*Candy Scabs: Tiny, cute little Hallowe'en visual novel! I don't love it as much as I love the rest of Nemlei's work, but I got invested nonetheless.
Catherine: (LP) You know, there aren't enough videogames in which you can get murdered in your dreams by a metaphorical representation of rimming.
*Celeste: I wasn't expecting this game to be so charming! Difficult but rewarding. It's challenging, but it's rarely frustrating; it genuinely wants you to succeed. I often go back to replay this one; it's satisfying to see how much I've improved!
*Chaos;Child: An interesting but odd visual novel that swings wildly between tonal extremes. Horrific murder! Weird fetishistic fantasies! You never know which you're going to get. Contains the horniest protagonist I've ever seen in a visual novel, which is saying something. Extremely poorly paced. Good agonised voice acting.
Chrono Trigger: Released in Europe at last with the DS version! This game had a lot of charm. I loved Ayla.
Civilization II: The real challenge in Civilization II was seeing how long you could play legitimately before giving in and activating the cheat menu. I never won a legitimate game. I loved the exploration aspect. We (by which I mean my brother Joseph and I) had an expansion pack that let us create our own units; my favourites were the poorly-drawn car with the words 'WE LIKE CAR' hovering around it, to make it clear that it was a car, and the bright red volcano slugs that exploded and turned the entire area radioactive. (The car unit was called Mission Car; I was trying to model it after the car used for SeeD missions in Final Fantasy VIII.)
Chromadrome 2: Very therapeutic; sort of put you in a trance, assisted by the music (NB: the gameplay footage on this video is not of the game itself).
*The Coffin of Andy and Leyley: I am absolutely obsessed with how weird the relationship between these siblings is. Awful and intimate and fascinating. I love the artwork, too!
Dancing Stage Fever: A Dance Dance Revolution game under the inferior European Dancing Stage name. This was great fun, even if it was a pain to haul out the dance mat every time we wanted to play it and I ended up hearing 'Come On Eileen' far too many times.
Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc: First experienced through orenronen's fan-translated screenshot Let's Play. I got incredibly invested and eventually played it myself. Hugely enjoyable, and I'm very fond of Naegi, but it does hold your hand a bit too much at the start.
Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair: My favourite game in the Danganronpa series, which is high praise, because I adore this series. Hinata is such a great protagonist. Komaeda is such a great... whatever Komaeda is. The minigames can get frustrating, particularly Hangman's Gambit, but it's got the most well-balanced murder mysteries in the series: not too simple, not too complicated.
Danganronpa: Ultra Despair Girls: (LP) Probably best skipped. Waaaaaay too creepy, and also lacks the 'murder mystery' aspect, which is one of the best aspects of Danganronpa. Some nice character development for Fukawa, though, and I enjoyed her interactions with Komaru.
Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony: I don't love the cast as much as I do those of the other main Danganronpa games, and the mysteries could be a bit overcomplicated, but this was still a great time. It has the stupidest ending to a videogame I have ever seen, and I love it. I was shrieking in incredulous delight at the screen. Also, the Love Hotel is the perfect concept and I want it in every videogame.
Dark Chronicle: The plot and characters are nothing special, but the music is gorgeous, the style works really well and it's fun to play. The dungeons could go on a bit too long.
*Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan: An imperfect but promising start to the anthology! Better than people give it credit for. The branching is a lot more ambitious than Until Dawn's, and the co-op concept is extraordinarily cool. I'm extremely relieved that everyone lived in my playthrough. (Well. Technically.)
*Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope: This game absolutely scared the shit out of me. Great atmosphere, great monster design, fantastically stressful. I hated the entire experience, while also being fascinated by it. I think I'll watch Let's Plays for the rest of the series, though; I really couldn't handle playing this one!
*Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes: (LP) An impressive step up for the series in graphics, animation and writing! I think the protagonists were a bit too well equipped for the threat they were facing, though; I feel that horror games tend to work better when the characters are out of their depth.
Dead or Alive 2: I had a lot of fun playing against my brothers on this! I really liked the countering system; it was very easy to grasp. Joseph usually played as Zack or Leon; I wasn't particularly fussy, but I remember I liked Kasumi and Hayate and hated Jann Lee.
Dead or Alive 5: This game's plot is the most overblown thing and it's absolutely hilarious. Clones! Explosions! All peppered with paper-thin excuses for the characters to fight each other and breasts that zoom around independently even when the owner is at rest. At one point two guys throw down because one insults the honour of the other's motorbike. I love it.
*Deltarune: Only the first two chapters are out so far, but I'm so interested to see where this is going! I love the addition of party members; it does great things for both the battle system and the character interaction.
Detroit: Become Human: The best David Cage game by virtue of not being entirely straight-faced. When there's a bit of humour allowed, your stories don't have to feel like a constant awful slog! The humour's mainly confined to the Connor storyline, which is noticeably better than the other two. Presents some great opportunities for horrible fanfiction, which I have happily exploited. Playing it is horrendously stressful, even though I watched a Let's Play first.
Devil May Cry: Forgot about this one! I still remember very nervously queueing up to buy this 15-rated game when I was only thirteen, but I got away with it! This game was trying so hard to be cool and it was hilarious. (Battle rankings included 'cool' and 'stylish'.) I also remember the cutscene where you obtain your sword, and by 'you obtain it' I mean 'it impales you through the chest'.
*Divilethion: Really enjoyed this dark, funny little visual novel! My only complaint is that it ends when the story is getting started; I'd love to see a longer version. In a sense, though, the developer's later title The Coffin of Andy and Leyley does feel like a longer version; there's a lot of thematic common ground!
Doki Doki Literature Club!: (LP) This game contained a scene that upset me very badly, but at least the creators were responsible enough to put a 'hey, this game may look cute but it's seriously upsetting' warning at the start, so I knew what I was walking into. Surprisingly good poetry! It's hard to find poetry that's not terrible in works of fiction, but whoever wrote the poems for this game is evidently an actual poet. Tries a little too hard to be shocking, but does have a bit of heart behind it; I don't feel it exists solely for the shock value. I worry a lot about the protagonist and it makes me sad when people blame him for what happened.
*Donkey Kong Country: I can see why the Donkey Kong Country games are remembered so fondly - they have a lot of charm and personality - but, wow, I don't miss 1990s game design. Without the Switch emulator's save state and rewind functions, this would be absolutely unplayable.
*Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy Kong's Quest: Even more difficult than the original! I have no idea how anyone ever finished this game in the SNES days; it's clearly impossible. (I always thought Diddy and Dixie were siblings, but apparently they're just friends? The Kongs aren't a single family??? This is blowing my mind.)
*Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble: I think this might be the earliest game I've ever played with a female protagonist! (Dixie was also playable in Donkey Kong Country 2, but she's not presented as the protagonist in the way she is here.) Wait, no, apparently the first Freddi Fish game precedes it. In any case, Dixie's a great early female videogame protagonist; she's not sexualised and, although there's very little story or dialogue in the game, her animations give her a lot of personality.
Drawful 2: This is a great, great game to play with friends. We usually play a couple of rounds whenever we have guests over and end up laughing pretty hard.
*Dream Daddy: (LP) I was surprised and impressed by how enjoyable this was! Amanda's the best, and I got extremely invested in her relationship with the protagonist.
Dynasty Warriors 2: (LP) Forgot about this one! Not technically a Let's Play, but I have fond memories of watching my brother Joseph play this. I was impressed by its vast crowds of enemies.
*Earthbound: (LP) Very fun and charming! It was interesting to experience this game (via
zarla's screenshot Let's Play) after Undertale. You can really see that Undertale is a direct descendant; they're very tonally similar.Electronic Young Telegraph: This was a monthly 'interactive computer magazine' that my dad used to bring home on floppy disc every month. Puzzles and games and quizzes. Joseph and I would play it together (I remember playing a lot of the games in this entry with Joseph but not many with Fred; I suppose Fred was too young to play with us at the time). I remember it only vaguely, but it was fun! One of the editions had a tiger-themed electronic board game I was really into.
*Exit/Corners: I can't believe this was free! So much love and effort has obviously gone into this game. I really enjoy Ink as a protagonist.
EyeToy Play: Forgot about this one! The EyeToy was a short-lived gimmick, but a fun one. I really enjoyed the rhythm action minigames, and the one where you have to wave your arms around to defeat the ninjas. Oh, God, I've just remembered the minigame where you clean windows to the tune of 'When I'm Cleaning Windows'. Immediately stuck in my head.
*Dissidia Final Fantasy Opera Omnia: I drop in and out of this mobile title. I'm wary of gacha games, but at least this one gives away enough free resources to be playable without paying, and it's good to see characters from different Final Fantasy games interacting. Makes better use of Final Fantasy Type-0's concepts than Final Fantasy Type-0 did.
*Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin: (LP) Occasionally hilarious, but so sparsely and weirdly written that I couldn't really get invested. Which is a shame, because I think I'd really have liked Jack in a game that had more care put into its writing! From my brief experience with the demo, I found the gameplay frustratingly difficult.
Final Fantasy V: I really liked Faris but never finished this one.
Final Fantasy VI: Very charming, looked great, wonderfully lively localisation. Too many characters to feel focused, but still a great instalment in the series. I'm still really confused that I ended up shipping Celes/Sabin.
Final Fantasy VII: Really interesting plot, but the graphics, translation and game design issues hamper this game. I'm hoping that the remake will address those issues and really let this game shine, but I'm scared that the remake team will forget how much fun Aerith is.
*Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII: Reunion: The plot is ludicrous bullshit and Aerith's characterisation is disappointing, but I'm having a good time with this! I originally experienced Crisis Core via Let's Play in 2015, and it gave me a new appreciation for Final Fantasy VII.
*Final Fantasy VII Remake: Exceeded my expectations in almost every way. Gorgeous and fun. I love it. Aerith is the best; turns out I needn't have worried about her portrayal at all!
*Final Fantasy VII Rebirth: I think this game could do with some streamlining - there's so much of everything that it ends up feeling a little exhausting - but I still had a really good time with it. Love the characters. I was startled to realise how big a Cloud/Aerith shipper I appear to have become at some point.
Final Fantasy VIII: I can say without exaggeration that Final Fantasy VIII changed my life for the better. I'd be a different person without it. As an actual game, it's a bit of a disaster. I don't care. I love it. Squall is one of my all-time favourite characters. I think Squall/Zell was my first 'ship. Balamb Garden is still very much my videogame home. I used to draw my own Triple Triad cards, photocopy them, back them with cardboard and play with my friends at school. The only videogame I've ever bought three times.
Final Fantasy IX: Oddly enough, I'm not that big on the individual components of the game - the battle system's too slow, the cast's not one of my favourites - but somehow they come together to create something perfect. I love Final Fantasy IX. But I particularly love Chocobo Hot and Cold.
Final Fantasy X: It's strange to remember how awed I was when I first saw Final Fantasy X's graphics. In my thirteen-year-old eyes, it was indistinguishable from real life. One of my favourite Final Fantasy storylines. Yuna's another of my favourite characters of all time.
Final Fantasy X-2: This went in an odd direction, and it bugged me that this game with an all-female party felt so extremely targeted towards men, but I do remember enjoying it, and I wrote a fair bit of fanfiction. I keep meaning to replay this game; it's been ages!
Final Fantasy XII: The plot sort of lost its way and dragged in the middle, but I really loved Balthier and Fran, and a lot of care went into the localisation.
Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings: Cute, but not enough Balthier, and I'm the worst at strategy games. I did like Tomaj, though.
Final Fantasy XIII: My favourite cast in the entire Final Fantasy series, a great battle system, fantastic music, gorgeous visuals, a really interesting story of people being forced into teaming up to fight against the inevitable. It's a shame there's not really any variety to the gameplay, but I still adore this game and I'm sad that it's so hated by the fanbase.
Final Fantasy XIII-2: Fun, but I wish Noel and Serah had had more characters to bounce off, and I hated that it retconned the ending of Final Fantasy XIII.
Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII: I don't think I'll play this again; it's just sidequest after sidequest, and Lightning has no party members and has explicitly had her emotions removed, which doesn't make for interesting interactions! But I did enjoy how magnificently stupid the ending was.
Final Fantasy XV: An absolute mess of a game that I love with all my heart. The photography is great. The boys are great. The gameplay is fun. The villain is probably the best in the series. A really lovely, moving depiction of friendship, set against a disaster of a plot. The first game I ever platinumed.
*Final Fantasy XVI: In strong contrast to Final Fantasy XV, this is a polished, well-made game I don't love. I liked the battle system and found the world interesting, but it never entirely clicked; the characters didn't really grab me, and the pacing suffered from the distribution of sidequests. Overall, I'd say I enjoyed my time with it, but it's not really what I look for in a Final Fantasy game.
Final Fantasy Type-0: Interesting concepts, but it never really explored them, and it had waaaaay too many characters, none of whom were given any depth. The battle system was fun, though.
World of Final Fantasy: This was cute, but I wasn't that into it, sadly. Even though you could put a Chocobo on your head. That was a very good feature. I usually love fictional siblings, but Lann never felt real to me; he just seemed like a punchline.
*Firewatch: (LP) Interesting game! Very atmospheric and, at times, very unsettling. Feels sort of literary fiction-esque in a way I'm not used to seeing from videogames. I was struggling for a while to work out whether it was a horror game, but in the end I think it's more of a mystery; it ends up giving clear answers in a way that feels incompatible with horror. I ultimately found the story a little unsatisfying; it feels more 'this is just a series of events' than 'this is a crafted story'. Which makes it feel realistic, I suppose, but realism in fiction has its downsides!
*Forgotton Anne: An interesting, weird little game. The gameplay was frustrating at times, but I enjoyed the visual style and the character interactions. I ship Fig/Anne a lot and I'm sad that I'm the only person in the world who's written fanfiction for it.
Freddi Fish and the Case of the Missing Kelp Seeds: I loved this as a kid, but I bought it on Steam recently and, tragically, it doesn't hold up so well when you're an adult! It's not a bad game, but it's very much a game for kids.
Freddi Fish and the Case of the Haunted Schoolhouse: Two things immediately come to mind when I think of this game: the 'heading off to school' song, and 'YOU JUST NEVER KNOW WHEN A PAIR OF PLASTIC-COATED SAFETY SCISSORS MIGHT COME IN HANDY.' I think this was the game in which I learnt Freddi was a girl and I was astounded.
Freddi Fish and the Case of the Stolen Conch Shell: I'm pretty sure this was the first game I ever played with a variable narrative (the thief was randomised on each playthrough and you had to collect clues to deduce who it was), and it blew my little mind.
Ghost Trick: A little masterpiece of a game. Great characters, great style, great story. Almost, almost perfect; it's a shame about the escort mission in the dark. Holds the record for the largest number of times I've shouted 'WHAT?' at the screen.
Gone Home: This was cute! I loved how much personality there was in the house. I feel bad for the family, though.
*Gris: So beautiful. Just ridiculously beautiful. I loved how you found new abilities (and colours!) as you progressed, and how it taught you its mechanics without words.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Game Boy): A solid little RPG, as far as I recall!
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Playstation): Completely different from the Game Boy version! I was fully aware that this was not a great game and enjoyed it hugely anyway.
Heavy Rain: (LP) Hilarious to watch an inexperienced gamer play. I got Rei to start playing it and I laughed extremely hard and I'm pretty sure I haven't been forgiven yet.
Hercules Action Game: I remember this being good, although I'm not sure how discerning a gamer I was at the time! Joseph and I were stuck on the centaur fight for ages (you're supposed to jump on his back).
Hercules Animated Storybook: I played this long before actually watching Hercules. I remember finding 'Go the Distance' very dull, which is incomprehensible to me now; it's so fun to belt out dramatically!
Higurashi When They Cry, Chapter 1: Onikakushi: I got this visual novel because I was promised I'd be able to watch a sympathetic teenager have a horrific paranoid breakdown, and it more than delivered.
Higurashi When They Cry, Chapter 2: Watanagashi: More excellent suffering. I sort of ended up 'shipping Keiichi/Mion in this one.
Higurashi When They Cry, Chapter 3: Tatarigoroshi: Incredibly bewildering! Although later instalments have cast a little light on what might have happened, at least. Escalates the bodycount and poor Keiichi's suffering to heights that border on the hilarious.
Higurashi When They Cry, Chapter 4: Himatsubushi: NO KEIICHI, TERRIBLE INSTALMENT.
Higurashi When They Cry, Chapter 5: Meakashi: All I can think of when I think of this chapter is the scene where Shion spends ten minutes psyching herself up to rip her own fingernails out.
Higurashi When They Cry, Chapter 6: Tsumihoroboshi: Incredible, perfect story of friendship and murder and the odd ways in which they intersect. Best power-of-friendship scene I've seen in my life. By far my favourite Higurashi instalment so far.
*Higurashi When They Cry, Chapter 7: Minagoroshi: Suffers a little from coming after Tsumihoroboshi, which is perfect and which it could therefore never live up to. The ending is extremely upsetting, which is saying something in this series.
*Higurashi When They Cry, Chapter 8: Matsuribayashi: Not enough focus on the kids! I do really like the compassionate attitude this series has towards people who've made mistakes, though.
Horizon Zero Dawn: Stunningly gorgeous; fascinating story. I didn't have any fannish feelings about this game, but I really enjoyed my time with it.
*Horizon Forbidden West: This was wonderful! It felt so good to come back to this world. I really liked being able to talk to all my friends at the base; it felt a little less lonely than the first game.
*Hypnospace Outlaw: An incredible 1999 Internet simulator; so much effort and love went into it! Intensely absorbing and surprisingly stressful at times. At times it was a little too hard to work out what I was supposed to do, but I enjoyed this game a lot.
Iji: I liked the pacifism option and the way the game changed if it noticed you were trying not to kill any of the enemies. If I recall correctly, though, a pacifist playthrough basically just entailed walking through every level, which is slightly weird game design. Still: interesting game, good music, and it was refreshing to see a female protagonist.
*In Stars and Time: Interesting game! I found the lack of colour surprisingly offputting at first, but I got used to it before too long. The writing is charming, and I like the battle system, but I struggled with some aspects of game design; it was often unclear where you were supposed to go next. Really captured the frustration of being caught in a time loop, which enhances the storytelling but detracts slightly from the gameplay experience. Despite my quibbles, I liked this game a lot overall, and I'm looking forward to seeing what else the developer does.
Infamous: I hated this game immediately and inexplicably and never played more than an hour. I hated the animation, I hated every character, I hated that it went 'ooh, time for a WEIGHTY MORAL CHOICE: do you want to be half-decent or just be a dick for no reason?', I hated everything but the cool comic-book cutscenes. I was reluctant to try other games in the series, but then...
Infamous: Second Son: I loved this game immediately. Siblings! One holding the other as he panics over suddenly having stigmatised powers he doesn't understand! The powers were all great fun, too. This game was a joy to traverse.
INSIDE: I played about half of this at
th_esaurus's house and it was extremely creepy. Very well-crafted, but also very upsetting!*Jack-in-a-Castle: Went back to try Nemlei's earlier work after falling in love with The Coffin of Andy and Leyley, and this is an impressive debut! Not world-changing, but I enjoyed my time with it. Very cute, with fun writing and a charming, distinctive art style. Nemlei is very good at creating a sense of chemistry between characters.
Jak & Daxter: Colourful, fun platformer. It's good for what it is, but I can't replay it now because I'm so used to its sequels!
Jak II: The Jak series did a hilarious about-face at Jak II and went 'okay, now these games are DARK and EDGY and Jak is FILLED WITH RAGE' and, I'll be honest, I ate it up. The difficulty also suddenly rocketed through the roof! I somehow love Jak II and Jak 3 while simultaneously hating every individual mission; they're so hard!
Jak 3: Jak and Ashelin made out for absolutely no reason at the end and I'm still puzzled by it. Also puzzling: the switch from Roman to Arabic numerals in the title.
*Journey: I was worried about the online multiplayer aspect of this game, but it won me over! I absolutely bonded with a complete stranger and I was a fool to think I wouldn't.
We Love Katamari/Katamari Forever: The Katamari games are great and ridiculous, but I can't play them for long because they give me motion sickness. If you play too much, you'll start looking speculatively at objects in the real world and considering the order in which you'd roll them up.
Katawa Shoujo: Considering that this is a dating sim set in a school for disabled teenagers and originating from 4chan, this was a lot better than I was expecting it to be. I finished Lilly and Hanako's routes but never got through the others, even though I really enjoyed what I played of Shizune's. Too much romance and not enough murder, I suppose. Danganronpa, Zero Escape and Higurashi are visual novels more suited to my tastes.
Kingdom Hearts: There's so much warmth and heart (ha) in this series. I 'shipped Sora and Riku so much when I was fourteen, and, let's be honest, nothing has changed in the intervening sixteen years. The ending still makes me cry.
Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories: Probably my least favourite instalment in the Kingdom Hearts series, but I do like the themes of memory and identity it introduces.
*Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories: I'm still not the biggest fan of the card battle system, but it's great to see the cutscenes remade in 3D! The replica's story is so fascinatingly tragic.
Kingdom Hearts II: I still love that Kingdom Hearts II is the third game in the Kingdom Hearts series. An improvement on the first game in many respects, but I felt they toned down the exploration a little, which is a shame.
Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days: Still the hardest I've ever cried at a videogame. I had to pause to mop my face up so I could see the screen.
Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep: WHY IS EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS SERIES OF RIDICULOUS DISNEY GAMES SO SAD
Kingdom Hearts Re:coded: I have my issues with Re:coded, but it was the game that made me realise how much I love Sora as a character, so I'll give it credit for that.
Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance: Or Doodly Deedly Dum, as I tend to call it; it's not like it's any more ridiculous. This is my favourite Kingdom Hearts game because it is all about the deep and abiding love between Riku and Sora. I have simple needs.
Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep -A fragmentary passage-: Possibly the stupidest Kingdom Hearts name yet, and it's up against strong competition. Ginger watched me play and laughed uncontrollably when, after most of the (short) game had been about a teenage girl's depression and despair, Mickey Mouse suddenly came out of nowhere.
*Kingdom Hearts III: There were things I wanted and didn't get from this game, but I had an absolute blast with it anyway. Better animation than previous Kingdom Hearts games, unsurprisingly; better writing, which was a surprise.
The Last of Us: Wonderful, wonderful game. It would be nothing without Ellie; she's one of my favourite fictional characters of all time, and she's absolutely crucial to everything that makes The Last of Us work. I've said before that it's a story about Joel coming to love Ellie, but it's also a story about you coming to love Ellie; if you don't care about Ellie, the game falls apart. The bow is the best weapon.
