Author: opkij86

This will most likely be my last post in a while, the last one in this temporary
apartment at least!

Time really went by fast and next week will be the big one,
I’m quite nervous/anxious about it all, hopefully it goes well but I have had
quite some recurring dreams lately, haha! For some reason I only have half the
time to make the return move, about 50 effective hours instead of the 100+
it took last time… I have however spent the weekend storing a few (lots of)
things at my mothers place who Luckily lives very close, I really don’t like my
items to be spread out across three different apartments but it can’t be helped.

Oh well, most preparations should be complete by now,
including another trip to the garage and more sawing:

Another day spent painting on the balcony, this time much colder:

And finally a kitchen turned into a… paint-drying-contraption,
can’t wait to put them all into place soon:

Ready to roll, 12 moving boxes under there:

Lastly I wanted to show some actual games!
The yearly “Retrogathering” gave some nice additions:

(The magazine has a Xenogears article/miniguide)

Sure, half the items were pre-made deals with friends and a few cheap
duplicates but I was still surprised to find Castlevania at a reasonable
price and a Jade Cocoon for the collection! Overall I am surprised how much
the collection has managed to grow during the last weeks despite all the
moving costs, I keep promising Xeno items but there is still a few posts
left of chaos ahead, hehe.

—PART 3—

I’m alive! Barely.

Me and the collection are safely in place in the temporary apartment,
I would say it all went well but it has been some really intense weeks
since I last wrote. Firstly the move, I had an entire week to get it done
and I needed every hour of that week, a lot of 15 hour work days of me
walking back and forward, moving the collection slowly and safely over
the block/neighbourhood. Most people would probably find the method
ridiculous but I absolutely wanted to do it myself.
My brother helped me move the game shelves one or two at a time almost
as carefully on a transport wagon and the “normal” shelves and “normal”
moving boxes got transported by car.
Either way, I would call it my second worst week in life when it comes
to physical labor. At least I ate and drank correctly, something I did
not do that worst of weeks…

Nothing special about this apartment, I would never like to live on the bottom
floor but it really helped not having to use elevator, only a short staircase.
Also, missing a wall and having lots of windows would be a nightmare for the
collection.

This is how it looks at the moment, what a nice collection,
of not so rare boxes:

Not sure what else to say, all in all, no major problems, just a lot of work.
About 180 boxes in total, over 300m2 bubble wrap to protect everything,
that’s enough to cover the entire apartment in at least 5 layers, haha!

—PART 4—

As for part 4, I barely used a week to rest before starting my next project,
grind/sand, clean and paint the shelves!
Apparently I didn’t learn anything from that moving week and tried to work
myself to death with another 15 hour day…
After that I really tried to slow down but once I start something I just
can’t help it and a lot of 10 hour work days followed.
There was more work than expected and in the end I got close to 100 hours
before everything was done, PHEW.

My work space for 10 days, like I said a really large balcony,
bigger than my ordinary so I’m glad I did this now and not earlier.

As you can see, some parts really needed a repaint.
This is also one of the shelves that got cut shorter recently,
some of the bigger ones are terrible to move around yourself,
next to impossible without damaging the shelves or yourself.

I haven’t taken any good before and after pictures yet and mostly
the difference won’t even show on overview pictures but for me and
visitors it will probably be worth all this effort…
I was a bit worried about the paint at first but once it dried you
can barely tell it apart from the original color.

That’s that, the worst part is over but I do have a few more
smaller things I want to get done, planned and bought before
the return move.

Sorry that this turned into another building blog but such
is the fate of all collectors sooner or later it seems, haha!

The upcoming Monday will be the start of the actual MOVING part
of the… move so I wanted to give an update before that!

Most of my home is in boxes by now, the computer is obviously still
up and with sound and PS4 as well, also cleaning/building tools and half
the kitchen are left, things you need all the way until the end!

Since last time most of my time has actually gone into rebuilding some of the
shelves and selling duplicates and unwanted items.

