Frezno's Games Of The 2025 Thing!

Well, here we are again, gang. 2025's sunset, and as is tradition, we're going to talk about a bunch of computer video games I played during that time. I haven't gone as crazy with the gaming as I have in past years, but this is nevertheless a delight to do as a yearly wrapup. All the apps get to do it, so why can't I on my big blog? The end of the year is always a party, so let's get the party started and celebrate the year that was... in personal computer video gaming for your old pal Frezno Inferno.

Frezno's Games Of The 2024 Thing!

Well, here we are once again, in the twilight hours of 2024. It's been a wild year for me here on the blog. Lots of comics, a few big projects, and just great experiences all around. Despite talking more about shows and comics this year, do remember that this blog started as a video game one. So, as we always do at the end of the year, let's pay tribute to that. I didn't play a fuckton of video games this year, but the ones I did definitely left an impression on me. We're doing the structure just a little differently, as I have categories with multiple games in them. I'm excited, and I hope you're excited, so let's dive right into it with the first one.

Frezno's Games Of The 2023 Thing!

Oh my god. We did it again. We somehow made it through another one of those pesky years. And it was the 10th anniversary of this blog, too! What a time we had, you and I. Now we're going to cap off 2023 by talking about some good computer video games I played. It's kind of funny how this started as a video game blog, but I only ever talk about them on here a handful of times now. I guess I save all the talking for this big thing I do at the end of the year. 2024's going to start with some game talking, and you'll even see a bit of that subject matter here. Why don't we just get into it, then? Let the end of year festivities begin, with this here game I played almost a year ago...

Frezno's Games Of The 2022 Thing!

 How do I usually begin these again? I forgot. Well, we're into it now so I guess it doesn't really matter, now does it? We've both made it through another year, and as is customary I am going to talk about some computer video games I played in that year. I will say that it wasn't as many as previous years. Doing two big projects like the zombie one and the Quantum Leap one, along with real life stuff that distracted me in the fall, kept me off of the gaming a bit. It may be something I put more time into during 2023, but I have some ideas for things to watch that might be worth writing about. We'll see. That's a concern for the future, though. For now, let's talk about the year that went past... in games.

Frezno's Games Of The 2021 Thing!

Well, here we go again! The last blog post of 2021! Just think, a year ago I was in the weeds of finishing Symphogear, and now look at me! I'm... well, I'm still thinking about that show. I've got some bangers planned for 2022, and you'll probably see them as soon as the year turns over and we get all the holiday stuff back up in the attic. For now, before the year ends, we're here to talk about COMPUTER VIDEO GAMES! Admittedly I didn't play too many of those this year, but I played enough to make a list out of 'em! So let us do that, as we so annually do, right now, and start with...

Frezno's Games Of The 2020 Thing!

Oh hey. Actually writing about video games on this blog which started as a video game blog. That's weird. Anyway, as of this writing I have finished Symphogear. I'm fine. I'm just fine. We'll have to talk about that in 2021, though. For now, it's the end of the year roundup for a bunch of video games I played. I didn't play too many because I was busy obsessing over a certain magical punch girl utopic ideal, but I digress. Still, I found time for some pretty good video computer games. Let us talk about them, and start with...

BEST OPEN WORLD GAME OF 2020

Spider-Man (PS4)

I don't open world that much. In fact, I think my last dalliance with that was Breath Of The Wild. That game was very good when I played it, but the mists of time kind of made it like "well that was fine". Spider-Man on PS4 is sort of like that, but we're short on categories this year so you get bumped up, Parker. Be a happy man. Except not because it's Peter Parker so his life's shit. Not this game, though. It was a very engaging open world thing with a shitload to do, a pretty neat plot running through it, and just a whole bunch of swinging around. Really, you could do worse for Spider-Man games or open world ones. What else is there to say? I liked it.

BEST "BABY STEPS, I'M GETTING THERE" GAME OF 2020

Fire Emblem Echoes (3DS)

Hahahahaha for fuck's sakes. The astute among you may know that this game has now shown up on three GOTY lists in a row. The less than astute? Well, I just told you. It got on for 2018 because I impulse bought it and played about half of it, but had enough fun that I felt it had to go on the list. Then in 2019 I beat it on Casual mode, and finished another Fire Emblem game called The Sacred Stones. My baby steps in getting decent at these games. Well, somehow in January my beating of this game on Casual didn't sit right with me... so I fired it up on Classic. I finished it again. This is absolutely my favorite Fire Emblem, a unique flower of a game with "black sheep" mechanics that will never be seen in the series again... but I've talked about that before. I want to talk about the moment where, on a tough map with the risk of death present, I "got" Fire Emblem. I had a defensive wall, I knew who the AI would go for, I knew how to strategically bait out and peck at the enemy forces... I was a fucking tactician for a solid few moments there. Perhaps in 2021 I'll chase that high again. We'll find out, but for a brief shining moment there I really got it and loved it. 

BEST FIGHTIN' FROG GAME OF 2020

Battletoads 2020 (XB1)

Yep. They made another Battletoads. Then I got an Xbox One for my birthday, and it came with Game Pass free, and this was on it... How could I fucking not? What I got was... Well, it's a Battletoads game alright. That might strike terror in many, so I'll say this one's much fairer and nice about proceedings. It's 2020 and they're not scared to death of little Billy beating the fucker in a weekend at Blockbuster and thus tuning the game into an existential childhood nightmare out of that fear. That being said, it's still Battletoads. It aims for a new level of humor which is highly subjective and mileage will vary, but I got a chuckle or two out of it so I won't complain. The game itself definitely gets what made Battletoads good though; what starts as a quite functional beat-em-up increases in difficulty very fast. Before it can become a full bullshitty unfair beat-em-up, though, it shifts into any goddamned game genre it can. Button-tapping minigames, twin stick shooter, puzzle platformer... and yes, you got your high-speed homages to classic Battletoad stages like the Turbo Tunnel or the Rat Race. It's good, it's quick, and it's more Battletoads that was free so I'm quite pleased.

HARDEST GAME OF 2020

Samurai Shodown Neogeo Collection (Switch)

Son of a bitch. On a wild impulse (which I wrote all about) I ended up trying the original Samurai Shodown and struggling quite a great deal with its hateful, input-reading, frame-countering GIMME ANOTHER FUCKING QUARTER AI. Then SNK put a whole damn collection on the Switch and I deep dived. Okay, so that's seven games I put as the hardest game of 2020, but these fuckers deserve it. The first three I managed to barely squeak victory in after god knows how many quarters, but they get easier. Then there's Samurai Shodown V and its two variants (one of which is exclusive to this collection!) which I fell in love with. Mostly because it has an archer character, so the AI couldn't perfect block my attacks and instantly counter attack me because I was a ranged fighter. I loved this game enough to no-joke get one credit clears at the highest difficulty level, and while it was a real challenge to figure out, it was actually kind of satisfying. If the global hellstate calms down and I get a vaccination, I cannot wait to play this game with friends from away again and deal with human play as opposed to a perfect computer. Here's to you, SamSho.

