by slax
2023 is basically the future. And the future is now, and this list is here. Will the site still be here by the end of this year? I hope so, but no guarantees, maybe I should put this list somewhere else? I don't know how.
ANYWAY! We'll be using the same rating scale as last year. Here is is...right...here:
I feel like it mostly worked, although I probably could've rated more 4* games 3* based on this scale. I'll try better!
Now, what did we learn from last year and what are our goals. Well, 2022 I set out to play a bunch of JRPGs that I had a backlog of and I...didn't really do that. It's not as if I didn't play any, but I think a combination of long and sometimes a difficulty being sticky, can make it easy to play a few hours and then just sort of bounce thinking I'll come back soon. Instead, I think we learned a lot about life-style games (which honestly might have negatively affected the above) and how it is difficult to manage too many of these. They come in the form of forever content like FFXIV, battle passes (every game ever) and just weekly and daily quests that missing them is sub-optimal. Some of these things can make a game more engaging, but they also can make a game feel like a job. And I already have a job, I don't need games to feel like more work (well, sometimes it's a good thing, but you (me (ooh nested parentheses)) get it). All that to say, early days of battle passes, I thought, done well, it would be cool to have in some of the multiplayer games I play a lot. But now that they are there, I mostly don't play those games anymore. Maybe something will hit, but it's hard to keep up on everything. At one point I think I was playing Apex, FFXIV and something else. And there was a time when I was going back and forth between Valorant and OW2. It just doesn't work.
So what do I want to pretend to do this year? I guess try not to get sucked in by those kinds of games, and instead go back to JRPGs, or just any sort of nice comfy game. Maybe that's it and maybe it isn't. Hard to tell at this point.
Update sometime at the end of May - Instead of what I wrote above, I got sucked into Diablo 2 for a large portion of this year again. This was the real one. It really stuck it's teeth into me this time. I wish trading was such a vital part of the ladder experience with the economy of drops balanced around it, because with a little drop balancing (or just like a Self-Found drop balance) i think this game would be just soooo nearly perfect. I do think that having teleport be a near necessary skill meaning you either play a sorc or need a really high rune so you can make a rune word that gives you teleport (or have a dumb time switching to your off hand to use a teleport rod) is not the best design, but damn, this game is real fun and the way a wide variety of drops can slightly benefit your build I think gives that nearly perfect drip keeping you coming back for more.
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***** I let Ichiro down. (Writing this in March, but am just gonna play this game forever) Read the eBaseball Powerful Pro Yakyū 2020 if you want the details of what I like about these games so much! The modes I can play are largely the same, but a little more built out, a few more options and overall an even more enjoyable experience. This game also brough Ichiro back as a recruitable highschooler, and as a Seattle native and Ichiro fan, this was super cool! Ichiro the highschooler was the greatest player to grace the halls of Thicc HS, but sadly, the pitching couldn't hold of the onslaught of better teams, and Ichiro couldn't hit enough home runs to win any important games. Then he left and my team made it to the finals of the Koshien. Ordinarily, I would blame this star player for hogging all the playing time, but it is Ichiro and I won't say a bad thing about that dude. What I didn't mention before, is you can play this highschool mode for like a hundred in game school years. It is wild. This was nonsense, but I just wanted to write something about this fantastic game that I now own on the Switch and PS4, because I am wise and make great decisions.
***** Finished 1/13 Played this on the couch with my sister, while we tried to figure everything out, and while it was sometimes a little difficult to keep track of everyone, it had such a satisfying loop and story. This is such an easy recommend to anyone who liked Obra Dinn and the like. It certainly is it's own take on that, but putting all the pieces together was wildly enjoyable. Also, solving the whole thing before we got to the epilogue made us feel like geniuses.