A poor Xeno shelf turned into a tool shelf! Four of them needed to get shorter
in height and two… less wide, it took some work but I’m glad it’s done now.
Having to shrink the shelves is probably the worst part about the
move for me, hopefully I will be able to display most of the items as
before and hopefully it won’t look too bad.

While I had the chance I also made sure to do something I should have done a
long time ago, reinforce the larger/deeper shelves, they were never meant
to hold much weight but they almost bend under their own weight so I’m
happy to get this done at least.

There is one final and massive thing left, repaint ALL the shelves…
I really don’t look forward to that but as you might see in the picture it
is quite needed. It will be done during my time in the temporary apartment,
it does have a large and glassed-in balcony where I can paint.
I’m not too good with brushes so it will be a real challenge to reach
the corners on all these without messing up the back part.

Next up the sales, they have taken a lot of my time but it has been worth it,
thanks to all of you who have bought from me lately, the entire move should
be covered financially!!
That includes boxes, bubble wrap, tools, new upcoming shelves, paint etc.
There is just a lot of expenses so many, many thanks to you all!

Actually I even felt I could afford another really boring thing, protector boxes
for SFC games and a few other protectors I was running low or out of.
SFC was the highest priority since I have been getting so many of the
“strategy games” this year including a large lot a few weeks ago:

Just what I needed in the middle of the move, more things to clean and
repackage, haha. Oh well, they look nice now and will look even better
with protection and later in the shelves.

Wish me luck, next post will be from the temporary apartment!

Well maybe not THE worst but one of the things I have been dreading for years
is now taking place, it’s called…moving!

I have known about this move for a while but done my best to forget and
ignore it but now there is no way to do that anymore.

My entire neighbourhood is getting renovated and soon it will be my turn
for a temporary move while they upgrade everything from bathroom and
kitchen to paint and the electricity/outlets.

As you might guess this means the entire collection needs to move as
well and since they will need access to the walls/outlets
that includes the shelves as well…

Luckily I have/had a lot of time to prepare, step one was going through
all the SFC games, I test played, cleaned some and documented the
condition of over 200 RPGs in one week, what a week!
I can say that all of them work and as far as I could tell all still
had their battery memory intact. A few were to hard/slow to confirm tho.

A more effective but less pretty way to store them!

I just like this picture, pick a game, any game

A very light but delicate moving box of empty SFC boxes

Emptiness

The rest of the games were more straight forward to package,
I sorted out quite a few that doesn’t fit the collection and will be
sold (hopefully) to finance the move. There is quite some expenses,
aside from many many moving boxes and a ridiculous amount of bubble wrap
I will sadly have to rebuild the Xeno shelves to fit a new
ventilation system… I will also need to repaint and make some
adjustment to all shelves, buy some new ones in my other rooms etc.
there are just a lot of expenses adding up!

Once all the games, soundtracks, guides and other parts of the collection
were finally in boxes I saved the Xeno collection for last, I thought that
now would be my chance to finally display it all since
all the shelves were free!

…Sadly I will have to accept that I will never be able to display it all
at once, even with 150 foot of shelf space a lot of items are stacked or
hidden, not to mention all the cards and posters or the standees…
oh well it was a good attempt.

It has been quite exhausting packaging all these delicate items,
where there once was Xeno there now stands a wall of boxes:

Actually, by now there stands double layers of boxes, I finally managed to
take down the shelves yesterday with the help of my brother and sort out
the final cables into the last moving box, almost 100 of them… in that room.
We’ll see if I have the time to rebuild and paint the shelves before moving
but otherwise there is nothing left to to in this room.

There is literally nowhere to stand in there, a table and
couch filled with items are hiding somewhere in there too.

I really wanted to update and tell you all about what is going on
before I move on to deconstruct the rest of my home.
A true pain and I have already started to dream about
boxes and moving during night, haha!

Oh well, let’s see the positive sides, I will get a much nicer home
in the end and I also got to look through the ENTIRE collection,
sort some things out and clean places that you normally can’t reach.

I do have some new interesting Xeno items to show but they will
have to wait, expect more moving chaos for now!

