Welcome to the end of the line. The final curtain is going to fall onto my retrospective series. We’ve seen all the highs and lows of over 20 years of gaming. If you’ve somehow kept up with all of these you now have a pretty good picture of what kind of games I enjoy. Over time some things have changed like less of a focus on racing games while a general love of generic action games has never disappeared. Yet looking at the big picture nothing has really changed since I still love playing video games and every year continues to keep me entertained. Onward to the final years of this retrospective!

2015-2016

More than anything else the artstyle is the part that stands out the most. It really does look like it came off of greek pottery. The gameplay feels a bit stiff with the combat having a stamina system you’ll need to worry about. Yet the style pushed me to finish this so I felt like mentioning it here.

I think this is one of the better dual stick shooters I’ve played in a while. It does a lot to keep giving the player reasons to keep coming back. The every useful daily challenge that lets you stack up against other players. Up to 4 player coop lets the levels get even more chaotic and fun. Getting good at shooting all the robots quickly without losing the combo is the main goal of each level. Getting a full combo is quite hard but each level isn’t super long so it isn’t hard to repeat them. Which is great since the short nature of the game makes the fact it is easy to replay a good thing.

Metroidvania is a term that shows up a lot these days. Must be because it is a lot easier to make them 2D as noted by Axiom Verge. The game itself was entirely created by one man. Which is shown off by how finely crafted everything is. Plus the best thing about this game is that it subverts what you expect by what tools you’ll have. Unique ways to explore the environment makes it stand out from the rest from my point of view. Access to quite a few different weapons also gives you plenty of ways to deal with any monster that stands in your way. Overall a good game that I enjoyed when it was released.

This is a pretty silly game that gets by thanks to the online coop. Not sure if I would have liked it as much if I wasn’t blasting through these 2D levels with a friend. Seeing who the next Bro would be also kept me hooked for long enough to finish it. The randomness of having to adapt to whoever the game decides to give you is a unique aspect of this game. Although getting lucky sometimes was the key to victory like having the Terminator for the final boss. Not much of a story in this one other than being a force of good that must kill all evil. Overall the mix of run and gun shooter reminded me of Metal Slug.

Bully was one of those games I rented in the past and had a blast playing through the story. Only recently did I finally own a digital copy of it. It still holds up fairly well with the premise being what holds up best. Even if it is about a bunch of generic stereotypes hah. The game starts with Jimmy Hopkins getting dumped off at boarding school while his parents go off on a vacation. To make the most of this new life at the school he ends up earning the respect of every social cliche to eventually find out what is really going on. Between a bunch of mini games and quite a few unique holiday themed scenarios this has quite a few things to keep you busy. The small nature of the open world keeps the game focused on telling a story too. I wonder if Rockstar will ever revisit this franchise.

Hm looking though this list I've played quite a few platformers this year. Chibi Robo may not be known for 2D platforming but he is pretty good at it. The Zip Lash is what makes this slightly unique by letting him swing around levels. The fact they end up making every boss require the player to use it in a different way was cool. Plus like the upcoming Kirby game the finale of this one is just as crazy.

The last Corpse Party game that ties up the Heavenly Host story arc. Like before it follows the survivors of the first incident as they realize that the horror isn’t quite over. Ayumi’s need to try to revive their fallen friends leads to a situation that might cause the world to infected by the otherworld. A new 3D art style gives the game a more modern look. Along with the very well done audio work that has always been a strength of this series. Yet one of the failings of this game is that it shows you to much. The descriptions and sounds are so much more effective at setting a scary tone that when they just show me stuff it doesn’t work as well. Still even with its flaws this is a fitting conclusion to this story arc.

Everyone in Disgaea 5 has a beef with the Demon Emperor which makes this a game all about revenge. Krillia and his crew of misfits all have a reason to take down Void Dark. Most of the game is just about gathering that crew by traveling around beating people down to convince them to join this unholy alliance. As for the game it is about the same as every other Disgaea game. Create unites that you then power up on the turn based battlefield till they are overpowered. It has a few new things like the revenge mechanic that boosts a unit when another one is lost. Chara World is the most unique part of this game which plays a lot like a board game. Also known as another way to boost stats. Making an all powerful force has always been the end goal of this series.

Amiibos got their hook into me so it wasn’t to surprising that I ended up picking up Disney Infinity at some point. To bad I waited till Disney decided to shut the game down.The game itself seems like a well produced action game that feels like a B tier game that could be enjoyed by anyone. I would put this in the same area as the Lego games that are just dumb fun to be played for a while.

