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52 Games Challenge 2025!!!

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dhaabi:
55. Persona 3 Reload || PlayStation 5 || 08.25.2025



After experiencing a Persona game for the first time a few years ago in a couch co-op setting, enough time had past to where wanting to play through another entry was something that that same person and I were wanting to do in the same way. So, we decided to play Persona 3 Reload (P3R), a remake. Generally, I prefer playing through games in their original adapation if possible and easily accessible to me, but I knew that playing the remake would be the most optimal option since I'm not playing alone. Also, I eventually learned only after we completed the game that there are certain quality-of-life updates to the remake that I think I greatly prefer, so that was good information to learn.

In short, P3R is a save-the-world adventure that's only able to be accomplished by a ragtag group of cast-aside high school students known as S.E.E.S. Their goal is only possible because these individuals are able to harness some greater power in the form of their individual Personas, which are a physical manifestation of their personality and identity. What they all fight for is to end a phenomenon referred to as the Dark Hour, which is a hidden time taking place every night at midnight. During this time, ordinary people are oblivious to what's going on as they stand still, and monsters known as Shadows work toward intruding our world to overcome humanity. While going through the game's opening hours, I was actually surprised somewhat by the game's narrative structure, as players are more-or-less just thrown into action without much knowledge while a lot of story exposition is just skipped. A major reason for why this seems to be is that the player-controller protagonist is a newcomer to an existing group and their organization's covert operations. So, instead of everyone involved figuring out what's going on altogether, what happens is that these other individuals explain a lot of introductory information for much of the game's early segments.

Despite P3R being a narrative-driven game, I found myself not being able to engage with it as much as I had anticipated. And a large reason for this is the characters themselves. For far longer than one would expect—at least half of the game's total playtime, which the game is of considerable length—there are virtually zero meaningful interactions between the protagonist and supporting cast on an individual level. In fact, even amongst the team, there are few party developments pertaining to the characters themselves and not the events they're involved in. Besides the characters, the story itself did not really seem to separate itself from others adopting the same end-of-the-world scenario, though its themes and tone do set it apart. Seeing that this is the game where characters literally shoot themselves with a gun to engage in battle, I actually would have liked to have seen its mature writing taken to an even higher degree, but what's present, such as topics like suicide and self-harm, is still commendable.

I'll now mention that the game is divided by its two kinds of gameplay: social simulation and turn-based RPG. I'll first discuss the former. Taking place over the course of one full school year, P3R's story is experienced day-by-day with a myriad of social interactions available to pursue at any given time. However, players are forced to prioritize what actions they take and when they take them, as most days limit players to two actions (which also includes deciding to engage in combat) alongside certain actions being time-specific. With that understanding, there are all sorts of non-player characters which the player is able to develop relationships with. While there are plenty of opportunities engage with non-party members whom make up the secondary cast, the aforementioned little engagement available for players to share with those closest to them made it seem like party members were the ones without much character depth. Eventually, though, opportunities to connect with party members on a deeper level do appear, though these moments are few and far between. There are very specific times when this sort of relationship-building can be experienced that's presented at random, whereas the secondary cast can be socialized with a much higher frequency while adopting a predetermined schedule. However, relationships will only grow as a result of accumulated social points between you and that specific individual, and the best way to gain these points are by selecting the most favorable dialogue options among several to choose from. Unfortunately, what's deemed as most favorable almost always is the option that avoids all conflict and nuance. And as a result, most social interactions were a bore and monotonous. This problem also seemed to affect the characters themselves, as I personally found many of them to be uninteresting or outright unlikable.

At least once per in-game month (though likely two or three times in total), the player and their fellow S.E.E.S. teammates will explore past the human world into a Shadow-filled dungeon which takes the form of a monumental tower where nearly all combat initiates. Exploring the tower one floor at a time, the player navigates the area while slowly ascending to the top until roadblocks are periodically met. However, Shadows roam the environment alongside players, which means that players themselves can decide whether they want to engage in battle or not. While the tower itself is divided into six sections with some environmental differences, each of the tower's 264 floors share an uninteresting level design that limits combat exploration by being a modern take on traditional dungeon-crawling. Of course, this does make sense given the series' history, but the decision severely diminishes players' ability to have fun while exploring and instead makes exploration be a race to the top as there is very little beyond battles to engage with.

With that said, the game's RPG mechanics offer a much more fast-paced foil to the slower social elements. With a party system that supports up to four, P3R is designed with a traditional turn-based RPG system which has each person or monster engaged in battle acting on their own. Unlike many other RPGs, Persona in general is a series which places great emphasis on buffs and de-buffs during battle, and P3R is no exception. At the same time, exploiting enemy weaknesses is also crucial, as it will allow for follow-up attacks in the same turn or, when exploiting all enemies present, allow players to unleash a powerful group attack. Alongside basic gameplay moves, there is also a special skill meter referred to as Theurgy that I think is designed well. In order to select these special skills, the meter needs to completely fill, but the criteria for this to happen varies between party members. I suppose I'll also mention that Persona games are known for being on the more difficult side, but I did not feel that way. During my ~120 hour playthrough, the only times I ever reached a game over (that is auto-triggered when the protagonist dies) was when auto-kill attacks were successful. But even then, the game provides several options for what players do upon dying, such as restarting the fight or restarting the save file. Lastly, the spoils system when winning a battle is designed quite effectively. Instead of one predetermined reward, players are able to choose what they gain from several options. As the game progresses, what's gained, the effectiveness of what's gained, and the amount of what's gained increases, and this alone system out of everything felt like it most valued players' time.