The Last of Us: Left Behind: A lovely depiction of post-apocalyptic human connection. I love watching Ellie and Riley goof around.
*The Last of Us, Part II: A divisive game, but I enjoyed it! I don't think it deserves anywhere near the amount of vitriol it's getting. I don't love it as much as I loved the original, but it's very well-made, it had an emotional impact and I had a good time playing it. I still love Ellie.
The Legend of Dragoon: I never finished this, because my memory card broke, but I enjoyed it! The translation was a bit awkward, as far as I recall, but the battle system was fun. I remember reading a scathing review of The Legend of Dragoon that compared it unfavourably to Final Fantasy, and I was OUTRAGED, but that review is probably the reason I checked out the Final Fantasy series, so, er, I suppose I owe it something.
Lemmings: Just remembered that Joseph and I used to play this! What a weird, dark game. I never felt good about making lemmings into blockers, thus condemning them to death in order to save the others.
Life Is Strange: A little too bleak and upsetting for me at times, but I enjoyed this a lot; it has engaging characters and a wonderful sense of atmosphere.
Life Is Strange: Before the Storm: (LP) I loved Chloe and Rachel's dynamic but wasn't that keen on the plot stuff about Rachel's parents. Chloe and Rachel's relationship was by far the strongest part of this game. The ending felt strangely rushed.
Life Is Strange 2: We're only one episode in and this is the best game ever made, by which I mean it's perfectly crafted to appeal to me personally. (Update, four episodes in: this continues to be perfect for me, although my level of intense emotional investment makes it very stressful. I love Sean with all my heart and I'm very nervous about how this story might end.) (Update, having finished the game: this is the hardest a work of fiction has made me cry in eight years and I can't stop thinking about it.)
*Life Is Strange: True Colors: I enjoyed this game, but it set up a romance with fascinatingly dark potential and then left that darkness severely underexplored! I suppose that's what fanfiction is for.
Looney Tunes: Martian Alert!: Switch between lots of Looney Tunes characters with different abilities! I remember this being good solid fun, although this was in the Game Boy days and I'm not sure how discerning my taste in videogames was.
*Lorelei and the Laser Eyes: Stylistically weird and interesting, but frustrating in many respects. I played this with a friend, which is probably just as well; I doubt I'd have stuck it out to the end alone.
Magic Carpet 2: Joseph and I used cheat codes to give ourselves all the most powerful spells and then just arsed around happily, never actually progressing the game. Good times.
Mario Kart Wii: Nintendo's generally strong on making games that are fun to play with friends, and this is no exception. Some people complain about the 'making things easier for people who are far back' aspect, but I like that it means no one ever feels like they're out of the running.
Mass Effect 2: Forgot about this one! I gave it a try, but I found it confusing and frustrating and never got far; I was terrible at the combat, and I struggle to get invested in protagonists when I feel they don't have a defined personality. I don't know what it is about BioWare RPGs, but I always seem to bounce straight off them. I suppose the fact I tried to start with the second game probably didn't help, but the first game wasn't available on any console I owned at the time.
*Master Detective Archives: Rain Code: What a weird game. I had a great time; it really helped to fill the Danganronpa-shaped hole in my heart, even if I prefer Danganronpa's mysteries overall. Yuma is endearing, his dynamic with Shinigami is great fun, and I love that he has a big crush on everyone.
Metal Gear Solid: I was embarrassingly bad at this game. It amused me when I accidentally ran into the wires in the Ocelot fight and got blown up and the Game Over screen shouted 'YOU IDIOT' at me.
Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance: Forgot about this one! I played a bunch of it in one sitting at a friend's house. All I really remember is that the plot was ridiculous and the dynamic boss battle themes were rad.
*Metaphor: ReFantazio: What an incredible surprise of a game! I had never heard of it until the demo came out, and it really sucked me in. Love the writing, love the gameplay. Strohl is my boyfriend. I'm having a blast.
Minesweeper: I felt really bad when I mineswept badly and the little smiley face got killed. It looked so nervous whenever I clicked!
*Minit: I'd heard this game spoken of positively, but I found it frustrating and dull. I ended up deleting it so I wouldn't be tempted to go back and continue playing.
Monty Python's Complete Waste of Time: Lived up to its name, but enjoyably! Monty Python games were very odd and very fun to explore.
Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail: I used to play this all the time with a primary-school friend of mine when she came over to my house, and one day she came over and said we couldn't play it because it was blasphemous and I, having grown up in a secular household, was really confused. It contains one of my favourite videogame jokes: at one point, if all the characters get killed, the game asks you if you want to continue from the same place, and if you say 'yes' it just shows you all the characters getting killed again. There was a 'spank the virgin' minigame we were definitely too young to be playing. At one point I accidentally set the Black Knight's tent on fire and was terrified.
Neopets: Neopets was basically a videogame, right? I was on this website all the time when I was twelve to fifteen. Shoyru was my favourite Neopet; at one point I owned three Shoyru, which is striking, given that you're only allowed four Neopets at a time. I once wrote a poem about one of my Shoyru for school. (There are still two Shoyru on my account (which still exists!), but I transformed the third into a Xweetok; I got Lab Ray access because I was LOADED in the early-2000s Neopets economy.) It was very exciting when I turned thirteen and was allowed to access the message boards. I spent a lot of time on the roleplay boards. Someone on Neopets maintained a hilarious site for horse (or 'equine', no horse roleplayer ever actually said 'horse') roleplayers which was just a list of terrible flowery terms that they advised you to use. Why say 'eyes' when you could say 'orbs' or 'oculars' or 'lanterns' or 'twin pools'? Why say 'ears' when you could say 'acoustic apparatus'?
*Neva: Gorgeous game, and I got very attached to Neva! Much tougher than I was expecting, though. I ended up very grateful for the opportunity to turn the difficulty down at any point.
NieR Automata: This was a good game and combat was fun and it managed to genuinely surprise me, but I can't say for certain whether I liked it. Very strange, very dark. Jackass is the best character. I was spoiled for how you beat the final battle and wish I hadn't been.
Night in the Woods: I played this when I was neck-deep in an existential crisis, which wasn't the best idea I've ever had, but it's well-made and funny and heartfelt and gorgeously soundtracked, and I enjoy what a disaster Mae is. Friendship!
*No-Good Noelle: Easily the most stressful of Nemlei's visual novels, largely because 'you're short on cash and bad at your job and you've fallen out with your friend and some creepy guy won't leave you alone' are such grounded, realistic problems to have. I did the Ivy route first and was reluctant to go back for the Yule route, because Yule unsettled me so much, but I had a good time with the Yule route in the end.
Noddy's Playtime: I played the 'driving around Toytown' bit so much as a child and yet never - not once - realised that you could access minigames by parking in the right spots. As an adult I discovered a blog post about the minigames and was astounded. I wish I could go back and tell my younger self about that. I thought it was just a driving game!
Okami: One of my all-time favourite games. Enjoyable to play, beautiful soundtrack, gorgeous visual style; everything looks like a brushpainting and it's incredible. It's rare for me to love a game if I'm not particularly into the characters, but Okami managed it.
Okamiden: Stronger on character than Okami, but the move to DS meant the visual style lost a lot of its impact, and that was such a huge part of Okami's success.
*Omori: Wonderful. Agonising. Had trouble sleeping at points while I was playing this. Left me with a lot of half-formed thoughts and emotions it's difficult to express. This game is going to haunt me.
*Ori and the Blind Forest: Very pretty! Very hard, but just satisfying enough to avoid tipping over into frustration. I played it on easy mode, and it was still extremely tough.
*Ori and the Will of the Wisps: Like its predecessor, this was very pretty and felt great to play. It also had some very good additions, and I was a lot more invested in the story. Unfortunately, I really didn't like the ending!
*Outer Wilds: An interesting space exploration game I'm upsettingly bad at. I fell into the sun so many times.
Oxenfree: I really love the dialogue in this game, and the visual style is really interesting. Alex is great, and I love watching her bond with her new stepbrother under pressure. I wish you could move a little faster, though.
*Oxenfree II: As in the first game, the dialogue is lively and enjoyable to listen to! I didn't get nearly as invested in this game's characters and their relationships, though. The plot reveal through abruptly being presented with a dialogue option was a really clever idea.
Pac-Man: oh no, spooky ghosts. Wasn't there a Pac-Man cartoon once? I'm pretty sure I used to watch that.
The Path: (LP) Strange and atmospheric and unsettling and fascinating. A part of me feels that I dreamt this one.
*Persona 3 FES: I don't love this as much as I love Persona 4 or Persona 5, but it still kept me entertained! The themes and tone are fascinating, and I like Akihiko a great deal. I also found going through Tartarus strangely relaxing.
*Persona 4 Golden: I played this after Persona 5 and was afraid it wouldn't measure up, but my fears were unfounded; I had a great time! 'Issue-ridden teenagers forming intense friendships against a backdrop of murder': my catnip. I enormously love Yosuke and enormously don't love Teddie.
*Persona 5: This game has some serious flaws, but I love it passionately. The battle system is fun, the visuals are ridiculously stylish, the music is great and I love all these kids. I played it for a hundred and forty hours and had an absolute blast.
*Persona 5 Royal: The extra content in this game catapulted me into loving Akechi, to my surprise and delight; I just found him mildly aggravating in the base game! I strongly prefer the original game's ending cutscene, though.
*Persona 5 Strikers: This was a fun little diversion! I don't think it was a necessary sequel, but it was good to spend more time with these characters. This game's version of 'Last Surprise' is an incredible remix of an already incredible song.
*Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth: The dungeon crawling is slightly tedious at times and there are some characterisation issues, particularly with regard to Akihiko, but I was delighted to spend more time with Yosuke; I'll happily overlook some flaws for that!
Pokémon Red: This was such a well-crafted game. The Pokémon formula hasn't changed much, but that's because they really did get it right right from the start. This was the first RPG I ever played, and I had no idea how to progress at the very beginning. Oak wasn't at his laboratory! What was I supposed to do? Was I meant to... wait for him? It didn't occur to me that I was supposed to try to leave town. Bulbasaur was my first starter and is still, of course, the best Pokémon.
Pokémon SoulSilver: I loved the 'your Pokémon follows you' aspect and I'm a little sad they didn't keep it up for future games. Cyndaquil was my starter here. I made the mistake of trying to breed for a female Eevee in this game and ended up with twenty-five male ones.
Pokémon White: I thought it was a great idea to have exclusively new Pokémon until you defeated the Champion; it forced you to get to know and love the new generation. I really liked my White team.
*Pokémon Sun: A good, solid Pokémon game. My battle team ended up being unusually unbalanced because I kept seeing Pokémon and going 'I WANT THAT' with no regard for type. The plot is surprisingly wild, but the protagonist feels like a block of wood; I didn't really feel present in the world. I love Gladion and nobody is surprised.
*Pokémon: Let's Go, Eevee: A genuine delight. I haven't felt this much sheer joy in a Pokémon game since the first time I played Pokémon Red. Everything is cute as hell, seeing the familiar locations in new graphics is incredible, seeing (and being able to avoid) Pokémon in the wild is great, and, while I wasn't sure at first about the capture mechanic, I think the game ultimately benefits from cutting down on battling.
*Pokémon Shield: Very cool to see a Pokémon region inspired by the country I live in! I warmed up to Hop enormously over the course of this game.
Pokémon Pinball: This was a genuinely great pinball game! My brothers, my dad and I all used to fight over who got to play it. I rediscovered the cartridge relatively recently, and it still holds up.