It has been quite a few years since a Dragonball Z game has caught my eye. Xenoverse does what every other game does by retelling the main story but with a twist. Now the main character which the player creates at the start is actually a time cop. Someone is messing it up and only you can put things back the way they should happen. While also trying to figure out who is messing up the timeline. The customization options is where this game shines thanks to all the different attacks and power ups. Whoever you might want to create it is possible with a bit of grinding. Having to repeat certain levels to hopefully get a drop is the only downside that can be softened if you end up playing through them again with some friends. In the end this just proved that I can like a DBZ still so I’m curious to see what Namco does next.

Dragon Quest Heroes continues of the trend of Koei adding a little something extra to these spin offs to make them more fun to play. In this one all the monsters that are vanquished can be spawned to guard important areas of each map. Turns out I can like a tower defence game if someone gives me to tools to wreck shop while still setting up defences. I even have some nostalgia for Dragon Quest too which helps even if I only ever bought the first two games. Music can go a long way it seems. Anyway the action is top notch too with the pace of the combat never slowing down no matter which character you play as. Overall a great game that manages to mesh a bunch of things together.

As noted before I never played any of the big FPS of the 90’s so these releases were my first time seeing them. Duke Nukem 3D added in the crazy idea of letting the player look up and down. Not quite sure if that was on the box but from my point of view that seems to be the biggest addition over Doom. All the attitude contained in this game most likely worked pretty well when this game was released. These days it isn’t quite as fun but whatever the shooting still holds up. Never really put any time into the expansion packs but the main game was well paced with plenty of unique guns to shoot at all those alien bastards. I do think a revamped version of Duke could work today as proved by Doom but I don’t know if anyone will get a chance to do that.

All who enter the Gungeon wish to change their past cause this massive enclave holds the gun that can change the past. The only thing standing in any adventurers way is thousands of evil monsters with guns.Making it to the end is no easy task and requires either a bit of luck and some skill. I’m sure it’s possible to get through this on skill alone but the few victories I had relied on me having health and good gear instead of my subpar skills. The character you choose has some impact on a few things like the hunters dog digging up extra items or the marines great marksmanship skills. Overall a fun replayable game that has plenty of secrets to figure out.

In some ways Galak-Z failed at creating an easily repeatable space action game. The amount of time it takes to get good at the fairly complex controls is a bit much for most players. It was quite satisfying once I figured them out enough to finish off all the episodes. Yet unlike other rogue lites I had no urge to go back and replay it again after seeing the credits. Looks like they might be improving on that with the Void but it isn’t on PS4 yet. Either way I’m keeping my eye on whatever 17-Bit decides to make next.

This was one of my big regrets when it was originally released on PC and I never got to play it. Back in a time where I could only buy games in a store it was impossible to find this game a year or so after its release. At some point I gave up on playing it till this remaster came out. So I finally got to see the story of Manny the salesman who tries to get his clients the best possible trip to the afterlife if they were good in life. Yet it seems his things don’t seem to be working right with the holy Mercedez getting the slowest ticket even though she deserves the quickest transportation. Manny decides to go after her thus continuing the adventure. The game is the standard 3D adventure game with a bunch of puzzles to solve to continue the story. Sometimes it isn’t obvious what you need to do but it doesn’t seem to obscure most of the time. Holds up a lot better than I expected.

I never thought of this as a superhero origin story for Kat when playing this on the Vita. Yet looking at it again that is exactly what this story is about. The game begins with Kat getting the power to control gravity and soon she uses her powers to save the city from monsters that have started to appear. The gravity mechanic gives this game a unique feel. Takes a while for the player to master the mechanics since it is tough to handle the ability to fly all over the place. Flying around drill kicking any monster that gets in the way becomes quite satisfying once you master the controls. Pretty fun to fly around the city in the speed run like fashion too for some of the side missions. I’m glad they were able to follow this game up with a sequel since it seems like they could refine the controls to make them better.

Revelator is a lot like the previous game and it some ways it kinda feels like a expansion pack. Yet it does a lot of cool things. Like having a very good tutorial that plays like a mini game while you're learning the basics of how to play this game. For someone that didn’t really know how to use roman cancels yet this taught me better than the first game. It’s better to just show the player what to do instead of leaving it to a bunch of text. New characters are also apart of this release with Raven being my favorite new one. He just has so many tools that he is fun to use. A new story mode was also included but it is just one like anime instead of something you can play. Overall a really fun fighting game to play unless you can’t keep up with the breakneck pace of each match.