BEST EXPLORATORY PLATFORMER OF 2020

Shantae And The Seven Sirens (Switch)

Okay, this is a weird one. I only played a few exploratory platformers this year, and I think this is the one I enjoyed the most. You'll see the others in the "And The Rest" category. Feel free to debate me on putting this one here, but I'm a big Shantae stan at this point who went gaga for Half-Genie Hero. In light of that, and despite this being good enough to get in the category... I was just a little let down by it in some ways? Previous games in this series have toyed with the exploratory platformer in different ways; the original is very much in the Simon's Quest mode, while Pirate's Curse and HGH are more a Demon's Crest style. Seven Sirens is straight-up an exploratory platformer a la Metroid or an Igavania. It's a bright, colorful, and fun one with lots of exploration and platforming and cute characters... but the goodies to be found leave a LOT to be desired. Pirate's Curse absolutely nailed powerups and made them open up new areas AND fun to use while exploring. HGH struggled with this a bit but the powers had their uses here and there. Seven Sirens just uses them as keys. The very last one you get is a triple jump which is nice, but everything else is strictly "and now with this powerup I can go HERE" and nothing else. It gets by with its charm, but I have to say I was just a bit let down by it. I have yet to revisit it to delve into doing it fast or other fun ending stuff like that, but it's still pretty good. Just... not as good as it could have been. With the current world map design but powers like Pirate's Curse, it would have been 100% lit. As it stands, it's less lit than that and that's a shame.

BEST "NEW OLD" GAME OF 2020

Bloodstained Curse Of The Moon 2 (Switch)

Oh fuck, now here we go. The original Curse Of The Moon was a welcome surprise, a loving spiritual successor to classic Castlevania that managed to improve upon its inspiration thanks to quality of life upgrades and just being really rad. Well, Curse Of The Moon 2 is more of that. Quite a lot more. A whole new suite of playable characters including a goddamned corgi in a goddamned steampunk mech suit. The same core of playable characters from the first game. Multiple routes through each stage, variable difficulty, and a climactic final mode that's just the goddamned coolest. It's not perfect and some of the bosses are way too busy and bullshit (looking at you, sarcophagus fuck in stage 6) but goddamn if there isn't a LOT of very good action platforming to dig into here. I'm very impressed with it and generally really pleased with it.

BEST GAME MADE BY PALS IN 2020

Silus (PC)

Hot damn! My pal Thom made an RPG and it's pretty goddamned good! Thom is very much an RPG superfan, and so a lot of knowledge and wisdom went into this game. Also a lot of heart, as the story moves along on a great little clip. I quite enjoyed Silus, and its battle system has a certain deepness to it, what with elemental weaknesses and buffing and debuffing and all that other stuff. This is the kind of game where managing that sort of thing feels really good, and by the end of the game it just felt really damn good to have gotten into a rhythm where you could nuke shit with your magic and buff up to deal with the tricky boss stuff. The story's also commendable and it really goes places and makes you feel for its sympathetic villains, and want to take down the motherfuckers at the heart of the conflict. It's also got a super gay magical academy girl as a party member. RACHEL BEST GIRL. I can say that, it's my list. Anyway if you like old RPGs from 25 years ago or so, you'd dig Silus. It's breezy, quick, fun, and a good pal made it. Good job, Thom.

GAME OF THE YEAR 2020

Final Fantasy VII Remake (PS4)

Yes, I know. I usually put some artsy weird thing that made me cry as the Game Of The Year. Putting a big remake of one of the most popular games ever seems a bit out of place for me, but all I can be is honest. Besides, bear with me 'cause this game delivers on the gonzo goods. Before that, though, it delivers on the very well made action RPG goods. God help me, it actually works well. There were a few hiccups here and there (LOOKING AT YOU, WALL MARKET ARENA BOSS) but I found the battle system neat as hell and really satisfying. This is a massive expansion of part of the original FF7, and the love and care put into it shows. What are just random side characters in the original are given so much more personality and charm now, and it makes the knowledge of what's to come all the wilder. If it were just that, a straight expansion of part of FF7, people would eat it up. Just that alone, though, wouldn't have been enough. No, they get really fucking clever with it. There are certain elements and things going on that will make one raise an eyebrow and wonder what the fuck. I'm not going to spoil them here, but suffice it to say that the end of this game was a wild ride. Here I was, having played for hours, it approaching midnight... and I decided to press on and beat the game that night. By now it had explained the stranger elements, and they are extremely meta. The final battle just goes for it in full, to the point that it feels more like the climax to a Dangan Ronpa game than a Final Fantasy one. I wish I could spoil it, but I've given enough away already and a spoiler section would only be a few lines long. Let's just leave it at that. A very very solid remake of a quite good and beloved RPG classic, that manages to actually Say Something that hit upon me in a resonant and crunchy way. That's what makes a Game Of The Year 'round these parts, and that's what the FF7 remake did. It earns it spot well, and I certainly hope the PS4 isn't retired by the time they get around to the next chapter of this story.

...AND THE REST

Here's the usual honorable mention sort of category. These games were all varying degrees of good, but they didn't get their own special categories made up. That can be due to many things. Maybe I already had that type of game filled up, or maybe I just couldn't make up a half-decent category. Either way, they're not left off the list. They're just down here. No disrespect, here are some brief thoughts on good games I did play this year.

Bloodstained Ritual Of The Night (Switch)

In contrast to the Curse Of The Moon games, Ritual Of The Night is very much in the Igavania exploratory platformer style. My copy was a gift and it was pretty nice to run through, but I admit that on a certain level I'm less impressed with it than I am with the Curse games. As I said, the Curse games feel like a natural evolution of classic Castlevania. Ritual, on the other hand, didn't give me that sense of surpassing and improving; it was very much "y'all remember Aria of Sorrow? Here is another game like that.". Aria of Sorrow is very good and Ritual Of The Night is very good by being like it, but on a certain level it didn't click with me like the Curse games. I am excited for the Classic mode they're adding to the thing though, so this may be worth a revisit.

The Legend Of Zelda (NES)

What in the hell is the original Zelda doing on this list? I have indeed played it before, but for whatever reason this year I did some challenge runs of it. I pulled off a 3-heart run, and then the swordless challenge. There's a surprising amount of depth and strategy to that game when you play it like that, and also some really damn annoying parts. Anything with Wizrobes or Darknuts is a nightmare, but I managed to pull these runs off and have a good time with the very first Zelda, so that was quite nice for me.

Mega Man Zero (GBA)

Ah yeah, the Zero and ZX collection dropped this year! I really only delved deep into the original Mega Man Zero, but that game's surprisingly crunchy and fun. It's a direct antecedent of my beloved Mega Man ZX, after all, and I went for a high-rank run. I managed to keep S rank up for a good while, until I just ran out of patience for it and beat the game while using stuff. My final rank was A, which is good enough, and maybe one day I'll go back and master that. Even so, what a damn good hard action game. I'm impressed, and would definitely enjoy that revisit.

