Main ListPrevious Listbold 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.
42.
Cosmic Star Heroine (NS)
I finally gave up on Flinthook. Haven't decided if I'll sell my Switch copy, but the game is frustrating. I really hate rogue games. This game is pretty good so far. I can already tell this game is going to have that trope where the organization that the protag works for is the real evil. Game is really good, combat is interesting and fairly unique, no random battles, optional side quests, and not so long that you feel like it's a slog to finish. Overall, I really enjoyed the game and almost don't regret double dipping. I even reassessed my list for the year and decided that in retrospect I don't like Moonlighter that much and replaced it with this on my list.
Rating: Recommended.
43.
Kamiko (NS)
After finishing CSH, I decided to jump into this because I won it in a Discord giveaway. Game reminds me a TON of Fairune, like graphically and tons of the characters look straight ripped out of it... and having just googled it, the game was either made by the same people or at least published by the same people. I think this game would've been a great addition to the Fairune Collection as opposed to Fairune Blast... but oh well. Game is about an hour long and has 3 stages I believe, maybe 4 or 5, I don't really remember. Combat is full hack and slash as opposed to Fairune's sort of non-combat combat.
Rating: Soft Pass. It's not bad, but I won't call it memorable.
44.
Burnout Paradise (360)
I've been in the mood for mindless games and for me it doesn't get much more mindless than racing or shooting games. I waffled between playing CoD/Battlefield and some random racing game and I wound up installing a bunch of racing games. This one installed first I think, so I went with it. Game feels pretty dated in many aspects, but it's entirely playable and super enjoyable. Not a big fan of having to drive all the way back to a junkyard to switch cars and no form of fast travel makes it sort of a slog. Game is enjoyable as most Burnout games are.
Rating: Soft Pass, maybe go for the Remastered edition.
45.
My Girlfriend is a Mermaid (NS)
Decided to jump into this game because I didn't know what else to play. I've never really played a VN before, I've played a little bit of Clannad and a little bit of 428, but not very much of either. I'm not really feeling this game, I don't really relate to being attracted to mermaids, and the writing in this game feels like the type of cringe/edge bullshit you'll read on 4chan. I swear it's just button clicks until I get a fucking "M'lady" out of the main character or he decides to put on a fedora. "I'm glad I do after school clubs otherwise I wouldn't have the power to carry this girl". Yikes. Honestly... I think my review here is going to be me straight ripping on this game until I finish it or give up. I'm still playing this because I'm trying to figure out how to get a not terrible ending. Might have to do some googling.
Rating: Hard Pass
46.
Final Fantasy IX (PS4)
I actually started playing this game with my wife watching about 2 years ago shortly after it came out on PS4, but I wound up abandoning it pretty quickly. Might've been boredom, might've been my wife deciding not to watch anymore. Anyway, we hopped back into this and now I'm early on in Disc 2. I'm using a lot of the game boosts, I think, the ones that don't disable achievements. I'm basically skipping over battles because I just can't stand random battles on console games. My wife says I'm cheating and missing out on a good portion of the game, but I kind of don't care and just don't want to spend 40 hours on a game when I can spend like 10 and not wind up burning out fast on it. I'm more or less in this game strictly for the story. Finally finished the game. Not terrible, but probably mostly because I relied on the games built in boosts. My wife wants me to play FFX next... maybe I'll do that, but the boosts are probably the only reason that this wasn't terrible.
Rating: Soft Recommendation.
47.
Minefield (PS4)
Minesweeper game that I bought a long time ago. Got 100% of the trophies in about an hour. Not even a very good minesweeper game. Doesn't have the ability to manually trigger an auto fill if you know there are no bombs not flagged directly surrounding a selected block. A huge time saver in minesweeper.
Rating: Hard pass.
48.
Last Day of June (PS4)
Pretty good game, a little slow at parts with the repetition, but overall a pretty good game. Puzzles aren't so hard that it's frustrating, but hard enough that it gives you a sense of accomplishment. Story is pretty good, even with no dialogue. Characters convey dialogue and emotion through Sim-esque noises and gestures. Minus points for creepy no eye having faces. Overall agreement that the game should be patched to add in googly eyes.
Rating: Recommended.
49.
Slime-san (NS)
Current Progress: DLC
Decided to start up this game after I sort of abandoned Mermaid Girlfriend. Played through a couple of levels and started to feel like I was going to abandon the game like most platformers for me. I have a tough time finishing plain old platformers. Game is essentially Super Meat Boy and while I enjoyed what a played of it, I abandoned it pretty quickly back in the day. I get bored too quickly with the repetition. But something happened and I managed to get through the majority of the game. I think Switch makes it easier for me to deal with stuff like this because I can just play 5-15 minutes at a time and not feel like I have to keep playing. Doing the Add-on content right now. Haven't started it yet, might wind up only playing a little if it's too difficult.
Rating: Soft recommendation. Gameplay is good, everything else is sorta meh.
50.