Yes! With this simple image my long journey to a thousand BEATEN games
finally came to a close:

I actually beat it about one month ago but I have been too busy enjoying my
“freedom” to write about it, sorry!

Let’s talk about the 1000th game first, Chaos Seed, a very worthy game
of the title 1000th I should say. A SNES/SFC had to be the final one
of course and I wanted it to be a long/massive game and this surely
fit that demand too!

I actually didn’t include this in my SFC RPG collection until recently
because I thought it was more of a strategy game but in the end it really
is a mix of all kinds of genres including both strategy/RTS and Action RPG.

The main focus however is to BUILD caves (and crawl in them), you have
resources that you use to expand the cave, upgrade production, buy monsters
that fight for you etc. I am very impressed with how advanced the building
is and how well it works once you get the hang of it, it is a very complex
game and it has one of the longest tutorials I have ever seen but
especially on the SNES, luckily it is very well done and modern games
could learn a thing or two from it.

A big part of the game is also Feng Shui and how energies flow
between rooms, you have to think about what kind of room you put where
and how you connect them with corridors.

(notice the map in the lower left corner, you have very free control
over the size and formation of the cave)

Once you build your cave monsters will start to invade and destroy
your rooms, you can either set up monsters that guard your rooms at a
set path or run over and defeat them yourself, like I said the combat is
Action RPG with a pretty advanced moveset, the biggest downside in this
game is however the slowdowns, the SNES has a hard time dealing with big
dungeons, a main party of four characters and up to four more parties of
four members each, not to mention the enemies that can crowd the rooms fast
as well! Fighting the bosses are luckily a bit more pleasant and there are
some cool and good ones!

Most of the time is spent in the dungeons you build, the game is split into
chapters and it’s usually only one cave per chapter but sometimes you get to
visit a beautiful town like this:

I really like the town parts, really pretty and it’s crowded with NPCs and
animated animals in some areas which makes it feel very alive!

Overall there are some amazing pixels in the game and once again it’s really
“pushing” the SNES, as expected from such a late game, created by Neverland,
the team behind Lufia II after all! Same music composer too, what can go wrong!

Just look at these:

Anyway, this game has it all, I haven’t even mentioned the 26 different
endings or the part where the game turns into a classic murder mystery
when you get locked into an INN and have to figure out
who the murderer is, haha!

I really enjoyed the game but it would still be hard to recommend to
just anyone, it is long and it can be quite hard at times even if you don’t
go for all endings etc.

Here we have them, the whole family together:

Sooo, now that I finally beat 1000 games I can finally work on my top list and
return to all the favorites, what a dream. You can see all 1000 games in
the “Beaten Games” section. I probably don’t dare to post a top 1000 games
since I can already see it is going to be a very provoking list, hehe.
But I should be able to show you my top 100 and some more specific ones soon!

The title gave it away but this is just a short update to let you know that
I finally got all the latest Xenogears items!

I can’t wait to watch this Blu-ray, like said before, I have seen the concert
but this time will be in much higher quality. I’m also happy that I got the
extra postcard, my order was unclear if it was included or not, only the
first copies should have that one.

Elly arrived a while ago around her release but I didn’t post a picture then.

Last but surely not least, Weltall! It is finally here after all the delays and it
looks fantastic! I don’t have any exciting pictures of the figures but I do plan
a new dedicated Xenogears shelf later, you will just have to wait.
Let us also wait and hope for more GEARS being made into figures like this!

Hello everyone!

I hope everyone is well and looking forward to getting the Weltall figure soon,
I can’t wait to get it!

In the meantime I thought that I would share some updates on the
PS1 collection, maybe it has been a bit unclear but my main goal at the
moment is to complete my English PS1 RPG collection! It’s not as big of a
task as the PS2 collection was but most games have a higher average price
and considering the high import taxes from the US, it’s not an easy task
to get some of the titles.

I know most collectors and especially players prefer NTSC versions of
PS1 games but this is already a mixed collection so both regions are fine
as long as it’s English versions, just as with the PS2 collection.

