by mento
Getting started on this halfway through the year as usual, mostly so I can look back and think such poignant thoughts like "Whoa, was that playthrough actually this year?", or "I don't remember a thing about this one," or "You're saying clinical depression is connected to early onset Alzheimer's? Like we don't already have enough to be bummed about?".
I've talked more about everything on this list via its respective month's "Mento's Month" rundown—or, more likely, a blog found in a second location; it's like a Wikipedia hole, almost—so I've included them all here. Unlike last year, though, I'll still do some mini-reviews just in case you're not into having multiple "Giant Bomb" tabs open at once. (Just makes the NSA that much more wary, you know?)
Mento's Months:
Showing 1-10 of 114 items
04/01. The four-hundred-and-first Indie Game of the Week. Delightful Moana-esque island adventure resembling a 3D Zelda with a more open-world structure. Bit rough around the edges but plenty of heart and some unexpectedly darker moments. (4 Stars.)
10/01. The four-hundred-and-second Indie Game of the Week. Language deciphering game with a distinct cel-shaded look and Middle Eastern aesthetic. Going for a sort of Biblical Tower of Babel vibe with some interesting linguistic and logic deduction puzzles. Need a real good brain for this one, like what I got. (5 Stars.)
14/01. The tenth entry in Go! Go! GOTY! for 2024. An earnest attempt at a smaller-scale but still graphically resplendent (and mechanically distinctive) action-RPG made in the Souls house style. Gunplay and cooperative attacks with your CPU companion have more emphasis here, as do traversal and platforming sequences. (4 Stars.)
18/01. The four-hundred-and-third Indie Game of the Week. You really get your ash moving in this dexterously slick action game that combines open-world exploration with rapid traversal and a whole lot of QTE battles. Really strong visual style to tie it all together. Did occasionally feel like an exercise in style over substance but it did give me flashbacks to skating around Tokyo-to in the Jet Set Radio series with the motion lines and everything. (4 Stars.)
18/01. The second game featured in Mastering the Master System. This would be the 8-bit Sonic, quite a different beast (well, all right, taxonomically it's the same beast) as its Genesis predecessor. Far less focused on the fancy blast processing but still a strong enough '90s mascot platformer, created as an early project by Yuzo Koshiro's Ancient. (3 Stars.)
20/01. The eleventh entry in Go! Go! GOTY! for 2024. A sort of meander-y but beautiful monochrome action-adventure game about roaming around the afterlife for your salvation after a chance to ascend slips from your fingers. Mostly a lot of isometric shooter sequences and plenty of collectathonning to do but otherwise a very chill and serene time. (4 Stars.)
21/01. "Podcast game". One of a few picross also-rans for the Super Famicom after Mario's Picross proved to be a successful translation of the pen-and-paper puzzle format to a video game console. Like its predecessor, it lets you play through either the "Mario" (penalize for errors) or "Wario" (no penalization, though that means you can make a mistake and might never know) ruleset. Solid but unexciting. (3 Stars.)
23/01. The twelfth and final entry in Go! Go! GOTY! for 2024. The moody sad Viking woman sequel didn't really build on the promise of the first in that it offered much of the same gameplay (and inner conflict) without a whole lot new to present or say. It's still a gorgeous game with a commanding central performance, however. (4 Stars.)
24/01. The four-hundred-and-fourth Indie Game of the Week. Fascinating if slight first-person adventure game about searching for God (or really just a supercomputer that ushered in an utopian age and then went dark) on a cold and desolate moon. Big on themes about religious fervor, dogmatic obstinance, and the self-sufficiency of mankind without a deity to lead them. Real cool '70s sci-fi look too. (4 Stars.)
25/01. Wholesome open-world action-adventure game (again, deliberately Zelda-coded) about a neighborhood of anthro children coming together for a massive role-play event. A perfect way to introduce your little ones to the complexities of a Breath of the Wild. (4 Stars.)
