Blog: Games of March 2021

March was a bit of a weird month. I think I played the fewest games in a month this month than every before (at least in a long while). This was a combination of getting into Battle Brothers (maybe a little too deeply) and trying to be a little more mindful about my time.

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

1. Battle Brothers - I'm really enjoying how much I've been able to learn. I've done around 20 runs at this point and I usually find a dumb way to die (spiders - ugh), but I'm enjoying that each time I go back in I'm a little better and I'm able to get a little farther. I've been following the game's reddit, so I feel like there's a bit of a limit to the possibilities for high level play, but I'm enjoying my low level wandering around.
   
   
   I do think the game is a little bit limited by it's random world generation. My most recent play through ended up trailing off a bit because the world seemed to be missing some of the things I needed and where it had them they were in awkward places to get to. Still this has been a ton of fun and since it's pretty easy to boot up, it's been my go to a lot of the time.
   


2. Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance - Playing Path of Radiance has been really enjoyable. It may be the nostalgia, but among Fire Emblem games it feels like it has a good balance or like it illustrates things I'm going to enjoy about other games later on. The story is pretty good and the game play is pretty good and overall, even if it's a bit slow, it's felt like a good place to put my time.
   
   


3. Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury - I've been playing Bowser's Fury more than 3D World. The open world where you can jump into interesting platforming challenges is a lot of fun. I've just finished up Bowser's Fury and I feel like the 100 Cat Shines was a nice challenge without sticking around for too long. 3D world is also a total joy to play and amoung all of the Mario games Nintendo rereleased this year, it's the best to go back to.
   
   


4. Mario 35 - Well, they've wrapped it up. I found I did play Mario 35 more than I might have because there was the looming deadline of them turning the game off. It's been a lot of fun and it made me play the original Super Mario Bros. way more than I would have. I'm sad it's done, but I'm glad it was here.
   
   
   I will say, I hope we see it again for a season next year and I also hope that Nintendo has thought of a follow up in the form of Zelda 35, or possibly something even more unique and interesting. I had hoped they'd announce something by now, but they haven't.
   
   


5. Valais IV - An unusual aspect of this month is that the games I very briefly try out actually showed up in the games of the month list. So Valais IV came out for the Nintendo Online service (I think) and I tried it out. It wasn't really my thing. I'd like to get into some of those SNES style combat platformers (Castlevania stuff), but Valais really didn't really grab me.
   
   
6. Kirby's Dream Course - Another quick test. I don't get this game. I've watched a couple Let's Plays and I think it looks fun. On the other hand, I just have no intuition for what the game want's me to do. Still I might
   
   
7. Animal Crossing: New Horizon - Oooof. I feel bad, but I just couldn't pick this game up this month. The couple of minutes I played were to go to one my the villager's birthday. I felt badly about missing a digital creation's birthday, but generally feel like the game doesn't really reward an emotional investment.
   
   
   
   

Here's my total play time chart for March:

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

Blog: Games of January 2021

January was a transitional month for me, so I had a different month playing games. My days are a little more structured and I'm much more able to take an evening or a day on the weekend to play. I've also been trying to play more intentionally, and focus on a couple of games.

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

1. Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity - The more I play Age of Calamity, the more interesting I find it. I do find that the musou style of game play doesn't really appeal to me, but with practice I do feel like I'm doing epic things now. The story and especially the cutscenes are really well done and have made it worth playing.
   
   


2. Dicey Dungeons - I needed to find something to enjoy during lunch. Now given that I work, take lunch, play PC games and do my hobbies all at the same desk, maybe I *don't* need something to enjoy during lunch, but I'm still looking. Dicey Dungeons has more-or-less been a good fit for that, but I am finding I'm hitting a bit of a wall as I get to its harder difficulties. It's fun and has a lot of good mechanics, but the pacing is a bit harsh.
   
   


3. Hades - Still totally awesome, but I've been playing a bit less just due to focusing on other things. The one thing I find frustrating is that if I don't play for a few days, my next few runs are really rough.
   
   


4. Animal Crossing: New Horizons - Uh, I'm sliding out of this. They have announced several updates and events for February, but I'm finding it harder and harder to stay interested. I'd still love to love this, but they're just not really finishing development. I don't know if it was caught in the pandemic, it was just successful enough that Nintendo decided to put resources else where, or this was their original idea of the game, but as anything beyond a doll house it's hollow.
   