Here are some newly added games:

I’m happy to have Parasite Eve II again, sold it years ago. Vandal Hearts II includes a Suikoden II demo, lots of II’s, hehe.

RPG Maker, Infinite potential RPGs, I never have to buy another one!

I haven’t played any of these, only seen a friend play some Dragon Valor and that seemed quite fun… back then.

This is a list of what I am missing, I will add the list to the Buying/selling list as well:

Beyond the Beyond
Blaze & Blade: Eternal Quest
Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain
Chocobo’s Dungeon 2
Crusaders of Might and Magic
Diablo
Digimon World ?
Digimon World 2
Digimon World 3
Jade Cocoon: Story of the Tamamayu
King’s Field
King’s Field II
Mega Man Legends
Mega Man Legends 2
Parasite Eve
Persona
Persona 2: Eternal Punishment
Shadow Madness
Shadow Tower
Tecmo’s Deception: Invitation to Darkness
Thousand Arms
Torneko: The Last Hope
Brigandine
Gauntlet Legends
Kartia: The Word of Fate
Vanguard Bandits
Monsterseed
Ogre battle
Ogre tactics
Final Fantasy Tactics
Grandia

Some of you might remember an old post like this, this time is not half
as crazy (phew) but I’m still very happy with this lot of games.
Since importing, especially cheap games is impossible at the moment
I asked my friend to get as many as possible from my wanted list,
I’m surprised myself I was missing some of these:

All THREE Full Metal Alchemist games, silly that we only got 2/3.

I really like the cover/art for the Juuni Kokuki game!
(Metal Saga and Okage are not too bad either)

Like I said, a mystery that I was missing all of the games
in the top row. The only non-PS2 game this time is the
Suikoden 1+2 port for PSP, a must in the collection!

That’s all for this time, I’m still missing a lot of
titles, (maybe 1/3?) but I’m very happy so far and I
will post my wanted list later!

Hello 2019!

It’s finally time, I’ve been looking forward to this,
the list of beaten games in 2018!

My goal was to beat 72 games, in line with previous years but it ended up at…
—113!!—
A new record without even trying, bah. But then again, I have really focused
on playing, no big cleaning projects this year, no LEGO distraction like
last year, no traveling etc. This leaves me at 970 beaten games in total and
should make reaching 1000 next year a cinch. Although, I have a very big
project coming up and a lot of the 30 last games will be long, Vesperia
and Kingdom Hearts 3 in January, Red Dead Redemption 2,
Pier Solar on Dreamcast to name a few planned titles.

Onto the list, top lists and more summary at the end:

—NES—

The Krion Conquest
Funny, only one NES game this year as well, a Megaman clone
where you have all weapons unlocked from start, some cool parts
but mostly a pain to play.

—SNES—

Incantation
I got fooled by the nice pictures on the back of the box!
A simple, boring platformer.

Pocky and Rocky 2
Finally beat it, a lot harder than the first one for me.

Lemmings
After all these years I actually beat it!! One of my
childhood games, i don’t know how many times I have tried
before but this time it finally went down! Apparently I have been only a
few levels away before but I don’t think the last ones are possible without
savetates, miss-clicking in the final stages is a real pain.

Romancing Saga 3
This is another one long overdue, tried it many times but I will never
be friends with the SaGa series and their battle systems.

G.O.D
This was a really nice one that took a surprising turn as soon as
you leave the nice “pokemon feeling town”. (You even have the bicycle)

Gulliver Boy
A simple short Action RPG, the story moves at rocket speed!

Psycho Dream
A quite easy action platformer with cool sprites, beat it twice,
the second time I knew about the run button…

Tenshi no Uta: Shiroki Tsubasa no Inori
Yay, this has been on my wish list a long time, now it got an English
translation! Some really odd design/balance issues where the game just
gives you free levels at set points in the story. Really nice enemy sprites
and character portraits, an okay plot, Motoi on the music and overall a
decent game. So happy I got to play it at last, now Dark Kingdom
is all that remains among the Wolf Team/ Telenet RPGs!

