Your Games Completed of 2022

I'm keeping the full subtitle of these in as a little treat for Mart who is probably the only person who can read them

Considering my basic German translates the previous title as 'The Penis of Power', I wouldn't get your hopes up.

That's the best answer we have so far, I will reflect on this and try to remember if there's a penis in the game, brb.

Immortality

Holy shit, what a thing this was. Layers upon layers. Don't read a single thing about this before you play it.

We're still going. It's utterly brilliant. Giving me some WEIRD dreams too…

Hellsinger -8.5/10

Dose any one remember crypt of the necrodancer but the one with Zelda? This reminds me of that but with the Doom IP. When you hit high combos and the music kicks in, it's Godlike. A lot of replayability too. Definitely recommend.

You Suck at parking -7/10

Kinda hope this game dose well. Really fun with a lot of content in the campaign (if not too much) and multiplayer too. The cars control similar to the micro machines back in the day
I'll say halfway through the difficulty gets insane but in a fun "just one more go" kinda way. I think the problem with me was trying to get a perfect score on every level before moving on. Started feeling burnt out towards the end.

Hellsinger -8.5/10

Dose any one remember crypt of the necrodancer but the one with Zelda? This reminds me of that but with the Doom IP. When you hit high combos and the music kicks in, it's Godlike. A lot of replayability too. Definitely recommend.

Reviews made this sound a lot like a non-VR version of Pistol Whip, I really need to get around to giving it a go.

I couldn't get on with Hellsinger because a) the fact that you need to fire/dodge on the beat but not on EVERY beat felt really disjointed to me, made it hard to keep a steady rhythm, and b) the music is sometimes overwhelmed by the FX, making it hard to keep time. Just wasn't for me, felt like Pistol Whip and Bullets Per Minute did it better.

Yeah, that a good point. I didn't think about not having to hit on every beat. I can see why that could put people off the rhythm. If it helps you have a weapon skull with unlimited ammo at all times. Pretty weak, but I used it to shoot on beat outside of battle to keep the combo meter high. I guess you could use it just to help stay on beat. I'll say a few hours in you start to feel comfortable with the timing on your own. I kinda appreciated the freedom to walk around and do stuff outside the beat though. It's getting used to the new weapons that I struggle with. Like the crossbow. It's got a very different rhythm to the others. Shoot, shoot….. reload. Shoot, shoot…. reload. I put a dash in after the second shot before the reload to help myself. I think it's the strongest weapon in the game now.

Kuro no Kiseki
Pokemon Legends Arceus
To The Moon
Elden Ring
Death Stranding
Chrono Trigger
Advance Wars Dual Strike
Chrono Cross
Radical Dreamers
Panzer Dragoon Remake
Panzer Dragoon Zwei
Panzer Dragoon Orta
Panzer Dragoon Saga
NEO: The World Ends With You
SaGa Scarlet Grace: Ambitions
Dino Crisis 2
Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the World
AI: The Somnium Files
Advance Wars: Days of Ruin
Mega Man Battle Network
Mega Man ZX
Mega Man ZX Advent
Xenoblade Chronicles 3
Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna - The Golden Country
Xenosaga Episode 1: Der Wille zur Macht

Xenosaga Episode 2: Jenseits von Gut und Böse

As expected, I liked it a lot more than everyone said I would though it is a heavily flawed game, main offender being a combat system that makes random battles possibly take over 5 minutes long(!) and the way most of the characters feel pretty sidelined in favour of a meaty dive into the backstory of one of the party members and the main antagonist of the game, his brother. I probably wouldn't play it again even if it was remastered without some significant QoL changes to the combat.

I am now very excited to see what all the fuss is about in Xenosaga Part 3: Also Sprach Zarathustra and if it's anything less than pure, unfiltered Kino about to blast into my all time Top 10 RPG list like the fucking meteor that slammed into earth and killed the Dinosaurs I will be slightly disappointed.

