Games (from any year) which I finished playing in 2019.
Showing 1-10 of 41 items
01/06
01/12 -- Thronebreaker is a mix of a Heroes of Might and Magic-style campaign, storytelling from The Witcher and the GWENT card game. It drags at parts and the campaign style doesn't always mesh with the card game battles, but the battles and puzzles are generally fun and the writing and voice acting are surprisingly good.
01/12 (Spirit Board, World of Light) -- World of Light started out as intriguing and fun, whether I was unlocking fighters, collecting and upgrading spirits or working in Spirit Board challenges. The encounters aren't balanced, but having access to the right equipped traits and power level easily makes a big difference. Encounters and spirits are various video game references, too. Pretty cool. The adventure shifted from being fun to tedious, and from being tedious to a slog. There are more than 600 spaces in World of Light yet progression levels off as you unlock your favorite fighter and a solid set of spirits. There's little gameplay incentive to switch your fighter (much more the opposite). There is often a need to change spirits, though -- this leads to a lot of inventory management, whether equipping spirits (or ignoring handicaps) every encounter or simply sifting through a constant stream of new ones. Many World of Light encounters also overlap with the Spirit Board so the more time you spend on one, the more likely you are to see repeats on the other. It's a little unfair to judge any fighting game purely by its single-player mode, and it's great to see Nintendo experimenting with new ideas. A much shorter adventure of this style would probably work better, one with a more varied, manageable subset of content.
----- MINOR SPOILERS ----- 01/14 -- Hm. Detroit is a technical show-piece with some cool moments when the story or gameplay elements click -- like reacting quickly during a chase sequence, or finding evidence with a real time limit. The constant drive forward can occasionally be frustrating (especially when a scenario is confusing), but it keeps consequences meaningful and sometimes unexpected. Detroit often doesn't fit together quite so well, though. The gameplay can be slow and the interactions sometimes seem a bit pointless. The "I, Robot" themes really need careful development, but character stories sometimes jump ahead quickly or bounce around -- probably in service to the bigger story of liberated technology, which I didn't find that relatable.
01/25 (Campaign, excluding The Nest) -- Trying to keep the Advance Wars franchise fresh was a good idea, although Days of Ruin is sort of a reskin. It's been years since I played the early Advance Wars titles on GBA, but Days of Ruin still felt like an incremental sequel. The final mission's artillery and spawning mechanics seemed lame, so I decided not to slog it out.
02/03 -- Comet Crash 2's harvestable meteors, tower-versus-tower battles and offensive unit variety are all pretty cool concepts for active tower defense. Several missions require figuring out a trick or approved strategy (which was sometimes annoying or tedious), but it's generally fun co-op tower defense overall.
----- MINOR SPOILERS ----- 02/05 -- Back when I played Minecraft, I kind of wished it had something like a story mode. Endless sandbox games eventually tend to trail into "what now?" moments for me. Dragon Quest Builders isn't exactly that, but it's close. Like Minecraft, DQ Builders' core gameplay involves 3D blocks, crafting, combat and survival. Builders' main focus, though, is on building bases, with story scenarios generally guiding you through various goals. The base and room building systems are actually some of my favorite elements of the game. Enclose an area in your base with dirt walls, a light and a door and you have a basic room. Add a cookfire and it might become a kitchen, where townsfolk will leave you food. The game also scores your base based on the materials, items and decorations you use in your rooms -- a well-decorated wood, brick or stone-walled room adds a lot more value to your base than a bare dirt room. It's a cool way to reward sandbox-style play with a form of gameplay feedback. The story appropriately revolves around rebuilding a ruined world. It's light but fitting, with funny, silly dialogue and several well-placed core references to Dragon Quest. I don't want to oversell DQ Builders. The combat is still pretty basic, and the scenario loop probably repeats itself one too many times. The room building and base defense systems also aren't exactly deep. Overall, though, it's a fun game with some well-placed references and a good mix of sandbox-style play and direction.
----- MINOR SPOILERS ----- 02/11 (30 stars) -- Arrrggh... Two Point Hospital is a fun sim game which could be shorter, or at least better paced. I'll probably finish the last five or so hospitals, but at ten hospitals I'm already nearly 50 hours in. I've definitely enjoyed my time with TPH so far. In some ways, it reminds me of RollerCoaster Tycoon. You build hospitals across various scenarios, managing everything from building and layout to hiring and training. TPH usually wasn't difficult, but it maintained a satisfying pace of decisions while building a better hospital. The colorful humor and jazzy, elevator-music soundtrack also work well here. It tends to blend into the background, but I chuckled plenty of times at a quip from Sir Nigel Bigglesworth, an ad for Cheesy Gubbins, or reading an application of a doctor who "criminally underseasons everything". Nearly all of the hospitals so far have followed a similar pattern -- start a hospital from scratch, become profitable, (maybe) research a cure, meet objectives (which tend to be lengthy for three stars). The gameplay loop is fun, but there's a missed opportunity for pacing and variety -- for example, occasionally take over a running hospital instead of starting every one from scratch. 03/24 (45 stars) -- Not much new to say here. Still a fun, if repetitive, gameplay loop.
02/12 -- Don't expect anything AAA (and I have additional nitpicks around tutorialization and wonky hit boxes), but Zamb! delivers fun co-op tower defense for $3. The separate roles play pretty well with shared resources -- one "bro" has cheap, single-use powers (like bombs and traps) while the other invests larger chunks in building and upgrading static turrets.
----- MINOR SPOILERS ----- 02/24 (Floor 51, three classes) -- Hmm. Slay the Spire is probably too random. There's a balance with randomness in games -- the right amount creates interesting and unexpected experiences, while still rewarding strategic decisions and learning systems. Too much leaves a player basically rolling dice until things work out. STS's Act 4 boss may just be an intentional difficulty spike. Despite my complaints, individual runs of STS are actually fun. It's a deck-builder not unlike Meteorfall, but the relic mechanics create an added layer of complexity. (Some of them are narrow or boring to track, though. I'm looking at you Pen Nib.) The first runs through Act 3 with each class seemed a little closer to the right difficulty/learning balance. 02/25 (Ruby+) -- Ironically, after deciding to finish up one last run I finally slew the spire. This run sort of represents both what I liked and what I complained about. I tried a few new things: a starting trade-off for a rare relic (Torii), more energy boss relics with drawbacks... and choosing to become a vampire. My final build surprisingly finished only having 50 max HP. At the same time, the final boss fight was literally down to the last turn or two. Any step along the way could have swung significantly, starting from the first random relic to a bad hand on the final boss fight. 03/05 (Sapphire+, Emerald+) -- (It didn't take me too long to come back for a few more runs. STS definitely scratches a roguelike itch for me.) Like many good roguelikes, I did find a few strategies to help reach STS's final boss more consistently. The Act 4 difficulty spike is a bit too subtle, and the final boss can end runs too suddenly, but it probably isn't quite as RNG as my first impression.