AAARGH Yar! I am a bear! "Sunny with a chance of cute girls" - O4 - - Twit - Steam - I'm BB! I don't really use Tumblr socially and rarely reblog. I'm most active over on BB's Backlog Challenge, where I review games from my backlog after playing them for one hour. Here's a list of the things I'm into: Love Live! (µ's) Kotori Second Years Askblog (retired) Touhou Sanae Yukari Byakuren Pokemon Lilligant (blog!) Sylveon Magnemite Gen 5 Critical Role Mighty Nein Jester Fire Emblem Blazing Blade Three Houses TF2 Half Life Metroid Nintendo generally SNES era games Ikaruga (STG) Aside from the above, I'm a writer! I don't post much though. Currently working on my first novel, titled 'The Third' (that's confusing, I know). It's my dream to one day have a book I wrote sitting on my shelf, and a secondary dream to one day have a fanart tag lol. In theory am open to fanfic commissions but I've never actually done it. Wanna be the first? (I should probably put together a portfolio some day... nah)
One of the earliest concept artworks for Princess Peach, created as part of the production process for officially licensed Japan-only 1985 Super Mario Bros. shoes.
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I've never managed a football before, but I've always suspected they would be the kind of game that would suck me in wholesale and entire aeons would pass before I escaped. The dice finally decided it was time to put my managerial chops to the test, only five years late, and so I loaded into the weirdly-silent main menu and began my journey.
Up and coming managerial genius Sera Peterfinowicz joined rising stars the Penis Boys as they took their eager first steps into the world of professional football. First order of business was to look through my list of players and get to the know the team. Unfortunately, one of them shared a name with a kid I went to school with- completely unacceptable. I immediately singled him out to criticise his performance in training and his overall attitude to the team, and asked if he knew anyone who could replace him before telling him he was going to be transferred out if things didn't improve.
There simply isn't room for that kind of dissent on my team- I run a tight ship, and his petulance was affecting team morale. A few days later, I sold him for $200. Cha-ching!
That really lit a fire under my boys, which was fortunate as we then began a strict training regimen of hardcore endurance training twice a day every day with no rest periods. Running around for 90 minutes is a taxing ordeal; very important to raise their stamina. Three weeks into the training, I met with my team for the first time to introduce myself. I told them in no uncertain terms that they were to win a league they weren't actually entered in before the season was complete or there would be hell to pay, which really inspired them to step up their game.
A potential new recruit made himself known to me while the Penis Boys trained their little hearts out, eager to join their ranks. I offered him a salary of $0 and told him his prospects were to warm the bench for his entire career, and he enthusiastically signed the contract. I immediately held a press conference to discuss the signing and refused to answer any questions.
Our first big game approached, and it was time to talk strategy. I was given a list of pre-made formations and declined them all, preferring the element of surprise. I set my entire team into forward attack positions and stationed everyone on the left side of the pitch only, to confuse and disorient their opponents who had to cover the entire field. In the locker room before the match started, I gave an inspiring pep-talk where I told the team that nothing they did mattered and this game was meaningless, leaving them "confused and disenchanted".
A smattering of existentialism gave them a unique energy in the first half, during which I employed my master strategy- swapping my forward attacker with my goalkeeper. Think about it! The role of the forward attacker is to score goals. If he is in my goal, that means every time the opponents shoot at my goal they're actually giving the ball to my main scorer! They would be architects of their own demise!
A second pep-talk at half time left the team anxious, disinterested, and hesitant, and our game ended with an incredible 15 goals on the final scoreboard. Unfortunately they were all scored by the opposing team. I berated my boys for their abysmal performance and told them they wouldn't be paid for two weeks as punishment. I really feel like I've made my mark on the sport already and I'm excited to see where the Penis Boys take me next.
2023 was dominated by Tears Of The Kingdom, and it wasn’t until the very end of the year that I had another game I even wanted to consider for GOTY. In 2024, I already had three main contenders by June. Funny how that works out sometimes!
Even outside of those three, it’s been a stellar year. I think as BBLC progresses, my attitude towards games has changed enough that acquisition is no longer a priority; I’m really only buying games that I want, rather than anything that seems like a good deal. As a result, there are fewer clangers (though there’s still been plenty of Bins!). Not at all a bad thing, I’m certainly spending less money, and I’ve managed to whittle the backlog down to under 40 games for the first time in about 5 years. With 59 games played in 2024, will next year see the backlog cleared? I've said so every year since I started so probably not!
Expect to see some virtual reality on next year's list! A last minute surprise from Santa saw me gain ownership of a Quest 3S headset which I'm still adjusting to. 2025 may also bring us the successor to the Switch, and regardless it will certainly be bringing Metroid Prime 4. Odds are good that my GOTY 2025 has already been decided. But that’s the future, and this article is about the past. Video games!
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Ys 8: Lacrimosa Of Dana
Last year’s ‘GOTY That Isn’t TotK’ is this year’s ‘GOTY that I think people reading this will enjoy the most’. I started playing it at the end of last year and it lasted into February of this year, so I get to count it for both years. My early estimation that Ys8 was going to be a great time was spot on, with fast fluid combat and a ripping soundtrack, but what surprised me was how much I enjoyed the cast of characters, as they came together in Castaway Village one by one, each with a tale to tell. When the game ended I genuinely felt a little sad, because I was going to miss our little village. Of course, there was also the small matter of the end of the world to deal with, but that’s old hat for Adol by now. I have the novelisation to read through still, whose existence still baffles me.
