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:

Blog: Games of 2019

This is going to be a lot more work than last year. 2019 was a good year for games and a good year for me, so I played a lot of good games.

I’ve broken the games down into the Okay, the Good and the Great. I also had to add a category “I haven’t played enough” because that’s a thing that happened this year.

The I Haven’t Played Enough

Wargroove

I only played a little bit of Wargroove because I bought it the same day (or just before) I bought Fire Emblem Three Houses. I really enjoyed the little bit I played, but it was mostly (totally?) in the tutorial levels, so I was lacking a little bit of a feeling for how the whole game plays out.

The Okay

Super Mario Maker 2

I haven’t played SMM2 since the recent big update, so I may have to take this back later. Generally I enjoyed Super Mario Maker 2, but I found at the end of the day that it lacked a little bit from the first one. I think this is an effect of the game providing more and better tools and the established expertise of the fan base. It left the game feeling a little lifeless for me, but hopefully at some point it’ll catch me a little bit more.

Luigi’s Mansion 3

I’m enjoying Luigi’s Mansion 3, it’s charming and fairly fun. I find that it’s a little bit of a drag to pick up and play because it’s hard to remember what the objective is, and they are somewhat convoluted. I also find the controls awkward, although that’s getting better as I play more.

The Good

Dragon Quest XI S: Echos of an Elusive Age

I have a real fondness for Dragon Quest VIII. It hit me at the right time with the right amount of depth that travelling the world solving people’s problems was a lot of fun. I’ve started replaying it a few times. Dragon Quest XI feels a lot like a revisit to Dragon Quest VIII. I’m finding it generally fun, but a little bit slow and grindy. I heard a review that complained that the version for the switch ground to a halt for reasons in the middle of the game and I found that to be true, but the first half of the game was pretty engaging.

Euclidia

I didn’t play a ton of Euclidia, but enough to know that I’ve largely forgotten how to do geometry and that doing geometry from first principles is rather fun. (I’m also not 100% sure it’s a 2019 game)

Tetris 99

Tetris 99 is a lot of fun and it’s nice to be able to quickly drop into a game. My skills are a little old school, so there are things like t-spins that I’m not able to do properly and generally I find I’m a pretty middle of the pack player. I do wish the UI was a little more organized and that the matchmaking was a little faster (but secretly I really just want an awesome quick single player Tetris).

The Great

Cadence of Hyrule: Crypt of the Necrodancer Featuring The Legend of Zelda

This is a great game. I was going to put it in the good category and then that was the first thing I wrote about it, so clearly it must be great. I really enjoy the Zelda-lite mechanic of a game that doesn’t have a huge story but does have all of the feeling of a Zelda game. I really like the style the developers chose. The music is, of course, amazing and while I’m not sure the game exactly needs the actual Crypt of the Necrodancer beat mechanic, it’s certainly fun.

Fire Emblem: Three Houses

I didn’t expect to like this game. Looking at the trailers before the game came out, it felt a bit like it would be too Hogwarts the War Game. As it turns out it *is* Hogwarts the War Game and I actually like it. The developers streamlined and restructured the relationship mechanic from their recent games so that it feels reasonable and not nearly so fan-servicy. The combat mechanics are nicely streamlined, and when played on hard are pretty fun. It is a bit long if you want to see all four endings, but the quality of the deeper story seen when you do play through all four seems to be worth it.