Besides utilizing standard attacks, player party members greatly rely on the use of their Personas in battle which grant them varying special skills. And as party members gain experience and level up, so do their Personas. As one would expect, new battle actions do regularly become available, though the amount of skills any Persona can use at any given time is limited to eight. So, balancing which skills are active by sacrificing older ones is necessary to progress forward in the game more easily. Exclusive to the protagonist, players may also fuse Personas which is the act of combining two or more Personas to create a new one. These fused Personas are almost always more powerful than what was relinquished, and certain skills held by the ones lost may be inherited to the one gained. Because of that one aspect alone, fusing was a crucial act so that powerful abilities, that are sometimes even specific to individual Personas, can be retained. However, I would have liked for this process to be more involved and strategic. While playing, I never felt forced to be that forward-thinking and methodical with what I make and what sort of actions they wield. Even when I accidentally lost a certain kind of ability that would have been useful, I still always managed to win battles.

It's common knowledge that Persona games are lengthy, including P3R. And as much as the two gameplay halves excel, I don't think the balance between them is done particularly well. How exactly players progress through the game is ultimately their decision, but it's incentivized to divide the two gameplay sections fully from another with each passing in-game month. Personally, I found myself going through hours upon hours of dialogue and other social mechanics, or hours upon hours of combat exploration without a break in-between either. For the former, all sorts of activities are available to pursue that are expected for a high-school student in the city to engage in: going out to eat, participating in school clubs, studying, shopping, being with friends, working part-time, or pursuing other leisurely activities. Of course, all these activities are technically optional but are meant to be engaged with, and for good reason too because they directly increase other mechanics tied to the combat exploration. While I could have avoided being invested in certain sub-plot narratives or shortened the time commitment by avoiding reading altogether, those decisions felt counterintuitive.

Having now completed Persona 3 Reload, I feel conflicted. While the game's upstanding quality is undeniable, it's not a game that values the player's time. Apart from this issue, the game's themes take on a more mature tone that I was anticipating, which I do commend. They regularly coincide with more lighthearted elements to be expected from a typical high school setting and cast. However, the story did become a bit boring as the game neared its end. It felt a bit generic and, unexpectedly, very similar to the only other game in the series I've played, Persona 5. So, this makes me question if other entries and future ones will follow this trend, which is a disappointing thought to have. I'm sure that I'll play other games in the franchise, or those similar to it also by developer Atlus, at some point, but I need a long break before then.

ignition365:
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--- Quote from: Legend ---bold games are games that have been beaten, previously beaten, or are unbeatable.
italicized games are in progress.
standard games are games I am not currently trying to beat.
strikethrough games are games that have been abandoned.
--- End quote ---

73. Blue Prince (XS)
So many games come out with hype and hit gamepass and get additional hype just from being accessible on game pass.  I had so many people talking about this game around release, so I downloaded it day one.  I don't think I actually wound up playing it though until the achievement for beating the game was listed as a global challenge on Playtracker.  While I did beat this game and dumped a good amount of hours into it, I only wound up unlocking 1 achievement, beating the game.  I don't even know if it's possible to unlock any other achievements until you beat the game.  If I'm not mistaken, the achievement system doesn't track achievements until you beat the game, at which point it will start tracking and allow you to unlock.  The actual unlock requirement for all of the achievements in the game isn't just to meet the criteria, it's to meet the criteria and collect the literal trophy in the game and place it on the trophy mantle/shelf/case.  Game is quite enjoyable, but that was really annoying and didn't leave me wanting to actually play more because I should have unlocked an achievement or two, but it didn't count because I did the requirement before beating the game and trophies don't spawn until after you beat the game, so nothing counts beforehand.  Anyway, talking about the game itself and not the shenanigans that annoy me... the game is quite good.  A roguelike escape game, definitely a good time waster, runs take anywhere between a few minutes (if you're super unlucky I guess) to 30 minutes/an hour.  Usually your runs will last somewhere in the 20-40 minute range I think, which makes it just long enough that you can't just casually play for a bit here and there because I believe if you quit in the middle of a run, you just lose the run.  It's one of the huge setbacks in the rogue genre for me, because I very rarely can commit more than 5 minutes to a game, if I can even get 5 minutes.  Sometimes, at night, I can commit longer, but even that is hit or miss.  The game's tile system is synergistic which can make for interesting combinations but ultimately everything is luck of the draw, despite that you can influence it some.  I do recommend the game though, because it is a bit addictive, but I will say I had to do a lot of guide reading to reach a point that I could figure out optimal scenarios, otherwise I never would've learned on my own the right patterns and combos to get good tiles.
Rating: Soft recommendation