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Hitman 2 Hitman Harder
Between only being sold 80% of the actual game (via a bundle that didn’t mention this, the rest having since been de-listed and impossible to acquire) and a general apathy for the score-chasing content (all of which was denied me due to playing offline, because this entirely single-player game needs to always be online or it doesn’t function correctly) I was less than impressed by Hitman. It’s a shame all the corporate bullshit ruined what could have been a fine time.
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Project Wingman
I have so much to say about Project Wingman. It's my 'Game Of The Year That Is Just For Me (I, Solely, Am Responsible For This)'. I played through it three times in succession all the way to the hardest difficulty setting and came away still wanting to play more. A constant visceral thrill that nails the hard-to-master experience, skill progression is palpable and pulling off a crazy stunt that nails a difficult kill is always a rush no matter how many times you do it. Outside of that, the radio chatter between characters is wonderful when you can take your attention away from the dogfighting to notice it, and I've developed an affection for the whole squad- an impressive feat given you never see more of them than their planes zooming by for a fraction of a second. The orchestral soundtrack is phenomenal, culminating in a truly harrowing final boss sequence to utterly gorgeous music. And then right at the end of the year they dropped a six-mission DLC pack with one stage in particular that will live with me forever as one of the most stressful and most enjoyable videogame experiences of my life. No exaggeration, I came away from it with my arms and legs going numb because I was so tense I wasn't breathing. …In, like, a good way. You'll be seeing this again in next year's list because I still just hop into a mission from time to time so I can enjoy the skies some more- and it's VR capable so you can bet I'll be sitting in the cockpit for real once I get my sea legs.
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Ducktales
This really landed in that sweetspot where licenced games were good, didn’t it? Before the SNES era where they were deliberately made unreasonably difficult because Disney didn’t want to miss out on the rental money, and long before they became shovelware dreck because they knew it would sell even if it was bad. I can imagine a modern audience turning their nose at the idea of playing an old disney platformer for these reasons, and that’s a shame- there’s a good, if brief, time to be had here.
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Touhoumon Another World Revised
At about 80% of the way through the story, this accessible and player-friendly game said “ok, now you’re a competitive player” and started pulling off some absurd nonsense that no casual player could hope to understand or counter. A real damn shame as I was enjoying the hell out of it until that point. There's some neat QoL stuff that is probably found in most fangames and romhacks these days, but still I'd like to see the official games adopt some of it. Let me change what ball my pokemon are in!
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Final Fantasy Mystic Quest
This game is just neat. I think giving it the Final Fantasy title may have actually done more harm than good, but it's still a good time with some fun ideas, a mild Zelda-lite approach to dungeons, and a monstrous soundtrack. Control your expectations and you'll have fun with Mystic Quest.
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Orwell
In my BBLC review, I wondered if I was doomed to fail no matter what I did as part of the game’s political commentary, or if I just sucked. Having played through it a few times to see all the alternate routes, turns out I just suck. Surveillance works!!!!!
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Wandersong
Nope, I still can’t talk about it. You have to experience this one for yourself. It’s a warm blanket on a chilly day, and you'll love it. This isn't one of those "but actually it's DARK AND GRIM!!!!" kinds of 'trust me', it's just lovely and has some really fun surprises.
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Banjo Kazooie
It's very rare that old games are as good as you remember them, but BK just got it right. Every bit as playable today as it was when it released, tight levels absolutely crammed full of things to find and very fun movement throughout. Even the humour isn't as dated as I suspected it would be. Simply a top class game that has withstood the ravages of time.
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Hexologic
I finished it before I wrote my post, so I'll let that stand. It's great!
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Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze
I played four DKC-likes this year, and this was my least favourite. It's almost-but-not-quite like the old games brought into the modern era, but they changed all the small things that made it DKC. Also I know he's a gorilla and is supposed to be weighty and feel heavy, but even so the momentum is just all over the place. DK feels very difficult to control once he gets going, and also very hard to get going in the first place, which was never a problem in the SNES games. Finally, the puzzle rooms are just thoroughly miserable and I'd rather they were excised completely. There's perhaps 6 unique designs that are re-used ad nauseam through the whole game. The SNES games had 1-3 unique rooms per LEVEL. It's not at all a bad game, but definitely disappointing. Despite all of this, it gets 10/10 because Dixie Kong is cute.
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Yooka Laylee impossible Lair
It's a better Donkey Kong than Tropical Freeze was. Not without frustrations- when you take damage Laylee will fly around the screen randomly and chasing her down will often just lead you into more trouble, for example- but they are worth enduring for the excellent level design and fun secrets. HOWEVER! The Impossible Lair itself, which is the game's final level, is complete and total ass. I understand that's the point of it, and in that regard it’s a job well done, but something that is 'bad on purpose' is still bad. If not for that, this would be an easy and hearty recommendation to anyone who likes 2D platformers, but the final hurdle is too much for anyone who doesn't have a steep tolerance for frustration.