Portal: A perfectly crafted little puzzle game. Unfortunately I've only played it on PC, where I struggled with the controls and was never able to beat the final boss.
Portal 2: My favourite puzzle game, and a candidate for my top ten games of all time. Very funny. Astonishingly satisfying ending.
Professor Layton and the Curious Village: An enjoyable diversion, although I was never compelled to check out the rest of the series. At one point I got absolutely furious with a puzzle, convinced the 'canonical' answer was wrong, and was very embarrassed when Joseph pointed out to me that it was in fact correct.
*The Quarry: (LP) I enjoyed this a fair bit! It didn't fannishly grab me in the way Until Dawn did, but I was engaged and invested in the characters' survival. Very visually impressive, too. Travis and Laura had a fascinating dynamic. (EDIT: Four fics later, I'm forced to admit that I lied; this game absolutely fannishly grabbed me.)
Quiplash: A great game to play with friends. The pressure to BE HILARIOUS IN A SHORT SPACE OF TIME can be stressful, but the results are a delight.
Radiant Historia: Forgot about this one! I never loved the characters, but the music was great, the battle system was interesting and some of the game overs were sort of hilarious.
*Raging Loop: Absolute bullshit. Just complete nonsense. Quite possibly written by aliens with only the vaguest idea of how human beings interact. I was entertained but bewildered throughout.
Ratchet & Clank: The Ratchet & Clank series was good fun and full of humour, but the games were often very difficult! I never enjoyed this series quite as much as Insomniac's previous Spyro the Dragon series, but I still had fun.
Ratchet & Clank 2: I think this was the game that introduced the concept of upgrading weapons with use, which was a great addition.
Ratchet & Clank 3: I'm heartbroken that they dropped the perfect original name of Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal for the UK release. My favourite weapon was the one that turns your enemies into ducks that lay flaming eggs, then run at your other enemies and explode.
Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time: Oh, man, I never finished this one! I should go back to it one day; I remember it being very funny. (EDIT: I did, in fact, go back and finish this, and I had a great time.)
Red Dead Redemption: One of the first open-world games I ever played. I was absolutely awed by this huge, beautiful world. I liked Marston and Bonnie (and my horse!), but the world was definitely the main draw of Red Dead Redemption for me. By this point I've played too many open-world games and I'm exhausted, but at the time it was just an incredible experience.
*Red Dead Redemption II: I can't say for certain that this is a good game, but it's definitely a good something. I've never seen the illusion of a living world carried off so effectively. I love my horse and I love the world and I'm increasingly fond of Arthur Morgan.
*The Sexy Brutale: Interesting game! I was going 'this is a neat concept, but I'm not really emotionally invested' until the ending, which was wildly up my street and made me like the entire game more.
Shadow of the Colossus: This game absolutely terrified me. Everything was so vast and empty. I regret turning so often to walkthroughs, but I was so scared of the colossi I couldn't bring myself to fight them without foreknowledge! Good horse.
*A Short Hike: I really enjoyed this! A very charming, low-stakes little game with a lot of personality.
*Silent Hill: Finally played this, over fifteen years after playing Silent Hill 2 for the first time! I was really impressed by the atmosphere and environmental design, given the limitations of the hardware. Silent Hill is very much a story about the town, though, and I prefer the approach of Silent Hill 2, which uses the town to tell a story about a person.
Silent Hill 2: Screwed up both my aesthetic tastes and my taste in fictional characters forever. I tried to replay this one recently and couldn't because I was too scared. (It also really freaked out the cat, for some reason. She must have not liked the sounds.)
*Silent Hill 3: Heather is great; she has so much personality in her observations! At one point I thought I had to get hit by a train to progress, which turned out to be a mistake.
Silent Hill 4: I played this with
dracothelizard and it was TERRIFYING. Monsters aren't supposed to follow you between screens! That's not fair! I DON'T CARE IF IT MAKES SENSE; IT'S NOT FAIR.Sonic the Hedgehog: We had this for the SEGA Master System II when I was a kid. I couldn't play it myself because I couldn't handle the responsibility of having Sonic's life in my hands, so I made Joseph play so I could watch. Sonic once went so fast he zoomed off the screen and the camera panned over the entire level, desperately trying to catch up, and eventually found him at the end, having already beaten it. I definitely remember this happening, although it does admittedly sound implausible.
Sonic the Hedgehog 2: We were stuck on this for ever because we didn't understand the hang glider. Still, we were happy enough discovering all the weird glitches in this game. Sonic could turn invisible and run through the clouds if you jumped in the right place.
Soulcalibur II: Forgot about this one! I used to play it with my brothers sometimes, although I found Dead or Alive 2 more compelling. The way Voldo moved was really creepy.
*Marvel's Spider-Man: This was an incredible, delightful surprise of a game. The writing is great, the characterisation is great, the gameplay is great. Shot (webshot?) straight into my personal top ten. One of the few games I've platinumed.
*Spider-Man: Miles Morales: I was delighted to have more Spider-Man to play, even if Miles Morales is a shorter game! New York is beautiful in the winter. Miles Morales is an endearing kid, and I love how thrilled Peter Parker is to have someone to share all this Spider-Man stuff with.
*Marvel's Spider-Man 2: Another great Spider-Man game! The characters and their relationships are so well portrayed. Delighted to report that this solved one of the few issues with the original game, i.e. 'not enough homoeroticism between Peter Parker and Harry Osborn'.
Spyro the Dragon: Before we got any Sony consoles ourselves, I went over to a classmate's house and watched her play this, and I thought it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. This was my first purchase when Joseph got a PS2 for his tenth birthday. I loved being a tiny purple dragon, but it was difficult!
Spyro: Year of the Dragon: A huge step up from the original Spyro! I loved exploring every corner of the levels to find hidden gems and eggs and minigames, and I was extremely pleased that Spyro could now swim. I'm looking forward to the remaster.
*Spyro Reignited Trilogy: An absolutely perfect remake. This looks the way the original Spyro series looked in my head, even though the actual original graphics can't have been anywhere near as good. All these years later, it still feels great to play.
SSX: We had a demo of this, and it was so much fun that we had to buy the actual game. Great decision. What an excellent snowboarding series. Joseph always played as Elise. I loved Untracked and its music ('Finished Symphony' by Hybrid, a band best known for being the reason Linkin Park had to change its name from Hybrid Theory).
SSX Tricky: IT'S TRICKY TO ROCK A RHYME TO ROCK A RHYME THAT'S RIGHT ON TIME IT'S TRICKYYYYYYY IT'S TRICKY TRICKY TRICKY TRICKY. Still fun, but I was a little sad that they were just the same tracks with makeovers. This was the game that introduced Psymon, who became the character I generally played in SSX. Bizarrely, I once wrote fanfiction for this snowboarding game. And I still remember the title of the fic, even though the title was 72132659.
SSX 3: New tracks! My personal favourite SSX game. Still looks surprisingly good for a PS2 title. I loved the worldbuilding text messages and radio chatter.
The Stanley Parable: (LP) Forgot about this one! But I love it. The narrator's voice is a work of art. I was very struck by the part where a self-destruct countdown triggers, and, if you run around pressing buttons, the narrator laughs at you. You can't stop the countdown. This is not a challenge; it's a tragedy.
Super Mario Land: You could not save this game and it was really frustrating. Who has the time or the skill to play through the entire game, start to finish, without a game over?
Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins: So much better than its predecessor. This was fun. I really liked the floaty level in space.
Super Smash Bros Melee/Brawl: The Super Smash Bros games are great fun, unless you're playing against people who are actually good at them, which is awful. I always play on Random, but my favourites to play as are Sheik and Kirby.
Tales of the Abyss: This was really charming and I need to get back to playing it! The plot is absolute nonsense, but the character interactions are fun.
*Tales of Berseria: The 'a group of ruthless villains and the small child they're all intensely fond of' party dynamic is great, but it's a shame that the 3D animation is so stiff and awkward. I'm constantly aware of how much more effective the storytelling could feel with stronger animation.
*Tangle Tower: The resolution was a bit confusing, but this was an extremely fun, charming, polished little murder mystery game!
*Tell Me Why: (LP) Not technically a Let's Play; I watched my housemate Ginger play this. Slow-paced, but I really liked the twins and their relationship. Gorgeous scenery.
Tetris: Or Super ACiD Block Attack, which was still Tetris; they just weren't allowed to call it Tetris. It's... it's Tetris. It's good. It's Tetris.
Theme Hospital: I always thought the very snide assistant who popped up in the lower right was a woman, and was confused, two decades later, to look her up and discover she'd been a man all along. I suppose, as a child, I just went 'long hair, that's a woman' and failed to clock the receding hairline.
Tomb Raider (2013): In terms of gameplay, I might actually prefer this to the Uncharted games; in terms of story and character, though, it's far less fun. It just takes itself too seriously. It also wouldn't let me invert the X axis and consequently gave me motion sickness.
Transistor: I'm very bad at this game, but it's gorgeously stylish and I love how in love with Red her sword is.
*Umineko When They Cry: What an intense, bizarre, brilliant experience. Taught me magic. I think this one will stay with me for a long time.
Uncharted: I liked Elena but wasn't really into this game or its interminable gunfights. However...
Uncharted 2: An astonishing improvement in every way. This was where the Uncharted series really found its feet as a ridiculous action comedy/tourism simulator. Also it opened with Nate in the Himalayas, simultaneously bleeding and freezing to death, which I was pretty into. Terrible final boss battle which makes me perpetually reluctant to replay this game.
Uncharted 3: Also great! Not enough Elena, but there were some lovely Nate-and-Elena moments, and I loved discovering Nate and Sully's backstory.
Uncharted: Golden Abyss: (LP) Forgot this one! Which tells you how memorable it was, really, given that it didn't come to mind when I was listing all the other Uncharteds. Nate had some good lines, but I missed Elena, and I missed the person Nate came to be after getting to know Elena.
Uncharted 4: A step down from 2 and 3 for me, because I intensely resent Sam Drake's existence and it forces you into too many frustrating gunfights towards the end, but still a good game. Gorgeous scenery. Includes the 'Elena mocking your videogame skills' sequence, which may be my favourite scene in the series.
Uncharted: The Lost Legacy: Gameplay-wise, possibly the best in the series! I did miss Nate and Elena, though. This falls squarely in the middle of my personal ranking of Uncharted games: 1, 4, Lost Legacy, and then 2 and 3 are fighting for the top spot. Sam's more bearable when Chloe and Nadine are just dunking on him non-stop.
Undertale: Fun and endearing, with an excellent soundtrack and a fascinatingly dark underbelly. One of those games I read up on for ages after finishing it, because there was so much interesting stuff in there. I still can't get over how much the fandom wants to bone that skeleton.
Until Dawn: Scared me so badly I had trouble sleeping for a while. These teenagers are all awful and I love them. Please don't ask me how many times I've watched Mike getting his fingers caught in a bear trap.
*Until Then: I absolutely loved this. Great writing, a lot of heart, plenty of weird memory stuff and teenagers having a terrible time. It was interesting to play a game set in the Philippines, too!
Wacky Wheels: The best driving game. Joseph and I had fun exploiting weird glitches (a lot of my memories of playing games with Joseph involve exploiting weird glitches); on one track you could jump over the barrier and drive over the horizon to find a creepy empty replica of that track. In retrospect, the fact that all the power-ups were hedgehogs you ran over to collect was really dark!