   


5. Mario 35 - I suppose Nintendo's gambit that putting a time limit on how long you can play the game worked because I keep choosing to play this over other games because it's going away in March. It's good game and the battle-royal is interesting. 
   
   

Here's my total play time chart for January:

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

Blog: Games of December 2020

I'm not sure I was in a great mind-space in December. Looking at how I felt about most of what I played none of it really seemed to be great. I've been thinking about how to manage happiness and fun and so hopefully for the stuff I play next I'll be able to enjoy it more.

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

1. Civilization VI - Coming out of November I had a few fun games and a few games that weren't so fun. I want to love this game, but sometimes it just feels so draggy.
   
   
   
   
   


2. Hades - I'm a little frustrated that I'm not better at Hades than I am. On the other hand even as someone who isn't very good at it the game is still fun and interesting and doesn't make me feel like I'm really missing out. I wonder if playing mouse and keyboard has held me back some (I don't think much), but mostly I think I'm just a little too impatient with the game. I'll talk more about it in my 2020 wrap-up post, but the fact that this became a top 10 game in less than 2 months of play time really speaks to just how good it is.
   
   
   
   
   


3. Illusion of Gaia - I don't pick up Illusion of Gaia every year at the holidays but it's definitely the time when I want to play it again. It was nice to have a couple of days to play and I was able to get all the way though quite quickly this year (9 and a half hours) at least partly because I learned the speed running tactic (fact?) that the game gives you all of the XP even if you don't defeat the enemies. So it was nice to be able to tour through the parts I liked and keep going. It felt interestingly dark in the year 2020, with a lot of people not really responding to the crisis the world is facing in the game. 
   
   
   
   
   


4. Animal Crossing: New Horizons - I dunno. It's cute but I'm finding less and less urge to actually play. I've given myself a goal of getting my island to 5 stars in January and then we'll see what's next but without a significant update, I may just drift away from my island.
   
   
   
   
   


5. Luigi's Mansion 3 - If you are an animator you should play this game. Other than that I'm not sure. I think there are a ton of fun ideas in here and it's certainly charming, but I just didn't every feel that invested.
   
   
   
   
   

Here's my total play time chart for December:

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

Blog: Games of 2020

2020 has worked out to be a pretty good year in terms of games I've played. I managed to play six games released this year. They were all pretty good, but I certainly like some more than others. In particular I have been absolutely blown away by Hades and I'm pretty sure you should go play that right now. Then you can come back and read the rest of this post later.

For this end of the year post, I've broken my list down into: games I didn't play much, games I thought were okay, games I thought were good, games I thought were great and games that were outstanding.

The Ones I Didn't Play Much

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity

I played the Demo and about the Demo again after the game came out in full. (The fact that Zelda games almost always drop on my birthday make it pretty hard to avoid).  So I'm pretty clear on the first 2 or so hours of the Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. It's pretty good, I think it has a ton of interesting ideas and the quality of the game is very good. The thing that kept me from picking it up more was the fact that I just have no intuition for musou games. I've tried to play a few (including the original Hyrule Warriors) and every time I find myself baffled about what I should be doing. The gameplay always feels too loose and like I'm not involved with what actually happens. Age of Calamity feels similar, although they've definitely made things make more sense. I'll try to push into it a bit more in 2020.

The Okay

The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance: Tactics

When I first saw a trailer for this I thought it looked a lot it had visuals that looked like Muppets. Sadly in the end, the graphics didn't wow me in the end and the game play felt very slow. My partner and I pushed through and watched the whole of the show, which I generally enjoyed, but I think the game did not come out as well as it might have.

I think my general lack of skill at tactics games (despite my love of them) is holding me back some and then I think compared to other games like Final Fantasy Tactics or XCOM it just feels a little stilted. I might come back to it at some point but it's not really calling out to me.

The Good

Animal Crossing: New Horizons

I'm sad this is only good. I think New Horizons had a lot of opportunity to be exceptional and instead Nintendo played for the Instagram shot. I like the game, it certainly has moments where it's fun and charming. Other times it ends up feeling lifeless, like it's designed to take a good photo but not much beyond that.

New Horizons modernizes a lot of things with other Animal Crossing games and generally makes playing very easy and comfortable. Customizing your own island is fun. Unfortunately it's missing enough personality in the villagers and the factors outside your player that it just isn't great.