74. Pikmin 1 (NS)
For like 20 years, I've been trying to get myself to play through the Pikmin games.  I never bothered on GCN, Wii new play controls I never got around to it, then it finally came to Switch and I still kept putting it off.  I really don't know why I finally decided to start playing it, but I did a year or so back, but I had only played the first level or two.  This time I think I was looking for something to play that I could play in front of my kid and I think I wasn't in a scenario where I had any obligations, so I went Switch.  It's possible I went Switch because I was actively avoiding Xbox because my wife and kid were both playing games on there and it actually doesn't support Quick Resume with multiple profiles, so my progress was always kicked out and I figured it was just easier to just not play Xbox for the time being.  Anyway, it being my first experience, I enjoyed the start, got into the groove of it learning with red, and then blue, and then yellow.  Eventually started getting to more complex levels, levels where I had to actually concern myself with environmental hazards and tight maneuvering.  Got to a point that I looked up a guide because I was concerned that I would beat the game let alone get all of the parts in time.  I managed to get all of the parts with several days to spare which was nice.  I think I was hoping for a more chill and relaxed experience as opposed to the strategy based experience I wound up with towards the end.  Eventually I'll move onto Pikmin 2 and the rest, but I'm not as excited after dealing with the stress of this first game.  One day I'll need to play the old Fire Emblem games too and I'm sure I'll be stressed with those too since they aren't casual optioned. lol  But I am concerned about the complexities of them adding new Pikmin types in the new games, so even more not sure I'm looking forward to it, but I'll definitely do it eventually.
Rating: Soft recommendation

75. Resident Evil 0 (PC)
Another PoP pick, RE3 wasn't a PoP pick I think, but this one was.  I don't know what it is with my pickers always picking games that I've said I've already beaten, like maybe they don't see that tag or something and they're just like oh yeah, this franchise is a must play, play it.  ::)  Anyway, I sped through this like I do all of the already played games when they get picked.  Followed a guide I think at least for a bit so I could get through quicker because I recall this one being real fucky throughout it especially on the train at the beginning with the routes you were supposed to take.  To be quite honest, I don't know that I'd ever get through RE0 without a guide, so much was not intuitive about how you were supposed to know to climb out a train window or something.  It's a nice little side story, but I think I always felt it was weird to generate this prequel with a character and never bring him back, but it's also hard to care much about anything RE when the series was basically thrown away with RE7... I do say that knowing I've never played RE7 or newer games and I really would like to get on that, but people keep making me replay these old ones.
Rating: Soft pass

76. Atelier Ryza 2 (PC)
I really like the Ryza games, but got damn are the PC versions of these games absolutely atrocious.  Horribly optimized, crash a ton, and tons of bugs.  I did play on deck, and I can't recall if it is verified, but protonDB listed a config that did wind up working better and I stuck with that, but the game still had some crashes and framedrops.  It was another PoP pick, though I think I requested this one because either it was a required play or something, I can't recall, definitely gift related.  Shortly after starting or beating this Ryza DX got announced which really chapped my hide because of course there is no upgrade path and you've got to rebuy the games and these originals will get delisted.  New achievement lists with DX though, I guess, I'll consider buying the set in a year or so when it's on discount bundle on steam.  Great game, but I guess I would have to recommend playing on PS4/PS5, even Switch played the game better than Steam Deck which is real sad.  Had I played on PC proper I maybe would've looked to see if there were any good mods, but to be honest they were probably all nsfw lmao
Rating: Solid recommendation, but maybe not on PC.

77. The Witness (PC)
So I got this on Xbox years ago, passively played it off and on throughout the years but got this picked for PoP and noticed that unlike the console version, the PC version only has 2 achievements: beat the game, get the secret ending.  I used a guide to get through the game because I had already done most of the puzzles on console and didn't really feel like trying to refigure out everything I had already done, but solved a lot of the later stuff myself.  Came to find that the last puzzle or few puzzles are random and there is no real guide to them, you can't cheat them, you have to, like a school exam, prove you understand the game and its puzzle concepts, and well enough, that you can solve 2 complex puzzles, individually, in 15 seconds.  Did take me a few minutes to solve them, because I hadn't expected that, but I did understand the concepts well enough, but not well enough to solve in 15 seconds, so it did take a bit to on top of everything figure out basically what was to be expected because 15 seconds isn't a long time for these complex puzzles even when you know what you're doing.  I did find it amusing because it was probably designed to fuck off players who were following a guide so I got a little chuckle at that.  I didn't manage to get the secret ending because I saw that that was also a series of complex, time related puzzles, and I knew that that would take a long time and lots of frustration for me to get.  I can do puzzles, I can even do them pretty quickly, but I just hate being hit with a timer that makes me start the whole process over again if I've got one misstep.  That all said, as mind fucking as the puzzles are in this game, I didn't really feel any pay off, even adding in the fact that I had been working on this game elsewhere for the better part of a decade without a guide.
Rating: Soft pass

