here's some things i liked about some games i played & enjoyed
this last year
Final Fantasy 15I had a good time throughout but my favourite few hours of FFXV were spent in a post-game dungeon called Pitioss Ruins. In this dungeon, [sp]there's no enemies and it's just a platforming challenge. It's a lengthy and intricate temple with lots of interesting platforming setpieces, intertwining platforming paths and architecture with shortcuts, and a lack of health or lives to keep the experience low on frustration. Impressive for a game which very much not about platforming[/sp]. Very memorable and I wanna see the dungeon designer do a full game basically!
As for the rest of the game, I enjoyed wandering around the settlements, especially during the Moogle Chocobo Carnival & wearing the choco-mog tshirt. I'm a sucker for virtual tourism I guess.
The Last GuardianThe process of learning a shared language between the player and Trico was enjoyable and familiar. After stressful setpieces or challenging puzzles, I appreciate the moments of levity where you get to chill and look down and recognise a bridge or a rooftop deep down in the valley, and realise how far you've come.
Snake PassA pleasant, relaxing platformer about learning how to move an unfamiliar body. It's cool to have a platformer with atypical methods of locomotion and input and I'd love to see more stuff in this vein. There's a VR game called Lone Echo set in a space station where you move by grabbing and pushing away from surfaces which I'd love to try some day.
Kid Icarus UprisingA rollercoaster ride of a game with cute & fun writing.
Shadow Tactics: Blades of the ShogunThis is p much what I've always wanted in an RTS! Just very tight micromanagement of a handful of people, and the theming and stealth gameplay is very appealing to me. The intricate scenarios, playful character abilities and generous save/reload system lets you perform exciting stunts as you narrowly dart through a courtyard under surveilance of half a dozen troops, narrowly avoiding detection. Levels often feel quite puzzlish as you work out how to bypass the 'locks' of patrols and viewcones. And similar to the Pikmin games, it's very fun to speedrun through with carefully orchestrated multitasking.
Phoenix Wright: Spirit of JusticeReally enjoy that the spiritual stuff in this game establishes rules that allow for some cool mysteries to play out.
Yo noid! 2Love the PS1 aesthetic and despite the kinda i guess ironic theming, the gameplay, art, music and level design is all legitimately good and full of heart!
Gravity Rush 2Fun movement! There were a few moments where I spent like an hour having a good time just, moving around and making zero progress.
The camera was a wonderful feature! I'm sad that the online connectivity is nearly expired. There's a cool feature where you recieve photos of treasure chests from other players, track em down in the world, and then take your own photos to pass on. I spent a significant amount of time in the game taking nice pictures.
Also it just hit 2018 over here, happy 2018
Riven: The sequel to MystStarted remembering how good a time me and Cait had playin Obduction last year so I ended up taking a chance on a GOG copy of Riven hoping that it would work alright (we'd researched before and didn't know which version was best to get).
Anyway it worked and just like obduction was fantastic to go through together, bouncing ideas about the world and puzzles off each other.
Loved that the whole game is basically build-up to two complex puzzles.
Loved to wake up with a riven epiphany and to quickly boot up the game to try something and it worked.
Anyway we've worked out that Mystlikes are a new favourite genre so over christmas we played
Quern: Undying ThoughtsWe finished this today and it was good! Was less, i guess, 'pure' than Riven in that it definitely felt like it had puzzles for puzzles sake. I'd probably describe it as a long-form escape room. But the puzzles were neat and stayed interesting and reasonably fresh throughout!
Ys 8Building up a village of castaways and getting to know everyone was cool and felt very different for an Ys game! Despite the segmented areas, they did a great job with viewpoints and landmarks to help you get a sense of the interconnectedness and of your progress through the island. Archeozoic Big Hole is v funny. Kinda feels like they're setting up for a bit more interconnection between Ys games ala Trails-style worldbuilding.
Baba is youA smart puzzle game available
here which I'm highly anticipating for
next this year! Going into the game blind, the "ohhhh!!! aha!!!" moment struck a chord.
Xenoblade Chronicles 2It's so wonderful to hear regional UK accents in a game like this. Once it gets going, the battle system is surprisingly active and enjoyable, with clever risk/reward mechanics and good tunes. Some of the environments are visually stunning, particularly at sunset.
MultibowlOnly played a handful of matches of this multiplayer game but it's a brilliant celebration of obscure games. You and another player basically duel your way through snapshots of real retro games (kinda like warioware in a way), quite likely games that you've never seen before and have to quickly adapt, work out the rules and controls, and complete the snapshot's goal in the teeny 30s you're given.