Mario 35

I liked Mario 35 quite a lot. Especially when it first came out, I found it to be a huge amount of fun. It forced me to learn a lot about Super Mario Bros and then to learn a lot about how to play this competitively. I'm not great, but I'm certainly good enough on any given day that I have a session last 10-15 minutes.

It has slightly different mechanics than other Super Mario Bros ports, so I found trying to go back and play those harder than it might have been. That being said other than in trying to get better at learning the game, there's no real need to go back right now.

I've found having played for a few months that it's a little less exciting than it was when I first picked it up. I will say that Nintendo's plan to stop letting people play in March seems anti-consumer, but I think shaking up the game play over time is going to be necessary to keep my interest.

Paper Mario: The Origami King

I wrote up a Things About post on this game, but generally I found that this was a good and well executed game. I also found that it was so highly polished that it slipped off my mind. I may have just not been in the right place when I played it, but generally I think I remember Color Splash more and enjoyed that game more.

This game is worth playing. It's beautiful and fun, with an interesting and fun combat mechanic. However, the story is not very interesting and the characters are somewhat forgettable.

The Great

XCOM: Chimera Squad

I really enjoyed XCOM: Chimera Squad. One of the primary problems with the original XCOM was the that the missions were very slow. Xenonauts is possibly even slower with it's large map size.  New XCOM definitely struck a good balance and XCOM:2 tried to shorten times by limiting the number of turns you were allowed to take (which I didn't love).

XCOM: Chimera Squad takes the whole XCOM formula and then asks what if we just did the setup parts. In each mission you "breach" into a space and then spend a turn or two fighting the bad guys you didn't take down on your way in. It speeds the whole game up and makes every mission quick and fun.

I also like that you play as a police force rather than a military force. The investigation game play between missions is minimal, but it's a nice flavour change and I like that the game directly rewards you for disabling enemies rather than killing them. I think they could have pushed it a little farther, but overall it's a really nice experience.

The only thing I'm sad about with Chimera Squad is that there are only 3 and 1/2 real investigations. Even though those have a little bit of variation on replay, I could really happily take on a whole bunch more game.

The Outstanding

Hades

I am absolutely blown away by Hades. It is immediately and continuously fun. It feels good to play. The story is interesting and the characters are deep and engaging. 

I started playing after watching a few Let's Plays and streams. I found I wasn't great at it, but there was always enough progress each time I played and I felt like I was learning to get better each time.

Later I watched some of those Let's Plays again and was fascinated to realize just how carefully constructed the tutorials were. From the order in which boons are introduced, to the way enemies are introduced, to the way the story is introduced it's all extremely carefully structured to guide new players into understanding each mechanic and how to really take advantage of each idea. 

Despite the menacing look, it is very hard to actually hurt yourself in this room.

I watched a video about the game's dialog system and was really impressed by how carefully constructed that is. Having a pool of reasonably interesting things for each character to say, prioritized by the things that are the most pressing.

I absolutely love this game and feel like I could play it for years to come. Probably it'll fade a bit, but I think this is a true classic and absolutely think anyone should play it.

 

Blog: Games of November 2020

Sure, you could read this or you could go play Hades. Have you gone to play Hades yet? Seriously. Go. Play. Hades.

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

1. Hades - Wow. Just wow. This is by far, the best game I've played so far this year and I think it's one of the best games I've ever played. The game play is fluid, easy to understand and feels really good. The story telling is beautiful, brilliantly paced and dynamic enough that you feel like you're in charge. The game is also a masterclass in tutorialization and so I think anyone who's trying to teach anybody anything would be so well served to play this game. (At a minimum watch Dan Floyd picking it up for the first time).
   
   


2. Animal Crossing: New Horizons - The slow drip of Animal Crossing continues. They say they're going to keep supporting the game for a long time to come, but really it feels so far behind where I'd like it to be.
   
   


3. Luigi's Mansion 3 - Kinda mixed. I picked this up and wanted to get through it before Hyrule Warriors came out. I wanted to finish something I hadn't finished yet. Some of this game is fun and charming and some of it is very moon-logic frustration.
   


4. Civilization VI - I don't know what brought this to my mind, but I picked it up again and I'm feeling surprisingly bad at it. Still Civ VI really fires all of my nostalgia flares (it *feels* like the original Civ) and so off I went again.
   