78. Aurelia (PC)
Oh man, so I help run a giveaway group and a member wanted to give this NSFW game and the admin team had to have a discussion if we would allow such games and the consensus was, quality games are allowed regardless of NSFW or not and this one was deemed quality... I was among the folks who said even if we don't allow it, wishlisted.  I wound up winning the giveaway so I played it.  I really enjoyed the game.  Ignoring the NSFW elements, the game is really solid, has good story telling and likeable characters.  The game is a solid RPG game with a nice variety of systems and plenty of real good story telling.  The NSFW content is also quite good, could be more and better, but still quite quite good.  If there were a list of NSFW games worth playing, this would surely be among them, not just for the story telling, but also the solid gameplay.  That said, I won't throw solid recommendation because it is NSFW.
Rating: Soft recommendation

79. Dusk (PC)
Okay, this game, like a lot of boomer shooters, has been on my list for a long time... and just like some others (Turok), they really don't resonate with me.  For the most part, I am capable of playing the game and don't need a guide or anything, but it just doesn't feel as satisfying.  Maybe I was never big on Doom or Duke Nukem and I just have nostalgia because of N64 and stuff.  Maybe it's the level based nature, where I have a similar problem with games like Mario and the original Castlevania.  I don't know, but I constantly find myself thinking when will it be over... and that's not an enjoyable mindset to be in.  This game constantly had me looking for ammo, even on lower difficulties, and like a lot of these games had me trying to find guides for the later levels when I had no clue what the game expected me to do.  I feel like this style of shooter winds up being more twitch shooter/puzzle solving than your average just let me kill everyone shooter.
Rating: Soft pass

80. Aka (PC)
Chill fetch quest type of game.  I love fetch quest games like this, but this one had some issues between its small farming system and some bugs that could be steam deck related, not sure.  Never a fan of games that have 1 achievement that requires you to grind out extra hours for no good reason, this is one of those games.  I think it actually might have 2 or 3 like that.  1 is sleeping 30 times or something, something you wouldn't do in an average playloop and the other required watering a tree for 100 days or something like that, especially not something you'd get in a normal playloop.  Gameplay was enjoyable, mostly didn't require a guide, but some things weren't intuitive and did require a guide to understand, but definitely needed to follow a guide to get quite a few achievements.  The farming mechanics are frustrating in their controls, maybe would've been better with mouse, but also I expect it was just as bad if not worse.  For the most part the story telling is the only worthwhile thing in the game, because while I enjoy fetch quest style stuff as a chill gameplay mechanic, it was definitely held back by the farming system and unintuitive controls in general.  Like I want to be able to recommend it for the story, and the gameplay wasn't that bad, and the game is pretty short, but overall it just isn't worth the time playing.  Don't get me wrong, I can't think of a game that provides this experience better, but it also just isn't that great of an experience.
Rating: Soft pass

81. Death's Gambit: Afterlife (PC)
I enjoyed this game, but I also really disliked a lot about it.  I sort of tried to have a pure experience with this, but by the time I decided to use a guide for some stuff, I realized that I had fucked up so much at the hub area allowing a lot of NPC characters to die because I didn't understand what was going on.  Sort of aligns with that Dark Souls thing, but definitely makes me wish I had followed a guide from the start and I'm rarely in favor of a game requiring a guide just to have a good time.  I did have a good time regardless, but I can see it's one of those games that expects you to play through multiple times and I'm just personally not about that, so I like to get as much as I can in a game in a single playthrough.  Combat is absolutely solid and boss fights definitely have that Dark Souls appeal where you learn the patterns, win by getting gud, and feeling proud of your accomplishment... tough yet fare... except there are a lot of areas where it's the enemies on the way to the boss or the terrain that make the game awful.  I can't think of where it was, but there was one area in the game where I died tens of times because the enemies in the area were both in large numbers, but also high toughness, like the type of enemy you'd expect to not respawn because they are essentially mini-bosses, but they do respawn, that pissed me off.  Like the area ends with a mini-boss, but just getting to that mini-boss requires fighting like 10 mini-boss quality enemies that respawn, so I spent more time getting to that mini-boss over and over and over than times spent fighting that mini-boss, who was as one would expect a BS human NPC enemy which are always some of the most dangerous enemies in souls-like games.  Ignoring that stuff, plot and characters are pretty good, maybe a step above Dark Souls games where its impossible to follow what's going on, still a little difficult to grasp, but there are definitely stuff going ons that you can follow.  Afterlife content adds quite a bit more story and more endings, feels tacked on, but also feels necessary, so not much complaints about that, though I will always complain about DLC, though I have no clue if this game has DLC achievements, I wasn't aiming for 100% regardless.  I think as usual with these types of games, I didn't optimize or dig too deep into the game's systems, which might have made the game better or worse, but I find when those systems get needlessly complex I lose interest, consider me an old man.
Rating: Soft recommendation