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Sunset Overdrive
I am astonished by how little impact this game left on me. I Recycle Binned it in my review but I actually played it through to the end (not 100%) and the whole experience just washed right off me. It is an incredibly, extremely, astonishingly ok game, just about as Fine as a game experience can be, and it's hard to talk about. I am however left to wonder; after film had been a medium for twenty years or so, do you think there was a sudden wave of 'haha, because it's a film'-style jokes? It seems to be rife during this era of video game to grind everything to a halt in order to waggle their eyebrows at the player and make self-references. It's very very difficult to pull that kind of humour off well and Sunset Overdrive doesn't manage it. (MGS2 and Undertale are the only examples that come to mind of it being done well.)
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Earthbound
For as frustrating as Earthbound frequently is, holy smokes the entire Giygas sequence is worth it.
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Great Ace Attorney
I’m still plodding my way through this one so I won’t give a definitive verdict. It’s definitely a more disposable entry into the series- not necessarily a bad thing. I do not like the jury system at all, it doesn’t add anything to the cases, the jurors are all annoying and they don’t have any actual character (none of them are named) so it’s not like they are actually going to matter to the story at all. I’m on case 4 and poor Naruhodo just can’t catch a break!
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The Corridor
It's a short experience that I talked about as much as I wanted to during my BBLC post!
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Melody’s Escape
I don't have anything more to say about Melody either. Good game!
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Soundodger
I got maybe 2/3s the way through the advanced levels before calling it quits. Very fun game but I had played all the songs I enjoyed and the remaining ones were a slog to get through with some annoying patterns (the reverses are very cool in theory but I have no way of knowing when one will happen or where the bullets will go, stop this). The Chipzel level is absolutely fantastic and that's all that matters.
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Mass Effect
I had fun being the universe's most petulant jackass, starting fights for no reason and condemning people to death because I could, but the gameplay itself was a little underwhelming. Combat lacks any sense of impact and I found myself simply watching healthbars to see if I was actually doing any damage with my shots, as there is no other sense of feedback. It was also a lot shorter than I expected, though that might be in part because I didn't do any of the sidequests- still, KOTOR and Dragon Age's main quests felt a lot longer. Overall not a bad game, perhaps past its prime- I didn't play the Legendary version which may be improved in exactly these ways.
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Dragons Dogma
A surprise hit in the late summer, I went into it expecting a mostly-okay RPG in the Elder Scrolls vein, but found a much snappier and more responsive experience. I modded the shit out of it for some QoL stuff that had me scratching my head but once that was done, Dragon's Dogma became one of my favourites of the year. It wasn't only because you can throw people off cliffs without consequence. Not only because of that. The legend of my tiny homunculus called Balls will live on for eternity.
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Final Fantasy 6
In the ever-swirling vortex that is 'ranking final fantasy games', this one was mid-tier for me. People praise its story and characters which I agree are ALMOST very emotive, but also three minutes after his entire family and country are killed in a horrific poison attack Cyan is having goofy lol magic robot clown hour and the mood is a little off kilter as a result. Going to invoke the wrath of the entire universe by saying, of all the FFs, this one could use a modernisation the most. FF7 didn't need it, FF4 REALLY didn't need it, but FF6 would very much benefit from it. Giving its characters room to breathe in animated/voiced cutscenes would nail the tone, I think. Now, listen, this goes against EVERYTHING I usually stand for, alright? Leave Chrono Trigger well alone. I only want this for FF6.
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Master Of Orion 2
Surprisingly I didn't play much Orion this year. I think I burned out playing an especially large amount last year and didn't quite get the buzz back. I think I got a little too good at it, I guess. Maybe I should switch back to Civ 5 in 2025 which is the-same-but-different enough to scratch the itch but give a different experience.
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Neopets
Neopets is in a weird spot right now, even for Neopets. I came back last year to join the faerie festival which gave away an endgame piece of battle equipment for little more than logging in 5 days consecutively, and stuck around to take part in the plot that was due to begin six months later, which released literally the only weapon in the game that is more powerful for little more than logging in for 20 days consecutively. Since then there's been a vast swathe of incredibly rare and expensive items just kinda given away for nothing, which is an effective if questionable way for them to tackle the thorny issue of black market off-site sales for real money, but I suspect there is something else at play here. When mobile gacha games shut down they usually have a month-long event where you get to roll at vastly increased odds just for the fun of doing it, and I wonder if the same is happening here. 'The Void Within' plot signals the December of neopets as it is known today, and rather than try to fix the myriad issues it'll be retired and reformed into a mobile-friendly app game, or just licenced out for endless mediocre match-3 games (oh, too late). That's sad to think about, but I do at least intend to ride out the plot in full.
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Half Life, Hazard Course, Deathmatch
I painstakingly sought out and tinkered with the demo version of Half Life, which was actually its own standalone title called Uplink, in a fit of nostalgia. HL1 is showing its age a lot, in part because it was so ahead of its time. It is so atmospheric you expect it to play a far more modern game of stealth and cover, but in actuality it plays a much more oldskool run-and-gun type of game. Anyway, about two weeks after I managaed to get it working, Valve updated the steam version of HL1 to work seamlessly on modern computers and it also now comes bundled with Uplink in the package. Womp womp. The Hazard Course is also fun to run through- it's the tutorial for what was a pretty complex game at the time, and I remember me and my brother used to race through it and I frustrated him with my strategy of ducking under doors to clear them half a second faster than you can when standing. I miss those days.
