a way for me to track all the video games I played in the year of our lord twenty twenty. this list most certainly doesn't contain all games that came out in the year 2020 but is rather a reflection of my own journey through the medium in the next 365 days.
edit: holy shit y'all, 2020 has been a YEAR, huh?
Showing 1-10 of 41 items
this is an incredible video game. astounding. fucking beautiful and epic in every sense of the word. top five favorite games of the decade. the decade being 2010 - 2019
really captures the essence of eastern horror in video game form. extremely tense but can definitely suffer from older adventure game tropes
a culmination of all the best parts of CRPG's and while the story occasionally becomes too edgy for it's own good, the game's conclusion wraps every thread in a super satisfying way. would totally recommend
an extremely underrated jrpg. the session mechanic does a lot to speed up combat so as not to feel stale, and while the initial pitch might sound kind of absurd on the surface, the characters ended up growing on me in a traditional persona fashion which (in terms of the smt persona franchise) would put this only behind P4 in my ranking of the franchise
as someone who unfortunately lost a parent at an earlier age than most and whose also going to art school, this totally struck a chord with me in a way i wasn't expecting nor was i prepared for. might a little aimless for some folks, but subtly beautiful in a way few games are
i think subject matter wise, it's totally fair to be making the comparisons some folks have been between this game and disco elysium, but where disco is certainly more acerbic (to put it kindly) KRZ is far more restrained, but still understands how to employ a scathing critique extremely effectively. combined with the inclusion of the interludes into the main product, KRZ joins ranks with Outer Wilds in terms of extremely well told game stories.
So much has been said about Deadly Premonition in the following decade since it's existed and so much of it still rings true. It absolutely revels in it's b-movie execution and surrealist influences, while when dissected into each of its surrounding mechanics - its so easy to call terrible. Frankly, because it is a terrible game! The controls are equivalent to a poor resident evil clone; it's visually muddy by 2010 standards; combat is monotonous and open world navigation feels like one fbi agent francis york morgan is actively drunk; the plot is stiff and over acted. I could go on, but SWERY & Co.s most well known title does what so few other titles of its ilk achieve - being that it makes it work! Deadly Premonition uses its budgetary restrictions and influences to build an endearing aesthetic and style out of the sum of its parts and so much of it comes down to its use of music. Or what many could easily mistake for being a 2 CD set of a middle school theater classes sfx collection. Only the campiest of cashier register rings and violin swells accompany a genuinely great original soundtrack to skewer what most people would consider traditional horror scenes for comedic advantage. And it works so well for so long, but no matter how well Deadly Premonition is able to sell me on its tone and pulp, I do have to draw a line at build stability and the simple fact of the matter is that in my most recent playthrough - the game crashed 12 times and corrupted my save file. Which just sucks. But even so, I've never been more excited to see a sequel get made to a game like this. And no matter what DP2 might look like, I cannot begin to imagine what's in store. And that excites the hell out of me.
A game that absolutely revels in camp but utilizes it's procedural format to tell deeper stories than you might expect. The higher res art can feel occasionally out of place, however never enough to totally take away from the experience.
I really wanted to like Virginia more than I did. Personally, I think the score and the aesthetic were excellent in conveying the tone and basic transition points of the plot, however I found the story itself a little on the thin side, especially when the pacing is as slow of a burn as it is here and story is the primary thing you're putting on display. Not terribly long to complete however and I don't want to seem unnecessarily critical as I want to see more games like Virginia get made in the future. It's just that it didn't quite capture me in the way I hoped it would.
There is a night and day difference between this and deadly premonition. While the heavy lynch/twin peaks aesthetic remains in Swery's work, the length of the missing and overall plot/character development quality works to its benefit. This is not to give it a pass for how rough around the edges the platforming can be, but overall, it's a much more well rounded product with minor mechanical foibles here and there. Would absolutely recommend.