82. Mario Kart World (NS2)
Lmao, literally the only game I have for NS2 and other than Bananza, I haven't been thinking about getting other NS2 games and I don't know that I will get anything on NS2 other than exclusives at this point because I'm shifting so hard on PC at this point there's no point, and I'm back on achievement BS.  Only reason I have this game is because I bought the NS2 bundle that came with the digital download of the game and even that I regret slightly.  I FOMO'd and bought a NS2 because I expected it would be hard to obtain and the price would go up with tariffs.  I still think the price will go up with tariffs like the other consoles have, but I can see now that the system is not in the demand that could have been expected and I should have assumed as much given the state of the economy... shit is fucked.  Anyway, game is solid and fun and the open world stuff is neat.  I enjoyed roaming the world, looking for outfits and doing the little challenges.  Game has your standard Grand Prix Mario Kart fare... but all in all, this game doesn't have that much content to justify its high price.  Grand Prix is just Grand Prix, the open world is neat, but the incentive to wander the world kind of just isn't there.  The only thing I got from the game from a single player experience I enjoyed to an extent over other games was unlocking outfits for characters, but that's a quick process and easily obtained fairly quickly if you know where to go.  I did play the game early when there were no guides so I didn't have that luxury, but at this point surely it's well documented.  The endurance race/tour/elimination race thing is neat in concept, but in execution you wind up with a 30 minute race where if any players get eliminated early you wind up playing by yourself with AI while you real life other players just have to sit around while you finish the endurance race, kind of annoying in a non-competitive environment.  Multiplayer in general feels lacking in content, the multiplayer modes are few and not the most fun compared to stuff like Mario Kart 64, again consider me a grumpy old man.  Anyways, while it is a great game, possibly the best MK to date, it's definitely not a system seller on its own and the economy isn't helping that.  I feel I may have some bias showing so I'll give it time and maybe I'll adjust it as they add free content?  Though I expect content to be paid or linked to the expansion online which will maintain the soft rating
Rating: Soft recommendation

83. Police Stories (PC)
I've played a few top down games like this, sort of reminds me of Hotline Miami, I'd say not as hectic, but honestly this one kinda is.  The AI is janky af, sometimes you can sneak on them or something and sometimes they'll shoot you through the wall without you doing anything to get detected.  Thus it winds up being about as hectic as Hotline Miami and for the most part you wind up having to not do things by the book and go on a corrupt murder spree.  Game was enjoyable for the gameplay, story left a lot to be desired, doesn't help in this cultural climate plus my own biases, I was never going to relate with cop characters in any manner.  I barely like Brooklyn 99, truly a shame that show took as long as it did to get to talking about police corruption, glad that show got cancelled.  Anyway, I'll never recommend a game about cops, I may play them, but I'd never expect to find one worth recommending.
Rating: Soft pass

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dhaabi:

--- Quote from: ignition365 on September 03, 2025, 05:09:33 pm ---Here I am, at September, just now trying to build notes for the year.

--- End quote ---

How much of a priority are completion notes for you at this point, if it's taken this long to write them? I only ask because I've noticed that, for a fair amount of games you play, there's little about them you seem to find worth detailing or that they're similar to other games you've also just played (such as with certain hidden object games.)

ignition365:
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--- Quote from: Legend ---bold games are games that have been beaten, previously beaten, or are unbeatable.
italicized games are in progress.
standard games are games I am not currently trying to beat.
strikethrough games are games that have been abandoned.
--- End quote ---

84. Kaizen: A Factory Story (PC)
I have a love hate relationship with Zachtronics games, they are usually really really good and have parts that are highly addictive and fun to play, but then they also have some parts that start that way and quickly spiral in difficulty and lose their joy.  This game keeps the joy from start to finish... and they are still adding content to this day, me writing this months later.  No new achievements afaik, but new content, so good stuff.  It's a bit silly of an automation game because it starts out making some sense in how you make some things, but then it gets kinda weird how you piece things together when you think about it, but it's still a really neat puzzle concept and it keeps it's joy.  The hardest puzzles among them is pretty much the last puzzle where you build a rather large and complicated item, that one took a bit of ingenuity, but the game prepared you with lots of reasonable puzzles and ended with a single large complex puzzle rather than hitting you with one early and slapping you with them continuously, making this game a joy from start to finish.
Rating: Solid recommendation

85. Athenian Rhapsody (PC)
A Undertale rip-off if I ever saw one, but unfortunately doesn't do anything it sets out to well enough to be called anything but a cheap, not good Undertale clone.  It tries to lean on meme content, but that falls flat.  It tries to lean on similar "tropes" and concepts as Undertale, but executes them poorly.  The game has few to no likeable characters and has you doing quite a bit of backtracking.  Plus the achievements in the game take the polar opposite route of Toby Fox where you've got lots of BS achievements and requires multiple playthroughs to get them all.
Rating: Solid pass