   


5. Ogre Battle 64 - I played on my birthday. It was great.
   
   

Here's my total play time chart for November:

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

Blog: Games of October 2020

October was pretty busy. Keeping two classes in the air while teaching remotely has been a bit of a struggle. So I've been playing more of the bite sized things. I can jump in to and out of really quickly.

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

1. Animal Crossing: New Horizons - Getting some seasonal, halloween, things to do did perk the game up a bit. I'm still finding it a touch bland.
   
   

   

   I'm mad they won't let me pick my own costume...



2. Ogre Battle 64 - Did it snow? Yup. I described Ogre Battle to my partner the other day as "my favourite spreadsheet".
   
   


3. Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - Again and again this remains a classic and my favourite game to just relax and play.
   
   

   

   He must dance.



4. Mario 35 - This has been a ton of fun. I've always been a little embarrassed at how I never learned the first Super Mario Bros. This has been great motivation to actually get good (even if it isn't quite the same game from 1989). It's also bite sized
   
   

   

   I seem to have died. Again.



5. XCOM: Chimera Squad - I tailed off playing Chimera Squad a little just because sessions can be a little long and I've had a ton of stuff I need to keep working on. There's also the drawback of going back to the desk you've sat at all day to play more games is sometimes a bit hard.
   
   

   

   Sometimes the fighting goes bedroom to bedroom.

Here's my total play time chart for October:

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

Blog: Games of September 2020

September was fairly unremarkable. I've focused on a few games as I've been busy teaching and working on some of the other projects I want to get done.

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

1. XCOM: Chimera Squad - I've really been enjoying Chimera Squad. It's got a lot of replayability, with enough differences between the characters to make every mission interesting. Honestly I'd love to see a few more investigations to take on, since this has been a ton of fun to play.
   
   


2. Animal Crossing: New Horizons - Didn't play quite as much as I have been. Between being busy with work and trying to get more other things done I've been spending less time on my island. I've also been increasingly disappointed with how little there is to do. 
   
   


3. Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - This game is so, so good. I started playing again because my partner bought a copy for the switch (inspired a bit by all the time we've now spent yelling at Stephen & Mal). She's been playing and enjoying it and I wanted in on the fun. I'm over 300 hours in at this point and I'm still finding new things. The switch version feels a little better than the Wii U, but generally this is such a well put together game.
   
   


4. Cities: Skylines - Not a game I played a ton of, but being back to work my numbers are a little more focused then they are during the summer. Still I've been watching All the Stations, and I got excited to make myself a city with a really good rail network.
   
   


5. Golf Story - I think the replayability of this game is really good, I just haven't picked it up that much. It could also use the ability to bring your story mode character into the pick-up and play sessions.
   
   

Here's my total play time chart for September:

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

Blog: Games of August 2020

Having taken a good chunk of July off to play video games (and like, vacation, sort of), I started back to getting things done. As such I played a little less and tried to focus a bit more on one game at a time.

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

1. Golf Story - I love Mario Golf, and I'm patiently waiting for a new one on the switch. In the mean time, I watched Proton Jon play Golf Story on his stream back at the end of July and the itch got me. I really enjoyed the golf mechanic, and thought the story was fairly charming. I think I'm going to do a post about it, but its definitely interesting to mix RPG mechanics with non-combat mechanics.
   
   

   

   Victory!

   
   
2. Animal Crossing: New Horizons - Still enjoying the daily grind in ACNH. Feeling a bit sad that there's stuff missing from New Leaf. I'm sure COVID sheltering has affected Nintendo's plans for the game, but the game is wearing just a touch thin finally.
   
   

   

   Fireworks!

   
   


3. Paper Mario: The Origami King - I really enjoyed The Origami King. Conversely to Golf Story I think RPG mechanics without experience griding actually works very well. The Paper Mario games are also extremely well written and this one was no exception.
   
   

   

   Paper!

   
   


4. XCOM: Chimera Squad - I think taking modern XCOM and breaking it down into bite sized chunks works really well. I've been enjoying Chimera Squad more than I remember enjoying XCOM 2. It's not always the tactical game I want, but overall I think it's great.
   
   

   

   Clear!