Fatal Fury (Neo Geo)

I wrote about this game at length in my big fighting game post from May (I linked it up there during my talk about Samurai Shodown), so I won't repeat myself too much. It's a fascinating little fighter with design choices that would never be made in a post-Street Fighter 2 world, and it's something I'd love to try to 1CC if I ever got good enough at it. The final few fights are an absolute nightmare and would end 90% of my runs, but I like it enough to deem it worth trying. Andy Bogard's pretty rad.

51 Clubhouse Games (Switch)

I mean, I don't have much to say here. It's just a bunch of card and board games and stuff. You wouldn't think it'd be much, but it managed to be a nice pleasant time killer. Sure, you got classic card stuff like their own version of Uno, or Solitaire, but I found enjoyment in simple non-card games like the billiards or the golf as well. My only gripe is that the online is really bad for me, and that's partly due to my lacking Internet connection in the middle of nowhere... but also, it's a damn card game. Why's it got to lag to single FPS if I connect with someone else to play cards? Christ. Regardless, a sleeper little love for 2020.

Super Mario 64 (N64)

Oh hey, nothing much here, just another of the most important games ever made from 25 years or so ago. I actually attempted a 120-star run over the summer on the original console. This fucker's got teeth, and it eventually became too much for me. I tapped out at 111 stars on Tick Tock Clock, I just did not have the patience. Later in the year, when the 3D All-Stars collection dropped, I went back and did 70 star and picked all the stars I remembered liking. Played that way, it was nice because I could play all the good levels and forget all that bullshit that made me want to set my hair on fire. One day, maybe my patience will come back and I'll do it all. Boy, 2020 really is the year where I almost did full challenge runs, huh?

Super C (NES)

Speaking of challenge runs, here's one I actually finished in record time. I decided, for some ungodly reason, that I wanted a no death clear of Super C to match the one time I pulled the same off with the original Contra. It's something that took some work, and a little advice from Contra expert Polly to clear a particular roadblock with a clever consistent strat, but I kept at it and got my no-death clear. Contra's a rush. I'd have to be crazy to try the same for Contra 3, but you never know what kind of madness will overtake me in 2021.

Pokemon Shield Expansions (Switch)

Both halves of the new Pokemon DLC dropped this year and I blitzed through each of them in a weekend. New Pokemon added back in, a few brand-new Pokemon and regional forms whipped up, and just some more pleasant adventures in the Pokemon world. It's nice, you know? I got to play Pokedex hunter again, I made a whole new team of cool little critters, saw a lot of cute trainers, and did a bunch of co-op Dynamax battles. It's just plain fun to run through, and both expansions definitely were worth my time. One wonders what's next on the Pokemon horizon, but for now this was quite nice.

Momodora Reverie Under The Moonlight (XB1)

A game I dabbled with once on Steam years ago, and happened to find on that fancy new Xbox One Game Pass. I figured what the hell, and fired it up. This is an absolutely beautiful and graceful little exploratory platformer that doesn't overstay its welcome. It's short, sweet, but memorable. I really admire it, andit showed some teeth at times as well. It was unafraid to beat me down, but it was forgiving enough that I dusted myself off and went right back at it. Hell yeah. What a cute and fun little gem.

You Beat The Turbo Tunnel (PC)

In addition to giving me pro Super C advice, Polly also made a game this year! You Beat The Turbo Tunnel is a simple little thing which takes the infamous NES Turbo Tunnel and... well, makes it so you can beat it. It's a fun little chuckle of a game, but I also admire how it takes this infamous thing which was a locked gate for so long to so many and just smashes it to bits in the name of comedy. Little Billy is 35 YEARS OLD NOW, BLOCKBUSTER IS DEAD, AIN'T NO NEED FOR THE TURBO TUNNEL TO MAKE YOU WASTE YOUR TIME ON A RENTAL! Now you can beat the Turbo Tunnel, and it's all thanks to Polly. Thanks for that, Polly! =)

Helltaker (PC)

Horny Sokoban that can be beaten in 90 minutes. I know, because I fucking did it live. You can click that and witness my descent into madness, frustration, and even a little light bulb of relief as I actually honest to God figure out a solution or two on my goddamned own. Then swear again. It's also got cute devil girls in suits. Like I said. Horny Sokoban. Check it out sometime, it's free on Steam even. Or watch me lose my absolute shit at it. Your choice.

That'll do it for Game Of The Year stuff! I never quite know what to put at the end of these, so I'll just say thank you for being patient with me. It's been a tough year for us all, and I've mostly descended into magical girl nonsense like I usually do. That may change once I finish the final writeup... but, again, you gotta wait 'till 2021 for that. We all weathered this shit year together, so let's bundle up (at appropriate distance) and weather through the rest until some goddamned pinprick of hope shows up. Much love to you all, and we'll see you for 2021. Until then, loves. <3 

Frezno's Games Of The 2019 Thing!

Ahh. Now that was a hiatus well-earned. Things are going to get real busy around here in the new year, both because the Doctor Who First Impressions are coming back and because of yet another massive screed about a utopian idealistic show. So yeah. Did you expect anything less of me? You know the drill at this point, which brings us to the topic of the moment: Games I Played In 2019! I've kept a record of all the stuff I played, and now that the year is all but dusted I'm going to talk about them. Some of them are great, some of them were bad, some of them... just kind of okay and mentioned in passing. Get yourself like, a coffee or something, and let me tell you about my Games Of The Year for 2019. It'll be fun. No, really. I promise.

(WORST) GAME OF THE YEAR 2019

Biolab Wars (Switch)

I almost feel bad for putting a spotlight on this poor little thing. It was only 2 dollars on the Switch Eshop, it's about an hour long, and thanks to the gold coins I technically didn't pay for it. Nevertheless, it was still really quite bad. On the surface, it looks to be sort of a Contra-esque game, but the vibe I got was a little more Mega Man with a deliberate focus on slower platforming challenges. It's hard to express the disappointment of this game without just letting one experience it, but I will try. It uses B to jump and A to shoot, which just feels awkward on a Switch controller and led to a lot of crossed wires and confusion. More to the point, it just does not feel good to play. It's very limited with its weapons, and things soak up just enough damage that they always manage to get a strike off towards you first. It is a slog, through and through, and for that it earns the stinker award. Not a game I'll be going back to any time soon...

BEST "ABOUT DAMN TIME" GAME OF 2019

Resident Evil 4 (Wii)

14 years. It's been 14 damn years since this game came out and haunted me for very personal reasons, but I have at last managed to blast my way through it. I have to say, it's quite the excellent little gem and still holds up. There may be a naysayer or two telling me the Wii version is the baby easy version and I didn't "really" beat it, but to them I cite the Battletoads Defense. I beat Battletoads. I earned this. Giving me the precision to aim my gun with my own arm helped me get good at this in a tangible way I could really feel, but it never felt too easy at the same time. Okay, so maybe I made the final boss a chump by saving that other rocket launcher for it, but other than that. This game didn't get its legendary status of having revolutionized character action games for no reason, after all. 14 years on, it still holds up and was one hell of a wild ride that I'm glad to have caught up with at long last. Speaking of...