Aretha
Another unbalanced RPG that let’s you create the best gear an hour in!
Not much to say, a quite standard, nice little RPG, I love how
characters jump in and out of the party constantly, a nice mix-up.
A bit too much backtracking though.

Cyborg 009
Another uninspired Action platformer with some nice sprites.

Laplace no Ma
Wow, this should get its own post sometime, “horror” RPG with a lot of
nice ideas and cool elements, sadly random encounters and the extremely
unbalanced exp amount ruins it a bit but I still love it overall.

Mystic Ark
It almost brings tears to my eyes, I never thought I would get to play another
Enix game like this, I don’t want to compare it to Terranigma since that is in
another league but some of the ideas and quality is in there. This also needs
it own post but the game has one of my favorite locations ever, “The hub”,
reminds me om Myst and not something RPGs usually have.

Arabian Nights: Sabaku no Seirei Ou
This felt like half way to a “masterpiece” if they had another year of
development it would have been a true SNES classic but now it’s just
another RPG (with the easiest boss fights I have ever seen).

—GB—

Tail Gator
I heard it was good, it won’t make my top 700.

—GBA—

Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga
Why did I wait this long to finish this! A really great game, amazing
sprites, interesting puzzles and one of about 5 tile based games that
simulates height correctly (Alundra being the best example).

Mother 3
The first hour of the game is masterpiece class and will give
the game a high rank on my top 1000 but sadly the next 19 hours can’t
match that, it’s good but not as good as part 2.

Golden Sun 2
Another GBA game I started yeeears ago, better than I remembered
but a bit confusing with an open world and no real clues about what
to do. Still, as close as we get to Lufia 2 and I love how it
continues the first game as a true sequel.

—DS—

Hoshigami
Third time is the charm I hear. I have tried this once on PS1 and
once on DS, this time I choose easy and rushed through.
It’s odd how much alike all these strategy/RPGs are.

—3DS—

Dragon Quest 7
A lot of revenge and old projects this year, I have tried the PS1 version
before and started the 3DS version last year, over 100 hours spent
on this, PHEW! I like the idea about the islands and the mini stories
but the main story is just too weak and the length too lengthy.

—Switch—

Octopath Traveler
How did I not make a post about this game earlier, second best of 2018!
I spent 80 hours with it and enjoyed them all! It does have some minor
issues and I’m actually not a fan of the graphics, or rather all the
filters and stretching pixels over 3D objects and mixing and matching
sizes etc. But they do get the right feeling across and capture what
was good about the old games much better than Setsuna or Lost Sphear
ever did. Add amazing boss sprites, Bravely Default battles,
soundtrack of the year?, some really nice characters and we get…
a happy Xenocollector!

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Torna
I try to rush past this and hope no one notices the Xeno in the title, hehe.
The game didn’t add much more than the main game already told us.
15 hours of forced “side quests” and 3 hours of
repeated story from the main game.

—MS—

Zillion
The “Metroid of Master System” or just a password hacking game…
it was a bit interesting actually but I would not compare them,
very different focuses.

Deep Duck Trouble
Okay, I’m convinced, I got the wrong console as a kid, what graphics!

Master of Darkness
The “Castlevania of Master System”
Actually it is, a straight clone in fact, aside from the music
and maybe “lore” this one is probably better as a game.

Alex Kid in Shinobi World
Just a platformer, I don’t get anything out of playing this.

Golden Axe Warrior
The “Zelda of Master System” and again it really is… and again the
music is the only part where Zelda triumphs, haha, all these years
wasted on NES when there is MASTER SYSTEM!!

Golvellius: Valley of Doom
Look up the map for this game and the number of caves
it has, quite a pain to navigate this!

—MD—

Light Crusader
There are quite a few isometric RPGs on the Mega Drive, they are all quite
nice and this is no exception, some really cool puzzles that clearly use 3D
to work. Some bad hit boxes should be the worst to say about it.