Rage 2 (X1)
It took me a bit to get into the game as I was adjusting to the weird controls (Stick sensitivity I think, had to do adjusting) and then I was only playing for like 10-15 minutes a day, so I wasn't really getting much into the game before quitting for the day. Now that I've gotten to put time into the game, I'm really enjoying it. Minor complaints are the relative lack of fast travel and the giant holes in the world that prevent cutting across the map. Did more adjusting, I think it was more my controller than anything else since I have the elite controller, I was using a poor setup for FPS games. It sort of plays like an amalgamation of Mad Max, Far Cry, Bioshock, and Doom. Decent vehicular combat, open world exploration with outpost based side events, collectible equipment/resources and magic skills, and fast paced sort of twitchy combat.
Rating: Highly recommended.
51.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (X1)
I popped in Forza Horizon 4 after finishing up Rage 2 and decided that I wanted to play Skyrim for some reason instead... so I did. I've beaten this game before so I'm starting it off saying I've beaten it because I have. I decided that I wanted to go against my normal play style of a rogue build and go all in on a mage build. I've been enjoying it so far, and it's a different enough experience for me, but I'm noticing a lot of things that make this game difficult to essentially role play. Early on, I had 1 or 2 fights that were just impossible to do as a mage because the enemy was resistant to all magic attacks and I had no followers available. And then the game makes it super easy to essentially be great at everything, which I don't want, and then to get all of the achievements you either have to play 20 times or make your character all styles. I hit the point in the main path where they essentially force you to become a rogue character, which is explicitly what I didn't want to do... so I've stopped playing.
Rating: Recommended, but as a role playing game, it doesn't really let you play your own role.
52.
Aeero (PS4)
Decided to play this to distract my kid because he loves music. Didn't really distract him very much, but I enjoyed my time with the game that I wound up playing even when he was napping. Beat it pretty quick. LRG release doesn't include DLC. Game doesn't really deserve to have a physical release as it really isn't that noteworthy of a game. I'd rather see Amplitude get a physical release.
Rating: Soft pass.
53.
A Normal Lost Phone (NS)
Nintendo was having a sale on the Lost Phone Stories collection, Transcripted is free if you own any one of many games that included this, and I have gold coins that are expiring soon... so I bought this. Game is relatively short at about an hour or so. Story is a little preachy towards its story, which doesn't offend me, but I can see how folks would play this and look at it as pretentious hipster garbage because of the story. Gameplay wise, I enjoy being a filthy snoop so it appeals to me.
Rating: Honestly, price for value, I'd say Hard Pass, but on sale for cheap enough, I'd recommend this game as it's enjoyable and doesn't overstay its welcome.
54.
Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt (X1)
I tried to play this game years ago, I think on PS4, but I couldn't get into it and abandoned it pretty quickly. I'm kind of out to find an RPG game that lets you play a role, and it seems that Witcher isn't that game either. You play the role they chose for you with minor variations. I'm gonna try and stick with it since it is widely considered a great game. I think I've made it a little further than I did last time I played, I think I didn't even make it to that first tavern the first time I played. I am going to track this game by my current level, because nothing else makes sense to track. I still don't quite understand the combat in this game. Blocking leads to me being staggered and stunned, parrying works fantastically when I do it. Blocking makes no sense in this game when every hit makes you stagger. Maybe every enemy does block breaking attacks, but I don't know how to do block breaking attacks, my strong attacks don't break enemy blocks. Fundamentally there is something I'm not understanding. I lowered the difficulty because I just don't get the combat. The game is much more enjoyable now. There is so much about this game that I just don't understand, but I am continuing to play the game, so that's something. It's good enough so far that I'd say it's a top 5 game, I just don't know where it ranks. Though it probably ranks around the same as FFXV for me. We'll see. My opinion stays the same, it's just above FFXV though. I did manage to put over 100 hours into it, so that's a good sign.
Rating: Recommended
55.
Another Lost Phone: Laura's Story (NS)
Part 2 of the collection that is Lost Phone Stories. Story in this one is much better, and gameplay is more refined overall. Just a better experience overall in this one. Gameplay time is about the same as the first, so in totality I'd say this collection is between 2-3 hours of content with no replayability, but it's short enough that you could reasonably hand your Switch over to a friend and have them beat it in a single sitting. There is something to gain from that in terms of value.
Rating: See #53 A Normal Lost Phone.
56.
The Grand Tour Game (X1)
I finished Season 3 of Grand Tour and started watching it over again from Season 1. Decided I finally wanted to play the game. Went and bought it on Amazon. Game consists of chunks of the show's content (not all of it mind you) spliced with short little races/mini games. If they managed to do all 3 seasons rather than 1 episode for S1 and 2 and then every episode of S3 PLUS made the entire episodes available within the game, I'd argue that even if it's a shitty game, it's definitely worth the money... but it's not the case. You get episode 1 of Season 1 and 2 plus all 13 episodes of Season 3 as playable episodes, it's not 15 chapters/episodes though as some episodes are combined into one like their actual survival touring episodes. Also, each episode gives you a button to watch the full episode, but what the game does is launch the Amazon Video app, where I presume if you don't have Prime, you are unable to watch the episode... so it's a garbage gimmick feature that just straight up shouldn't exist. The game has nearly 200 achievements with them being worth on average 5-10 points per achievement. Gameplay is very arcade, reminiscent of the old Cruisin games, which is kinda cool. I've heard complaints that folks expected a realistic driving game by professional car journalists... and I'm just like lul what? I already know my rating, but I'll wait until I'm done.