(and I'm keeping the full subtitle of these in as a little treat for Mart who is probably the only person who can read them )

Or, you know, people with Google Translate. Until Google decides to kill it like it's now officially announced the end date of Stadia.

Or someone who fucking loves Nietzsche, any Nietzsche fans in the house???

Or someone who fucking loves Nietzsche, any Nietzsche fans in the house???

As I believe Sir Mixalot once sang, 'Don't want none unless you're Carl Jung, son'.

Probably.

Did Carl Jung have a massive arse?

Yeah, Sigmund Freud.

JANUARY
Inmost
The Pedestrian
Gorogoa
Botanicula

FEBRUARY
Kirby and the Forgotten Land

MARCH
Nobody Saves The World
Tunic

APRIL
Nothing

MAY
Still nothing (?!)

JUNE
Weird West
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge

JULY
Batman: Arkham Asylum

AUGUST
Tap! Dig! MyMuseum
Escape Academy - Forgot to add this, but I definitely finished it in August.

SEPTEMBER
Nada

OCTOBER
Portal - Much shorter than I remember it being. Only 19 chambers and then the end game? Hmm. Switch port is decent though, and the price for both 1&2 together is something you can't really pass on. Leaving it a while though before I move onto Portal 2.

Kuro no Kiseki
Pokemon Legends Arceus
To The Moon
Elden Ring
Death Stranding
Chrono Trigger
Advance Wars Dual Strike
Chrono Cross
Radical Dreamers
Panzer Dragoon Remake
Panzer Dragoon Zwei
Panzer Dragoon Orta
Panzer Dragoon Saga
NEO: The World Ends With You
SaGa Scarlet Grace: Ambitions
Dino Crisis 2
Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the World
AI: The Somnium Files
Advance Wars: Days of Ruin
Mega Man Battle Network
Mega Man ZX
Mega Man ZX Advent
Xenoblade Chronicles 3
Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna - The Golden Country
Xenosaga Episode 1: Der Wille zur Macht
Xenosaga Episode 2: Jenseits von Gut und Böse

Xenosaga Part 3: Also Sprach Zarathustra

Finally, my Xenosaga journey has come to an end, it's been fun. This is certainly the best game in the series and the most important because it ties up threads that started way back in the first game, thisseries suffered the same 'cut content' hell as Xenogears did, I think it was upposed to be six parts long….which if I'm being honest sounds a bit much. (yes I know Trails is 11 games long and counting…)

Truthfully, this game is dense with characters and lore and references and events as it is that I can't tell which part is 2deep4me and which part is a result of cut content, I feel me rating this after beating it without looking stuff up about it miiight be unfair? Like watching End of Evangelion and posting your thoughts 2 minutes after as your final thoughts on the movie overall.

So I'll just say I'm really glad I played the trilogy and at the very least the throughline of thestuff with KOS-MOS and the Miltian Conflict was really interesting, it's a good series. I'll be seeing KOS-MOS not long after writing this because I'm moving on to Xenoblade Chronicles 2 replay in which she is one of the gacha Blades you can roll on, I never got her first time so it has to be done.

Celeste - This game is simply fantastic. I don't normally enjoy difficult platformers but the mechanics in this are so well tuned that you always feel in control and the learning curve is judged perfectly. Graphics are great, the music is amazing.

Best of all though, it's a story about pushing yourself to do things you don't know if you are going to be able to do and so many times I looked at what I needed to do to progress and thought, "Well that's me finished then." But every time a few minutes later I was past it and on the the next challenge.

Oh, I also died 2536 times in 10 hours. About once every 15 seconds.

If restarts are super instant it really does take the frustration out

JANUARY
Inmost
The Pedestrian
Gorogoa
Botanicula

FEBRUARY
Kirby and the Forgotten Land

MARCH
Nobody Saves The World
Tunic

APRIL
Nothing

MAY
Still nothing (?!)

