Video games roundup (2024)

Favorite

Destiny 2: The Final Shape (2024)

Goodness gracious, Destiny 2. The previous expansion, Lightfall, was a letdown in a lot of ways. Though I wasn’t upset for the same reason as the community (seriously, I only ran the Root of Nightmares raid once, and I’ve retired from raiding).

In contrast, The Final Shape just absolutely crushes it. I think it’s the best story campaign they’ve ever done, and the new Prismatic subclass is extremely fun. I loved the writing, especially Cayde-6. I can’t believe I’m saying that. I’ve pretty much hated Cayde for being an unfunny jokester since the beginning of Destiny 2, and was originally happy to see him killed off. His return shocked and upset me, but I think the circumstances were fantastic, once you get to see the story unfold. Even better, he has character growth during his absence. His death and time in the afterlife bestowed upon him a needed wisdom and perspective that made him a good leader. His dialogue with Crow, and the set up for Crow’s new role, were all great.

Crow: “You almost sound like you’re having fun.”

Cadye-6: *laughs* “Aren’t you?”

Also, I can’t forget to mention that Lance Reddick will be dearly missed. Keith David did an admiral job as the new Zavala, though. I think some people had a hard time accepting the combination of his personality shift along with the new voice, but I think Bungie had been setting us up wonderfully for it.

The new Pale Heart area was super fun, and I loved uncovering its secrets.

Sadly, since the expansion, we’ve hit the second round of Bungie layoffs, and the game seems to be in a tailspin. The expansion didn’t sell well (probably because of players dropping off after the last expansion), and the seasonal story model revamp as “Episodes” has failed to hit the mark. The game also seems buggier than ever before, and it just feels like they’re understaffed to keep this decade old beast healthy and engaging.

I have deeply loved this game, to the tune of thousands of hours, but I have decided to enter a soft hiatus. I still play on occasion when other friends are looking for a Grandmaster Nightfall buddy or something like that, but I wouldn’t be surprised if by this time next year I’ve uninstalled it.

I salute everyone who ever worked on making Destiny the weird and wonderful experience that it’s been.

Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance (2024)

I really liked the original Shin Megami Tensei V, perhaps more than most. I saw a lot of negative things about it, particularly around the story. Vengeance added a new story route called “Canon of Vengeance” (the old one is now named “Canon of Creation”). I only played the new “Canon of Vengeance” since it’s only been a couple years since I played SMTV, and didn’t need the refresher (it’s a long game, too!).

The new music absolutely whips, just like the old stuff. The new enemy faction, the Qadištu, are really cool. I lovingly call them the Goth IHOP sisters, and have a few commissioned pieces of Eisheth Zenunim art. Both routes suffer from the open world game design problem of “if you play all the side quests you’ll probably get tired of the game before it’s over”, but I still really like them.

Even as a dungeon crawling RPG fan (Etrian Odyssey, my beloved), I think the way these games approach open world exploration coupled with the incredible music… just absorbs me into these worlds. And more than anything I’m a sucker for demon fusion and press turns. These games are just super fun mechanically for me.

The previous game had a “regular attacks only” auto battle feature, but this one also offers an intelligent auto battle that uses spells and targets weaknesses. Coupled with the increased animation speed and the pacing can feel so good in this game!

I think the Canon of Vengeance breaks down in the 2nd half storywise just like the Canon of Creation, but I’m fine to overlook their weaknesses.

I was disappointed that the final boss of the game was the same, but the new fights I took part in were all interesting! It certainly is more than just a DLC, but it’s also not a fully new game. I happily gobbled it up, though. I just can’t get into Persona like I can the SMT games I’ve played (“SMT4 Apocalypse”, “SMTV”, and “SMTV: Vengeance”).

Balatro (2024)

Wow, this game is really fun. Incredible soundtrack. Simple concept. Base difficulties are easy enough that you can get your bearings and learn how to play while still feeling successful. Good art too. Also, it’s made using LÖVE, the 2D game engine for Lua (I’ve used it and thought it was great!).

Cobalt Core (2023)

This game is super fun! I’m loving the pixel art, the music, the writing, the gameplay. I’ve been playing it “co-op” with Ash on the couch, and we discuss strategies out loud. I’m about halfway through with the game, and only started it in December.

Finished

Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow Alter (2020)

I love Castlevania. My good friend Anna recommended this ROM hack to me for one of my favorite games of all time. She was right: I love it! Hard to say if it’s better than the base game, but it changed everything up enough that it felt really fresh despite me knowing my way around the base game pretty well.

The Expanse: A Telltale Series (2023)

Despite the weirdly yassified rendering of Camina Drummer, this game is pretty cool. The feel of moving around in space is unique, if a bit slow and strange. It feels like a well made Telltale game, but I didn’t like the gameplay concept of searching for hidden items constantly in order to get more story moments.

Titanfall 2 (2016)

Everyone talks about the time level, but I think the prefab home factory level was way cooler. Also, the level on the moving ships. Wow. These are some extremely memorable levels, and the robot buddy is great.

Momodora: Moonlit Farewell (2024)

What a lovely game. I adore the previous game Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight. The character Pardoner Fennel from that game is one reason I chose Fennel as my middle name. This game is gorgeous and super fun. Glad to see rdein and friends make one final Momodora, and it’s the most Momodora of all in so many ways.