   
   


5. Octopath Traveller - I *want* to like Octopath, but compared to Golf Story and The Origami King, this is really hard to pick up. That's a bit on the mechanics, it's very slow in the UI and requires a lot of menuing. The addition of very, very slow cut scenes is also not helpful. Finally, while I love the game's combat, if you are low leveled some fights can last up to half an hour for no particular pay off. I'm left wishing for them to use the engine to remake Final Fantasy VI.
   
   

   

   Victory!

   
   

Here's my total play time chart for August:

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

Blog: Games of July 2020

I took a "vacation" and played video games in the last half of July. I'm not sure that was the perfect way to spend my time, but it was pretty good. I think I'd have liked something incredibly deep like a Final Fantasy to sink into, but since I didn't really have that I did the best I could with what I had.

My top five games (by play time) for July 2019 were:

1. Animal Crossing: New Horizons - Always a lovely game. It's not quite everything I could have hoped for in a "next-gen" animal crossing, but it certainly charming and I think compared to New Leaf, it does a good job of hiding the wires that make the world turn.
   
   

   

   Skye always brings a touch of joy.



2. Octopath Traveller - Knowing I'd need to get back to getting stuff done, I really pushed myself to play Octopath as much as I could. I ended up playing a bit more than I really enjoyed, since the game tends to push to long sessions. Overall however I think the game is pretty good. I'm planning a "Thought's on" post for Octopath, but that will be a little bit in coming.
   
   

   

   You know that thing where the ball gets really big when you're playing tennis...



3. Paper Mario: The Origami King - I liked Paper Mario: Colour Splash, and I think that The Origami King improves on it in every way. I've been enjoying playing through and I really like the pacing and the length. It's been easy to play and I appreciate that I'll be able to finish it in a relatively contained time.
   
   

   

   Come for the jumping and hammering, stay for the chill coffee philosophy. 
   



4. Wargroove - I was getting my butt kicked by Wargroove (I have a terrible condition of loving tactics games but also being really bad at them). I adjusted the difficulty down a bit and found it really fun and playable. I appreciated being able to play how I wanted to play without having to "be at the game's level". It's possible I may have to go back and play at a harder difficulty later on, but hopefully I'll have learned the systems better by then.
   
   

   

   Caeser wins hearts, minds and combat encouters.



5. Xenonauts - I do really love the original X-COM style of gameplay and Xenonauts definitely does a good job of recreating the organization and careful combat. It does stick very closely to the original format, so I find myself thinking about elements I'd want in a new X-COM style game, especially when it comes to base building and organization.
   
   

Here's my total play time chart for July:

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

Blog: Games of June 2020

June was a bit weird. I spent most of it happily playing Animal Crossing and trying to find cool stuff to fit in my other time. I had some work I needed to get done, so I didn't really sink into any "funemployment".

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

1. Animal Crossing: New Horizons - Generally the games that get at least a little bit of play time each day end up pretty high on my play time list. AC:NH is a good example of that. It's been really nice to play slow and enjoy the daily play. I think the game could use a few more features, to catch up to New Leaf and also just to give you more things to do each day.
   
   

   

   A Beautiful Night on the Island

   
   


2. Europa Universalis IV - I decided to pay for the DLC subscription, so I'm spending my current play time realing from all of the things that don't totally make sense. I'm still not sure how I feel about the newest DLC, but I'm still having fun. Currently France keeps throwing me into wars which eat all my man power as Castile, but I'm learning.
   
   

   

   A New Monarch

   
   


3. Wargroove - I skipped out on Advance Wars despite it being a game I would probably have liked. Wargroove has proved to be a great game to pick up and play even if I'm finding the "normal difficulty" a little punishing. The style is great and it's fun.
   
   

   

   A Good Boy's Victory

   
   


4. Secret of Mana (Collection of Mana) - I assume I explain this every year, but Secret of Mana is a game you should play in summer. So I am.
   
   

   

   A Confident Moment

   
   


5. Xenonauts - I wanted some slow tactical gameplay to enjoy, which Xenonauts does give. I'm finding the whole thing needs a little boost to be interesting but generally it's still fun if you want to very slowly march some soldiers across a bunch of squares. I did spend a bit of time looking at the mods and I'm facinated and frusterated by how many popular mods there are to "remove all women from the game". Definetly feeling like that's not a community I want anything to do with.
   
   

   

   Almost before anything goes wrong.

Here's my total play time chart for MONTH:

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