The Walking Dead: I still haven't played past episode two. I'm never in the mood for this game because it's so stressful! I do like Lee as a protagonist and his relationship with Clementine, though. I still haven't forgiven this game for not letting me say 'yes' when Clementine invited me to pet a cow with her.
Watch Dogs 2: The game's humour is fun, but I can't make any progress because I am the absolute worst at actually playing it. I like the tentacly octopus hoodie I've put on the main character. I like that you can stroke dogs. I struggle to enjoy or understand the gameplay. I did laugh watching Ginger play it, though; their first action in the game, upon spotting a rainbow flag, was to take eight selfies in front of it.
We Know the Devil: (LP) Forgot about this one! A short, strange and interesting visual novel about three teenagers staying overnight in an isolated shack at summer camp, waiting for the devil to make an appearance. My favourite of the trio is Jupiter, incredibly repressed and desperately trying to be a good person.
*What Remains of Edith Finch: I watched Tem play this for twenty or thirty minutes, and it gave us both such terrible motion sickness that we swore never to touch it again. I don't even like thinking about it.
The Wolf Among Us: I never finished this, because it kept freezing, but from what I played I liked Bigby and 'shipped him a lot with Snow White.
The World Ends with You: One of my all-time favourite games. So ridiculous, so stylish, so much fun! Joshua is a delight in how unashamedly awful he is. A crucial game mechanic is the ability to feed your protagonist ice cream until he's brave enough to wear a bondage dress. The DS battle system is hugely overcomplicated and I love it anyway.
*NEO: The World Ends with You: This game's a bit of a mess and sort of overshadows its new cast by bringing back characters from the first game, but it's also a lot of fun, with extremely lively dialogue. Fret is the best and is also definitely in love with everyone.
*World's End Club: The gameplay is awkward and the characters are largely one-note, but Aniki is a perfect emotional disaster of a kid, and I have to respect the sheer weirdness of creating a plot-twisty murder game apparently aimed at small children. I was very confused, but I certainly wasn't bored.
Worms: Armageddon: Good competitive fun! I always liked the Holy Hand Grenade, and the worms' silly little voices. 'Oh no!'
*Your Turn to Die: 'A bunch of people are abducted and put through traumatic, murder-filled trials for mysterious reasons' is my favourite genre. Keiji and his dynamic with Sara fascinate me. Lots of great fodder for horrible fanfiction, which the fandom is cheerfully exploiting despite a sizeable faction trying to claim 'you can't write that; it's morally wrong!'
*Zanki Zero: Last Beginning: The gameplay can be frustrating, but everything else about this game is ridiculously up my street. Strangers thrown together and forced to bond through adversity! Guilt-ridden characters! The ability to pair the characters up in any and all combinations!
Zero Escape: 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors: Did some really interesting things with the DS and with the fact that it was a videogame! I liked the characters but wasn't especially invested in them.
Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward: So many plot twists that I just got exhausted. The AB Game was interesting, though. The ending was frustrating in its complete lack of resolution.
Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma: Unexpectedly, not having been particularly grabbed by the characters in the previous Zero Escape titles, I got REALLY INVESTED in the characters of this one. One of the most delightfully stupid plot revelations I've ever seen in a videogame.
The Logical Journey of the Zoombinis: Very charming! The harder difficulties were impossible for me when I was a kid; everything seemed entirely random. I wonder whether adult me has the logic skills to deduce how they work. The Fleen level was my favourite. A primary-school friend and I used to draw Zoombini-covered landscapes in MS Paint.
I'm glad I've put this very important and necessary entry into the waiting world.
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(Anonymous) 2018-10-18 07:41 pm (UTC)(link).hack//INFECTION, MUTATION, OUTBREAK, QUARANTINE
Lumping these in together as it’s effectively 4 discs of 1 game – you even important previous data, level, equipment, everything… which is a bit cheeky really! I loved the concept of a virtual MMORPG: I’m playing a character playing an MMORPG while I play a single player RPG of him doing so, reading fake board messages etc.
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
A fun if very over the top game. I enjoyed the solving mysteries aspect the most.
Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations
I did enjoy Godot a lot in this one, though the memes get a bit much sometimes. I liked his story arc.
Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth
Never actually finished this… didn’t dislike it, just got burned out!
Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney
I liked Apollo, and this game, but it always struck me as very weird the way the game treats Phoenix… then proceeds in the later games to write him as he was in the first few instead. We couldn’t at least see a progression of going back to that instead of instant change?
Age of Empires 2
A childhood favourite. I remember one of my favourite strategies was to avoid too much combat by sending an army of monks to convert buildings/troops. Eventually the AI caught on and would resign after I’d converted about ten things, which I felt was very rude. You’re supposed to let me steal your units –then keep fighting me-!
Age of Mythology
Rather like the above, but with more mythological creatures! I preferred the story mode in this, though.
Assassin’s Creed II
I enjoyed this far more on PS4 than PC. The story didn’t grab me 100%, but I really enjoyed the gameplay for the most part.
Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood
This fixed some of the issues with the gameplay last game (read: the parts I didn’t love) but also seemed to introduce a lot more bugs!
Big Pharma
Sort of a puzzle game? You build your own assembly lines that get ever more complicated, and then try and patent things before the opposition. Or, if you’re me, you never patent anything and wonder why you’re losing.
A Bird Story
A beautiful little game in the To the Moon universe. Only an hour or so long, it’s a real showcase in how to tell a story without dialogue: it’s all told through animation, situation etc. I’d love to use this to teach inference in school, to be quite honest with you. It also looks at the theme of daydreaming, so unreliable narrator comes into it too.
BIT.TRIP RUNNER
A rhythm game. Funky music! Can be frustrating, but good fun. I still remember watching Four Player Podcast play this many, many years ago, and get really frustrated. “Jump, kick, jump… SLIDE!!” Stairs are the WORST. Always throwing off my rhythm!
The Blackwell Legacy
Not the strongest of games, but introduced me to the characters in the Blackwell series, who I grew to love very much. Story of a spirit medium and her spirit guide!
Blackwell Unbound
A prequel to Legacy. Lauren is very different to Rosa, as is her relationship with Joey – I thought that was really interesting, especially given that we know what had happened to Lauren as of the Legacy timeline. :(
Blackwell Convergence
Starting to see the games getting stronger here, as well as exploring the spirit medium/spirit guide concept a little bit further.
Blackwell Deception
I loved the framing of the mystery for this one!
Blackwell Epiphany
Felt considerably longer, and is actually looking pretty gorgeous by this point. Had some cases that really made you feel for people.
The Cat Lady
Never seen a story with a depressed main character get itself so right in tone. What I loved about this game, as well as the style (a horror game where most of the game is in hues of black and white… and red), is the characters and their growth. And it was great to see Susan go from depressed lady who had tried to kill herself, to somebody fighting for her own and other people’s survival. Some interesting music, too. Also a rare case of a game with two female main protagonists and a story that explores that relationship.
Contradiction
An FMV murder mystery. There were a lot of ways that Contradiction maybe shouldn’t have worked… but they hit the perfect casting for Jenks, and he sold the entire thing. It’s great. Also, some of it was filmed in my town!
Cook Serve Delicious!
I have never been so proud as when I beat some of those absurd challenge levels. YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED TO ORDER CORNDOGS SO FAST WHEN I’M NOT ALLOWED TO FAIL ORDERS. THIS FOOD IS EASY, HOW HAS THIS HAPPENED. The emails were fun!
Cook Serve Delicious! 2
Loses a bit of personality compared to the first, but the gameplay is objectively better and the game is longer. I’m not sure I’ll ever fully complete all the levels on this even though I managed to on the original!
Cossacks
Cossacks had some really strange gameplay mechanics for a strategy game. This has led to some hilarious memories though. Three that spring to mind include: the time I sent a giant army of men with muskets to go and kill the enemy, and then when I got there they stood around not firing as I didn’t have enough iron to shoot; another time I sent a giant army and they got half way there before promptly all dying as I was hit by an unexpected famine; and the time I failed to leave guards outside some of my buildings and an enemy literally walking past them let them to capture said buildings.
Crusader Kings II
I’m not good at this grand strategy game, but I enjoy it. The multiplayer is good. I’m trying to slowly take over Ireland as a small Irish king. It’s taking a very long time, and England look like they may try and kill me soon. Awkward! You can also have characters get the crazy trait, and so they appoint a horse to their council. Really fun. At least I can handle small scale fighting now.
Civilisation IV
I’m okay at a diplomatic victory, but rotten at any fighting!
Danganronpa
Enjoyable mysteries, I love murder mysteries anyway, and some interesting characters/twists.
-timydamonkey
no subject
(Anonymous) 2018-10-18 07:42 pm (UTC)(link)I love the way this played with expectations from the first game. Solid mysteries for the most part, although the cast was noticeably zanier than the first game which didn’t always work for me.
Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony
Probably my favourite Danganronpa game? I think the gameplay is best here, and I loved the concept of lying and that your character isn’t too pure to be the only person not telling lies. I generally preferred the cast, too, a few people aside. The controversial twist was just there for me, it didn’t change how I felt about things.
Day of the Tentacle
Time travel and point and click games goes well together. Three different protagonists, three different time periods, completing time travel puzzles. It’s also hilarious, and the voice work is really strong for early 90s. I loved Laverne. She’s so zany!
Deponia
A take on the point and click genre. Rufus acts like a point and click protagonist: he’s a kleptomaniac that takes anything not nailed down, and he speaks as if taking the worst, rude dialogue options in a choice based game. Deponia is basically a series about where a point and click protagonist actually gets in trouble for being in a point and click protagonist (aka unbearably rude). The singing narrator is great.
Chaos on Deponia
Having said that, the parodies pushed a little far sometimes. Chaos on Deponia is pretty cheerful about Rufus’ involvement in murdering animals for puzzle solutions. This rude, game!
Devil Survivor
I’m not great at tactics style games, but it still uses the Megami Tensei battle system after the grid based part, which helped some degree of familiarity with spells etc. Interesting to see the tie in with modern teenagers this time.
Edna and Harvey: The Breakout
It’s rare in modern point and click games for certain things to be voiced because of the sheer amount of lines. I always enjoyed the fact there are loads of unique quotes for using items on things. Edna and Harvey were delightful, the plot twist was interesting, and I like takes on the unreliable narrator.
Edna and Harvey: Harvey’s New Eyes
The narrator really sells this one. He’s hilarious. It’s a comically dark story about “the most virtuous girl in the world” – yet everything she touches turns to hell. Her interactions with some of the narrator lines are hilarious, and she doesn’t speak for the most part – everyone just decides what she’s going to say and stomps over her on it. You feel rather sorry for her! The plot isn’t as good as the first game, but the execution is fun.
Empire TV Tycoon
I won an award for being absolutely hated by an audience group. I’M SORRY, BUT YOU WANT TO WATCH BORING TV. I’M NOT BUYING IT.
Fahrenheit
Terrified me as a kid! Terrible stealth sections. Don’t play when you have a fever; it may give you nightmares.
Final Fantasy VI
Never finished this, got stuck on the Floating Continent! Why are enemies so much harder?! Need to finish it one day.
Final Fantasy VII
I appreciate the plot more as I’m older, it really explores some unique and interesting concepts. Shame that the graphics have aged so much, and that later on the focus is just on Manly Cloud instead of the far more interesting Mentally Falling Apart Cloud.
Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core:
Didn’t mind the game and systems, but dislike the shoehorning in of characters to a scene that flashbacks to a scene from the actual game. YOU CAN’T ADD TO A FLASHBACK THAT WAS ALREADY IN THE GAME, CRISIS CORE. (I wonder if the FFVII remaster will include Genesis in that scene?)
Final Fantasy VIII
One of my earliest games, and one of my fondest. Will forever love Squall and Rinoa. Junctioning was unique!
Final Fantasy IX
Looks gorgeous even on PS1. Can bear the characters better as an adult, and it was nice to have a cheerful protagonist after the previous few.
Final Fantasy X
Again, beautiful, I enjoy the sphere grid system, and I liked the battle system quite a bit actually. I like being able to transfer people in and out of the combat party during fights; stops people just becoming bit parts as much.
Final Fantasy X-2
I wish they’d rethought that opening cutscene as the game is okay after that, but that first mission really forms a bad impression.
Final Fantasy XII
Balthier and Fran are the best. Ashe holds the plot. Most of the others are just there. Great voice acting!
Final Fantasy XIII
I liked the tension and the interactions between party members and their growth. I didn’t understand the dynamics of the world, and think too much was relegated to data entries that should have been established in game.
Final Fantasy XIII-2
I’ll never say no to time travel. I actually really enjoyed Serah and Noel – I’m not a big fan of Snow, so wasn’t expecting much!
Finding Paradise
Sequel to To the Moon, concerning an adult version of the child from A Bird Story. Took on an interesting concept, and had beautiful music as you’d expect from Freebird Games.
Game Dev Tycoon
I could make a lot of money as a game developer! But I can’t score 11/10. CMON, GUYS, BREAK YOUR REVIEW SCORE. I NEED THE ACHIEVEMENT.
Ghost Trick
A really cleverly told story with likeable and memorable characters. Many of them are extremely zany, but it actually makes those people feel like they fit perfectly in that world. The puzzles are intuitive, and the twists are presented well. I also liked the occasional spotlighting feature.
Golf With Your Friends
I am always last, but it’s fun!
Grey Matter
A point and click, but I’ll be honest, I don’t remember much about this one. I think magicians came into it…?
no subject
(Anonymous) 2018-10-18 07:42 pm (UTC)(link)One of LucasArts’ most famous adventure games, where the only real complaint made about it was the tank controls. Gorgeous graphics for the time, brilliant voice acting, great music, unusual puzzles and a really stylish story. Worth anyone taking a look at it. I was playing something recently and kept hearing Manny’s voice in an accent going “I’m your new travel agent!” (wonder if it was Life is Strange 2?). About a grim reaper who uncovers a conspiracy in the Land of the Dead.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher Stone
Not a good game, or even tying in particularly well with the Harry Potter world at all (HAGRID, WHY IS YOUR HOUSE SURROUNDED BY LAVA), the graphics were dreadful, but it was good fun. And puffskeins are cute!
Haunting Ground
The plot’s some clichéd rubbish, but the gameplay is fun. I loved the concept of being helpless in a horror game. You can’t attack, you can only hide and summon your dog. But if you’ve not trained it well (and even if you have) your dog can be pretty distractable and too happy to find something shiny while you’re dying. I liked the music and the panic system (though going into Major Panic caused less panic to the player and more annoyance: FIONA STOP RUNNING INTO WALLS AND TRIPPING OVER YOUR OWN FEET, YOU’RE GOING TO DIE IF YOU DO).
Heavy Rain
I liked playing around with the multiple perspectives in Heavy Rain. Quite a few red herrings around; wish David Cage could construct his games a bit more evenly.
Her Story
Database search: the game. I enjoyed it enough, but my main problem with Her Story is it’s not very clear what you’re doing. You have to find and watch some videos. Then what? There’s a section for saved videos. Are you supposed to save everything you see? Sort them by new keywords? Just look for specific videos? A bit more direction would be nice!
Hotel Dusk: Room 215
Another game where I’ll use the word stylish in its presentation. Hyde can be a bit of a jackass, but it’s sort of heartwarming to see his interactions with the other characters.
The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker
Another FMV game! I was a beta tester on this, and I enjoyed it a lot. It did very well with what must have been a nightmare to code: a murder mystery with no predesigned text choices, you had to type in your own questions and draw responses that way. Occasionally this meant if you phrased things in an odd way you didn’t draw responses so needed the hint system: eg :”Does x scare you?” drew no response, whereas game wanted “Are you scared of x?”. They did improve the keyword system as they saw more and more of how people were trying to place their responses.
Kathy Rain
Another point and click game, pretty enjoyable.
Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes
Great for teaching communication! The manual is a cruel thing. Have you seen that Venn diagram?! However, it’s a very fun coop game where you do actually have to cooperate if you want to get anywhere, and as you improve you’ll learn how to communicate more effectively.
Killer7
The only shooter I can tolerate, though the gameplay isn’t considered great. The game is absolutely on drugs, but it’s very fun and I love the Smith Syndicate and the way the game breaks it down.
Kingdom Hearts
An enjoyable enough game with terrible camera control.
Kingdom Hearts 2
Longer, with more characters I like, but with levels that can be more of a chore, I found.
Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep
Aqua is best. Cartwheel forever! Terra makes all the bad decisions. Like, literally every one.
Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days
Repetitive, but something a little bit different.
Knights and Merchants
Another favoured game of my childhood. I’m shocking at it. I think I’ve managed to beat maybe one level at all. Part of the reason I’m so bad at it is maybe because I’m having way too much fun building my own little town and making it function/employing people so sack off the combat til I get raided and they keep picking off my army who actually have weapons. I love the concept of everything working together: to arm a man, I need to have got the resources, then physically made the weapons, and have trained the recruit… so it limits your army numbers for added challenge.
Lamplight City
A beautiful modern point and click about a dude who is losing his mind. Probably why I enjoyed it so much! His colleague died on the job, and now he’s hearing his colleague’s voice all the time… and he’s sarcastic and grumpy. It works great! Interesting alternative history.
Legend of Dragoon
I have a bit of a grudge against this one. I’ve never completed it as I’ve had 4 separate sets of discs, and they’ve all broken by the end of disc 2. Apparently there’s a bug relating to turning into dragoon form on certain bosses? If so, it’s bull. I resent Shana as I got fed up of her constantly fainting, being kidnapped or injuring her ankle and the fact that whenever the game broke it seemed to be when we were on a tangent dealing with whichever of the above Shana was currently dealing with. DAMNIT, SHANA, IF I DIDN’T HAVE TO COME HERE BECAUSE YOU PASSED OUT I WOULDN’T BE FIGHTING THIS BOSS THAT KEEPS BREAKING MY GAME. Nice twist on the combat system.
Life is Strange
Again, I enjoyed the time travel puzzles. I liked Max, and her friendship with Chloe (though I didn’t actually particularly like Chloe).
Life is Strange 2
Shaping up to be good so far!
Mad Games Tycoon
Still pro at designing games.
Magnacarta
I remember very little of the plot of Magnacarta. I didn’t finish the game either as I got burnt out. The protagonist is called Calintz, he looks like a girl, and the combat system is extremely unique. I don’t remember how it was unique except that it really was and I never went back to the game to finish it after burning out as I knew I’d forgot how to run the combat system and I was at a point where it was too hard to be fumbling around trying to work it out as if I was a beginner.
Mini Metro
Fun game about building train routes! Gotta make them without overcrowding. Far harder than it sounds!
The Secret of Monkey Island
A simple little game, but it birthed the legend of Guybrush Threepwood.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2018-10-18 07:42 pm (UTC)(link)The swamp water and music used to give me nightmares, so I got banned from playing it for a bit as a child! A plot twist at the end that would be considered very daring these days.
Curse of Monkey Island
The best monkey island game. The usually fun combat got made even better by it having to rhyme on the sea. The best supporting cast by far, great humour and lovely graphics. Didn’t know what to do with the plot twist at the end of the previous game, so handwaved it for about a minute at the beginning before proceeding to totally ignore it.
Escape From Monkey Island
The most disliked of the Monkey Island games, but I’ve a very soft spot for it. It tried something different. The 3D graphics didn’t work entirely well, but it had some fun puzzles and it was still Guybrush. I pinched my pseudonym from this game, too (it’s a mashed up version of Timmy the monkey).
Tales of Monkey Island
Pretty decent going, Telltale.
Overclocked: A History of Violence
Teenagers are in a mental asylum having all gone crazy with their stories all relating to one location. A point and click mystery, where you play both as the doctor questioning patients and as the patients in flashbacks. A cool concept.
Papers Please
Who knew a game about border control could be so fun? I am a pro at fact checking. My claim to fame is that I was for a long time 2nd on one of the leaderboards for this game. Having not played it in years, I am no longer in such a high position!
Pizza Express
Extremely enjoyable with an awful lot of effort put into storyline/dialogue so that it’s not “just” a tycoon game. Really surprised me how fun this was!
Persona 3 FES
Probably has the most atmosphere of any Persona game, but you get less of a strong feel of the main cast, intentionally. The main character is intentionally a bit of a personalityless cipher, and the group that he ends up leading in battle aren’t really friends; they aren’t people who would hang out together at all, but they’re together out of necessity as the only ones who can stand and fight. They’re colleagues rather than friends. Cool twist ending!
Persona 4
They shelve the colleagues comparison in this one, and go straight to best friends. I like the murdery mystery concept, but the execution isn’t really as strong and it’s fairly obvious who the killer is due to lack of options. The characters have much more of a feeling of personality though.
Persona 5
This one explores rebellion and injustices rather than happy friendship fun times, and the group is a group of rebels looked down upon by society. Stylish as hell (try and find a review of Persona 5 that doesn’t say stylish) , gorgeous graphics and animations breathing life into even menus and transition screens, nice voice acting and an interesting story. Some complain it’s a bit predictable, but so was 4, and don’t see them moaning about that!
Pokemon Blue/Yellow/Silver/Crystal
Some of my earliest gaming experience, and lots of fun. I used to have all the magazines to see which I had caught, and I made my own terrible magazines that had barely any information and mostly just consisted of fake letters and puzzles pages with Pokemon covers. My mind was blown by nighttime in Crystal!
Poker Night
I picked this up for the characters interactions, which I did enjoy a lot, but stayed for the poker. I quite enjoy Texas Hold Em with nothing to lose!
Poker Night 2
Different set of characters, including GlaDoS. I think the first game had a better combination, but the game still held its own.
Portal
Funny, but actually quite difficult if you’re rubbish at physics like me.
Prison Architect
Great fun! I love trying to rehabilitate my prisoners. Sadly, this doesn’t work with maximum security inmates as they then keep stealing things and trying to keep eachother. Okay, you guys can spend most of your time in your cells… only now you’re angry… ouch…
Psycho Pass: Mandatory Happiness
Another game I beta tested (at least the Steam port of it). Good fun, especially if you enjoyed the anime – it’s set in the first season!
Psychonauts
Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale
In RPGs, people spent a lot of time buying things at shops to fight things. Recettear is the opposite: you are the shopkeeper! Sell things and make a profit. You can do dungeons yourself, too, if you like, to find things to sell in your shop. It’s very cute!
Resonance
Point and click with an interesting twist, and you play as multiple people. Good fun!
Red Alert
Another childhood one. I was also rubbish at this game, but it had cute dogs so I was always the red team as they were the only ones who got dogs which killed people. However I had no concept of strategy so they tended to be massacred by siege weapons. RIP!