Fallen Leaf (2024)

Really weird but pretty cool. Tries do a lot of stuff. Not all of it works out well. In a lot of ways it’s like classic Mega Man, but you also need to collect tons of characters and find lots of hidden secrets. I felt the balance was kinda off for some of the bosses. I liked the art and music a lot. The characters mostly felt worse than the main character, Leaf, though.

Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake (2024)

Really cute! I don’t prefer “HD-2D” to just giving me the SNES or GBC sprite work directly, but it does have many nice QoL features added to the game. And it doesn’t look tacky and awful like the Android ports. I think I actually preferred the simplicity of Dragon Quest I and II (which I played on GBC). The multi-classing system must’ve been really cool at the time, and honestly is still pretty good fun. I don’t recommend bothering with catching all the monsters or taking a Monster Tamer when you play, though, unless you want to double or triple your playtime for very little reward.

Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (2006)

Still a great Castlevania game. Bummer about losing Ayami Kojima’s art, though. I wish Charlotte was more useful, it’s basically a solo game as Jonathan.

Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (2008)

Holds up worse than I expected. I found the game more frustrating due to needing to use precisely timed two button combos to deal maximum damage against the game’s complete health sponge cast of enemies. But hey, Castlevania where you get to play as a cool girl! It could be worse.

Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (2005)

Aria of Sorrow’s loser brother. Despite all the similarities, this just feels so much worse on every axis except pixel art. Whew, the sprite work is incredible here. In love.

Fable Anniversary (2014)

This game originally came out for Fable’s 10 year anniversary… and here I was playing it again for Fable Anniversary’s 10 year anniversary lol. I played it on stream and had a lot of fun. Though at this point I’m more laughing at the game than with it. My goal was to make a twink (0 STR, MAX DEX) build, and eventually I got gay married to the tattooist in Knothole Glade. We decided on stream that my new gay husband was going to feed me soup until I got strong (MAX STR) because playing that game without melee gets really boring. Oh, and we named the main character Crispin. It was a silly time.

Unfinished

UFO 50 (2024)

I don’t see this game as “shelved” because I really like it, it’s just too much for me to consider “beating” in any meaningful sense. So far my favorite games are Devilition, because I love a puzzle/strategy game, and Rail Heist, which feels like a strategy game where you have to perfectly execute your silly ideas. There’s some other fun games in there too, but most are a bit too old & janky feeling for me to want to work through. I realize this is intentional, but I don’t have any nostalgia for 1980s video games, and I haven’t really gotten into them later in life either.

Path of Exile 2 (2024)

This is really fun so far. It’s just in early access, but I can see myself continuing to play it. I love the co-op and just blasting and looting with friends. The addition of the new twin stick control scheme feels extremely overpowered for magic users, though. I wonder what they’ll do with that. If it’s anything like the first Path of Exile, it’ll still be going strong 10 years later, so there’s no rush for me to gorge myself before the game even has its true release date.

WEBFISHING (2024)

This game is so cute and good. I haven’t finished everything, but this is a game that’s about the journey and hanging out with your friends.

Shelved

Penny’s Big Breakaway (2024)

This game is super cute, but I just found it frustrating to play.

Helldivers 2 (2024)

A fun and silly co-op game. I always had fun playing, but never really got hooked. I would consider playing it again with friends, but won’t be seeking it out.

Dokimon: Quest (2024)

This game has some nice quality of life features I wish Pokémon had, but otherwise it’s just not super fun to me.

Judgment (2018)

I was really digging the story in this for a while, but the actual gameplay got stale to me. I think I’m done with Ryu ga Gotoku Studios games for… a while. I really didn’t like the sidequest writing. The voice acting was great. I looked up every cutscene for the end of the game, and I think the twists maybe got a bit out of hand.

Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster (2013)

I simply could not have fun playing this game. Supposedly it gets more interested shortly after I stopped playing, but I couldn’t summon the willpower to keep going. I can tell there’s some cool fucky story stuff going on with the multiple worlds, but I’m just keeping this on the shelf. I’d rather just hear a friend explain it to me some time.

RKGK (2024)

I just didn’t have fun playing this. I only logged a few hours.

Chico and the Magic Orchards (2022)

Incredibly cute, but I didn’t really like the mental math of the positioning and angles necessary to beat the puzzles.

Isles of Sea and Sky (2024)

I heard “Zelda without combat” but what I actually got was “open world sokoban”. I found it incredibly overwhelming the way the game was massively interconnected, making it unclear which rooms I should even spend my time in.

Star Ocean: The Second Story R (2023)

Killer music. Subpar English voice acting. Cliche story. Combat felt like a bad version of Tales of Symphonia. I stopped playing after the difficulty spiked in the mid-late game, leading to me being frustrated.

Momodora III (2014)

I liked Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight, Momodora: Moonlit Farewell, and even Momodora II, but I didn’t really like Momodora III. It’s super cute, but the levels felt a bit mean (lots of one hit kill surprises), and the tiny sprites + fast button mashing attacks + tough bosses was a frustrating combination to me.

Alpha Protocol (2010)

Well, I actually beat this game a few times before. I decided to stream it for another playthrough this year, but I gave up without finishing it, mostly because my stream attendance was really low. It’s a worse game than I remember, but I still think it did some interesting stuff. I’d love to see a reboot of this franchise.