Rating: Soft Pass. It's actually a really decent arcade racer akin to Cruisin, it's very enjoyable, both in single player and multiplayer, but not much in the way of substance.
57.
Octopath Traveler (NS)
Current Progress: Therion Chapter 4
Decided I was done with Slime-san after completing the main game and majority of the Krakken section. Did my usual ask my wife for a pick between a slew of games and as usual she was useless. She decided Octopath because it was the one game I had picked that I hadn't actually handed her the case to. I didn't hand the case because it was still in the Wayfarer box. I'm being a pill and playing the game in OCTOPATH order, so I started with Olberic. I always have 2 problems with RPGs in general. The huge amount of dialogue and the music. I'm not one for filler, so long winded dialogue with otherwise useless information bores the hell out of me. Music and sound in RPGs are a huge thing, but I prefer RPGs on handheld where I can't really have sound, so I either miss out on sound or I need earbuds. I didn't keep updated on this game, but I've been playing it for nearly 3 months (along with Witcher 3 for most of it), I'm sitting at 81 hours and finishing up the final chapter of the final character for me, so I might finish today.
Rating: Recommended.
58.
God of War (PS3)
I don't even know why I decided to finally start playing these games, but I'm gonna get through them this year, probably this month as they are all relatively short games. Played this one on normal difficulty and by the end of the game I was pretty drained and frustrated especially with the final fights being so radically different than the rest of the game. I never got offered easy mode though, don't know how many times you need to die to get that, but I recall being pretty frustrated with how things were progressing on normal. I decided to do easy on GoW2 to see how I'm feeling after that, so more on that in the GoW2 section. Story is fairly good, I feel like this game would've been great for me in my youth as I was so angry and probably would've related with Kratos on a spiritual level, but now I feel like I'll probably relate with the 2018 Kratos, so I'm looking forward to that. I still hate the instant death mechanics of the Gorgons. Fixed camera is such a lazy shitty feature that causes so many issues with platforming.
Rating: Soft recommendation.
59.
God of War II (PS3)
Started this one on easy, and by the end I wasn't so frustrated, so I'll probably continue on easy so I don't get burnt out by the time I get to GoW 2018. Story was mildly interesting, didn't seem to go into any of Kratos past, so I probably could've played through the prequel games before starting this one, so I'll probably do the prequel games after this one but before GoW3 even though one of them released after GoW3. Story was slightly more interesting, graphics were WAY better than the first game for having been the same platform and only 2 years later. Instant death mechanics are still annoying and frustrating. So much of the game is so obvious that the 3rd game is going to be about the Titans betraying Kratos. GoW1 had some stuff that implied that GoW2 would be about Kratos brother, but I guess that's one of the prequel games (Ghost of Sparta I think).
Rating: Soft recommendation.
60.
God of War: Chains of Olympus (PS3)
Wow does this game look WAY better than the previous two games. I don't know if it's because the PSP was better than the PS2 somehow or if they full on gave the game the HD treatment for its PS3 release, but it looks great. I'm beating these games so quickly that I'm not really getting to write any notes on them. GoW had you mashing R2 to open things, GoW2 had you mashing R1, and these Origins games have you mashing O. Real inconsistent.
Rating: Soft Recommendation.
61.
God of War: Ghost of Sparta (PS3)
I'm having trouble keeping things in the right order, I think the GoW franchise is definitely a franchise that could use an alternative play order. GoW -> Ascension -> CoO -> GoS -> GoW2 -> GoW3 -> GoW2018. I haven't played Ascension yet, but I definitely feel like this is the proper play order... though I've heard many terrible things about Ascension... though it sounds like it's the same people who say don't play Resident Evil 6, which despite how you feel (I've still not played it yet) it's a mainline game. I'm surprised I'm not sick of these games yet. I'm not a huge fan of hack and slash, but I'm okay with brawler games which really aren't that different. But I kinda like Greek mythology, so it stays interesting consistently.
Rating: Soft Recommendation.
62.
God of War: Ascension (PS3)
Damn man, this game took 45 minutes to install. It's my first instance of a PS3 game that required updates and such... took forever. My copy had codes for the online pass and the DLC characters for Playstation All Star Battle Royale, codes still worked. That's pretty dope. I've always had an interest in the Furies, so even if this game is meh or sucks, I expect that alone to keep me going... shit I half expect to really like this game... just depends how much they rely on co-op and online stuff. I expected to really like this one because of the Furies, and while I did enjoy the story and the Furies... I have a lot of complaints that make this definitely my least favorite GoW game, doubt it will be beat. The QTE sequences seem shorter, but they aren't exactly colorblind friendly, half the time I don't even see the QTE prompts show up on the screen, so I have to basically just hope I see it. The puzzles felt less intuitive and more frustrating than normal.
Rating: Soft Recommendation, maybe soft pass.
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