Rogue Galaxy
Gameplay wise it’s okay, and the factory is fun, though the story is pretty clichéd in places. Cutscene-gameplay ratio is terrible. Gotta go to bed, better save. Step – five minute cutscene – step – another five minute cutscene. WHY?
Rollercoaster Tycoon
Great fun though I’ve never been good at customising rollercoasters. Again, my inability to fully understand physics letting me down!
Root Double: Before Crime, After Days
A lovely visual novel with a cast that I really enjoyed. Very Zero Escape style, only with more teenagers. Also with a world where telepathy is normal, which makes things… interesting.
Runescape
An MMORPG that tends to be considered WOW’s poorer little brother, or it certainly used to be. I’ve played this on and off for 15 years; I’m still very fond of it. It has some really cool quests, and the god stuff recently is interesting. Also created by a British studio which is cool.
Sam and Max: Hit the Road
Sam and Max are brilliant characters who bounce off eachother really well and have a really unique interaction style. Max is an absolute maniac. It’s witty, the plot is totally absurd, but it’s fully believable in the confines of the Sam and Max world.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2018-10-18 07:43 pm (UTC)(link)More Sam and Max, now with Telltale! Telltale actually started as a studio because Lucasarts cancelled the sequel to Sam and Max: Hit the Road, so the staff made their own company to make them instead. This season was focused on hypnotism. Had some nice songs!
Sam and Max: Season Two
Season Two took on one of my favourite themes of time travel, and it shook up the formula a bit so the episodes felt less formulaic than season one, even with a lot of the same cast.
Secret Hitler
A very fun card game about liberals versus fascists, where people have to try and push their own agenda through parliament. Hitler doesn’t know who his team is, the fascists know who they are and who Hitler is, the liberals don’t know anything. You have to not let yourself be strung along as a liberal and to be able to analyse tactically. If Hitler is elected into power or the fascists pass all fascist policies, the game ends with a fascist win. It’s a liberal win if all liberal policies get enacted.
Seven Kingdoms
Another strategy game of my childhood which was enjoyable enough if not especially memorable!
Shadow Hearts
Unique combat mechanics (Legend of Dragoon is the closest example that I can think of). The game has a really creepy atmosphere, and can be quite dark. Yuri’s solution to everything is punching dudes, which I think is pretty great.
Shadow Hearts: Covenant
The sequel to Shadow Hearts, and funnier rather than quite as atmospheric. The cast is zanier, the combat/gameplay has been tightened up considerably, and it has a very… unique ending.
Shadow Hearts: From the New World
The first Shadow Hearts game I played, but the third in order. Parts of it are an obvious reskin of Covenant. The main cast are a bit bland, but I enjoyed and shipped the villains… which is unusual as I’m rarely a shipper!
Shardlight
Beautiful post-apocalyptic style point and click game. Again, some great music and puzzles and voice acting.
Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga
My friend got this game as we’d both liked the Persona games. After playing about fifteen minutes I cackled. “You bought a cannibal game!” “They’re not cannibals!” “Dude, they are!” (They were.) It’s actually a great game, but I always remember this!
Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga 2
Like .hack earlier, this is a continuation of the story so they kind of go together… though the setting is totally different so you can get away with this one. Has some interesting twists along the way, and I always love SMT/Persona combat systems.
Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne
Difficult. You get to make a bunch of choices, and the combat is extremely fun but you’re running around a barren post-apocalyptic world. Nearly everything has been wiped out. There’s a handful of humans, demons have overrun everything, and a little kid who turns out to be the devil has changed you into a human-demon sort of hybrid who doesn’t properly belong in either world. But you have the strength to fight for creation of a new world. It’s curious.
Silent Hill 4
Dear Walter, you are not allowed to sneak up behind me when I enter a screen, that’s really rude. Also, how the hell are you shooting me? You were chasing me with a chainsaw five seconds ago. No love, Henry. I enjoyed it but what the hell was that plot?
Space Food Truck
An enjoyable puzzle game that seems made for co-op but I basically just play single player!
Star Ocean: Till the End of Time
Has a dumb twist, but the gameplay was okay.
Stardew Valley
Gorgeous, calming music and relaxing gameplay make this far better than you might imagine.
Stay Tooned
Another childhood favourite. I loved the random events where things came and pinched the mouse cursor etc. Rooms were also randomised each playthrough which added far more replayability. You used to be able to find nothing at all about this game on the internet, it’s much better now.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2018-10-18 07:43 pm (UTC)(link)Childhood! Beautiful music! Really hard! Impossible to beat! But hey, that underwater level music is the best.
Technobabylon
A rather sci-fi point and click exploring some rather interesting concepts!
Theme Hospital
The receptionist is the best. Once I had to cheat my way through a level as my operating feature kept bugging out and crashing my game. I had to either never look at that area of the hospital (which never worked) or finish the level quickly. In the end, I used money cheats to clear the level much more quickly so it’d stop crashing. The receptionist screeched, “HOSPITAL ADMINISTRATOR IS CHEATING!” continually for a while. For shame. Also impossible to beat. Do final levels even exist on that game?
To the Moon
Beautiful, lovely music, and the only portrayal of a person with Asperger’s that I’ve ever seen in a videogame.
Town of Salem
A strategy game that I half love and half spend ranting about people being dumb. It’s pure strategy so getting to work things out is really enjoyable, but it’s frustrating being hung by people who don’t understand that what they’re saying is blatantly impossible as they don’t actually seem to understand the game. Ditto when people say the game is pure luck. It’s… really not, if you actually try and work things out.
Two Point Hospital
Theme Hospital’s spiritual successor. Still quite funny, but not quite as hard, fortunately. Recommended if you enjoyed Theme Hospital.
The Walking Dead
Clementine and Lee are the greatest.
The World Ends With You
Tells the story in a really interesting way, with great character growth and a truly innovative combat system – if overcomplicated at times. I find the fact it has cool points hilarious. I really loved the concept of this game, and I enjoyed the characters.
Unavowed
Beautiful modern point and click with characters that intrigued me. Its setup would work for a sequel so curious if he plans on one.
Undertale
A nice concept, but has a rather toxic fandom that doesn’t really help matters. Does some clever things, however, and the gameplay was certainly unique though I imagine others have been inspired now. Could be quite meta.
The Witcher 3
The story didn’t exactly amaze me, but I’ve enjoyed the gameplay.
Zero Escape: Nine Hours Nine Persons Nine Doors
My first proper experience playing it was in the Nonary Games version, with voice acting, which I greatly enjoyed. The plot is convoluted, but the execution really does its best to sell it.
Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward
I kind of prefer this to 999 even though it’s all quite zanier with less of the interesting characters. Also, I really liked Clover in the first game and really dislike her in this. Other than that, the flow chart was a lot of fun and I like how Uchikoshi integrates his gameplay with his plots.
Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma
I greatly enjoyed all of the teams, even Q Team. (You’ve got to have a team of mostly terrible people, you know? And it can’t be the others when there’s four returning characters…) I liked the variety in the rooms, and I liked the voicing again. I even didn’t mind the framing although that seems to be an unpopular choice.
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I get really confused whenever you mention the Blackwell games, because I keep expecting them to be Life Is Strange-related.
the cast [of Danganronpa 2] was noticeably zanier than the first game
That was definitely a problem. It was part of the reason I really appreciated Hinata as a protagonist; he felt so normal (which I suppose was intentional) and provided a great contrast to all the larger-than-life characters around him. It's also part of the reason I loved the relatively level-headed Koizumi so much.
The way the world worked in Final Fantasy XIII really was unclear, which is a shame; it's a lot harder to write fanfiction when you're not sure about the setting.
Lamplight City: A beautiful modern point and click about a dude who is losing his mind.
It will astonish you to learn that I read this and immediately looked this game up. Shame it's not on console.
You didn't say anything about Psychonauts!
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(Anonymous) 2018-10-19 04:11 pm (UTC)(link)I once wanted to write a Blackwell Series/Life is Strange crossover entirely on the basis of the fact that Life is Strange made me think of Blackwell. It involved Nathan being a spirit medium, yet still with Joey. Can't decide if it's excellent or terrible idea!
Yes, that is why I will never write FFXIII fanfic.
I am not astonished, but I am happy! Yeah, no console version, though it is on Steam (and probably GOG).
I knew I'd miss something in the list!
Psychonauts
A really cool romp through mental concepts and level designs. The main character is voiced by the guy who voices Invader Zim. Really unusual art style, but great voice acting and lovely art. It's about a summer camp for children with psychic abilities, so the levels are primarily all you entering a person's mental world and so everything is themed heavily around a character. From Oleander's war torn landscape, to a paranoid schizophrenic's nightmare in subarbia, to crashing around like a gigantic Godzilla, it does some really cool things. The plot's nice too! It also doubles somewhat as a platformer, and is infamous for the platforming having a helluva difficulty spike on the final level.
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FFX's graphics blew me away, too! So pretty, so bright, so REAL. Hahahahahahaha.
FFXII is still the best in the series for me - love the story, love the characters, love the graphics, LOVE the gambit system. Balthier is my favourite FF character, just edging out Vivi. I have Revenant Wings but didn't get very far with it. It might be time to give it another go...
Legend of Dragoon is actually a really good game on its own merit and doesn't really deserve to be compared to FF games. Yes, there are some fairly obvious similiarities, but I enjoyed it a lot more than FF7, even with the combat system where you had to time the button clicks.
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There were a lot of cute touches in Revenant Wings. I liked going back to the airship after every mission to see how the dialogue had changed and what the characters had written in the log.
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I reckon Square got it wrong - she's really called Riona Heartlily!
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I definitely never finished that game, but I remember loving it as a kid. Man, I'd forgotten all about it!
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... I’ll reply to the rest of this later because I have more thoughts! But ToV occupies at least 8% of my brain at all times.
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Oh man, I need to play Infamous: Second Son! I remember really enjoying the powers in Infamous (which makes sense, it was pretty much Sly Cooper but ~~Edgy~~) but hating basically everything else.
I am so excited about Red Dead Redemption 2. No, that's incorrect: I am so excited to ride my horse around the pretty landscape and pick flowers in Red Dead Redemption 2. I couldn't care less about the rest of the game.
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I was really confused that I enjoyed Second Son so much when I had so many issues with the original Infamous! But it's great, great fun.
I AM ALSO VERY EXCITED ABOUT THE HORSES IN RED DEAD REDEMPTION 2. A friend of mine expressed his intention to book time off work to play it on release day, and my immediate response was 'I expect a full report on how endearing the horses are. Can you stroke the horses? Please research.'
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(I'd do this, but I own over 200 games and have played more than that. Ech)
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(Anonymous) 2021-03-31 08:24 pm (UTC)(link)(5 pages later)
Why do I always do this?
-timydamonkey
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(Anonymous) 2021-03-31 08:25 pm (UTC)(link)Hey, if you have multiple main characters, you can play with as many tropes and archetypes as you like, right? I appreciate the amount of mindfuck, and of course the mental suffering some of our protagonists go through. I like that it being presented in a non-linear way means that the way you choose to approach the story can affect the way you theorise and when you eventually start to be able to connect bits of the timeline without looking it up is really satisfying. (Like Zero Time Dilemma, the timydamonkey way is to very scientifically close your eyes, randomly hit the directional buttons, then stop and roll with whatever fate decides you should do next.)