BEST RPG OF 2019

Tales Of Symphonia (PS3)

Ah, at long last. This is the game that my pals stopped playing with me during our meetups because Resident Evil 4 came out. To polish them both off within six months of each other is cathartic. At its core, Tales Of Symphonia is a fairly good action RPG that felt more like a strategy game for me at times, swapping between the characters all by myself to queue up spells and whatnot. Story-wise, it's a whole other thing that really resonated with me. Not to give too much of this 15 year-old game away, but it very much is about the organized systems of this world all conspiring together to serve the petty whims of a privileged few. Thousands of years of suffering, torture, death, and false hope, all propagated by the hands of one masterminding asshole with noble intentions turned to bitter rage. Tearing it all the fuck down was satisfying as shit. Really, what else is there to say? If I haven't spoiled too much already, it's worth a go around.

HARDEST GAME OF 2019

Mega Man ZX Hard Mode (DS)

We're running with a bit of a theme, here, as we hit the third entry in a row that's "I did something I should have done a long time ago". Mega Man ZX is, frankly, the game that made me want to get good at playing hard games. I'd like to think I partly succeeded in that goal, but I had never actually cleared the game that started it all on its hardest difficulty setting. There's good reason for that, as Hard Mode ZX doesn't fuck around. You have a piddly little lifebar where you can take all of three hits, and there are no heart tanks to boost it. You have to beat the game with that, and you can only find one energy tank to boot. It was grueling and meticulous, learning boss patterns and playing cat and mouse with each of them to eke out a victory. Then I had to take them all on in sequence and beat a multi-phase final boss. Needless to say, my heart was pounding out of my chest when I pulled that off. I'm proud to have put a cap in a personally resonant hard game, and I'm really looking forward to the Zero/ZX Collection on Switch in February.

BEST "NEW OLD" GAME OF 2019

Blazing Chrome (Switch)

Why in the holy hell did I buy Biolab Wars in December for my Contra-like fix when Blazing Chrome was right the hell there for me in July? I'm so glad it was, too, because this game is the legit shit. I cannot believe there was a world where I considered buying the "official" Contra game released in 2019. This thing blows it out of the water. The "loving tribute" games usually manage to pull off this quite well, and when you add the track record of developers Joymasher (who created the also excellent Oniken and Odallus), you've got one hell of a Contra-like on your hands. Aesthetically it will remind a Contra fan of Contra Hard Corps, which is a very good game! Blazing Chrome is also that, but I'd probably rather play Blazing Chrome if we're being honest. Gorgeous pixel art, great run and gun action, and a game that's hard but not too hard. Holy hell I loved this thing. I got to go through it on co-op a while back with a friend as well, and it was a good revisit that held up just as well as the initial plays in the summer. Like ZX, it's a game I was more than happy to put the work into to get good at. Maybe one day I'll put more into it and do its hard mode, but for now I'm good.

BEST GAME ACCOMPLISHMENT OF 2019

Metroid Zero Mission All Endings (Game Boy Advance)

Alright, look. For years I kind of gave Zero Mission the side-eye because I loved the original game and this felt to me like it was stripping away the ambiance to homogenize it into a Super Metroid-like (because Metroid Must Be Alike). Turns out AM2R was the one I had to be worried about for doing that, but then a friend of mine started doing this challenge for themselves. I was intrigued and had never done it before, so I dusted off my copy and set about doing it myself. What I found was quite a lot of depth and intrigue in how I had to plan things. Getting 100% on a time limit meant mapping things out and plotting optimal order of item acquisition. Getting a lower time meant knowing what to grab and when was best to grab it. The game accomodates this at at every turn, even if it seems impossible at first. I still adore the ambiance and spookiness of the NES original, but I have to say that Zero Mission sold me on its merits after I played it eight times in various challenging ways. Not a replacement for the NES game, but still very good and incredibly well-designed. I'm happy I pulled this off.

BEST "BABY STEPS, I'M GETTING THERE" GAMES OF 2019

Fire Emblem Echoes & Fire Emblem The Sacred Stones (3DS/Game Boy Advance)

So this one requires some setup. In March 2018 I impulse bought Fire Emblem Echoes, a game in a series I never really got into in the past. I wrote a bit of a thing about me liking it but then never actually finished the game, stopping about... 60% into it, maybe? It actually got a special section at the end of last year's GOTY list called "The Unfinished". Well, I dusted it off and powered through this year, but it was on Casual Mode so I didn't have the nail-biting hell of permanent death hanging over me. Still, it got me into the right mindset, and I played another Fire Emblem game I remembered liking and getting far into; The Sacred Stones. This one does have the permanent death, but you can also level grind in between battles. I really enjoyed Sacred Stones, and I amassed a pretty good murder squad by the end of it. This category exists to highlight these two, and how their graceful concessions to Fire Emblem's perceived hard edge helped me to get my foot in the door. I should mention I also bought Three Houses on impulse this year, but only played an hour of it. I did, however, start it on Classic Mode. Maybe 2020 will see me further break through this hard game barrier and really enjoy this series. We'll see, but for now, special thanks to the two esoteric, weird, and easy ones.

BEST CO-OP GAMES OF 2019

Monster Hunter World & Stardew Valley (PS4/Switch)

Games can be extra special when you play them with friends, and these two very good games got rocketed up to that extra special status thanks to that. We'll start with Stardew Valley since I did that first. I played this game exclusively in co-op over the summer with one of my best friends from high school. Every week, on his two days off, we'd set aside a few hours to play together and co-run a farm. Laying back on the couch in the cool basement on a warm summer night, Switch laid out in portable mode on the table while the tablet with a voice chat active sat on the floor beneath me so we could talk as we played. I ended up focusing most of my time in Stardew Valley on fishing, since the load of running the farm was shared between us. What all this ended up doing was making Stardew Valley an incredibly soothing unwind after a hard and hot summer day. I could kick back, get away from the heat and the work, and just fish on a pier while talking to a good friend. Stardew Valley almost made Game Of The Year for that alone, so you can believe that this was incredibly important to me. The same friend later gifted me his old PS4 for my birthday, and I got myself a copy of Monster Hunter World with it. Now, by contrast, this is not a relaxing game. It's high-paced action with deadly shit that wants to kill you, but I played what I could solo. When I couldn't or didn't want to deal with the harder stuff myself, that's where friend assistance came in. It gave us a fall routine, not unlike our Stardew Valley fun, and it also helped me grow stronger in the game. I did beat some of the tougher challenges in Monster Hunter World all on my own, including the final boss. As of this writing I have yet to delve into the Iceborne expansion, but that will come in due time. For now, I want to sit back and relax as I thank my pals for their generosity, and making these two lovely games stand out that much more with their help.