JUNE
Weird West
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge

JULY
Batman: Arkham Asylum

AUGUST
Tap! Dig! MyMuseum
Escape Academy

SEPTEMBER
Nada

OCTOBER
Portal
The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe - Saw 17 of the 19 endings, including the 'proper' one and the epilogue, so that'll do. What a great, forward-thinking and horribly frustrating game. I love how the game is always one step ahead of you, I hate how exploring to see if new stuff exists often funnels you down the same routes you've already been down, leading to massive repetition of content (the most convoluted example of which I actually stumbled across right away, meaning I accidentally saw it three times over all). Still have a couple of achievements left but since one requires a full 24 hours of play specially on Tuesdays - no way to jip it, unlike the 'Don't play for ten years' achievement - that can get to fuck. Deleted.

Kuro no Kiseki
Pokemon Legends Arceus
To The Moon
Elden Ring
Death Stranding
Chrono Trigger
Advance Wars Dual Strike
Chrono Cross
Radical Dreamers
Panzer Dragoon Remake
Panzer Dragoon Zwei
Panzer Dragoon Orta
Panzer Dragoon Saga
NEO: The World Ends With You
SaGa Scarlet Grace: Ambitions
Dino Crisis 2
Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the World
AI: The Somnium Files
Advance Wars: Days of Ruin
Mega Man Battle Network
Mega Man ZX
Mega Man ZX Advent
Xenoblade Chronicles 3
Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna - The Golden Country
Xenosaga Episode 1: Der Wille zur Macht
Xenosaga Episode 2: Jenseits von Gut und Böse
Xenosaga Part 3: Also Sprach Zarathustra

Xenoblade Chronicles 2
New Game plus, doing no sidequests whatsoever just gameplay gameplay story story gameplay…not really representative of true fresh playthrough but that's okay, I did one of those like 5 years ago already. My feelings of Xenoblade 2 have definitely changed a fair bit I think, for the better. I dunno if it's better than Xenoblade 3 yet, Xenoblade 3 fixes a lot of problems with 2 overall but playing 2 again made me realise I think the combat and some other gameplay aspects are flat better and I also think I prefer the story…even if Xenoblade 3 made the ending in 2 mad weird for me.

I played Xenoblade 1 and Xenogears relatively recently so as funny as it would be to have 7 straight Xenos on my list I won't play them again, which means it's time to get of the Xeno Train a for a bit and play something else :thinking:

Danganronpa V3 - barking mad conclusion to one of the most insane game series ever made. I've enjoyed all three of these a lot - this one felt longer than the others, though that may be because I played the other two on the Vita - and this is more of the same really, but there's nothing wrong with that. The ending is… interesting.

Spoiler - click to showI couldn't help reading it as a massive "fuck you" to the fans. I guess this team is fed up with making Danganronpa games :)

Completing the game has unlocked an absolute mountain of bizarre post-game content, including a board game and a dungeon crawler. A quick glance at the achievement list suggests there's probably a few hundred hours of gameplay here still if I wanted it, this is not a small game. I might dip back in but I can't see myself going for everything, there's just too much of it. But I did enjoy this a lot.

I told you the twist was right in front of you the whole time.

Plague Tail Requiem -7/10

I thought it was good with some amazing story telling like the first game. It's the characters that really shine, especially the main character Amicia. It's not the biggest team making these plague tail titles, but you wouldn't of known by looking at the graphics. It looks gorgeous. It's just a shame it's running at 30FPS. The stealth gameplay isn't great, but decent. What doesn't help the gameplay is the lack of any improvement from the first one. With this being at least twice as long it's starts to feel repetitive half way through. I would still recommend if you enjoy stealth or great story telling.

With the first one I found I really enjoyed the first half (which was essentially a very grubby walking simulator with simple stealth sections) and gradually liked it less as they introduced more crafting, ammo types and other gamey elements. It still kept my interest to the end though.

