Blog Post: Video Games of July 2021

July was a much quieter month than the last few. I'm still working on finding my happy point for balance between getting stuff done and getting stuff played, but generally I was pretty happy. I found myself struggling a little bit with finding a game to play to relax with, but with a little bit of energy Trials of Mana has turn out to be a delight.

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

1. Mario Golf: Super Rush - This has turned out to be a good game to play when I need something to pick up at lunch (as with World Tour before it) and it's been something good to play quickly. It's not great and definitely has a noticeable lack of depth, but the moment to moment play is fun.
   
   
   


2. Battle Brothers - Other than the bit where my PC seems to be having some issues, especially while playing Battle Brothers, this continues to be a great game the play. I'm continuing to learn more and more and the depth required to play well has been really compelling.
   
   
   


3. Trials of Mana (3D Remake) - I've stalled out playing Seiken Densetsu 3 a few times. It kinda lacks the drive of early Secret of Mana and also suffers (for me) from not *being* Secret of Mana, so it results in a lot of huh, that's good but different. The combat in is also, not terribly easy to read. The 3D remake is pretty good, I've enjoyed the combat and I think they've made some reasonable chances, streamlining some of the rough places in the original.
   
   
   


4. Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn - This took a little longer to finish than I'd hoped. From my perspective it provides a list of all the quality of life features that were eventually implemented in later games. On the other hand I *like* the story and the characters and compared to the games before it's much more dynamic and interesting. I think it was worth playing through, especially just after playing Path of Radiance, but I'm in a good spot to wait a little bit 
   
   
   


5. Peggle - I've ended up playing Peggle and Zuma when I've needed to get a break without getting up from the desk. (And really I *should* just be getting up from the desk.) Peggle takes a little bit longer to play than Zuma, so it ended up just ahead of it in the list.
   
   
   

Here's my total play time for July:

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