1954 Alcatraz
This is a cute point and click adventure. I liked that it involves playing as two characters in two different settings: the prisoner in Alcatraz, and his wife on the outside (the latter is what I found to be the more compelling story). I like that you can ultimately decide to some degree what happens with the fortune you’ve all spent so long trying to find!
AI: The Somnium Files
I love that family and relationships between subsets of characters is so important in this game, as well as how the mystery unfolds. I loved Aiba, Date and Mizuki in particular. A small footnote for the game really, but I found its portrayal of dementia really touching, as well. I will fight anyone who disses Invincible Rainbow Arrow.
Among Us
I played this game before it became popular. That sounds very “it’s popular so now it sucks!”, but I don’t mean it in that way: I view Among Us as a social deduction game (see other games I’ve mentioned over the course of both lists) and for me it’s fun for the detective work of who is evil. And while there have always been people who like these sort of games for other reasons, it’s newfound popularity has brought in a lot of people to a social deduction game who are less interested in deduction and more interested in just running about being evil. Nothing wrong with that, it just doesn’t necessarily jive with how I play. However, the primary reason I play a lot less is I try and stick to not playing much of games with randoms when I know they’re in craze with the kids at school just to protect myself, and this is the big craze right now. At least I know what they’re talking about!
Armello
Basically a board game in a computer game? I like Armello, games are a decent length, there’s a decent mix of heroes, and different victory conditions. Prestige victory normally seems to be the way to go though; most of the others seem far more risk than reward, and RNG can seriously punishing you depending on starting mission locations.
Cluedo
Okay, it’s not actually the first time I’ve played Cluedo, you’ll be shocked to know. But I found a nice online version of it, so I suppose it counts as a computer game as much as anything else? I love Cluedo. You might have noticed that I love deduction games, and this is a nice version, although it seriously simplifies board movement and allows slightly different rule variations to how I’d normally play, and it probably teaches notetaking bad habits as it takes a few notes itself in relation to shown or can’t be shown cards. Great fun and often a brain workout too!
Cook Serve Delicious 3
Still not quite as addictive as Cook Serve Delicious 1, but it is the most challenging game of the series for me so far, which is good – maybe as my menu can’t always just be foods I’m comfortable with! The food always looks gorgeous. The food truck made me feel a bit motion sick originally but there’s a setting to close the windows so now it’s all fine!
Crusader Kings 3
Great fun! The Crusader Kings series is a set of strategy games where you play as a specific leader in a dynasty, with their attributes and connections benefiting you and/or hindering you, but as time goes on, life ends, you pick up as another member of your dynasty, and things can change very, very quickly. Whether it’s better than its predecessor may depend on whether or not getting the insane trait can result in you randomly appointing a horse to your council, like in the previous game.
Disco Elysium
I liked this game well enough, although not to the degree that I see praise heaped on it as if it’s completely perfect. It’s unique, I like that the dice roll system (although it can be gamed by save scumming) can force you into playing in different ways, and it generally ran very smoothly except for one part later on where I got rather stuck because I’d done something in the wrong order. It also has one or two very scouse accents in it, so wondering what people make of them when not British! (Although I believe may have been recast in the fully voiced, version?).
Exit/Corners
Sometimes a game comes along and you think, “Why is this free?” This is one of those games. I really like ‘escape room’ genre games in general, but I really liked the way it had a small focused cast, and played around with expectations of the concept and how it could be used.
Kingdom Hearts 3
I liked this well enough, but I’ll be honest: I don’t remember much of it particularly well, which doesn’t necessarily make it a bad game, just less memorable than its predecessors. I do remember raging at that ship race, though. All in all, a decent enough addition and I always enjoy the voice acting (except when the worst Final Fantasy voice actors of all time are hired who don’t know what emotion is, still not over it).
Need to Know
I picked this up after playing the two Orwell games (see below). This is a considerably longer game than Orwell but with a less focused story (or maybe it just feels as such because it takes place over a much longer period of time). Need to Know also features lots of poring over information, this time quite literally to determine threat levels, but also looks at how such information may not always be used for objectively the best or most neutral reasons, and looks at the dynamic of a few individuals holding a treasure trove of information, which can be a powerful vehicle.
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(Anonymous) 2021-03-31 08:25 pm (UTC)(link)Caught a streamer I liked playing this and was intrigued enough to pick it up. Orwell is a surveillance program that can be rather draconian (hence the name). You are tasked with tracking down the perpetrator of a terrorist assault. One of the things I really liked is that you often unearth information that is contradictory and you have to feed to a profile of the individual you are trying to find information on, and working out which information is accurate/up to date is important, but you also have to consider ramifications of inputting certain information (for instance, if you tell an anti-terrorist force that somebody is prone to violence when panicked and is defensive and panics easily, you’re preparing them, but equally that information may also influence their decision making processes and categorisation of threat). The length works well for the style of game and keeping the story focused. Really interesting game!
Orwell: Ignorance is Strength (Orwell 2)
Not quite as strong as its predecessor (nor as long), but still enjoyable if you like poring over fictional documents to learn more about people/determine motivations and ultimately make decisions in a surveillance state.
Project Hospital
A hospital sim management game, but not a humorous one like Theme Hospital or Two Point Hospital. Quite interesting if you like sim games, although the insurance objectives seem to lack variety across different playthroughs.
Return of the Obra Dinn
Lucas Pope does a very good job with games for essentially being a one man band, and here he brings a very ambitious story of an insurance agent tasked with boarding a ship that has returned sans its crew, and who has to catalogue the fates of the sixty people aboard who have all vanished… via the help of a pocket watch that allows you to relive the last few seconds of a person’s life. Told non-linearly (and beginning with the end), it’s really fascinating, and the visual style is striking… even if it’s partially to make the entire thing manageable for it having all been made by one man!
Throne of Lies
Another social deduction game, it’s very complex and I’m still not competent at all of the roles! Characters can be converted between good factions to certain evil ones for added chaos, meaning that just because somebody is confirmed a good person on night 1 or 2, it doesn’t necessarily mean they may be on night 3 or 4, and they might have started slipping in lies. Good fun!
Tokyo Xanadu
I picked this up after playing the Trails games, since it’s also a falcom game and it seemed to be a bit of a bridge between the style of Trails and Ys, Falcom’s other big series. More of an action RPG than the turn-based trails, I nontheless liked the battle system (particularly when I found the guy who could range while moving and proceeded to abuse that for the entire rest of the game!) It takes the school day framing from the Cold Steel games but tells a very different type of story, as well as character based side stories between the chapters. Some platforming difficulties aside, a very good game.
Trails in the Sky FC
This was the case of a game that I’d owned for a few years, but had never felt in the mood to play. In a “I really want to play a good RPG but I feel like I’ve played them all!” mood, I looked up the Trails series, noticed I already had this, and was charmed. The music is nice, I enjoyed the majority of the characters, and while it is a very slow moving story in some ways, I’ve never minded that and I just enjoyed a nice romp around through an interesting world. Special mention goes to Estelle, who has to be my favourite female protagonist in anything. She has such spark and some cracking dialogue at times!
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(Anonymous) 2021-03-31 08:25 pm (UTC)(link)A direct sequel to FC that takes place almost immediately after, this is my favourite game of the Trails series story-wise. It probably has my favourite set of villains, Estelle gets to really develop as a character because of the situation she’s in, and we also get to develop other characters that I really liked. The battle system of the Sky games can be a bit slow, but you can always use turbo speed and slow animations aside, I do really like the system here.
Trails in the Sky the 3rd
The main story is okay, although it still feels that this game is merely a vehicle for telling little character stories – and that’s okay. Some of them are more interesting than others, some are more infamous than others, but my personal favourite was just the little arc of Joshua’s early time at Estelle’s house. It’s really clever if you know their story, and to be fair Estelle’s whole “YOU MUST LIKE BUGS” dynamic in said story reminds me hilariously of Gonta and always makes me laugh.
Trails of Cold Steel
Set in a military academy in a different country than the Sky series – but the same world – Trails of Cold Steel takes some cues from Persona (think that instead of playing a calendar year, you play maybe three or four days a month, but extremely long, plot heavy days that go on for hours). Cold Steel is interested in looking at the notion of a class divide, and people learning to tolerate others. And then it goes a bit bananas at the end.
Trails of Cold Steel 2
Another direct sequel, the game suffers a little from the lack of the school structure holding it together at times, I think, although there is still a hub location, as I recall? It’s interesting to compare the characters to how they start off in Cold Steel!
Trails of Cold Steel 3
Taking place around a year later, this is my favourite of the Cold Steel games. It introduces several of my favourite characters, the fact it pares down the main focus to five characters from nine is really beneficial. I really like what it does with Rean, who is the main protagonist but seems to be a fairly contentious figure in fandom, but I can’t dislike someone with as much self-loathing (or maybe lack of self worth would be a better term?) as that guy (among other things).
Trails of Cold Steel 4
I liked Cold Steel 4 enough, but I think it suffers from trying to bring together too many characters and conclude too many arcs. I like characters meeting between games as much as the next person, but if you’re throwing around huge groups of characters it doesn’t necessarily do it justice as the characters don’t always get room to breathe.
We Were Here
I picked this up when it was free (it may still be free?). It’s a coop game: you have to pair up with somebody, and one directs via obscure clues and information, while the other person acts upon that information to try and (you guessed it) escape from the place where you have been trapped via puzzles. It’s not a long game, and not possible to play on your own, but it was interesting enough as you can’t see eachother’s screen so it really depends on your ability to communicate accurate information and identify miscommunications quickly.
Whispers of a Machine
Another one for my adventure game collection! This was also a detective game, and you pick up different “functions” dependent on the way you play, which is fun, and leads to some different puzzle solutions later on. I enjoyed it, although I did prefer Lamplight City, which I played not too long before this and was on my prior list.
Your Turn To Die
Another one in the “this is free?” camp, in a genre I really love. I particularly like the Main Game sections and the way the role cards make everything unfair: you can’t just have a considered, mature, reasonable discussion even if everybody was on board, as you always have it being underpinned by unfairness, especially in terms of the sacrifice card. I really, really like deductive games, as I’m sure you’ve noticed by now!
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I'm also delighted to see this update to your list!
I will fight anyone who disses Invincible Rainbow Arrow.
The ending scene for AI: The Somnium Files is one of my absolute favourite endings to any canon. Truly a masterpiece.
However, the primary reason I play a lot less is I try and stick to not playing much of games with randoms when I know they’re in craze with the kids at school just to protect myself
Oh, wow, yes, that makes sense; the possibility of accidentally playing online with one of your pupils hadn't occurred to me!
Ooh, where's the online version of Cluedo?
Exit/Corners and Your Turn to Die really are astonishingly high-effort, high-quality free games.
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Freddi Fish was a girl?! My kid loved those games (and I'm not nearly as old as that makes me sound - the games were old when we played them) and I guess neither of us was paying close enough attention to notice that.
I felt bad for the Lemmings blockers too! It always felt unsatisfying to me when you couldn't save them all.
I vividly remember playing the Holy Grail game with my younger brother, who literally ran out of the room in embarrassment when the Spank the Virgin minigame started and refused to play anymore after that. Good times.
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Freddi Fish was a girl?!
It's easy to miss! I had no idea until halfway through the second game, when a character addressed Freddi and Luther as 'you boys' and Freddi said, 'I'm not a boy; I'm a girl.'
That Holy Grail story is incredible. I'm delighted.