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Starcraft 1 demo
I first played this in… goodness, 1998? 1999? We only had the demo version but I played it a lot, and had strong memories especially of the little animated profile pictures each unit had. The soldier guy saying “go go go!” but only opening his mouth one time was a source of endless hilarity when I were a wee boy, and it was a sudden remembrance of that fact which made me seek out the demo once again. The game hasn’t held up too well, especially in terms of unit pathfinding, but it sure scratched the nostalgia itch. If you linger on the first mission briefing too long the AI lady gets concerned and asks if you’re alright, which I thought was really cool as a kid.
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RTX Portal
My ultra-fancy new graphics card came with this as a demonstration of its power. It’s the standard Portal in all ways except it’s very shiny and nice. I was particularly impressed with the way light refracted through the big red floor buttons. But I’ve never really been one who cares much for graphics, and it wasn’t long before I just stopped noticing how nice it looked. Still, Portal is a great game and it had been long enough since I last fired it up that it was worthwhile going through it again.
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Xenoblade Chronicles
Incredible game. It's my third Game Of The Year, and any other year it would have absolutely swept up. I own both 2 and 3 but I wanted to play the first game before starting those, so I rented it and it absolutely blew us away. midgi got ABSORBED and she wasn't even playing, she just happened to be around while cutscenes were happening and suddenly she's sitting with me to watch the rest. The characters, the voice acting, the staging, the music, everything was superb. …Except the gameplay; the battles are a bit pants. But who cares about that when Melia is here? Metal Face was such a great villain, Shulk is a lovely protagonist, I wish Dunban was my dad. Xenoblade's got it all and I can't believe it took me so long to get to it. I can't wait for 2 and 3, the latter of which I understand is even better, BUT I don't want to burn out on RPGs so I am being very well behaved until the backlog dice roll them.
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Final Fantasy 5 Four Job Fiesta
Didn't finish on stream this year, but we played long enough for me to roll berserker for the first time! Thf/Whm/Ber/Nin was my final team, rerolling a Chm in the fourth slot for something a little more fun. Some real nice interplay with that team, thief gives zerk some much needed speed, while eqp axes on white mage makes for a very entertaining quakebot (and whm powers up the rune axe on the berserker of course). Finally, white magic on ninja makes scrolls super deadly, leading to another triple crown. I wanna play with a blue mage next year!
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Donkey Kong Country 2
The best of the DK games, despite starring Diddy Kong. That soundtrack is just legendary and the level design still fully holds up, but most importantly it gave us Dixie Kong. I only wish the DK Coins had some purpose like they do in DKC3- it is still fun to collect them (though I have long since memorised where they all are) but if I ever miss one it feels like a slog to go back and get it just for a high score at the end of the game.
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Donkey Kong Country 3
Pretty much every level except the very early ones have some sort of gimmick in this game, which makes them all memorable, but with ~50 levels and so ~50 gimmicks you can be sure not all of them are winners. The waterfall levels are a particular nadir with a lot of fiddly jumps that send you falling back to the start of the level for daring to explore in a game that normally encourages it. I kinda miss the straightforward platforming stages in 3, but it's still a good game.
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Space Crusade (Atari ST, DOS, Amstrad)
The first computer in my life that actually belonged to me was an Atari ST, and Space Crusade was my favourite game for it. I didn't really understand how to play it (a moderately technical board game adaptation was a bit beyond me at the age of six) but it was a fave, and later in life I came to own the superior-in-every-way Amiga version and played that to death. Curious, I wanted to go back to the ST version to see if the differences really were that significant (yes) and in the process learned of an MS DOS and an Amstrad version, so I had to give those a go too. Suffice to say, Amiga remains king. This is a pretty cool game that unfortunately has a significant reliance on RNG and it will ALWAYS screw you over, which makes it more frustrating than it needs to be.
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APB Amiga
And while we're playing old Amiga games, holy crap my brother had this for like 3 days and I always had a very vague memory of it but I couldn’t remember the title or anything else about it until just by happenstance I was on an amiga website and saw a screenshot of it, and lo and behold a decades-long mystery was solved. It's kinda bad!
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Bar Games
This uhhhhh wow haha I shouldn't have been playing this as a kid
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Deadlock
Valve's new game that was a big secret for a long time, by the time this post is going up I'll be allowed to talk about it in full. I hardpicked Vindicta on my first round and haven't looked away. I don't really care for MOBAs; every round is pretty much exactly the same game and I get bored quickly, and I DEFINITELY don't have the patience to learn the ins-and-outs to become anything close to proficient, but it's fun with friends.
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Unreal Tournament
This was another nostalgia trip. The bot AI doesn't really hold up any more but the shooting is so frenetic it's still fun anyway. I dread to imagine what the online is like.
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Lord Of Rigel demo
This might be The One. I only played a little bit of the demo and it felt a lot like Orion 2 without aping it fully. It also felt very different from Orion 1, which a lot of Orion-Likes tend to lean towards. Feels promising- I want to play the full version before getting too attached though.