GAME OF THE YEAR 2019

Sayonara Wild Hearts (Switch)

My criteria for Game Of The Year has always been a game that fills me with a particular positive emotion. Love, friendship, inspiration. You know. Sappy shit like that. Emotional resonance is the key to winning my heart and being the best computer game I played in a year, and Sayonara Wild Hearts is filled to the brim with that. Even before you get there, though, the presentation is absolutely stunning. Its gameplay is part rhythm game, part fast-paced dodging and weaving action reminscent of a certain Turbo Tunnel from a certain infamous hard game. All of this is conveyed with bright and stylished visuals, giving the game its own unique feel... but, let's get right to it. Sayonara Wild Hearts lands because of that incredible soundtrack. Its soundtrack is almost an album unto its own, merely using the medium of games and going fast on a motorbike or flying tarot card in space to tell a moving and inspiring story about loss and love, heartbreak and healing, regret and remembrance. It is simply beautiful, and helping matters for my own personal resonance is the fact that the game was suggested to me by quite the special person. Finishing Sayonara Wild Hearts, on vacation and away from that person while also reminded of them thanks to this stylish video game we could bond over when I got home? That was something truly special. I can't thank you enough for convincing me to get this game, and I hope I've convinced you at home to give it a shot as well. It's every resonant thing I could want in a game, and it easily earns Game Of The Year for me.

...AND THE REST

It's fun to make up categories for very special games, but sometimes there are runners-up that could also fill that category. Sometimes there are games you can't easily categorize quite like that. Sometimes a game was just okay, but not bad enough to be ignored on one of these lists. That's where And The Rest comes in, to highlight the rest of the interesting experiences I had this year. These games aren't lesser, and some of them are better than some of the things that got categories, but... well I'm not going through it all again. Let's roll them!

Splatoon/Splatoon 2 (Wii U/Switch)

Yeah. I played some Splatoon this year. It's neat. I paid for a used copy of the original Splatoon years ago but only had a CRT, so I didn't get much use out of it. I dusted it off and played some multiplayer, and found it was interesting. Then I did the Octo Valley campaign and enjoyed its style enough to grab Splatoon 2 on the Switch. I haven't touched the Octo Expansion or any single-player, but I did manage to have good times in a few of the Splatfests before they ended. I'm not great at Splatoon or anything, but it served a fun little purpose a handful of times this year.

Mega Man X6 (PS1)

I wrote a whole thing about this... interesting experience back in January. I still don't know if it was a bad game, or if I played it badly. It's such a strange specimen of a mainline Mega Man game, and it's wild to compare it to ZX's Hard Mode. Their difficulties are nothing alike, but since X6 was one of the only computer games to get a deep dive write-up from me this year, I figured it deserved a slot down here. Good work, you... strange game, you.

Blaster Master Zero 2 (Switch)

I enjoyed Blaster Master Zero for what it was in 2018; a very good re imagining/retelling of a B-list NES game with fancy bells and whistles. Blaster Master Zero 2 is more of that, and though the mists of time have obscured a lot of the specifics of what made it great, I do remember it being solid enough to be worth playing, and thus solid enough to get on this list. Nice one, Inti Creates.

Gato Roboto (Switch)

A fun, short, and very cute Metroid-style adventure featuring an adorable kitten running around in a mech suit doing the usual exploratory platformer thing of exploring and getting new items to do... more exploring. Fairly breezy and simple, all things considered, but it had a great deal of charm. It's quite nice, and I recommend it.

Final Fantasy II: Mod Of Balance (Game Boy Advance)

For some ungodly reason which still eludes me, I attempted to play the infamously bad Final Fantasy II with a supposed balance patch to make the thing... more balanced. At this point, I am convinced this is one of those games with no middle ground, except the middle ground in this case is "a well-balanced game with just the right amount of challenge". It is either a difficult slog or a ridiculously easy slog, and once again it was the latter for me. I almost wrote about it because of this, so I'm giving my own foolishness the nod here.

Slain: Back From Hell (Switch)

A difficult action platformer with a gnarly heavy metal theme going on. You know, I think I'd have to look up a Youtube video to remember most of the tricky stuff in this game, but I am remembering equal parts innate frustation and hard game satisfaction. Let's call it okay, if not a little unmemorable in my scatterbrained head, and move on to another highlight of the year.

Super Mario Maker 2 (Switch)

Yes, this ended up down here. I mean, it's Mario Maker on the Switch. It is, in the end, very nice. I did enjoy the added story mode levels and had fun going through them, and there was some fun had in building my own levels and playing others. It didn't quite hold my attention all the way through the year, but I'll blame that on my own scatterbrain rather than the game. It's a lovely experience, and I can tinker with it again one day if I have down time and some fun level ideas come to me.

Etrian Odyssey Nexus (3DS)

The series finale of the 3DS, if only Persona Q2 didn't come out after it. I love the hell out of some Etrian Odyssey, and I was excited to dig in to this loving tribute swan song to the series as the era of dual screen handheld Nintendo consoles faded away. It's an absolutely great game, and the only reason I didn't put it on the RPG thing over Tales of Symphonia is that it's about 25% too long for its own good. Long enough that I played it for three weeks straight and then shelved it for six months because I'd burned myself out on the dungeon crawling. Still, I did come back to it and get through some tricky challenges to finish the thing. I adored it, even if I had to let that adoration recharge. A fitting end to the series, unless Atlus and friends can figure out a way to make it work on the Switch.

River City Girls (Switch)

I mean, it's very good. Not quite on the same level as Blazing Chrome when it comes to "new old" games, but very good nonetheless. It's cute girls beating the shit out of everything in sight for 5 hours, in a charming and well-presented way. Some of the beating the shit out of things is just a wee bit bullshitty, though, in that old beat-em-up way, which is a bit of a sour note. I still enjoyed this, and it's again fun to play in co-op with pals. Worth the wait when it was announced.

The Legend Of Zelda: Link's Awakening (Switch)

It's good. I don't really know if it was "80 Canadian dollars plus tax" good, mind you, but it's good. You have the rock solid foundation of one of the Game Boy's top games, with quality of life improvements and one of the best new coats of paint I've ever seen. Seriously, this game is beautiful and adorable and that alone is almost a selling point. Its new additions range from helpful to "okay that's there I guess". It even brings back the Trendy Crane Game, the easiest Zelda minigame that absolutely nobody had any trouble beating ever! I just wish it didn't cost me so much money to play a really really pretty Game Boy game from 1993.

Pokemon Shield (Switch)

For the third time, I have to throw up my hands and say "yeah it's good". It's another fun Pokemon adventure, but it didn't exactly completely light my world on fire which is why it's here. I still blazed through the main game in a weekend and had an absolute blast, and it's quite breezy with its quality of life improvements. Thanks to them chopping out half those Pokemon, I was able to complete the Pokedex again! Oh, and I look absolutely stylish in it. Yeah. Quite fun.