***** Didn't win any 甲子園 but then I realized I might as well play 2022. So I did! Beginning of March or whatever. Eikan 9 is a mode in which you manage a highschool baseball team and try to lead them in winning a Koshien tournament proving they are the best team in Japan. But you only have 3 years with a given player, and you have to train them, and recruit them, and make sure they rest, and get good grades, and that they get scouted and drafted, and that the field is kept up. If that sounds like a lot, it's because I kept saying "and" and was just adding more and more things in a list. And it kinda is. But the system itself is pretty simple, and it's easy enough to play with google translate/a barely passing understanding of basic Japanese (A lot of the text is skippable he says confidently to himself, not knowing if or what he was missing). The unique thing, besides the hardcore rogue-like nature of having your best characters disappear, is that you don't actually get to play any baseball. You give your highschoolers commands (read suggestions) on what to do at the at-bat, or how to pitch to the opposing batter. You can even delve into specific details like the alignment of the fielders, or how patient you want a batter at the plate to be. But all of these players have their own sets of skills and abilities that also define how they are going to act and play. It's really fantastic. I played this game a lot and I own (I know think every (I think typing this sentence made me go out and buy the other game I was missing)) Powerful Pro game on the switch because they all have unique Success modes, but that takes a lot more patience with google translate, or me translate, and I'm not sure if I have said, but I'm not very good. I will say though, that the actually playing baseball in this game is also fantastic. This is better than nearly any baseball game I can remember playing in how good it feels, the depth it has, but also how accessible it can be if you want that. The PowerFes mode, is another great one where you don't need to know too much Japanese and you get to actually play the baseball, where you take on increasingly difficult teams of anime superstars, and if you beat them, you recruit some of them to your team making you stronger. It's real fun! Great game!
**** This is a great game and a wonderful evolution of everything they did in in Spider-Man 1 and Miles Morales. I love how you aren't a cop anymore, that's great, and aren't doing a bunch of spying 10/10. The plot is...mostly fine! I don't think they get as much time to spend with each of the spiders-men since we are now splitting time, which is a shame, so we are just like BALANCE, and here is how no one is doing it. But they each have their own arcs and they go pretty well. Just as in God of War 2018, having to play with a moody character for a while is kind of annoying though, and I do think they could have made Symbiote Peter more arrogant and fun instead of just like, I'm doing everything and you all suck because that wasn't fun. ANYWAY! Good game. Combat good. Less reliance on Stealth fun. 100% this one and there weren't too many annoying missions!
**** 8/13 Dark Souls with guns, or as I'll call it. A game with dodging and shooting. Wet 2. This game is fun. I think hidden goodies and secrets area big part of it's longevity. I also thing the bosses are creative (and difficult) instead of just trying to do the same thing over and over but making it harder. This game feels good and when I beat it, I was pretty happy that I was done! 50 Hours or so into it! I wish they did some sort of endgame on this, because I'd want to play more, but just doing more of the same on hard difficulties doesn't appeal to me much.
**** 8/2 They did a different take on Vampire Survivors and it is really fun!
**** I don't even love Battlefield, but maybe that's because nothing has done Battlefield as well as BattleBit Remastered has. This game is fun, the open mics have been surprisingly non-toxic (I mean, within certain metrics) and the gunplay is sublime. This game is getting the support it needs and I like just hoping in a for a match here there. I'd certainly be playing more if any of my friends played it.
30 Hours and World Tour Mode "Complete" **** If this was a rating of just World Tour mode, this would probably be only 2* and that would be a 5* game being drug down by just a pointless, meandering story mode. If I had a group of friends and just played online all the time, this would probably easily be a 5* game and would maybe be my favorite of the year. As it is, I beat World Tour and I have mostly spectated tournaments and online play. And it's a fantastic Street Fighter game, with a better single player mode than they've had in a while (which is literally them stepping over a bar that is lying on the ground) but the last half of world tour is just a slog, and I want more people to play fighting games with. I hope to just take the plunge and play more online like I did with Strive. We'll see if I do. Update post Mortal Kombat 1, I didn't.
**** Beat 1.2 Gacha is bad. Gacha is life though, so it can't be that bad. mihoyo should stop making good games, because they do bad monetization. But also it isn't the worst monetization, because even their games are actually kinda F2P friendly. Even more so then Genshin since the F2P cast in this game is actually really good?! But the preying on gambling addiction, and fomo isn't good. They drop rates are dumb and bad and truly how much would it actually cost them to just make all that stuff just not quite as bad? Probably not that much, but since they are making so much money as is? What would cause them to change. &Update waiting for 1.3 mihoyo takes too long to put interesting story into their games. I think that's the crux of my problem with them. When you first jump in, it's a chunky story driven game with lots to do, and then patch after patch you get maybe one or two story missions good for an hour or so of your time. Not enough to meaningfully change anything going on in the world. This, I think, is about when I fell of Genshin. Honkai is at least a little more enjoyable to play for me, so that's lasting longer, but pretty soon here, it may be time to put it down and let it rest for a while.
**** Great early access, rougelike with divinity-esque combat. Have had a lot of fun playing with friends. If they keep adding content. I think I'll keep enjoying it.
