Games I Finished In 2021

Another year of existence.

Another catalogue of completion.

Last year I set a few resolutions for myself with regards to how I'd like to play (and finish) games which were:

• Play more visual novels.

I finished maybe 3 games that could fall under the genre, so I consider this to be a failure.

• Finish one of the 5 game series that I've been hoarding over the years.

I finished the Zero Escape trilogy last year, which was one of the five I listed at the top. This one was a success!

• Finish more older video games.

I consider older to be anything that was made and released over 15 years ago. By this measure, 7 of the 34 games I finished in 2020 were old. I touched considerably more older games than that, so let's consider this a semi-success.

• Always remember the PlayStation 2.

Very vague, so let's just call this a success and move on since I will never forget the majesty of the system in question.

• Seek out and uplift creations from developers whose work slips through the margins instead of retreating to the safety of familiar names.

Likely the most contentious resolution I set out for myself and also one I'm not sure how to measure if I completed or not. For simplicity's sake, I'll use my (as of yet unpublished) Game of the Year list as the platform for judgement against the barometer for "developers whose work slips through the margins" vs "familiar names".

This list is practically set in stone at the moment of writing (January 5th) and the number of games you, the average Giant Bomb user, are unlikely to have heard of vs. the number of games in established franchises, games that have been covered by this very website, are developed or published by well-established names in the industry or are fairly popular despite their obscurity within press coverage is... 1 to 9. A pitiful result. Failure.

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Anyway, all this to say, I would like to set more resolutions for myself but I truly did not dedicate much thought into it. The few that I can think of off the top of my head are:

• Finish more visual novels that aren't genre hybrids. Aim for at least 6 of these, half should be Japanese in origin.
• Finish at least 12 JRPGs. Try to average one a month, spread throughout various modern and older platforms.
• Finish more older games, regardless of platform of origin. Aim for at least 9 older games of any length by the end of the year.
• Finish at least five commercial games from developers I am unfamiliar with or do not have any prior notable releases to their name.
• Finish at least five games (commercial or non-commercial) from developers on itch.io. This will be a separate count from the previous resolution with no overlap between them.

Maybe I'll add some more if I think of any. Maybe not.

That's all for now.