Shovel Knight: King Of Cards (Switch)

So this is how Shovel Knight ends. Intriguingly. The new King Knight expansion has some things to like about it. King Knight's moveset and playstyle is definitely interesting, with its dash and bash mechanic offering a balance between feeling great and puzzling your way through platforming challenges. I appreciate the move to a quantity of shorter levels, each with their own set of collectibles within, as it helps makes things nice and breezy in short bursts. I just really don't like that goddamned card game. Yes, it is kinda sorta optional. Yes, you can pay gold to cheat at it. Yes, it gets more tolerable as you go along and earn better cards with better pointy arrows. It still filled me with despair and dread when I saw I "had" to play more of it, and that's a real downer in an otherwise neat capstone to Shovel Knight content. Also the final boss sucks ass and is kind of unfair and unfun. Yikes.


Okay, that does it. Thanks for sitting through however the hell many words that is, and I offer my apologies to my future self who gets to spend Sunday morning and afternoon banging this together into the form of a coherent post with italics and image links and shit. Oh no I just gave you more work, didn't I? What's that? (Intrusion from the future: You son of a bitch.) Can't hear you over the time differential. To all of you at home though, I hope you enjoyed the list and that your 2019s were full of fun and good times all around. It's going to be a very interesting 2020, as I have not only some good new posts lined up but some good new games to crack into. Maybe I'll be writing about how good they are in a year's time! We'll find out. Until then, you all have a good one, and a very happy New Year to you when we all get to it! Much love!

Frezno's Games Of The 2018 Thing!

Another one down, just about. I always get all poetic about the year ending at the beginning of these, and this is going to be no exception. 2018's setting, and we once again have an enigma of a year ahead. 2019. What a wild number it is, but then 2018 was just the same enigma when we were sitting here last year recounting the games of 2017. Now we're looking back at that and I'm going to tell you all about the best computer games I played this year. Who needs delays? Let's get right into it and decide what sort of gonzo "categories" I'm going to invent. Here they are, the Games Of The 2018 Thing.

Frezno's Games Of The 2017 Thing!

Well, here we go again. 2017's setting just behind the big magical year mountains, and 2018 is about to crest over the... other big magical year mountains. This metaphor got away from me, but the point is that I played LOTS AND LOTS OF COMPUTER GAMES in 2017! It's time for another go-around retrospective of the most interesting, emotionally affecting, and/or Just Plain Fun things that I ended up blasting through this year. Expect a lot of arbitrary categories, some with more than one entry in them because I can't kill my darlings and this is my own goddamned list so I MAKE THE RULES HOORAY HAHA. I'm really excited to get into this whole thing and gush about stuff, so let's get right on rolling with Frezno's Games Of The 2017 Thing!

Frezno's Games Of The 2016 Thing!

2016's dusk is upon us. Oh thank God. Somehow or another, this has been a sheer tire fire of a year. Horrific and far-reaching political bullshit, celebrity deaths en masse, a bunch of really bad Batman movies. Still, it's time as always to be a third-rate Clara Oswald and reflect on all the video games I experienced this year. Oh, right. This is a new thing for my blog space. I used to do these over at Socks Make People Sexy for several years, but the SMPS forums closed their doors this year. Another tragic loss but not quite because I'm still a part of the official SMPS Discord chat and can keep up with these folks even more than I already did on Twitter. So, my Games I Played In 201X series has moved over here. If you're so inclined, here's a bunch of links to the previous lists. Watch my tastes evolve!

2011
2012
2013
2014
2015


So, rules for this, I guess. It's Games I Played In 2016, not Games I Played That Came Out In 2016. A few of those will show up, yeah, but I'm an old fart who cherry picks from history and I couldn't possibly limit myself to just games I played this year. If I took a crack at it in 2016, it's fair game. I've got different weird categories that I've made up and I'll probably make up more. Well, with all that in mind, here's a bunch of bullshit I played and now I am going to talk about said bullshit.

(WORST) GAME OF THE YEAR 2016

Seiken Densetsu 3 (Super Famicom)

I'm amazed I never did a writeup on this, but I am lazy and also I did a video saying the stuff I wanted to say. Now I will say that stuff again and try to be more succinct about it. SD3 is like a beautiful rainbow-colored fruit that a worm snuck into and made rotten. It looks fantastic! By all accounts it should be a wonderful action RPG experience! Its predecessor is beloved by many! So, I decided to try and live blind stream it as a project. I didn't make it. The thing wore me down by being an annoying slog. Maybe if I hadn't picked two magic users as my AI buddies it'd have been simpler. What I got were magic users who opted to waltz right into melee like idiots and lose half their health from a single battle. Boss fights became wars of attrition, there were pacing issues all over the place, and at every step of the way this game absolutely resisted my attempts of having fun while playing it and just made things an unimaginable chore. Even the sequel to the AVGN Adventures game managed to make itself just tolerable enough to be a mediocre four hours, and I thought that'd be the worst thing I played this year. How wrong I was. I can't see how this is held up as some lost classic that we were deprived of via 90's RPG localization. It was just unfun and frustrating for me, and the worst video game experience of this year.

BEST CREATIVITY EXPERIENCE OF 2016

Super Mario Maker (Wii U)

I actually don't want to talk too much about this, because John Thyer did an article about all of his Mario Maker levels and I want to do the same thing in a bit. It's not a game you really "beat" but it's one of the two Wii U games I had before I even had a Wii U. The other was Smash Bros. which I won in a Twitter giveaway last year. Or was it two years ago, I forget. Anyway, on my list of what I played and beat, I put down "Played A Shitload Of" in front of those two games. Smash Bros. is great as always, but Mario Maker actually made me into some kind of half-assed level designer. I don't want to give too much of the plot away regarding my handful of levels, so let's just focus on how engrossing this is as a whole. Not only did it let me spread my creative wings without waffling words, but I got to see the creative streak of other friends and try out really weird and fucked-up levels I happened to see online from complete strangers. Shame about the 3DS version not having that. Yikes. This was great, though! I really should get back to it, I still have a level concept that I need to fiddle with...

BEST "BETTER LATE THAN NEVER" OF 2016

Etrian Odyssey IV (3DS)

If you clicked the links above, you'll recognize this. It was the first 3DS game I owned when I got the system... in April 2013. Even with only exploring a few of the game's massive areas, I was confident in giving it my nod for RPG of that year. After that I put it down for a time, and over the next three years I would poke at it every so often. On this latest attempt, something clicked and I spent a week flying through the rest of it and winning. Oh my god, it was incredible. Through the magic of retiring, I managed to get a new squad full of cool people with cool new skills and incredible synergy together. I was wrecking face and I may have wrecked too much face because the final boss offered me no problems whatsoever. Then I delved into the postgame dungeon a little and shit's hard. Something to peck at later. Or I could play Etrian Odyssey Untold, there's your spoiler warning for the 2017 list. Either way, what a fantastic little dungeon crawler. I made the labyrinths mine and saved the world. Hooray to me!