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Final Fantasy 1 Pixel Remaster
First time playing this version! Obviously I have played FF1 to death in other flavours but there's some fun changes here, most obviously a return to vancian magic (spell slots instead of MP) but more significantly a change to how enemy AI works. Chaos can now use Curaga at any time and even spam it if you're unlucky. Strategy remains to buff up as much as you can until he first casts it and then delete him as quickly as possible. I did a normal run through with characters called Fighter, Thief, Red Mage, and White Mage (you'll never guess what classes they were), and then a sort of casual speedrun taking advantage of the PR's ‘boost’ function to essentially cheat my way through as quickly as possible, using what I have figured to be the most optimal party- Fighter, Fighter, Fighter, and Red Mage. Got a time of 2:14 which I think could pretty easily be pushed under 2 hours. I love this game and I know it very well so it's nice to get a slightly different take on it. Music is fantastic, obviously.
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Team Fortress 2
I don't know why I do this every year. I play the Halloween event, get frustrated by all the BS, stop playing and decide not to play any more… then load it back up an hour later and see if the next map sucks less. It doesn't. I just really want to finally get that one single cosmetic that never ever dropped over 10+ years of running the same event, and I don't even know why I want it any more since I don't even play the game. It's a shame that something I used to look forward to has become such a thorn in my foot. It would be improved significantly if you could do the contracts in any order, so you could skip the truly awful maps. Oh well, back to grinding out souls to roll the slot machine one more time.
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Tacoma
Not much gameplay to this, but I enjoyed the story. It has a moderate twist to the ending that makes the player's actions a little more positive (rather than mercenary) and leaves things open in a fun way. It's hard to talk about it without spoiling it.
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Ghost Trick
Please play Ghost Trick, by whatever means necessary.
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Entropy Zero
This is a Half Life 2 mod so I didn't want to make a BBLC entry tearing it to ribbons because, heck, teams of folks coming together to make mods is awesome even if they aren't to my taste. This one has some very impressive mapping, and custom weapons which are rare to see, but the tone is all over the place and bucked me off like a bronco. It wants to tell a dark broody bad-guy story about revenge and does so via a main character who makes wisecracks after every kill and communicates entirely in pop culture references. I dipped when the keraaaaazy aperture turret sidekick was introduced and the dialogue became "[wacky oddball nonsense]!" "Shut the hell up" ad infintum.
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Portal Reloaded
I fell off. I am 85% sure I have solved the puzzle I am stuck on correctly, but slightly incorrect angles on the laser beams all need adjusting and it’s a total pain to make those changes given any alteration in the present fully resets the future. Alternatively, I’ve just solved it incorrectly, but I can’t know that for sure until I’ve iterated my current solution enough times and it’s hard to raise the motivation to do that.
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198X
I think I said everything I needed to in my post. If you think it might resonate with you, it probably will.
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Bloody Hell
I finished it not long after my BBLC post. The final boss was fun for me, but I can definitely see someone with less STG experience getting frustrated with what was a pretty significant difficulty spike.
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One Button Boss Fights
Only played a little little piece of this. In a 2D single-screen game there is simply no reason for the camera to wobble and shift around with the player's movements. Nauseating.
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Shining Resonance Refrain
The music that plays while it is raining in town is utterly lovely, but all the effort in this OST otherwise went to the various pop songs that the characters sing, which isn't my personal cup of tea. It's surprising to me that in a game themed around music, I've kept only a few tracks for my personal playlist. This is a pretty fun RPG as such things go, a little cheap and a little janky but I enjoyed the characters and story a lot. Main character Yuma never endeared me but the villains are all great, ranging from 'I can fix her' to 'absolute bastard man' and all points between. Very fun roster of bad guys.
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Child of Light
It's been on my backlog since 2016, but attempting to play it in November 2024 proves that time has been unkind here. Wrestling with the required ubisoft account launcher only to find the game crashes upon launch. Hopefully one day it'll get patched to remove all the ubijunk.
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Pony Island
There's a chromatic aberration filter over the whole game, coupled with a slight-but-pervasive screen wobble that never stops, which combined to make this game impossible for me to play without feeling very unwell. A shame as it seems right up my alley, but I'm not going to make myself sick for the sake of a neat game.
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Pokemon TCG Pocket
Honestly baffling that this game launched with trading unavailable. Battle events need some serious rework, and battling as a whole quickly becomes boring. They need a random battle feature where you come up against a random deck (from a list of premade decks, not an entirely random set of cards) so you're not stuck fighting the same deck over and over. Maybe, like, you can do 10 random battles per day and you get an hourglass for each victory, or something. I think the pokemon card game itself, in real world form or gameboy form as well as here, is just kind of bad in execution from the ground up, but being bad doesn't mean it isn't fun.
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LTTP Randomiser
LTTP is my favourite game of all time and I was worried playing it in such a way would spoil it somehow, but it was actually the opposite- I got to use my fairly extensive game knowledge to solve unexpected problems and find my way through, and even learned a few things (never once had I stepped into what the community calls Hype Cave, I'm almost certain). Some highlights include spending 500 rupees at the Zora to receive 5 rupees instead of the flippers, pulling a shield from the Master Sword plinth, and getting 300 rupees from my dying uncle, who didn't think to bring a sword instead. I played five runs in total, three on Absolute Baby Mode and then a Triforce Hunt and an Inverse game. Inverse is fun, but as soon as you get Light World access it pretty much becomes a standard game again, so I'd probably only do that once.