For some reason I though this came out in 2015. It was actually 2014 but I'll put it here since it didn't really work that well till this year anyway. Online wise it was quite broken for longer than it should have been. The single player of all these games was fine. That part of the port was well done and the combat puzzles of the Halo games is just as fun today. This series for me was always something I rented this this collection came out. Being able to play just about every Halo game again was a compelling package.

Miku is back in her SD form. Can you handle all this cuteness? Other than the cute chibi vocaloids this is a rhythm game. Hitting buttons in time with the beat is what you’ll be doing if you play this game. The standard physical button layout is fine but I quite like the touch screen controls. Even if it is a bit easier something about a touch screen and a rhythm game works really well together. This game also has quite a library of songs to go through with a bunch of different musical genres. The variety of music is the strength of the Miku games unless you only like one style of music.

So this is just another Kirby game. With one very big new addition of the giant mech that Kirby can now use to wipe out a invading force of aliens. Copying enemy skills while making his way through a colorful level is still the game play loop of this game. With a bunch of additional mini games to play too. The mech does make it stand out a bit even if it is the tried old Kirby formula. I will say this is easily the most epic Kirby has even been which isn't something I thought I would ever say about a pink puffball.

I never got to experience this the first time because of all the hubbub around the launch of this game. For a well scoring game it just seemed like the tone was super negative so I didn’t end up picking my pre order up. Anyway back to the present where I finally got to play through it. For a Wii game it holds up quite well graphicly. The environments still look quite pretty whenever the shadow world isn’t in play which does make everything look gloomy. Control wise the move over to regular controls makes the game better than the half assed motion controls the Wii version had. Like the rest of the Zelda series this has a bunch of dungeons to explore that are all expertly designed around using a item to solve a bunch of puzzles. Then you take on a vicious looking boss to continue the plot. Link can also turn into a wolf this time which adds a bit of extra elements like only being able to defeat certain enemies in that form. Kinda disappointed in myself that I didn’t play this till now since it is still a great video game.

Most of the time I already have thoughts on a game before watching a quick look but in this case I didn’t know anything about this game till seeing it on Giant Bomb. The fast pace of the combat seemed to be fun and the silly variety of characters seemed right up my alley. After all who couldn’t like Sonico who apparently has a bunch of cats that attack for her along with a entire backup band. Turning visual novel characters into a fighting game is the norm for Examu cause you’ve seen another game of theirs on this list with a similar premise. This time a bunch of ladies get pulled into another dimension and must take out the necronomicon who is now a girl for some reason. Whatever it doesn’t quite matter if the fighting is fun.

Possibly the last great triple A game from Konami other than FIFA. Like any finale for a series MGSV goes places. Most of it focuses on the open world that you can interact with in any way you want. Although that mostly means you’ll either be super sneaky or just shoot everyone with different explosive weaponry. The only real failing is the lack of plot other than a few cutscenes. (Most of it is in the tapes.) Yet the gameplay being so enjoyable really makes up for the lack of lore. Plus the dumb stuff that happens in metal gear has now been left to the player. Fultoning random stuff like goats is pretty silly. Should be interesting to see what Konami does with the Metal Gear name now. Other than make pachinko machines.

Working within the binds of a standard Dynasty Warriors clone this does that style of game very well. The over the top nature of One Piece already leads itself well to this type of game. Even if they don’t constantly blow away hundreds of foes in the anime/manga. The well paced combat is what makes this game enjoyable. Being able to dodge attacks at any time is key to making me like a action game apparently. Each character is also unique with Zolo slicing up a bunch of foes while Luffy bashes everyone in with his rubber arms. With this being the third game they do reuse assets a bit but overall it is a brand new game that follows the story arc all the way to the present. They even create a unique ending for the game. The extra Dream log adds a bunch of replay value too. Overall a good One Piece game that uses the license well.

Everybody’s shuffling and they got Pokemon on their minds? Hah well this may just be a match 3 game but I quite enjoyed it for weeks. Not an easy task for this style of game. I will say victory was sometimes random but not that often. The free to play aspects don’t take away from it either. It kinda just kept me interested in longer since I ended up playing it for a few minutes each day. Being able to capture a bunch of different Pokemon that can lead a helping hand while playing was useful. Hope they consider this to be the best way to make phone games when Nintendo gets serious about that later on this year.