86. Islets (PC)
I had high expectations for this one, so while it is still a good game, I did go in expecting higher quality than what was received just based on how crisp the artwork looked.  Building out the world by connecting the areas was a neat concept and made for interesting gameplay... but the game had early flaws with fast travel and the game's map had some issues with accuracy of information it displayed.  Then as the game progressed and we got fast travel other flaws came to the surface.  The game's later game concepts for complicating traversing the world made working through the later areas painful, which coupled with the final areas being split made the game quite annoying towards the end.  Also didn't help that almost none of the characters in the game were likeable.  Despite my disdain for shmup gameplay, the shmup gameplay in this wasn't awful and was more than tolerable.  Despite complaints, it's still a good game, I just had higher expectations for the game than I should have allowed myself.
Rating: Soft recommendation

87. Turnip Boy Robs a Bank (PC/GPU)
I think I had intended on playing this on XS but for some reason I wound up playing it on my PC via Game Pass... I honestly can't recall why I did it other than maybe at this point I've got this stigma in my head that if I play a console game I'm going to fall asleep while playing which I'm less likely to do sitting at a computer.  Also, I was probably listening to wrestling or something while I was playing to be more likely.  I had the chance to get this for Steam but I decided I'd just play it on game pass before it left, which shortly afterward it got announced that it was leaving game pass, so I decided to prioritize the game.  Game play winds up being a lot more of the same as the first Turnip boy game, but roguelike instead of zelda like.  You get a few minutes to run through the levels before time runs up.  Game does have plenty of accessibility features which I took advantage of because of the short time frame I knew I would have to play the game.  Continuation of story from the first game with lots of references back to characters and plot from the first game, so definitely need to play the first game before hopping into this one.  Game has a little bit of Minit concepts in that you need to get certain objectives done in the short period you have and those objectives will sustain, basic roguelike stuff.  I think using Minit as a comparison though, Minit is digestable in its chunks, I don't think this game would have done so well for me without the accessibility features as progression would have been much much slower, whereas minit's progression felt continuous and relatively constant.
Rating: Soft recommendation

88. Disney's Dreamlight Valley (XS)
I had been playing this off and on for several years, but not making much progress as I was mostly just dabbling in the game and wasting time for Game pass quests.  Finally started playing the game for real this year for some reason, probably because my kid was getting really big into Disney.  He started playing it too.  Told my wife I thought she should play the game because it seemed like a game she would like in general and Disney would just elevate it for her... unfortunately she took that to heart and has been playing the game like crazy.  She finally hit a wall eventually where she's running out of things to do, but I think it's just days until I wind up buying the ultimate edition of the game for her, I can't buy it for her on my account because she wouldn't get the bonuses, so she needs to buy the game.  I could buy her a global key for it worst case, but I think the best price is still just the sale price, I just don't know if my price is cheaper because game pass or not.  idk.  Anyway, solid little casual life farming and character quest and what not all Disney.  They actually still update the game with free updates, they just added Inside Out characters and Beauty and the Beast characters, they even just announced another paid DLC which if I buy her the ultimate edition, I'd still need to buy her that too.  Gah what a money sink.  Frustratingly, this game really should be a F2P game with how much they want you to spend money and honestly the DLC has value with how much content it adds, but it's hard to justify when the game itself already costs $40 or something.  Definitely a game for Disney fans though, otherwise you could find a better farming game, but this game definitely makes its value and money on the Disney license.  Tons of content and story to be had, but the game is buggy, lags a lot, and so much good stuff is locked behind paywalls, thought even at its base the game provides like 100+ hours of content.  That all said, ignoring the disney license the game just doesn't have the value and I concern myself that the game will become unplayable once Gameloft loses the license.
Rating: Soft pass

89. Spirit City: Lofi Sessions (PC)
Essentially not a game.  There's some interactivity and you can quickly earn like 80% of the achievements with little play, the last few require you to have the game running basically 24/7 hitting around 250hrs to 100% the game.  The game is an idle game, if you use it for it's intended purpose, it's not a game, but more or less a soundtrack of lofi beats to chill to or whatever, but for the average gamer, it's just wasting time that could've been spent playing games that you can't play because your account is being hogged by this idle app.  It's cute, the music is nice, it connects with Spotify I think, but it doesn't even serve well as an app to incentivize you to get shit done.
Rating: Hard pass

90. Tiny Aquarium (PC)
Another idler/clicker game.  You take care of an aquarium (you can get multiple) and that's about it.  You can breed and feed your fish.  You can buy eggs, you can go fishing, you can sell fish... that's about it.  Not a ton to this game and I don't even think it serves as a decent screensaver type of thing just running while you're doing stuff.
Rating: Hard pass