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Fartbutt
I fell off after they changed the locker and effectively removed the ability to save a loadout and shuffle between them. They fixed that this year so I went back in, but it was too little too late and I'd been gone too long to get back into it. Also that one battle pass with only marvel skins was absolutely bloody awful because they've already done all the characters anyone cares about. Fortnite Man wearing Captain America's outfit? Gwen Stacey But She's Deadpool? C'mon.
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Research And Development
This is a very cool little Half Life 2 mod that uses the physics engine to create something more akin to a puzzle game. There's no direct combat here- you need to use the environment (and for one section, a giant evil lawnmower) to escape the facility. If you have Half Life 2 (of course you do) it's free and well worth a couple of hours of your time.
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Khimera Puzzle Island
A surprise late entry for this Binned game- the developer rolled out an update to address the only issue I had with the game (and called me out personally when doing so!), and I have since played an unearthly amount of picross. The puzzles are great, soundtrack is top tier, and even the cutscenes (skippable if you don't care) are enjoyable. I have only good things to say about the Khimera series.
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Bins:
Brutal Legend
Nirvana Pilot
Spore Creatures
Blaster Master
Dont Give Up
Bioshock
Knights of Round (capcom beatemup)
King of Dragons
Klang TWO
That's all for this year. See you at the end of 2025!
ToS fandom I need your help, was the key art of Colette from the Tales Of Orchestra 2018 event ever released in a larger/clearer/non-obstructed format? There are 10 awesome points for anyone who can hook me up. Attached is the best version I can find but even here she is partially covered by text and so, so low res, look at those pixels, so few pixels, she must have more pixels
This is so valid, I literally have an AU where Seph's legal name is Sephiroth Rhapsodos because he took Genesis' when they got married. (Genesis cried a little when he asked if that was okay.)
In Super Mario World, various glitches exist that write values to unintended parts of memory, allowing extreme degrees of manipulation of the game.
While chaining many of them together can expand this ability even further and allow full control of the game so that it can be rewritten on the fly (called Arbitrary Code Manipulation, or ACE), even a single such glitch is enough to warp Mario directly to the credits and as such skip the entire game, as seen in the footage.
In the footage, Yoshi spits out an item while in a glitched state on a spinning platform, which has the effect of immediately loading the credits. As a humorous side effect, some parts of the credits, such as Mario's walking animation, are loaded incorrectly, causing him to spin onto the scene instead of walking.
Main Blog | Twitter | Patreon | Small Findings | Source: YouTube user "oddboo"
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Summary:
Akyuu writes a rare addendum to the Chronicle, one of its many subjects requiring additional consideration- the Shrine Maiden herself. A gift for @que-de-metal as part of Touhou Secret Santa 2023 https://touhousecretsanta.tumblr.com/ @touhousecretsanta!
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HOLY CRAP HAPPY HOLIDAYS @que-de-metal!!!! I am sooooo sorry this is so late (but still within the deadline, Reimu would be proud), but when I received your prompt I had the dawning realisation that I had somehow never read any of the material with Akyuu in them! Lol, and so began a madcap dash to read all of Forbidden Scrollery and get a feel for how she writes the Chronicle. As a result I worry it may be a little slapdash, but I hope you enjoyed it regardless.
Well, it's a little tragic. I hope it's a 'hurts so good' kind of tragic that only serves to strengthen the positive. You did mention 'pining' in your prompt, maybe I took that too far. It's also not very christmassy... I might have missed the point entirely here. lol
Thank you for giving me a character I wasn't too familiar with, though! Forbidden Scrollery is a great read and as a hopeless Yukari addict the final volume had me hollering. Apparently the series is the only touhou media to officially be published in english- I had to rush out and buy the whole thing when I learned that.
Apologies again for keeping you waiting so long! I hope you had a great year and a great Secret Santa, and here's to 2024!
I barely played anything last year. Tears Of The Kingdom so wholly swallowed my attention that, once I finally brought it to a close, I just fell of playing video games for a long time, and still haven't quite picked my way back into the hobby. I'll get into it during the write-up below, but it's OBVIOUSLY going to be my Game Of The Year (and in a rare change of pace, it actually came out this year!) so I will be nominating another game as GOTY instead.
This is also the year I became a car mechanic in my spare time after crashing and totalling my beloved Beetle and instead of getting a new car like a sensible person, I decided "well, I can probably fix it". 12 months later, still driving it! And also, still fixing it.
August brought with it an incredible depression out of nowhere during which I lost the plot a bit, but I did write an awful lot of words towards my novel, so I guess that evens things out. Regardless, a combination of all of the above resulted in very few games being played this year! My count is 23, compared to recent years being in the 70-80 range. Makes this an easier read, anyway. To the games!
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Jumpgrid
Hold over from last year, I played a little further but the final few levels are less reactive and more memory tests, which is a real shame. Just remembering which direction to move and trying to time it right isn't anywhere near as fun as frenetically dashing all around the grid. Soundtrack is still legit though.
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Absolute Drift
We gave this one quite the pasting in our livestream chat- safe to say it's not for me. In the hour I gave it, I didn't get even the slightest grip on how the controls work, which seems to be the intent. I'm sure there's a moment where, if you are persistent, everything -clicks- and suddenly it all makes perfect sense, but it didn't come close to happening and the game itself wasn't compelling me enough to keep blindly headbutting it until we got there.
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Thirty Flights
Wendy's no longer offers the 4 for $4 deal. I would still argue their $5 Biggie Bag is a better deal than this, despite technically being more expensive.