—PS1—

Arc the Lad
Short, simple but nice. I don’t think I will beat part
2 and 3 though, they seem to be much longer and the
story was not interesting enough to go trough all that.

Resident Evil
A bit late to this party but I am quite
sure my experience would have been the same
10 or 15 years ago, or even on release, the
only good part was the level design, you really
get to know and find your way around the mansion!

Wild Arms 2
This was high on my wish list to play, a good but
far too long game, I think I saved the world four times
from four different disasters!? The first game remains the
best in this series.

Legend of Legaia
An interesting battle system reminding of Xenogears
but this one has not aged well and it had some really
hard boss battles.

—PS2—

Dual Hearts
I was fooled by Atlus! This was mostly a 3D platformer, not
an action-RPG!

Arc the Lad End of Darkness
This game had a very strange…structure to it, it seemed
like you should play it online and do quests or something.
Quite short, a hard final boss, just play another game.

Ephemeral Fantasia
If you beat this without a guide you should get a medal!
What a confusing game, I can’t believe I beat it even with a guide.
I can hardly describe it in words but it was a pain! The thing
that kept me going is the fact that I love the “groundhog day”
concept of repeating the same week over and over and doing things
differently to beat the bad guy and learning more about the
town/townsfolk.

Steambot Chronicles
Katamary Damacy the RPG? At least the controls work the same.
I had higher hopes for this but it was quite mediocre sadly. Quite short,
few locations and a lot of backtracking between the few.
Still, some nice and different ideas in an RPG.

—PSP—

Mega Man Powered Up
A Megaman 1 remake, it’s actually really good!

Gungnir
Yet another strategy/RPG, like I said with Hoshigami, strange
how alike they all are, good thing I like these darker stories
and battle style.

Hakuoki
I think this is the only true Visual novel I have beaten,
not too bad but I am surprised at how little it focused
on the romance and making choices.

—PS3—

Legend of Heroes Trails of Cold Steel II
I still have to consider this as the best active series out there
and can’t wait to play part 3 and 4. I didn’t feel like spending
90+ hours and do everything like in the first game but maybe
those extra hours made me like the first one a bit better.

Dark Souls 2
Worst in the series but I decided to complete it anyway.
This one included all DLC, the main game was really easy,
and most of the DLC as well but it did include two of the
worst/hardest bosses I have ever fought, FUME KNIGHT will
always have a special hate-filled place in my mind and heart.

—PS4—

Bloodborne
I can not believe this year was the first time I beat this, it felt like
ages ago. Oh well, the list does not lie, I stumbled through this easy game
in about 23 hours thanks to a broken attack/strategy I found early.
I later returned to the game to play the DLC and the things I missed,
glad that I did, that really added to the game and explained the story
but I still think that one attack is broken.

The Walking Dead a New Frontier
These games start to blur together, it was…good?

Lost Sphear
A lot of improvement from Setsuna but still not the
RPG of old that they aim for. The world map and
how you unlock lost places and set area effects
on the map was nice. I’m excited to see
what is next.

Shadow of the Colussus
Graphics are not everything but in this case, they are so good
it moves the game 100 places up my top list! Seriously, just
walking around and looking at the textures and models in this
is bliss. Every little bush and tree in this has more detail than
anything in the PS2 version. It’s on a new level. Sadly they need
to make a third remake since this one still has a worthless self
adjusting camera and bad controls overall.

Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance
Switching between characters could have been cool, now it’s just
annoying. The ending is the highlight and ties up all the loose ends/
recap everything before part 3 but it was a bit of a pain getting there.

Kingdom Hearts 0.2
It might only be a short story/ demo for part 3 but it still felt like
the best game in the series! If the main game is half this good I’m
going to be very happy!

Secret of Mana
I could say much about this but in short, some TERRIBLE music, the voices
feel really misplaced and I am disappointed that they didn’t expand the
story or even add any new content like a special boss. The graphic is fine,
it gives the same feeling as the original and the battles are also fine,
(with all the same imbalances etc. the original have).
If you play single player this version might be better thanks to being
able to set spells and items on shortcuts.