91. Ocean's Heart (PC)
OMG this game... I got so mad at this game.  My entire time playing this game, I constantly thought to myself, man this game would be so much better if you had a shield... Partially the developer's fault, partially an achievement guide writer's fault, but ultimately entirely my fault for not double checking stuff.  Originally the game had an achievement that said, never visit this location, so the guide lists don't go to this location.  I beat the game and the achievement never pops... the developer removed the achievement from the game because he decided it was a dumb achievement that made the game worse for no good reason other than to be worse.  I think the achievement got him a lot of bad press because that one achievement... has you never go to the location that gives you a shield.  So I suffered through this game with no shield, constantly having trouble, constantly trying to find health items and such... only to find out after I beat the game that I missed the shield due to an achievement that no longer exists... I really don't even want to write more about it, it ruined the entire experience for me.  The game was insufferable for no good reason, it could've been such a good game, but I just can't give it that opportunity because of the situation
Rating: Hard pass

92. Desert Child (PC)
Weird little game.  I don't even know by the end I fully understood the racing concept of the game.  I think I had trouble with the final face just to find that if you idle the game... you win, it's bonkers.  Ignoring that, the walking around, doing little... shit I wouldn't even call it fetch quests, talking with people and stuff is just as boring and confusing as everything else.  I'm assuming the whole game is just a parallel with capitalism or something.  I feel like I recall people talking about enjoying this game when it got announced to get a physical release with limited run, but like a lot of limited run releases, it's not a great game and probably didn't really need a physical release.  It's hard to recommend a game that you can win by idling the final bit.
Rating: Hard pass

93. Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim (PC)
I had wanted to play this series in order, but I had this as a required play game and didn't have enough time to get through 3-5 (I think) so I just went ahead.  Disappointing myself to realize that the series is a contiguous story.  A fairly linear, fairly simple action RPG game, not as simple as the original where there's no action, just walking into enemies (I think that's Ys  :-X) but still quite a good game.  It has its annoyances regarding backtracking that really annoyed me as I don't think the game's fast travel is really good, it exists, but in some areas you still have to back track a lot to get to places.  Game did have a callback to Ys 1 which I really didn't recall as it's been so long since I played Ys 1 and 2, so the idea was good, but ultimately meaningless given 1 -> 6 and how long it had been since I played the first... plus would I know better anyway comparing 16 bit to relatively modern 3D?  Game is simple enough that I probably didn't miss much of anything through my playthrough, yet still action/skill based which unfortunately leads to the game not being a good RPG, a good action RPG, or just good in general, very middling across the board and makes me question is the Ys franchise as a whole is worth the time?
Rating: Soft pass

94. INDIKA (PC)
Another one that I won that required that I play it in short order.  I got conflicting information from that game in that I expected beautiful art and graphics, but a lot of screenshots showed pixelart, but pleasantly the game has both and only relies on the pixelart for flashbacks, which adds a layer of uniqueness to the game.  The gameplay of the game is quite linear and fairly shallow, but that's because the game is more story telling than gameplay.  It has its moments where it has "gameplay" but it's either puzzle (perfectly fine) or stupid traversal sections with instant death mechanics (absolutely awful), but luckily those are few and far between and possibly limited to a single section of the game.  The story blends flashbacks, current scenes, and scenes of psychosis.  Not particularly a fan of the open ended ending, I never click with the "artistic" decide what the ending means for yourself concept.  Game feels like a not awful Pathologic game with real dark tons, outcast themes, but the gameplay isn't as convoluted or awful.  I'm still surprised this isn't an Annapurna game, definitely has that feel.
Rating: Soft recommendation

95. FIND ALL (PC)
Another find the object game.  Despite the cat themes, the FIND ALL series has you finding a bunch of a certain type of item (broom, hammer, sconce, etc.) so it does play out better imo than some of the other find the object games.  I've only played a few of this series, but the achievements aren't as straight forward as a lot of the other find the object games as this has what I would call real achievements and not only just did you find everything achievements.  One of the other games has a gambling game in it, where you've got to spend hours in just the minigame to get some achievements, personally not a fan of that kind of added effort and forced grinding, but it definitely makes the game stand out.  This one however, just has a set of speedrun achievements, so you've got to essentially beat the game in 5 minutes.  I hate speedrun achievements, and this one did require me to sit around and play through the game a few times to nail down where everything was, which I hate, but I did wind up 100%ing the game in 41 minutes, game should have taken around 5 minutes, so nearly 10x the time because of the speedrun achievement... again, not a fan of that.
Rating: Soft pass