BEST JUMPY GAME OF 2016

Super Mario 3D World (Wii U)

Back again to the Wii U. I had a new console and this thing was like 20 bucks thanks to Nintendo Selects. It was definitely interesting, especially how I played it. I didn't get an HDTV until the summer this year, so I was stuck with component on a 13" CRT. This made Wii U games look like shit, but thankfully they had that entire gimmick of giving you a little TV with the damn thing. I played the entirety of the main game of 3D World on the tablet and it looked great and crisp and holy fuck was this fun. I never really got that much into the New Super Mario Bros. games, but the weird mix of 3D Mario mechanics with 2D Mario gameplay style (i.e. not runnin around collecting stars or shinies or whatever) worked really well! Great new powerups that eventually were used for the greatest "OH SHIT" moment since Super Mario Land 2, Super Mario Bros. 2's character roster, a big world map, and extra stages that I played the other day co-op and are SUPER FUCKING HARD. This thing has it all, and I adored it. Nice.

BEST OVER THE TOP GAME OF 2016

Saints Row IV (PC)

Late last year I played Saints Row The Third and it was incredible. As someone whose previous open world criminal experience extended to GTA Vice City, it was a shockingly great evolution that also made its mark by being very comedic and silly. Saints Row The Third is playing it straight compared to 4. This goddamn game is utterly ridiculous, mixing in aliens with virtual world simulations and god knows what else. It's essentially an open world criminal experience where you have fucking superpowers, and that shit feels amazing to pull off. Absolutely everything about it is over the top and there's plenty to do in virtual Steelport. Also I made my girl wear a Dirty Pair cosplay for the majority of the game. That's a thing I could do! Oh my god, what a game this was. I'll have Paula Abdul's "Opposites Attract" in my head forever thanks to it. Shit.

CUTEST GAME OF 2016

Kirby: Planet Robobot (3DS)

This is a really hard one for me. I played both Planet Robobot and Kirby's Return To Dream Land this year, and they're both variations on the same style of Kirby game. Kirby Triple Deluxe falls into this subgroup as well; they're all traditional Kirby platformers with special doodads to collect in each level, and all three have their own unique form of SUPER-DUPER POWERUP that lets you just tear through hordes of enemies like they were nothing. Return To Dream Land has Ultra Abilities, Triple Deluxe had the Hypernova... and Planet Robobot has the titular Robobot. I think I had more fun with Return To Dream Land overall, but I'm giving the nod to Robobot because I feel like the Robobot was utilized better than the Ultra Abilities. They both feel great to use, but the Robobot just has that extra feeling of utility. Kirby games are great anyway and you should play all of the Kirby games mentioned in this paragraph, but Robobot takes it this time. Congrats, Kirby. You did good.

HARDEST GAME OF 2016

Lightening Force: Quest For The Darkstar (Sega Genesis)

You know, for a Hard Game Beater, I really didn't delve into anything that sadistic or difficult from the old days this year! I did purchase a complete GBA copy of the Famicom Super Mario Bros. 2, aka the Lost Levels, and I did beat that... but hard as it is, you can do an infinite lives trick right at the start to just make it a janky masocore ROM hack thing. Now this, on the other hand? This I've owned a cart of for some time now but could hardly beat a level in. It's actually part of the Thunder Force series of shmups, but blame naming schemes. Anyway, I went at this one completely old-school. I kept playing and playing it, determined to learn the patterns and make it to the end. It wasn't easy, but the more runs I failed the better I did. A game over on stage 5 turned into a game over on stage 7, and then on stage 9. This is a blistering fast little game, but the fact that it has selectable weapons (not unlike Contra Hard Corps) makes it so you're not totally screwed on losing one life. Motivated by Polly telling me the final boss blows up real good, I kept at it and was doing really well for myself. Eventually I won. She was right. What a good explosion, and what a good game. The only game I beat in the month of October, even! Probably because I was so busy writing about horror movies and stuff. Still, a wonderful experience. Difficult, but I learned each time. Why, it's almost like the game rewarded me for learning its tricks... no, that's ridiculous. On to the next one.

BEST LAWYERGAME OF 2016

Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Spirit Of Justice (3DS)

I actually got around to beating the previous Ace Attorney game, Dual Destinies, this year as well. It was pretty good, and a great grand return for the series after a few years of playing with spinoffs and side stories. As great as that was, 2016 gave us a new game in the series and it may yet be my favorite one of the bunch. See, this is a series about lawyers who fight for innocence against all odds, and it likes to make you feel like the underdog without a hope in hell so that the victory is all the sweeter. Dual Destinies got around this by introducing a new rookie lawyer, Athena Cykes. The way Spirit Of Justice does it is by alternating cases set at "home" with Athena and Apollo Justice with Phoenix Wright's adventures in the far-off country of Khura'in, in which there is actual law that declares that any practicing defense attorney whose client is found guilty shares the verdict with their client. In addition to that everyone in Khura'in fucking hates lawyers and they're slinging insults and prejudices to your face. It feels awful at first, but the genius of it is how the plot unfolds as you play. You learn how the Defense Culpability Act came to be, and just how the law can screw over the common people and lead to the most desperate acts. By endgame, you're in a country beginning to open its eyes and call for revolution against the monarchy, and characters that were once calling you names are starting to broaden their perspectives and open up to you. It's amazing, and my only complaint with it involves the new seance mechanic of seeing the last memories of dead people; I was garbage at pointing out the contradictions in them and was running to the spoiler-free walkthrough in desperation. Nonetheless, this game's utterly fantastic.

BIGGEST SURPRISE OF 2016

Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 3 V Generation (Vita)

Oh Jesus. Never would I have expected this. Hyperdimension Neptunia, once bane of my existence, now on my Games Of The Year list. I wrote 5000 words about this sucker, so I'll keep this one brief. I went into this on a curiosity and sheer force of will to get my 8 bucks out of it. I succeeded. I found the good in Neptunia, such as it is. It's okay. This one is okay! As it turns out, I probably picked the best one to play. I hear the PS4 one that dropped this year on these shores is also a good one. This was fine, and I might even go back and try RB1 on the Vita next year. I bought the thing and I might as well give it a shot, after all. Also it gave me Iris Heart, who while still fantastic could have been used better and given more than the one joke about "punishing" people. I literally used headcanon to make up a better use for Iris Heart combined with another character, that's how much the mark was missed. I'd better get out of here. RB3 was nice, after 32 hours and 5000 words.

BEST "NEW OLD" GAME OF 2016

Shantae: Half-Genie Hero (PC)

Holy shit. This slid in at the last minute just a few weeks ago, but by god does it make the cut. It's almost Game Of The Year material, but in the end I decided to stick to my guns and just let it have this category, which it absolutely earns. In September 2013 two Kickstarters for new old games launched, and I could only back one at the "get a copy" level. I chose Shantae here, and three years and change later I got a code for a copy about a week before its release. I gave it a shot, having only fiddled with the Game Boy Color Shantae a bit before. I adored it. Not only is it absolutely gorgeous with its HD visuals and very colorful and cartoon-ish art, but it's basically an exploratory platformer a la Demon's Crest or Odallus The Dark Call. Look, I wrote about it just a little while ago, so go read that. I even got told how idiotic I was about the penultimate boss, and that I should have watched the screws on his head! Holy FUCK that eliminates the one major flaw I had with it! It's even BETTER now! This shouldn't be passed up, and it made me want to go back to the older Shantaes now. Which I will.