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Metroid Prime Remaster
And what a remaster it is! I'd argue the original Prime still looks and plays fantastic and didn't need remastering, but this is sublime and if you missed out the first time around (holy crap it was 20 years ago augugahguaghuhgh) this is a fine way to get caught up. Surely Primes 2 and 3 are on their way as well?
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Black Mesa
Interesting juxtaposition with MP:R here, another remaster of a classic game. This is similarly excellent despite my own cognitive dissonance as described in my BBLC entry. Unfortunately let down by the end sequence- the original's Xen chapter is pretty universally regarded as an awful blight on an otherwise great game and Black Mesa's approach was to... make it five times longer? They actually reworked the whole set up but it still just wasn't quite enough to polish that turd. It does look absolutely beautiful and the soundtrack is breath-taking, but I do wish they had let the environment breathe a little instead of filling it with enemy encounters. Still well worth a look, and a monumental achievement to finally have this game in a fully complete playable state after so long in development.
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Tears Of The Kingdom
I'm sure I don't need to say much here. Game so good I stopped playing games. Masterpiece. Every aspect of it- gameplay, visuals, music, story- masterpiece. Minor spoilers, the music during the final approach towards the final boss' arena had me so worked up I needed 5 minutes to get my head back into focus. It's a fairly common thing for the actual boss fight to feel badass, but I cannot recall any other time previous that just the *approach* made me feel like a hero, bringing to an end a story that had gone on for far, far too long. I don't need to tell you any of this. It's a masterpiece beyond masterpiece.
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Time Gentlemen Please
Adventure game sequel to Ben There Dan That, which I enjoyed oh-so-many moons past, but I couldn't get far here. There's an intolerable lag between every action and movement that drove me spare, which I'm not sure if it's an engine issue or a game issue. I don't enjoy adventure games enough to put up with things like that unfortunately, though I do remember enjoying the first game a lot.
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Final Fantasy 2 (Pixel Remaster) (PC)
Oh man. Without speaking hyperbolically, I think this might be the worst game I've ever played that is technically competent. The game runs nicely, the graphics are lovely, the music is just as fantastic this early in the series as it came to be known for, but by the nine divines, what an absolute pile of stink the actual gameplay experience is. I finished the game with 100% of achievements solely so I never, ever had to pick it up again. An abysmal and frustrating mess of a game that had some interesting ideas and had no clue what to do with any of them.
[20:26] Beebs: You should all buy Final Fantasy 2 on the sale
[20:26] spookiott: didn't you hate it
[20:26] Beebs: I did and still do and always will
[20:26] Beebs: I just don't think I should suffer alone
[20:27] Beebs: I'm going for 100% achievements just so I never ever have to play it ever again
[20:27] spookiott: yeah, that'll show 'em!
[20:33] Beebs: I do not know how they ever got to make a Final Fantasy 3, by rights they shouldn't have
[20:34] Beebs: The series should have ended here and everyone involved with it should have been arrested
[20:34] Beebs: please buy it.
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Endless Space
As a space-based 4x that isn't Master Of Orion 2, Endless Space caught my attention better than most, but I only played to the end of my first galaxy before moving onto
Endless Space Two: Endlesser Space
which I think hooked me a lot stronger. I found the conquer mechanics too opaque for my liking, with my invading army of millions somehow being annihilated by a defending force that had literally been reduced to zero remaining soldiers, and no explanation of how that could happen or how I could have done it better. I think modern 4x games have leaned away from conquest being the predominant means of victory and as such it's a way to make that victory type less appealing? I don't know. It's a good game, it's just not Orion.
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Fortnite
I played Fartbutt pretty much every day all year, it is honestly a fun game, and if you are resistant to the predatory business practices of the parent company you’ll have a good time. Don’t have much else to say here- getting down to the last 5 players alive and scanning the horizon for any sign of activity is thrilling and it’s a huge adrenaline rush to trade shots with the last one standing and secure the win.
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Diddy Kong Racing
Had a few attempts at this in recent years, this is the one that finally stuck thanks to the Deck. It’s a good racer with some total BS (I literally cheated the final boss with save states to race perfectly and still couldn’t beat him with one character lol) and adds a lot of fun single player content missing from the Mario flavoured rivals. Flying around exploring the hub island is just fun and I’d love to see the concept return in a future MK game. Wizpig theme is legit.
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Master Of Orion 2
You know it and you love it. This year I tried a no-expansion game where I could only settle planets in my home system. I actually won but there was a fun challenge towards the end where two enemy systems were behind black holes that I couldn’t reach- had to manipulate them into a war with each other so they would destroy those systems for me, but also keep one from defeating the other before they had finished the job. It worked out!
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Fire Emblem N-gage
A lot of people really loved this entry. I thought it was fine. Hard mode is way overtuned IMO, mostly because of the bosses, but Normal mode is conversely far too easy. Wish there was some middle ground between the two. The Somniel stuff felt REALLY tacked on, too, like they just put it there so people who had only played Three Houses had something familiar to the monastery, but the dialogue is all repeated and it feels a bit soulless. I thought for sure I was going to marry Celine because, I mean, look at her- but she drinks floral tea which is unforgivable so I married big tiddy goth GF Ivy instead, who already told me she loved me and worshipped me like a god in just our B rank support. Healthy!
