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:

Blog Post: Books Read in 2021

Kindness. Bravery. Summer. Growth. Community.

Blog Post: New Year's Resolutions 2022

I usually start off by being a little reticent to make resolutions since I want to pay attention to my habits and decisions each day.  However, I'm finding maybe just by the nature of a break in December that this is the easiest time to breath and reset. 

I realized all my old year end pictures break after a while. So I made my own.

As I said in my reflections on last year's resolutions, I've been struggling a bit and and feel like some of my habits aren't leaving me the way I'd like to be.

So here's what I want to remember and think about during 2022:

1. Move - I've discovered that while I was never super fit, I've become profoundly weak this last year. So it's time to move again and get back to a place where I feel comfortable moving and being in my body.
2. Read more non-fiction - I'm really happy with how much I read in 2021 and I'd like to keep that up. The one place I struggled a bit was making the time to sit down with non-fiction and read intentionally. So in 2022, I want to prioritize that reading.
3. Do - I've been keeping a journal consistently since the beginning of the pandemic and one of the regular themes there is "Do".  Last year I had a resolution to "Do More" but this year my goal is just to "Do".
4. Learn more about food - in the last little bit I've been thinking a lot about how to find the best food, grow the best food, enjoy food more and cook better.

Blog Post: Games of 2021

It's the future and some how I'm still sitting here playing Nintendo games. I only played 4 games which were released this year, and three of them were by Nintendo. 2021 has been a bit of a weird year in terms of what I wanted to play, and I really haven't felt that compelled by most of the other games released in 2021.

Everything I played this year was "good," they're all solid games you might enjoy, but none of them have really impacted me that much.

The Good

New Pokémon Snap

I don't have a huge nostalgia for the original Pokémon Snap. I enjoyed the new one, it's certainly pretty. I *may* have not figured how how to play it to advance properly, so it felt a little flat to me. Overall, I did enjoy the safari model of travelling through environments and seeing "genuine" Pokémon interactions.

Mini Motorway

I liked Mini Metro, where you have to plan out routes for a metro system and try to keep up with demand as long as you can. Mini Motorways is a nice follow up, it's prettier and the way you eventually fail feels a lot more manageable. It really runs up against the part of me that loves city building and so after a little bit of playing I'm kinda frustrated that some idiot built their house right *there*.

Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury

I only touched the 3D World remake. It's still pretty good, but it really doesn't compare to Super Mario Odyssey. Bowser's Fury was good, it has a real lightness of movement and interesting level design. I also like the idea of Nintendo turning out light weight, smaller games more regularly, so if I could play a new Bowser's Fury sized game every year I'd be delighted. Otherwise Mario games are pretty good if you like Mario Games and Bowser's Fury is a good Mario Game. 

Mario Golf: Super Rush

I think I've said it a ton, but Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour on the Gamecube is one of my favourite games. I spent a lot of time playing it dreaming of how awesome it would be if it was built out to be a fuller, flashier game. Super Rush is *not* the game I dreamed of,  but it is pretty good. It's a well built golf game with fun courses. If that sounds like your jam then you'll probably like it. It has a single player "RPG" mode which I found to be underwhelming and the online modes are okay.

I appreciate the DLC support they've given the game. The big drawback to the game is they introduced a their speed golf mechanic where you sprint after your ball to hit it again as fast as possible. Even when you're not playing that mode, it still dominates the design in a way that's not bad, but a little awkward.