GAME OF THE YEAR 2016

Pokemon Moon (3DS)

Wow. Just wow. Well, a bit more than "wow" which I will now talk about. 7th-generation Pokemon is the best thing I played this year. It engaged me on so many levels and I'll talk about those levels. Gameplay wise, it fulfilled a lifelong dream game I'd always imagined. It's set in not-Hawaii and has you going between islands and completing trials instead of fighting Gym Leaders for progress. It's the Orange Islands game adaptation I've wanted for the past 16 years, but it's actually even better than that. There were plenty of great new Pokemon for me to use, and I actually shuffled through a lot of candidates as I played before settling on my team. You've got cute ones, powerhouses, interesting ones... plenty to play with. To get my GOTY nod, though, you have to be emotionally affecting. This game does that easily with Lillie, the most adorable Pokemon character in a while. Lillie's not a rival trainer, or a skilled professor. She's a girl with her own reasons for travelling around, and those reasons become apparent as you get tangled up in her hardships. Lillie was my friend in this game, and all of the plot twists and soap opera moments involving her engaged me because I wanted to help my friend out. Her climactic speech to the villain once you defeat them is inspiring and moving, and shows someone who grew her own confidence out of watching you. As Lillie helped you along the way, you helped Lillie. Becoming a Pokemon master for the 7th time was my own story, but stuck right along in there is Lillie's story, and the two are interconnected. Lillie, like Chiaki Nanami before her, made this game for me and warmed my heart. That's why this Pokemon game is the best thing I played this year. Now get in the bag, Nebby.

...AND THE REST

Okay, so those are the main category picks but here are some other games I played and liked. I didn't want to make up categories for these, or there were better games in the categories I did make up, but whatever. Here's some other stuff that I played and liked this year with some shorter blurbs about them.

NES Remix Pack

The cut-up method in video game form. Turn a bunch of classic Nintendo games into a bunch of little Warioware-esque challenges. It's addicting and engaging in a lot of ways, and the extra modes really help. The first game suffers a bit from using only black box games because a lot of the black box games are just fucking terrible. 3-starring all of the Clu Clu Land challenges was a nightmare and I hate that game now. NES Remix 2 is better because it has better games and some cooler extra modes, but they're both on the same disc and make a neat little package. It's nice. I also became a Nintendo World Champion because I got in the top 10 on the NWC mode in Remix 2, so that's another accomplishment for my Twitter bio.

Dark Souls: Prepare To Die Edition

Yes, again. Last year I gave it the Redemption award because I finally learned how to love that game. This year I had a really satisfying run with a super Strength build. Heavy armor, huge shield, massive club. I found it interesting to play, and easier than a Dex build's dodge rolling. You just stand there and TANK the hit and then counter by whapping things with your big stick. God, I love it. I'll probably replay this again in 2017 because at this point it's become a comfort food game. I tried Dark Souls 2 and didn't like it much. Shame. Oh well, SORCERY BUILD NEXT?

Finding Teddy

So this came about because someone suggested I play a Steam game called Chronicles of Teddy and they pitched it to me as a Zelda 2-like. I adore Zelda 2 and I think what happened here is that I got both Finding Teddy and Chronicles of Teddy in a 2-pack bundle. I played Finding Teddy first and it's not a Zelda 2-like at all; it's an adventure game sort of thing where you help monsters out and try not to get killed horribly. It's got neat atmosphere and whatnot. I don't have too much more to say, other than it made me run to a FAQ and I never did get around to playing Chronicles of Teddy. Oops.

Shatterhand

The game with the best box art ever. Motherfuckin' SHATTERHAND. As I recall, I beat this on a hacked PSP while listening to an Eruditorum Press podcast about the Titanic. It was a really good podcast and this is a really good little action game where you PUNCH ROBOTS N SHIT YEAH YEAH MMMMMMMM WHAP SMACK BIFF BLAM.

Drill Dozer

A cute little game with big stages and lots of shit to drill with your big drilling mech. It's an adorably fun platformer! I played it on my SNES because I got a SNES to GBA adapter and wanted to play that stuff on my TV. I lost out on the rumble feature, sure, but this is fine. It's a good game that I got complete for 10 bucks. Well worth it.

Castle Of Illusion (2013)

The digital age is rough on game preservation. You can't actually buy this anymore, I think, due to licensing issues. It went on sale for like 2 bucks just before it vanished from the storefronts and I got to play it. It's nice! Fairly short and not all too challenging, but it looks nice and has that great sense of childlike wonder you'd expect from a Disney game starring Mickey Mouse. If you can summon up the right arcane alchemical rituals to be able to play it, it's worth it.

Scramble

I bought this Konami arcade GBA collection, see. It has a lot of good games on it, but most of them are just the arcade mentality of "really hard to suck away your quarters". Scramble is kind of like that, but it also feels like a mobile game now. It's a 4 minute-long shmup that infinitely loops, so there's a definitive ending to it and you can say "I technically beat it" while also playing through to get the high score. Like, if this was on a phone it'd be a perfect time waster sort of thing. I really liked it and it ended up speaking to me more than, say, Frogger or Time Pilot or Yie-Ar King Fu. Yikes.

Spider's Hollow

John Thyer made a game this year! It's a Sokoban-like with fairies and spider webs and spiders! It's very tricky and clever and tense with limited moves in later levels before a spider gets you. John's telling his own version of a fairy tale here, and it ends exactly the way he wants it to end. Oh my god it's a literal fairy tale because of the fairies. Holy shit. You can play this RIGHT NOW AND RIGHT HERE so go give it a shot if you're not terrified of spiders.

Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake

I always wanted to play this one, and I did it in HD on my "new" PS3 with the MGS HD Collection. Typical me, using a $200 piece of technology with HDMI output on an HDTV to play a goddamned computer game from 1990. Even though I peeked at a FAQ a lot, a lot of things I figured out on my own here. There's some real cryptic shit and a lot of backtracking but this game was neat and had good music. 2017 is gonna be my Metal Gear year. I can feel it.

Dragon Quest VII: Fragments Of The Forgotten Past

I put like four or five hours into this, but fuck it. Honorable mention/teaser for the year in which I do beat it. I love it. Dragon Quest is good and this is good and I've waited years to own a copy and I like this.


And with that, we're all done! Just one more teeny tiny post to do at the end of the year, and then we'll be ready to send off this garbage fire of a year hopefully. Fingers are crossed for 2017 being even better and filled with even more amazing computer game experiences! I hope you've all had a good time with games this year, and you're more than welcome to share what you played in the comments below. I wanna hear what you loved, so go right ahead! I'm bowing out to go eat or something, this took the morning to write. See ya.