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Team Fortress 2
I only played the fun halloween maps this year (surprisingly few of them are fun) and skipped the terrible ones, resulting in significantly less playtime this year than previous. Still didn’t get my thrice-damned hat. I also spent some time earlier in the year trying the Dragon’s Fury, a weapon I never previously bothered with, and it was quite refreshing.
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Star Fox 64
Really weird that they never made another Star Fox game after this one.
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Neopets
It is absolutely WILD that this site is still running, and many parts of it unchanged since 1999. I come back every so often- it's sort of my internet birthplace. "can't take the country out of the girl", so they say. They were giving away childhood dream-item Illusen's Staff essentially for free so I had to get it, and then I just kept sticking around for a bit. It's fun but I think only nostalgia keeps these servers running any more.
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Touhou 19
It's a Vs shooter, so even though you can play as Ran I pretty much bounced off once I had seen the new girls and heard the new music. It's a shame, but vs mode simply isn't what I play touhou for. Looking forward to 20, hopefully next year but probably 2025. New Ran lore though!
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Age Of Empires 2 Ultra Mega Edition
There really is simply no reason at all AoE2 needed to be made into a live service game, but ignoring that festering boil this is otherwise the ultimate way to play a very old and still very good game, with a whole slew of QoL features that I'll never be able to live without now I have them (visible tower range!). It's also compatible with all custom scenarios made in the original so we can still re-live the majesty of JUSTIN TIMBERLAR.sco and all the other very-good-actually scenarios I made as a clueless 14 year old.
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Ys 8: Lacrimosa Of Dana
An unexpected late entry takes this year's GOTY (That Isn't Zelda). The incredible lull I felt after TotK didn't clear for a long time, but at the end of November I fired this up and remembered why I love games generally and Ys specifically. Falcom is an established company that still somehow feels like a doujin circle, and I’m not sure how to explain what I mean by that but I mean it positively. This one’s actually telling a pretty neat story so far too, though I haven’t finished it yet. Can a game I haven’t finished truly be named GOTY? Yes. It’s my blog and I can do what I want. One year there were three winners!
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That’s all for 2023. 2024 doesn’t look to have any big hitters, but the JPRGs are accumulating on my backlog and I’m at roughly the halfway point in writing my book, so time will tell if I manage to beat this year’s meager score.
hi @babybahamut, I'm your @touhousecretsanta this year!
you asked for yukari & yuyuko - i tried to think of an intelligent game they could play, like chess or mahjong, but then realised i had no idea how any of those games worked lol
Scarlet: Gelatopod leaves behind a sticky trail when it moves. A rich, creamy ice cream can be made from the collected slime.
Violet: At night, it uses the spike on its shell to dig into the ground, anchoring itself into place. Then it withdraws into its shell to sleep in safety.
Friendship Level Raised to 160: Love Dart (Signature Move)
Egg Moves
Mirror Coat, Acid Armor, Fake Tears, Aurora Veil
Signature Move - Love Dart
Learned when Gelatopod's friendship level reaches 160 and then the player completes a battle with it
Type - Fairy, Physical, Non-Contact
Damage Power - 20 PP - 10 (max 16) Accuracy - 75%
Secondary Effect - Causes Infatuation in both male and female pokemon. Infatuation ends in 1-4 turns.
Flavor Text - The user fires a dart made of hardened slime at the target. Foes of both the opposite and same gender will become infatuated with the user.
Game Locations - Glaseado Mountain, plus a 3% chance of encountering Gelatopod when the player buys Ice Cream from any of the Ice Cream stands
Notes
I'm not a competitive player, but I did my best to balance this fakemon fairly and not make it too broken. Feel free to give feedback if you have any thoughts!
I have a huge bias for Bug Pokemon since they're my favorite type, and at first I wanted to make it Bug/Ice, since any intervebrate could be tossed into the 'Bug' typing. But ultimately I decided to keep xeeble's original idea of Ice/Fairy. There's precedent of food-themed pokemon being Fairy type, and Ice/Fairy would be very interesting due to its rarity (only Alolan Ninetails has it). Its type weaknesses are also slightly easier to handle than Bug/Ice imo
The signature move is indeed based on real love darts, I could not resist something that fascinating being made into a Pokemon move, even if the real games may possibly shy away from the idea. (Honestly it could be argued "Love Dart" is based on Cupid's arrow so Gamefreak might actually get away with making a move like this though.) Its effectiveness on both males and females is a nod to snails/slugs being biological hermaphrodites. I can see this move also being learned by Gastrodon and Magcargo in Scarlet/Violet
In Super Mario Sunshine, there are pairs of linked graffiti that, if Mario cleans one of them, dispense a Blue Coin from the location of the other. If Mario talks to an NPC on the frame that such a graffiti is cleaned, before the short cutscene that shows the Blue Coin appearing, the game will become unplayable.
The footage shows this occurring in Pinna Park, where Mario talks to the Noki next to the Ferris Wheel right before the Blue Coin scene. When the camera shows Mario again, he is engaged in a conversation with the Noki, who despite being in a talking animation, is not actually saying anything.
The Noki will continue saying nothing forever, with Mario being unable to leave the conversation, requiring the game to be reset.
Main Blog | Twitter | Patreon | Small Findings | Source: youtube.com user "Bloopiero"
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