Uncharted Lost Legacy
I thought this series was done?
Oh well, the same as usual, this time even shorter
and better balanced, I’m happy.

Ni No Kuni 2
A big disappointment, worse than the first game in EVERY way,
yes even the battles, they seem better at first but it turns out you can end
every battle in two attacks and that’s just not fun, the first one at least
had some challenge.
+points for the Suikoden feeling of
gathering characters/building a kingdom/army battles.

Resident Evil 7
I enjoyed this one, some parts more than others but overall a good game,
the main problem is that they try to throw in EVERY horror element
known to man and it just gets ridiculous after a while.

Dark Souls 3
I have played this not once but probably 3-4 times and seen my brother beat it
twice as well this year. Seeing how bored I was with Dark souls 1 when that
was released I can’t believe how much of a favorite this has become.
Whenever I’m not playing anything else I just get the urge to return to this.
It’s just so fun and relaxing to play. By far the easiest in the series and
already the second time I played it, it was provokingly easy,
IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE HARD!!
I will be sure to get the DLC version in the future.

Shining Resonance Refrain
Of all the games to translate years later they choose this…
not terrible but very mediocre.
Very far below other games with “Shining” title.

Adventure Time: Pirates of the Enchiridion
I thought this would finally be a good game based on the cartoon but no.
It’s halfway there, the characters look good and have the right voices etc.
but as a game it is a mess, very buggy, very short,
very simple and uninspired. The battles are good at least!

Horizon: Zero Dawn
It starts out interesting but the story soon derails. I played on easy
and just smashed my way through with the spear,
it took less than 20 hours, more than enough of open world for me.

The Witcher 3
Okay, the world and a lot of the dialog is fantastic. But the combat
is some of the worst I have seen, how can you just ignore that and call
this “one of the best RPGs”. The first half of the game was a real pain
running back and forth in the exact same locations over and over,
doing quests for people you don’t care about.
The last 10 hours was much better and left me on a positive note at least.

Shenmue II
How does “disc 4” not get the same treatment as Xenogears “disc 2”!?
Either way that final “disc” was the highlight of the series by far.
A lot of improvement and less waiting around in part 2. I still don’t
get why you have so many attack combos when you can beat every
fight by just hitting one button over and over…

Dragon Quest XI
Game of the year and best in the series, by far!
Glad that this both lived up to and exceeded my hopes.
A big minus for the music sadly but everything else makes up for it.

Megaman 11
For me it’s just another Megaman, that finally got the weapon switching right.
I could just as well play any of the old ones and be just as happy.

South Park Fractured but Whole
More of the same, MAYBE I liked this one better, a better balanced
battle system is the big plus and collecting “followers” were
surprisingly fun too.

Adventure Pals
A simple Rayman clone, I would never have played it alone but co-op
is always fun.

God of War 4
The fact that Kratos suddenly is messing with norse gods makes it too
ridiculous for me… a shame because it is a good game, some really
nice level design, beautiful environments and if you would replace
Kratos it would be a very nice take on the norse mythology, they even
got the part with giants being born from armpits right!
As usual I had to lower the difficulty, I got bored with
the battles before the tutorial was even over…

—Xbox—

Star Wars: KotOR
If you like Star Wars and western RPGs this is a must. I’m not a big fan of either
but I really wanted to give this a try, it is clearly good even if it’s not for me.
I’m surprised at how good the sound and voices are to this date,
overall it really felt like being in the Star Wars universe.

Star Wars: KotOR II
Maybe the only game I have ever played as evil, it didn’t save as much
time as I had hoped and the game really felt rushed compared to the first one.

—PC—

Love
A simple but challenging platformer.

Kuso
A simple but challenging platformer, same as Love!

Snakebird
This is a really good and charming puzzle game about snakebirds,
more people should play this! Be warned, it is hard!

Knytt Underground
Words can not describe this game, it is made by a madman!
I thought I would go crazy while running around and trying to navigate
the ridiculously big metroidvania map.

Xanadu Next
Second rate YS? A bit unbalanced but still enjoyable.

