by mento
Here we are again, with another list of backlog games I'll possibly get around to this upcoming year. I'm hoping the relatively lean 2020 means I can finally catch up a little, though looking at this list that seems unlikely. Well, it's not like always having something to play is the worst problem to have coming out of 2020.
Until someone can jab me with a needle (it could have the Covid vaccine or air in it at this point, either's good) I'll be stuck indoors playing the following.
Here's a refresher for the B-W-C system I use for these lists:
Showing 1-10 of 50 items
[B] High Priority. Been having some trouble getting Wasteland 2 to run, which I'd intended to play before this, but it doesn't sound there's a whole lot of connective tissue. (Also, it's not like I'm going to dig up an emulator to play the first Wasteland from the '80s, so I don't know why I'm being precious about playing these games in order.) It sounds like a winner but it won't be cheap any time soon, so I'll keep an eye on it as the year progresses.
[B] Medium Priority. I only just played The Surge back in April, so I'll be waiting until April 2021 at the earliest to get started on what I hear is a superior sequel. With more player customization and deeper mechanics, it sounds like it'll be the Nioh 2 to Nioh, the former being my 2020 GOTY. High hopes for it, though not something I plan to start in the next few months.
[B] Medium Priority. Kingmaker and Underworld Ascendant are two games I've been kicking around giving a shot once I'm reasonably satisfied that they've been sufficiently improved from the buggy messes they first released as. Playing Tyranny last year and Deadfire the year before that, I've rediscovered my verve for Infinity Engine-style throwbacks, and I like any game that focuses on building up a base from nothing. Maybe 2021 will be the year I make a King?
[B] Medium Priority. Another holdover from last year's list, I finally got XCOM 2 its War of the Chosen expansion since I heard that promotes a tolerable strategy-sim into an incredible one, but the stress these games generate was a bad fit for 2020. It may be the case for 2021 too, but I could be more amenable to some "world in dire crisis" fiction by the mid-year when most of us will have hopefully had our vaccines.
[B] Medium Priority. One of the last 3DS games on my backlog, though I've still got a few wishlist items I'm hoping Nintendo decides to discount heavily before discontinuing the 3DS eShop forever. I've liked the Mario & Luigi RPGs in the past and The Origami King won me over last year, so I'm hoping I'll get something out of this. Many more RPGs I'd prefer to tackle first, though.
[B] Low Priority. I make the same vague promise every year of jumping onto the Cold Steel train and then pausing when I consider how many more Trails games sit between here and there. Chiefly, the third Trails in the Sky and the two interstitials, Trails of Azure and Trails of Zero, both of which will need me to futz around with translation patches and Japanese credit cards. Hmm. Maybe 2022, Cold Steel?
[B] Low Priority. The rule is that I play one new Yakuza game a year: any more and I'll burn out on the vast amount of content each one presents. This year's Kamurocho-set game will be Judgment, but I suppose if I somehow got Judgment out of the way in January-February and took on Yakuza: Like a Dragon in the late fall or winter, that might be enough of a gap? Of course, then I'll have finally run out of Yakuza games to play, and that would just be tragic.
[B] High Priority. Of the really, really big games to see a lot of press in 2020, Ghost of Tsushima is perhaps the only one I'm gunning to play ASAP. A generic list of open-world challenges in a beautiful world of the Japanese samurai sounds like just the tonic for the upcoming cold months. My one concern is that it'll feel a little too close to Nioh 2, which I only played in November.
[B] Medium Priority. (2019) Lost Sphear's first few hours were generic as hell, but some late-game developments to its gameplay eventually won me over. I don't know if Tokyo RPG Factory really has figured out how to deliver on their throwback RPGs reliably, but I'll try their newest to see how they're coming along. (I'm also not against picking up their first game, I Am Setsuna.)
[W] High Priority. A game I've known about for a long time but never had the opportunity to play - at least legally - until just recently with a remastered Switch port. Moon is an important if bizarre milestone for the RPG genre, influencing the likes of Undertale among others, so I'm very curious to get my hands on it.