It's a bit jarring with the new one that none of the characters have French accents any more. It feels like the game's lost a bit of atmosphere as a result, although the first one did go a bit 'Allo 'Allo at times.

Hugo's a little shit though. If they'd just fed him to the rats at the start of the first game then it would have saved thousands of lives.

With the first one I found I really enjoyed the first half (which was essentially a very grubby walking simulator with simple stealth sections) and gradually liked it less as they introduced more crafting, ammo types and other gamey elements. It still kept my interest to the end though.

I'll say this one has a lot more of that walking and talking with simple stealth gameplay. A bit too much if I'm honest. It would of been better if it was 5-6 hours long like the first one instead of around 15-16 hours. It kinda shows just how great the Uncharted and last of Us games are. With how they have great conversation between the characters to help tell a story while still having bloody good gameplay. Take what I say with a pinch of salt because I'm highlighting the parts I didn't enjoy as much. The characters and story are brilliant and as simple as the stealth is. The whole working around the light and dark is different with some really cool moments. Even if you've already done it in the first one.

Kuro no Kiseki
Pokemon Legends Arceus
To The Moon
Elden Ring
Death Stranding
Chrono Trigger
Advance Wars Dual Strike
Chrono Cross
Radical Dreamers
Panzer Dragoon Remake
Panzer Dragoon Zwei
Panzer Dragoon Orta
Panzer Dragoon Saga
NEO: The World Ends With You
SaGa Scarlet Grace: Ambitions
Dino Crisis 2
Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the World
AI: The Somnium Files
Advance Wars: Days of Ruin
Mega Man Battle Network
Mega Man ZX
Mega Man ZX Advent
Xenoblade Chronicles 3
Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna - The Golden Country
Xenosaga Episode 1: Der Wille zur Macht
Xenosaga Episode 2: Jenseits von Gut und Böse
Xenosaga Part 3: Also Sprach Zarathustra
Xenoblade Chronicles 2

Bayonetta 3
This game ends in probably the most blatant disrespect to a main character of a game I can remember in recent memory, a completely unearned ending that just absolutely shits on Bayonetta in my opinion.

Spoiler - click to showShe fuses with the Bayonettas from the first and second game and kills Thanos, then exhausted as she is she loses control of her demon again who kills her one swipe and sends her soul flying out of her body. Then she and Luka are fucking dragged down to hell together. that's it, she's fucking dead and she's gone to hell, they killed her off. It's bad enough she loses her dommy mommy act towards Luka towards the end, she just gets merced in the most unepic way possible. The finale plays out like a Dr Who special with the hype of three Bayonetta's at once then goes for a random downer ending where all 3 die at once, okay.

I don't have much to add gameplay wise, the real test of time will come for Bayonetta 3 eventually but it's largely irrelevant in the GRAND scheme of things imo because it's definitely not as good as the first. This sounds kinda' bad but at certain points in this game I had probably as much fun as I've ever had in any game but do I wanna' Pure Platinum every level of the game? Eh. The combat almost feels somewhat like the story in that it is more fun if you overlook the finer details, French Bayonetta as Arsene Lupin? Fuck yeah, summoning a Demon Clocktower in battle to kill people? Sick? Those Witch Trials? Eat shit they are anti-fun.

I suppose now I'm finished the story literally doesn't matter anymore, don't think I'll overlook the shitty ending though. People LIKE this character a lot, so that ending just feels awful.

Borderlands 3
A Plague Tale: Innocence
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
Call of the Sea
Elden Ring
Monster Hunter: Sunbreak
Tacoma

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
What Remains of Edith Finch

A very technically impressive and competent example of the kind of thing I (now remember why I) don’t really play anymore, followed by what might be my new favourite narrative adventure/walking simulator.