Next Level games did a excellent job of bringing Punch Out back by sticking to the simplicity of the gameplay. Making it more of a game about learning patterns and the best time to counterattack your opponent. Little Mac's rise to stardom isn’t easy and the constant struggle is worth the effort when he finally does succeed in the end. It even has a fitting ending to the saga if this ends up being the final Punch Out game.

Kinda crazy to think one of the reasons I bought a Xbox One was just to have access to a collection of old games. Between the oldest stuff that doesn’t quite hold up to the newer games I didn’t get to access to till now it is a well produced package. Other than a few games on NES/N64/360 I never quite knew about Rares full library of games till this release. It was cool to see them all even if I don’t quite enjoy playing some of them.

Boy I really just like adventure stories that take place in foreign countries that have a adventurer scouring the land for some type of treasure. Laura returns for round two as she steps up to a new level of skill. In both how she deals with situations and the world she has to explore. This time Lara plans on finishing her father's works by finding Kitezh. Surprising no one it will not be a easy task to roam around russian mountains and facilities to find out the secret of immortality. Not much has changed since the last game other than giving the player access to many types of arrows that can unlock new areas to explore. The places you can explore aren’t huge but are still quite fun to explore since the audio logs of this game are quite well done. Plus this has tombs to explore that have their own unique puzzles that must be figured out to gain a new skill. In general this game was a step above what Crystal Dynamics did with the original reboot.

How is this possible? Someone made a new arcade game sports game in 2015. They even made me care about soccer and all they had to do was make a game about cars hitting a ball into a net. It really shows how fun it can be to race down a field and try to outmaneuver an opponent. As time goes one they just keep adding variations to keep it fresh too like adding in hockey or basketball. Curious to see what they decide add next. Overall seems like a game I’ll keep coming back to over time.

Beautiful 2D artwork in fighting games is something I like to see. Lab Zero Games was the first to show the gaming community as a whole how much it really takes to make a fighting game character. Which also made me more aware of this game too. Which is about a bunch of girls fighting each other for the right to claim the skullheart which would give them one wish even if it is fatal for the one who wishes. The story is told via well made artwork and vo work. As for the fighting it is very fast paced with a focus on comboing your opponent till they have no life left. I’m not that skilled but it is still rather easy to get the basics down thanks to one of the first well done tutorials in a fighting game. In the end this is a well made fighting game that anyone can like unless they don’t like the art style.

Time to talk about a game that made me like online shooters again. All someone had to do was lower the stakes a bit. Instead of worrying about splating all my foes the gist of a splat war was to cover the map with paint. If your team had more of the map colored with your color then you win. The fact Nintendo kept updating the game also gave me a reason to keep coming back. None of the newer modes really seemed that appealing and eventually I started to care about winning. Somehow that was the beginning of the end since the lowest started to get to me and I stopped playing it. Yet now I kinda want to play it again but rebuying the game with the NX on the horizon seems like a bad idea. After all a sequel or HD remix is guaranteed.

EA decided to bring back Battlefront again and being a fan of the first two games I had to check out this one. I went in knowing this wasn’t an exact replica and was pleasantly surprised at how fun it was. Sure it didn’t have much staying power but multiplayer games have never been something I spent a lot of time on anyway. Occasionally doing something crazy with one of the heroes or wiping out a few incoming foes with some well placed laser blasts felt great. The only disappointing part was actually the single player that didn’t even let me do a standard conquest bot match. That was the way I played most PC multiplayer shooters in the past. Still I’m curious to see what they do to follow this one this game.

I always meant to put more time into the Pushmo games.With this being the final game so far it added in a new mechanic. The player can now stretch out pieces. Nothing that mind blowing but it just adds a new layer to these rather complex puzzles. At least they get rather complex later on with no room for error. Yet it does feel great when you managed to solve them even if it takes a while. Maybe one day I’ll finish them all.

Here we have a good fighting game that was released a bit too early. Going completely by how all the characters fight it does what it aims to do. It is a semi slow pace that is focused on learning how to outpace your opponent. Either by rushing them down with someone like Ken or keeping them away with Dalishim. I rather like this style of gameplay and it works quite well on a arcade stick. At this point in time it finally got a story mode which I thought was good. For someone that doesn’t playing fighting games online it feels like I should hate this game but I seem to like it. I think a constant influx of new fighters might be the way to make a fighting game these days. It gives a reason for players to come back which is the only way I can see SFV keeping up with some of the cooler looking fighting games that are on the horizon.