96. Until Then (PC)
Boy oh boy... I enjoyed this game up until the very end.  I didn't appreciate unskippable scenes, slow text, nor the tough achievements that seem to be very luck/rng based.  I enjoyed the story and the characters, but I felt there was enough not explained and left open to interpretation that honestly, I would've been happy not getting the true ending.  I'd consider recommending just stopping at the first ending and calling it a day.  I understand how the true ending is supposed to be the best ending, and the open interpretation can excuse whatever you want since it's open, but it ruined the game for me.  Additionally, going for the 100% requires doing so many Rhythm Heaven style mini games, and when I say Rhythm Heaven I do mean tough af and not the most intuitive, plus some semi-normal rhythm based minigames too (controller based DDR stuff), that I personally didn't bother.  I feel like every ending had bad stuff to it and I believe the concept is that the true ending is the best ending because it did the least damage.  Personally, I think the first ending is the "best" and most thought provoking and emotional ending.  It has not good things, yes, for sure, but personally, I disliked the true ending enough that this felt the most appropriate ending despite the lack of up front character growth.  2nd ending is truly awful and inarguably the worst ending, but shows a lot of story growth and character development, it sucks, but the concept should be a major payoff for the true ending.  The true ending, gives you the best of almost everything, at the sacrifice of the majority of the game's character development.  In the end it turns into one of those had the interferer never interfered you'd have had the best ending tropes, essentially making it such that the entire game serves no purpose other than maybe the whole butterfly effect trope of every change you make makes the world worse, thus time travel is wrong (not that this game is time travel).  It's definitely subjective bias showing here, I wanted the fan service pay off and the game didn't give it, and while it's maybe just opened enough that one could justify assuming what you want will happen, I'm not one of those people.  You, the developer, didn't show it, thus it didn't happen. :shrug:  It feels awful to say "Had you given me the ending I wanted, I'd give this game a solid recommendation" and essentially that's what it's boiling down to, but the game had enough mechanically wrong with it that the game wound up being a chore... for a payoff that I didn't appreciate, thus ruining the entire experience for me.  Had the game's mechanics not been as bad, one could overlook the unappreciated ending, but the combination is unforgivable.  Additionally, the character's constant bouncy animations are sort of unsettling.
Rating: Soft pass

97. Spirit of the North (PC)
I only forced myself to play this one because I needed to play the sequel as a request and wanted to play through this one first.  I had always been interested in this game because it looks beautiful and I usually like walking sim type games, despite them usually being derisive for me.  I had the trouble that this game was too open world and I frequently didn't know where I was supposed to go, I wound up following a guide which was still difficult to follow given the world.  The world just being this big relatively ambient world, made it difficult to find where I needed to go.  The puzzles were fine for the most part, but towards the end the puzzles got more convoluted and complicated.  Additionally, the game was unplayable on Steam deck as the game would lag horrendously and not recognize steam deck or external controller inputs.  I wound up having to play it on a PC, which was fine, but started the experience poorly.  Even on the PC the game did have several framedrops throughout the game play which marred the experience.  Unfortunately I can't recall for sure, but I'm fairly confident that the game doesn't have a map system which made the game even more difficult to traverse, plus the lack of a fast travel system made finding collectibles even more of a chore.  I didn't go for the majority of the content in the game as I realized it would be a major pain to do so without following a step by step guide.  Overall, this game feels like a huge let down compared to how beautiful the game looks, but if you're willing to follow a guide or wander aimlessly for tens of hours, you'll probably enjoy this game.  For me, this was the wrong kind of figure it out on your own, like Everybody's Gone to the rapture.
Rating: Soft pass

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dhaabi:

--- Quote from: ignition365 on September 03, 2025, 10:16:47 pm ---
--- Quote from: dhaabi on September 03, 2025, 05:30:24 pm ---
--- Quote from: ignition365 on September 03, 2025, 05:09:33 pm ---Here I am, at September, just now trying to build notes for the year.

--- End quote ---

How much of a priority are completion notes for you at this point, if it's taken this long to write them? I only ask because I've noticed that, for a fair amount of games you play, there's little about them you seem to find worth detailing or that they're similar to other games you've also just played (such as with certain hidden object games.)

--- End quote ---
Originally, pretty important.  I used to do real well to notate stuff as I was playing it and shortly after playing it.  It has definitely gone down in quality over the years.  My notes are basically nothing these days, but it was all originally driven by my terrible memory and wanting to be able to see something to remind me of how I felt about a game.  I think it went well, I started streaming so I stopped relying on notes, I stopped streaming and tried to get back into notes but did poorly, to updating notes less frequently, to I'm lucky if I update notes more than twice a year.

It's unfortunate.  It's hard to come back and write meaningful notes when I already forgot 99% of the game.

Also, for the games like the 100 hidden series and such, there isn't much to note when I can't recall the intricacies of the specific entry.  The different 100 hidden games do do things slightly differently and some are a better time than others but all in all, they are just 10 minute games that aren't really worth anyone's time regardless of what little unique features they have.

--- End quote ---

Personally, I try to never have more than two games completed without my finished thoughts published for them. It's definitely helped maintain that kind of balance it seems you're needing. I've reached the mindset that, for certain things I want to collect my thoughts for (namely games and film), it's just as important to write out my thoughts for me to remember the experience than it is to play and watch things. Otherwise they'll be lost to memory one day like you're saying. It's definitely not easy to start or restart a habit that teeters more on being a form of work, but hopefully you're able to get back to it soon.

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