A continued, boring catalog of games I've graced with my attention in 2021. They're so lucky.
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Starting the year with a banger. Sakuna would have easily taken my top spot last year if I'd played it just a week or two ago. Instead, the rest of 2021's games are going to have to fight to beat this one. Sakuna is an odd mixture of action-centric platforming and farming sim, centering largely on growing rice. And here's the kicker - it really works. You spend a fair amount of your time getting your rice ready for harvest. Everything from tilling the ground to making a fertilizer mixture to adding just the right amount of water to your fields is represented here, and it's been my Zen. Then there's the slightly less cooked action-platforming, which is fast-paced and generically fun for what it is. There are a limited number of enemy types, and they all pretty much lack any sort of tactics, but the levels are over with in just minutes, never overstaying their welcome. There's also a lot of replayability to them, as defeating enemies and exploring every nook nets you resources you can then take back to your farm for better food and gear. The systems all play with that central focus on rice, though. Eating well boosts your stats. A good harvest increases your level. It's a really neat system and pretty unique. I'm still learning its ins and outs, a genuine pleasure considering the way the game patiently doles out its mechanics to you. Also of particular note is the aesthetic. It's a gorgeous game, with super fluid animations and bold characters and environments. The world-building is top notch too, and within the first few hours, I felt right at home in this world of gods, demons, and humans. It's a well-realized game through and through and one of the best things I've played in a long time.
As it turns out, Mario Maker 2's pretty great! Okay, so I'm not likely to work with the actual Maker part of this game very much, but I'm enjoying the hell out of the story mode and the user created levels. Seeing what people can do with the various eras of Mario is a kick. I'm always going to prefer classic feeling levels without a lot of difficulty to them, but some of the more difficult stuff people put out there makes me realize just how godawful I am at Mario - and that's a really neat thing.
Great games, and a great remake. The controls feel spot on, the most important part of these games. There's a certain sort of corporateness about it now that adds a skim of sleaze to the surface but I guess that's to be expected. It's like the pop punk version of itself. It's not bad at all, but you kinda wish you were back in its prime.
Tell Me Why does a lot of things right, namely its great brother/sister protagonists and the hurried way it introduces their innate mental abilities, a welcome change from the usual Dontnod formula of establishing someone's supernatural gifts in the first episode. But the overarching story's most interesting parts are largely played out in memory, leaving the player playing Batman's detective mode for scraps of (admittedly great) dialogue and character moments. It's a weird game, and I really like it, but it doesn't do itself any favors by setting itself in its present instead of its past.
Sludge Life looks and feels like it should be my thing. It's essentially a traversal-based collectathon across a brightly colored world that feels like something thirteen year old me would have appreciated. But thirty-eight year old me is more than a little confounded by this game. For one, most of the tag locations have you relying more on lucky breaks with the game's slipshod, loose controls. There's no natural flow to reach these points - you're crawling along a ledge hoping you get the pixel perfect jump to the next ledge with a jump that never feels the same twice. Some of the game's collectibles aren't marked in any obvious way, and the game's menus are insanely hard to read thanks to deliberate font choices that make my eyes hurt. This is not a bad game. It's just not a game for me, and that's all right.
Genuinely loving this. Blending the visual novel with court case drama, absurd devil-may-care legal rules and world-building (ghosts!), and a great objection system, I'm glad I finally gave these games a shot.
ToJam is neither funky or particularly fun. It's mechanically fine, but the "presents" are kind of a pain in the ass and the enemies are often generated in ways that make things frustrating on the normal difficulty. This game plays it way too safe, and the feeling that comes from it is that this is a game made by your dad as a fun thing for the other dads around the world to enjoy. It's Bon Jovi. It's Aerosmith and anything they made in the nineties.
Kingdom Battle is fine. I paid ten dollars for it and I think playing it under $20 is probably the sweet spot for what this game is. It's uncomplicated XCOM. There's a lack of depth here that kind of chaps my ass, but it's not a game really meant for a guy who got way into Jagged Alliance, XCOM Mermaid Edition, and even Corporate XCOM. So I'm trying to be fair here and say that this is a fine introduction to the genre, but once you get the idea if this is your thing, move on immediately to XCOM and then branch out from there.