This game felt like a expansion pack instead of a sequel. Have a bunch of new levels based on the Super Mario Galaxy engine. As an added bonus you can use Yoshi now. Depending on the player that could be a good or bad thing. I’m not going to say a Mario game has a great story but the added context of Rosalina's backstory worked well in between collecting stars in the first game. Without that it is now just a star collecting game. Which is still quite fun since the mechanics in Galaxy keep things interesting. Just doesn’t have as much impact the 2nd time around.

GOTY 2015 at least going by my list. Mario Maker does a lot of things to make it appealing. Using the gamepad to create levels is easy and it doesn’t take that long to create a reasonably well made level. Even if you don’t want to create levels you still have access to a continuing expanding roster of user made levels that just keep getting better. Even when I’m not playing the game it is still fun watching other people play levels too like at the recent Summer Games Done Quick event. Overall this game feels like it’ll last a long time.

I ended up going through the first and second game to prepare myself for this third game. In most cases that could end up getting me burned out on the sequel but that didn’t happen here. While the first Witcher games are alright it just ended up showing me how much CD Project has improved over time. The fighting is a lot easier to understand in 3 even if it is still quite tough. Requiring the player to plan ahead is what makes the combat scenarios unique. Which has always been in every Witcher game. The added push of a more relatable story filled with quite a few interesting characters made this game's story stand above the rest. Geralt fits the role of worried dad quite well and being the father of Ciri is no easy task with the Wild Hunt after her. In the end this was a very good open world adventure that had plenty to keep me entertained till the credits rolled.

Naughty Dog is back for one last adventure with Nathan Drake. Turns out he missing piece in these Indiana Jones like stories was a bit more plot. Seeing what he gets up to when not adventuring is interesting because games don’t portray that part often. Once the adventure starts it becomes apparent that the shooting has been improved along with adding the ever useful grappling hook. Surprised it took this long to include something to let your swing over dangerous rocks. Other than that it also look amazing which isn’t a small feat these days. Over time it has become tougher to make a game look great yet Naughty Dog continues to push the limits of any hardware they get their hands on. Can’t wait to see what they do next.

Conclusion

Now that we have made it to the present it is apparent which kind of games I like the most. Let me list them out here.

Beat em Up/Character Action: You would think I would have gotten tired of this style of game by now yet it continues to stick with me. Either because they are so over the top that it is fun to see what happens next or they added in some RPG elements to make me want to stick with it for a while.

Adventure/Visual Novel: For someone that didn’t really play very many PC adventure games I have grown to like them even more today. The gameplay is always secondary in my mind for these games although I don’t mind to figure out a puzzle or two. As for visual novels the reason they work is that they usually tell a compelling enough story to make me want to see the conclusion and the artwork is just a nice addition to the storytelling.

Classic Video Games/Arcade: Duh I wouldn’t be doing these blog posts if I didn’t like older games. They may not all hold up but it never hurts to go back to the games I played while growing up. Or even the ones I missed might be good too. The games that I have no nostalgia for yet are still fun are the true gems.After all it is rare to find a game that truly holds up from a previous era without the aid of nostalgia.

Fighting Games: Beating up another character one on one has always been satisfying. Never enough to get me deep into learning how to play them competitively. Yet I quite enjoy them casually and like playing against friends. Arcade modes have always been the bulk of my time spend with this style of game though.

Turn/Action RPG: I didn’t start out this way but by now the RPG genre has been mixed with every game type possible it’s not easy to find a game without this style of mechanics. Whether I’m shooting guys in a FPS or bashing them over the head with a mace the numbers keep popping up to remind me that the developers were inspired to add RPG like mechanics to the game. The traditional style of RPG is still fun too.

I could keep going but this seems like a solid recap of the style of games I tend to enjoy the most. With more games on the horizon this tally will only keep getting bigger. By now you know this is the hobby I spent most of time on. It lets me experience worlds in ways that no other medium can convey. VR looks to be the next big step for our hobby if it manages to catch on. Either way whatever the next step will be I’ll certainly be around to see the next big thing. All of us want to see a similar thing. More video games that are inspiring, exciting, riveting, heartfelt, exploration, scary, long, dumb and many more ways a game can affect us. Onward to the future because it is always the best time to play video games.

(These blogs have had a general focus on consoles. Since I don’t want to leave out the PC I'll be following this up with one more blog post. A brief history of pc gaming shall possibly be out within a week.)