Signalis -7.5/10

I really enjoyed this game. If you're a fan of the old classic top down Resident Evil games I think you'll like this too. As long as you can forgive the clucky parts of them games too. Like the combat for these types of games can feel a little off if you're not used to them. The inventory can be a pain too, more so in Signalis. You only have 6 slots for items and that includes everything like weapons, bullets, health items and key Items you need to progress. It's just not enough and you'll be running back and forth to the safe rooms to dump items in your safe box. Would of been nice for some type of upgrade system to help the inventory but there isn't. If you can put up with that like me, you'll have a blast. The puzzles are some of my favorite amongst the Residents evil games and can be really challenging. Inspecting and combining key Items to solve sections brings me back in a good way. Definitely recommend if you're into these types of games. It's on game pass too if that helps.

Best puzzle is the brothel puzzle in Fear Effect!!!!!

Kuro no Kiseki
Pokemon Legends Arceus
To The Moon
Elden Ring
Death Stranding
Chrono Trigger
Advance Wars Dual Strike
Chrono Cross
Radical Dreamers
Panzer Dragoon Remake
Panzer Dragoon Zwei
Panzer Dragoon Orta
Panzer Dragoon Saga
NEO: The World Ends With You
SaGa Scarlet Grace: Ambitions
Dino Crisis 2
Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the World
AI: The Somnium Files
Advance Wars: Days of Ruin
Mega Man Battle Network
Mega Man ZX
Mega Man ZX Advent
Xenoblade Chronicles 3
Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna - The Golden Country
Xenosaga Episode 1: Der Wille zur Macht
Xenosaga Episode 2: Jenseits von Gut und Böse
Xenosaga Part 3: Also Sprach Zarathustra
Xenoblade Chronicles 2
Bayonetta 3

Fear Effect 2
I dunno if these games are considered PS1 classics but they damn well should be in my opinion, this feels like Resident Evil with Cell Shaded characters and pre-rendered backgrounds cranked up so high some bosses are literally you fighting an FMV cutscene lmao, sprinkle in a little smidge of point of click puzzle shit and you have a pretty unique mix I'd say. But whereas Resident Evil is basically B-Movie Science fiction this starts of that way and then gives way to full on Ancient Chinese mythology, lore and superstitions, demons and going right to hell and back.

I'll say this again, the first is a better game overall but FE2 is still that game despite the fanservice, hopefully people see past that stuff by now…(also FeelsMatureMan because I used to be all about that back in the day, now I'm like fuck that show me more of Hana concerned about Rain's wellbeing. Not that they act too much like an actual couple in this, at least at first)

Hana is up there with the Aya Breas, Jill Valentines and Reginas of the PS1 era, she's so cool man.

Borderlands 3
A Plague Tale: Innocence
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
Call of the Sea
Elden Ring
Monster Hunter: Sunbreak
Tacoma
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
What Remains of Edith Finch

Oxenfree

Great stuff. Atmospheric, absorbing, and well written and constructed.

I’ll probably try Afterparty (also by Night School) on the strength of that, and am already looking forward to Oxenfree 2.

Borderlands 3
A Plague Tale: Innocence
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
Call of the Sea
Elden Ring
Monster Hunter: Sunbreak
Tacoma
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
What Remains of Edith Finch
Oxenfree

Stories Untold

To say too much would be to spoil it, but I thought this was great. It perhaps doesn’t quite maintain the quality of a very strong opening, and at times the novelty starts to wear off, as it struggles a little with the limitations of its self-imposed boundaries, but it’s a thoughtful, well-crafted and atmospheric little curio, that will stick with me. Impressive work indeed for something that isn’t even a walking simulator, so much as a sitting simulator, at least for most of what is already not a lengthy game.

Sonic Frontiers -4.5/10

Wow! Where do I begin? Sonic Forces rightfully got a lot of hate. One of the easiest things to spot in that game was the lame custom character you make, but that wasn't the problem. It was mostly the fact that the stages were beyond terrible. Really short, reused levels sections from previous games, no original stages, no multiple paths and awful character movement. All of this is back in Sonic Frontiers and brings even more terrible ideas too. The big new game changer is the new open world maps you explore. Each and every one of them is as big and dull as the last one. Massive open fields of grass and sand filled with ramps and rails that look out of place. No sense of anything or anyone living here. Just a big playground made for Sonic. Honestly, Sonic adventure had a better design open hub world than this. Why they didn't choose to create popular themes like Mushroom hill, Green Hill zone or cityscape as a base to work off I don't know. There's 100's of collectables you'll need to get to progress through the game, and the best way to describe how it works is if you take away the campaign and side quest of Batman Arkham City or any of the Assassin's creed games, and just have the riddler challenges or flags (if the flags are still in it, been awhile since I played Assassin's creed) as the core game. They added a battle system which isn't the worst thing in the world but repetitive. Completed this with all the achievements and not once felt hyped. It's missing the Sonic charm with gameplay, music, characters and story. Really miss moments like the killer whale from adventure in the first stage, snowboarding down a city or even using different powers ups in colors. I really can't see myself coming back to this game at all in the future like I can with the other Sonic titles. I always like to jump back into older Sonic games because there's a few timeless stages and leaderboards to compete in, Sonic Frontiers doesn't. A lot of the sonic community disagrees with my take, but I'm seeing more agree now the honeymoon phase is ending. Be interesting to see over time how this game reviews.

legend of Tianding -7.5/10

What a lovely game this was. Pretty simple combat for a side scroller beat them up, but still fun with a good amount of platforming too. The Story was a pleasant surprise taking place in the 20th century fighting back against the Japanese laws. If anyone has watch the IP man movie's, it's kinda got that vibe to it. Definitely recommend and it's on game pass too.

Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart
Looked glorious throughout, but never quite had the snap and finesse of the series at the top of its game (or Jax/Sly for that matter). Some frustrating sections bled a bit of goodwill and the fight at the end was so similar to so many other fights at the end of videogames (and presented the usual sort of challenge) that finishing it was more of a relief than a moment of catharsis. But the best bits are very good. The characters are good (though many seem quite world weary). And it looks amazing in places.

Monster Train
The main thing I've used the Steam Deck for. After 100 hours, I'm probably ready to move on. Covenant Rank 25 completed. Huge swathes of the game/DLC unlocked. It is better than Slay and anything else in the genre, mainly because the speed to ramp up difficulty when higher level Covenants engaged is excellent. Slay is so fucking slow in comparison. My slight issue is that certain archetypes are pretty easy to get and winning with them is pretty much guaranteed. The last couple of levels on the Covenant ladder I wanted to grind out with my favourite archetype, but in the end switched to another just to finish it off. This has been such a mainstay on the Deck for me it's hard to find something else to engage with, with the same sort of pick up and play feel. I'd probably happily keep playing just the daily challenge over and over, but do feel it's time to explore something else.

Monster Train
It is better than Slay and anything else in the genre

Hurrah! For once we agree on something. I think this is a tremendous game, snappier and more varied than Slay the Spire, and the DLC really adds to it. It never seems to get the recognition it deserves.

I'm afraid your comments on Andor mean we have a long way to go.

Monster Train
It is better than Slay and anything else in the genre

Hurrah! For once we agree on something. I think this is a tremendous game, snappier and more varied than Slay the Spire, and the DLC really adds to it. It never seems to get the recognition it deserves.

I've been saying this to my hardcore Slay friends for weeks. They don't believe me.

Sonic Frontiers review
@BeanyFGC whoa, I was just about to post here that I will be getting this for Christmas, everything I've seen and heard looks fantastic, especially the combat. (The boss themes go insanely hard)

Hope I'm not disappointed of course.

I think my opinion of Slay The Spire is similar to Gar's opinion of Andor. I do not get what people see in it and it is so slow.

I really enjoyed Slay until the first time I got to Act 4, which I quickly realised would require time and patience to deal with, neither of which I have much of at the moment. Knowing that was waiting at the end of each "successful" run put me off the whole thing. Nice journey to get that far though. I really should give MT a go given most of you lot seem to love it, just haven't got round to it yet.

I bounced off Monster Train pretty quickly. I felt like it just had too much going on and didn't explain itself particularly well. (It might not have helped that I was playing on console, with the associated control compromises.)

Slay the Spire is still one of my favourites, though. Until Marvel Snap came around on Steam, I pretty much always had a Slay run ready to hop into for a few minutes.

I think Monster Train neatly streamlines stuff that takes far too long in Slay. The initial few fights are too slow and pointless, and having a single character and deck is nowhere near the intricacies of the three floors and multiple characters of Slay (as well as the mixing of two clans to generate unique combos of cards). It also does pad controls far better - all 100 hours of Slay for me have been on pad (I can't even play it on mouse keys now). MT also has a fast mode that is genuinely fast (even Slay's fastest speed is glacial). I don't think Slay is bad, but the more you play Monster Train the more difficult it is to go back to it as it is very bland and treacle slow in comparison. I do think MT has a far higher bar of entry to understand its complexities though, so I can quite see people being put off from a couple of plays.

I wasn't entirely taken by Roguebook, Inscryption, Pyre or Thronebreaker in my search for the next thing, but I'll probably settle on one of them. MT 2 would be the dream though.

Sonic Frontiers review
@BeanyFGC whoa, I was just about to post here that I will be getting this for Christmas, everything I've seen and heard looks fantastic, especially the combat. (The boss themes go insanely hard)

Hope I'm not disappointed of course.

@Alastor

I hope you enjoy it, and yeah the boss fights are one of the best things about it. Still not a fan of the music and the boss fights feel janky as hell. I forgot to mention them. I'm excited to see what you think of the game. Like I said before one of the many things I hate about it was the lack of "Sonic fun" and unfortunately Amy's character is badly effected by this. As a member of the Amy Rose fan club, I thought you should know beforehand.

Still not a fan of the music

I listened to the OST on Youtube and I'm like 'I'M HANGING ON TO THE OTHER SIDE' in my head all day lol

Undefeated. Yeah, it's by kellin Quinn the singer from Sleeping With Sirens. A band you should check out if you like this song. Me and my wife have gone to see them live a few times now.

Okay Monster Train is great. I've only done two runs so have zero clue what I'm doing, but the amount of potential synergies is obvious already.

I cocked up my last run with a stupid artifact, but excited to do the next.

A Plague Tale: Requiem

Nearly ditched this halfway through and I'm very glad I didn't, although I do wish I'd just put it on the easiest difficulty from the start. It's a much better game on Narrative difficulty and it's still tough enough that it doesn't need that extra level of frustration that the default difficulty level brings..

Overall this game is really quite an impressive thing ("spectacular" isn't quite the right word for something so unrelentingly grim). In fact it does a bit of a bait-and-switch by making the first few levels quite similar to the first game, but then it really goes places. The scale of this is simply huge and it ends up as a kind of three-way hybrid between A Plague Tale: Innocence, Uncharted, and Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice.

It's also the best-looking game I've seen so far on the Series X: there are scenes in the latter half of the game which are simply astounding. The lighting throughout is exceptional. If you've got a 120Hz TV then the game runs at 40fps rather than the usual 30, and the difference (especially now it's had a performance patch) is quite significant: I'd be happy to play more games with this combination of image quality and smoothness. It's a shame that the characters' somewhat bland facial expressions can't match the intensity of the vocal perfomances, but in every other regard this is a real looker.

The ending is quite something too. I need to go and play something really light-hearted for a bit now though, just to decompress.

Dead Space 3 -6.5/10

This one is a bit to weird to rate. It's a decent game and tries new mechanics but most of them don't work for me and it takes aways what makes Dead Space so great. I had to double check if this game was using a different engine from the last two because the shooting just felt off. I think it's down to how the enemies react to being shot. It doesn't seem to have the same weight behind the guns like the last two games. I don't know though, maybe it's just me? I did enjoy the new optional missions during the campaign though. Combined that with the new loot system to craft weapons, it works nicely as a good reward. Having a crafting system unfortunately adds a lot of issues to the game though. Like the flow of the game is just too focused on action rather than a survivor horror. You'll never run out of ammo and health packs. So there's no reason to shoot for limbs as much because you really don't need to save on bullets. Not that you'll have much of a choice because of the amount of enemies and how fast they are. It feels more like Left 4 Dead than Dead Space. One of the lowest parts is enemies that use guns to shoot at you meaning you'll have to take cover. This is the part that feels like it's having a midlife crisis. The game doesn't know if it wants to be Gears of war, Left 4 Dead or Dead space. They added a lot of character to Isaac on the second game with him now taking and he continues to do so in this one. I don't know if it's because the story is underwhelming with a pointless love triangle but Isaac is really annoying in this game. There's fun you can have with Dead Space 3, but it's mostly came across as a generic third person shooter by the end.

Kuro no Kiseki
Pokemon Legends Arceus
To The Moon
Elden Ring
Death Stranding
Chrono Trigger
Advance Wars Dual Strike
Chrono Cross
Radical Dreamers
Panzer Dragoon Remake
Panzer Dragoon Zwei
Panzer Dragoon Orta
Panzer Dragoon Saga
NEO: The World Ends With You
SaGa Scarlet Grace: Ambitions
Dino Crisis 2
Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the World
AI: The Somnium Files
Advance Wars: Days of Ruin
Mega Man Battle Network
Mega Man ZX
Mega Man ZX Advent
Xenoblade Chronicles 3
Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna - The Golden Country
Xenosaga Episode 1: Der Wille zur Macht
Xenosaga Episode 2: Jenseits von Gut und Böse
Xenosaga Part 3: Also Sprach Zarathustra
Xenoblade Chronicles 2
Bayonetta 3
Fear Effect 2

Pokemon Violet
This is the most conflicted I've felt in a while, on the one hand this is the best Pokemon game since Soul Silver for me, it completely eclipses the foundations laid down by Arceus (despite some disappointing rollbacks in the gameplay) on the other hand, it looks and runs like shit and despite how much I enjoyed playing it I don't really want to give Nintendo a pass for booting this out the door this year even if I managed to just get used to it, I kinda feel I shouldn't have to? I feel like if I say 'I enjoyed it so much I forgot about the flaws' I will be saying 'Please release the next game and don't worry if it feels like this one' and I dunno' if that's the message I wanna' get across…which literally doesn't matter because this game sold more copies than anything ever combined so er, not holding my breath.

It's an open world Pokemon game, it's like Breath of the Wild in that it starts off saying 'Defeat Ganon' except this time there's three good, worthy of praise separate storylines to complete in any order that you like. If you don't want to do this you can literally just circle the entire map and go on a catching spree, and I think the roster of Pokemon isn't bad this time.

On a completely different note, there's a post game that sounds like there's a fair amount to do here but man am I pretty burnt out from Pokemon right now, feels like I played Arceus not TOO long ago and I just feel completely stuffed. I might wait a few days before going back but I really do think in more ways than one this needed to be delayed until into next year. Sure I could have just not got it at launch but that wouldn't make it any more polished. Also Arceus sold great so it's not like it matters but steal it's Thunder much, Violet? If this is the future of Pokemon it's something worth being very excited about IF they don't release them in the same state as this.

I don't really want to give Nintendo a pass for booting this out the door this year

Tired of making this correction now. We didn't make this. It's a Game Freak/Pokémon Company game. We distribute, not develop. Whole thing is on their chosen timeline. Blame them, not us.