Games of December 2021

December was a bit weird, but I feel like trying to expect anything from a month during the pandemic is kinda useless. I ended up mostly focused on Chrono Cross, which was find, but next year I really want to play more and more kinds of games.

My top five games (by play time) for December were:

1. Chrono Cross - Chrono Cross is fine. I decided to play along with the Axe of the Blood God game club and found I enjoyed the minute to minute play, but was pretty underwhelmed by the story telling and most of the mechanics. As a sequel to one of my favourite games, Chrono Trigger, it feels deeply up its own ass in story telling. Chrono Trigger is able to get by, by not spending a lot of time integrating the plot or the time travel, Chrono Cross spends so much talking about time travel that I was just hoping to find a portal to the end of the game.
   
   
   
   The combat system is also underwhelming, partly because they tried to make it so complicated. At the end of the day most of the really fancy things they implemented didn't really work. I think if they'd leaned into the puzzle colour grid and made that a much more intentional system, rather than frustrated by the random AI. I think if they'd mixed this with Final Fantasy X's combat system, it would have worked a lot better.
   I love how colourful Chrono Cross is and I love the island aesthetic. It would have been nice to really get to enjoy the world a little bit more with less of the story sitting on top. A lot of the time it feels like they made a game and only later tried to tie it to Chrono Trigger, and I'd love to play that version that's a little more laid back and embracing the weirdness.
   


2. Secret of Mana (Collection of Mana) - Had a little bit of Secret of Mana left, so started the month by finishing that up. I ended up running out of steam fighting the final boss and ended up with 1 MP left, so had to sit there and wait for the game to knock me out. I ended up doing my old fashioned magic grinding to end the game off. Stupid as it seems standing in an inn and casting magic on myself for a few hours is still kinda fun.
   
   
   
   


3. Super Mario Odyssey - Really didn't pick this up much, but played some Balloon World and really enjoyed it. Odyssey just has a great feeling for movement.
   
   
   
   


4. Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past - Went back into this a bit, but mostly I'm planning to spend more time in 2022 learning the game and getting good at it.
   
   
   
   


5. Celeste - Played a few minutes just to get the feeling.
   
   
   
   

Here's my total play time chart for December:

And here's a chart of how much I've played over the month: