Refind Self: The Personality Test Game

• Genre: Adventure
• Spoiler Free Review: Yes.
• Time Played: 2 hours
• Too Short/Long: Fine for what it is - but I wouldn't have minded a bit more.
• Soundtrack: Some cute tracks, but relatively low key stuff.
• Pleased/Disappointed: Pleased.
• Why I played: I just really liked the art to be honest. Also I always liked doing "personality quizzes"
• Did I cry: Nah, it didn't really get deep enough into it, even if it was trying to be touching.
• Recommend to others: I would for the simple fact I want to use the little comparison feature in the game to weigh peoples diskette against mine and see how we did things differently. The most fun part of personality quizzes is seeing how your result stack up with your friends. 

Refind Self is what it says it is, a personality test game, it wraps the "test" up in a little adventure of a robot girl, going around a town, doing some tasks, as you do them you'll uncover the story. Well maybe, I supposed you could get through without uncovering anything... depending on your personality.

That said the game wraps up pretty quick, it gives you some options to extend the game time, but to "fully unlock" your personality, and "finish" the game, you have to play through at least three times. Since your first run or two will allow you to discover more options, you can really focus on what you want to do in that last run, and just maybe "see everything" in that given amount of time.

Your actions will be judged, and compared to I guess every other player that has played the game while online? Some neat stats, and even though a lot of them may end up being "most common choice" the fact that you chose to perform that action at all, is a choice. I thought I was going to get all the most common personality types based off my stats, but it turns out none of them were common - not quite the least common, but I think it's an interesting analysis into how differently people approach games.

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown

• Genre: Action Platforming
• Spoiler Free Review: Yes.
• Time Played: 37 Hours
• Too Short/Long: This definitely could have been a good 10 hours shorter and not been any worse for it.
• Soundtrack: Nothing too special. Not bad, just kinda generic setting appropriate orchestra.
• Pleased/Disappointed: Very pleased overall. 
• Why I played: I heard it was actually a pretty good metroidvania, so I checked out the demo and picked it up sometime later.
• Did I cry: Nah, though there is some story drama, nothing really sad.
• Recommend to others: I would put it pretty high on the recommendations for metroidvanias, especially those who like both a challenging combat system based around perfectly times parries, knowing when to dodge, and when to use other abilities to out maneuver your opponent, AND precision-based platforming.

I've never really been a fan of the Prince of Persia series. Generally speaking, it's just not my style, but I like "Exploratory Action Platforming" or "Search Action" games a lot and it's been some time since I sunk my teeth into one. Maybe because a lot of them were blending together? Maybe just because I've been playing more RPGs lately. Regardless, The Lost Crown really scratched an itch. I almost want to say it's "more" than your standard metroidvania. There is just so much detail and thought put into the navigational mechanics, the level design, and the combat that it really feels like they blended together a few games that would usually independently focus on one of those points more than the other.

A lot of similar style games come down to "hit the enemy", and even if you have different ways of doing that, it doesn't really change the dance of combat - outside of maybe boss battles. Some similar games that focus too much on the combat, face the problem of just every battle becoming a grueling experience. The Lost Crown walks that line but maintains a balance to keep things mostly quick paced, while allowing you to feel the satisfaction of power scaling as well. Even to the end, it felt like I was more powerful, but I could fail if I didn't give it my all, but of course, mechanics came much more naturally as well.

Crystal Project

• Genre: Platforming RPG
• Spoiler Free Review: There isn't really much to spoil in this game.
• Time Played: 85 Hours
• Too Short/Long: It's a little long for what it is if you are trying to do "everything" because of the immense amount of exploration, if you're less of a completionist, it's probably not too long.
• Soundtrack: As far as I am aware, it uses entirely free stock music, but I feel like the creator of this game managed to find a handful of artists whose style perfectly emphasized the setting. Despite some most generic rpg beats, there are a few bangers I'll be listening to down the road.
• Pleased/Disappointed: Very pleased, I liked this way more than I expected.
• Why I played: I had a friend point it out some time ago and while the idea of a platforming RPG seemed neat, I wasn't exactly in a hurry to get a game that kiiiinda looked like Minecraft a little bit. It came back up on my radar in some youtube video and I was like "you know, that does look sweet.
• Did I cry: Probably one of the few RPGs I can say I didn't. Mostly because the story is pretty sparse.
• Recommend to others: I definitely would recommend to anyone who likes a good classic style japanese rpg. Like someone who can play any old Dragon Quest or the few Final Fantasy games and get something out of it. 

Crystal Project was a lot of fun. It's a big open world, turned-based RPG filled with platforming, and a good bit of that which requires some very precise navigation. While I would say it's mainly an RPG, the platforming aspect should not be understated. You just will not get everything out of this game if you expect to just walk around from encounter-to-encounter. You need to not just be willing, but eager to explore. It's almost as if it was designed by someone who like to go beyond the boundary of games, someone who likes to see if they can glitch to somewhere they're not supposed to be. You have to want to try to jump on everything - even things you wouldn't expect the game to expect you to.

UFO Robot Grendizer - The Feast of Wolves

• Genre: Action
• Spoiler Free Review: Yeah, unless you look at the screenshots too closely.
• Time Played: ~10 Hours
• Too Short/Long: It feels about right.
• Soundtrack: There are some classic tunes when the action is going on, something I'm sure is nostalgic for fans, but either way reminiscent of old timey action super robots, but nothing mind blowing. Interestingly there is no music when nothing is happening, so you get to hear a lot of Grendizer's feet stomping. 
• Pleased/Disappointed: Very pleased actually, despite it's jank.
• Why I played: A handful of mech games came out last year, in fact another that featured Grendizer - Megaton Musashi. I often tell people I'm more of a "mech video game" person than mech anime person. Here you have the best of both worlds.
• Did I cry: No.
• Recommend to others: I think anyone I would truly recommend it to has already played it. It's also too broken and too budget for me to really want to go out on a limb here. But if I ever hear someone mention liking Grendizer, likely the first thing I will then ask them is, "Did you play The Feast of Wolves game?"

Grendizer surprised me a good bit. Not that I expected it to be bad, which in some senses, it really was, but I didn't expect to enjoy it quite so much. I thought the combat would be a bit more basic, and I didn't expect as much variety as they provided me with outside the standard gameplay.

After playing a good chunk of Gundam Breakers 4 and Megaton Musashi this past year, I expected something more along the lines of them. A pretty basic combat system where I just spam things as much as possible, in a linear path or single combat arena. Nope, instead Grendizer offers a pretty unique enemy "shield" that forces you to alternate your attacks in a less spammy way. It also offer some, maybe simple, but challenges none the less, that require you to run around, act quick, use ranged attacks, etc. If that wasn't enough, between stages you're likely to get a shoot 'em up or even on-rails shooter sequence. I think in at least one instance, both back to back. They're not so involved or long that they detract from the main game, but not so simple they feel pointless. It's a good balance when compared to the rest of what the game has to offer.

Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind

• Genre: Beat 'em up
• Spoiler Free Review: Yeah, though I don't really think there is anything to spoil, either.
• Time Played: 3 Hours
• Partners: Alice, Taylor, Brandon
• Too Short/Long: It feels about right for a more or less standard beat 'em up.
• Soundtrack: While there are some really good Power Rangers tracks, it's not doing anything too special with them. 
• Pleased/Disappointed: A little bit of both, I had fun with it and am glad it existed, but it wasn't all that ambitious.
• Why I played: I love the Power Rangers franchise and the timing of this release was really perfect, following my personal Power Ranger Renaissance era.
• Did I cry: Only because of how bad I was at at Megazord combat.
• Recommend to others: It's hard for me to actually recommend it. There are many better beat 'em ups. But there aren't many better Power Rangers games, so it's fun having some... not bad Power Ranger content.

Rita's Rewind kind of pulled a 180° on me. I was pretty hype seeing initial trailers and such, and thought this was gonna be the best beat 'em up in years. Better than Shredder's Revenge, maybe even better than River City Girls 2(no hope to be better than the first though). It was not.

It was fine. It was serviceable, and there is some fun stuff in there for Power Ranger fans. But it's not gonna blow anyone away. It's more or less what you'd expect from an older licensed title. More or less standard fair with a Power Rangers coat of paint.

There character don't really control or act differently, they pretty much all have the same exact move sets/stats/handling etc. So who you play is only for aesthetics. The Megazord combat leaves a lot to be desired. It's actually pretty similar to Divine Dynamo Flamefrit which I played not too long ago. Instead you have to chase down your opponent and there is no shooting, so it grows a little tiring. Maybe this actually would have benefitted from playing single player? In multiplayer you alternate turns for the Megazord, and maybe it just took us out of the groove. Still I can't help but feel like they could have mixed up the gimmicks for the different fights.

There are also individual Zord, and motorcycles sequences, so between the 4 different types of gameplay, it does a good job at mixing up the content. It's just all imperfect. I can't help but feel like each aspect is just missing that one thing to make it much better, and there is often too much happening on screen to see what's going on, creating a downward spiral of messing things up.

Still, I had fun with it, even if it could have been a little frustrating and wasn't as inspired as I hoped for.

Game Completion List 2024

Compared to last year, this list is much shorter - I just barely squeezed in to my "average goal" of 30 games a year. The past few years I've exceeded it quite a bit, but this years game list was comprised of around 50% RPGs, depending on how you define the genre. Surprisingly those seem to take up more time than action platformers.

 In order of completion:

1. Sea of Stars
2. Firewatch
3. 8-Colors Star Guardians
4. Tekken 8
5. Bat Boy
6. Final Fantasy VII Remake: Episode INTERmission
7. Astlibra Revision
8. Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth
9. Unicorn Overlord
10. A Short Hike
11. Odin Sphere: Leifthrasir
12. Stellar Blade
13. Signalis
14. Mayhem Brawler
15. Battle Circuit
16. Minishoot' Adventures
17. Xenoblade Chronicles 3
18. Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed
19. In Star and Time
20. Time Crisis
21. Moon: Remix Rpg Adventure
22. Doll Explorer
23. Sclash
24. Final Fantasy XIII
25. Final Fantasy XV
26. Visions of Mana
27. Metal Slug Attack Reloaded
28. Divine Dynamo Flamefrit
29. Metaphor: ReFantazio
30. Fantasian Neo Dimension

There are just a lot of games I wanted to get to this year that I just did not. I even revisited some of the games from last years "Games I played a bit of but did not finish" and continued to not finish. I have had them in a "high priority" list all year, but there was always something... higher priority. Not that some game like, Sclash, was a high priority, but sometimes your spontaneously play a game, and you just happen to play it long enough to finish it.

Some of the games I played the most this year, like Halls of Torment, don't even get to be on this list because I haven't beat it. Can you beat it? I mean technically I "beat" all the levels, so is there ever a credit roll? I don't even know, but I guess I have to keep doing stuff until that happens, because it could just be hidden behind one of the many things I've yet to do.

That's kind of a problem with some of the more procedural games, too. They're more of a "thing to do" rather than a game you expressly play with the goal of finishing. Like I'm sure "Slay the Spire" has an actual ending. I finished a run and even though it rolled credits they cryptically hinted at it not being the "real ending", and there are other characters, so I didn't log that here, as I don't feel like I "truly" finished it yet. But what does it take to truly finish it? I know someone who has purchased Slay the Spire 7 times and seemingly played it hundreds of hours. Does it truly take that much? Or is it just a fun game to play without the goal of ever finishing?

Yeah, so I got caught up in a handful of those, I like the Vampire Survivor-like games, and sometimes it's hard to tell when they are really over. Maybe I did finish something and just neglected to log it.

This year, 2025, which truly feels like a year that means I'm now actually living in a sci-fi-esque futuristic dystopia, except it's a lot less aesthetic and cool than portrayed in media of the 80's and 90's or prior, my goal is really just to hit the backlog I already had existing for 2024. This means some of the games I started in 2023 mostly, except now I'm also adding games I didn't finish in 2024, and games that have yet to come out. It's truly a never ending backlog.

So finally, my Game of the Year picks. Unfortunately for everything else, a new Final Fantasy VII game came out this year, so Rebirth takes it by miles. That said I also added/revisited some favorites. Odin Sphere already had the spot on my favorites list from it's original release, but Astlibra Revision just captivated me like no other game. I even started the rogue-lite-esque spin off Astlibra Gaiden: The Cave of Phantom Mist, but it's a bit repetitive and I grew a little tired of the procedure. I'll get back to it soon though(I say).

Other than that, I really liked Unicorn Overlord, Fantasian and Metaphor, but I don't think they're quite absolute favorites of all time material, for me. Final Fantasy 13 and 15 are both great if not flawed in very different ways, which is also funny because of their relation. I think too many people really focus on the... assets of Stellar Blade, rather than it's content as a whole and are otherwise missing what a great game that is.

Here is a compiled image of all those game yearly wrap ups. Even though the one I care about the most, Nintendo, doesn't include December. They literally show you a "by month" list that ends in November! It infuriates me! Fantasian would have been my second longest game played on Switch with a playtime over 85 hours. Plus, I played a few other new games here and there in December that go unaccounted for.