Victor Vran
A Diablo clone…with wall jump!! It’s not bad but the silly voice over
feels very misplaced and lowers the score a lot.

Legend of Heroes Trails in the Sky 3rd
Weakest and shortest of the three games but still good, mostly some closure
for characters and events in the first two games.

Iconoclasts
I’ve been waiting so long for this, a platform game with focus on
puzzles and STORY. In the end the story really delivered something unique
and that and the animations really stand out. Sadly the rest won’t be as
remembered and it probably won’t make my top 100 but I am so glad that
the developer finally managed to finish this dream project after all
these years even though it put him in the hospital for a while, hehe.

Celeste
The game that overshadowed iconoclasts, sadly. If you want a real challenge
in a focused platform game, this is THE ONE.

A Boy and His Blob
What a nice little journey with a blob.

Spelunky
Hate it, but beat it, one of the most overrated games, I see no fun
in random generated messes like this.

Salt and Sanctuary
This is EXACTLY what Dark souls would be in 2D, surprisingly good,
the platforming adds a lot for me.

Gauntlet
It’s fun but Hammerwatch does everything better.

Chrono Trigger
I won’t name this game of the year or anything, it would be silly
but I am happy that they actually fixed most of the problems it had on
release, some still remain though and SNES remains superior.

Ara Fell
This makes me so happy, more than 99% of all RPG Maker games are
terrible, half-finished, use stolen resources etc. but this one is a truly
unique and a finished game that has some really nice ideas I never thought of
or seen in other games. Sure it still feels a bit limited thanks to RPG Maker
but still impressing and better than most AAA-games in my eyes.

Swords of Ditto
A time limit sadly ruins this otherwise nice co-op game.

Minit
This was a fun hour of a game but it would be even better with some graphics…

Kingsway
A true meta-game, look up a trailer, it’s an RPG-operating system or something
where you manage everything as if it was a computer. I actually liked it, I thought it would be a “fun idea terrible game situation”

Bloodstained Curse of the Moon
Surprise of the year? Man I loved this one, aside from music better than any NES game ever was.

Mighty Gunvolt
Barely a game, I run through it in no time.

Finding Paradise
I can’t believe how this series got connected in the end, really
beautiful.

Mini Ghost
One of the most simple games but still enjoyable.

Unepic
Quite boring level design and variation but otherwise not bad, I like the idea of lighting
an entire castle manually like you do in this.

Cuphead
I’m the only one who think this looks terrible, the animations are of course
amazing and very impressive but I’m not a fan of the style, or sound either.
I was surprised how easy this was, of course I died and had to re-fight
some battles plenty of times but I was prepared for much worse.
Oh well, some bosses were amazing!

Unworthy
Another 2D Dark souls, it might look simple and uninspired at first
but it is REALLY good, amazing bosses and some real challenges.
No jumping in this one, opens from the other side.

Firewatch
Walking simulator, it’s been a while since I played one.
Quite nice but nothing special.

The Vagrant
Clearly inspired by Vanillaware games, almost as good too,
just buy it if you like Muramasa, Odin Sphere etc.

Omega Strike
More metroidvania! Looks and plays fantastic but exploring doesn’t
feel rewarding at all, all you get is +1 coin whatever you do.
But give it a chance, it is at least good!

Chasm
Another loooong awaited indie title. It is at least top 3 good-looking pixels in there and overall it feels very polished and works really well. Sadly they just had to leave the level design to chance and randomly generate the game… that and the fact that they borrow TOO much from Symphony of the Night ruins it quite a bit, why do you have to use the exact same sub weapons and familiars etc.

La Mulana 2
The definition of hate-love, so many hours spent on these puzzles,
battles/bosses where a joke though after beating the first game on
HARD.

Crosscode
I LOVE the “overworld” and it’s level design, it is the best out there.
Be warned if you like to play this, you really need to like both
puzzles and RPGs because there are 3+ hour dungeons with just puzzles,
mostly good ones but if you don’t like them it is going to be a pain to play.
Amazing game overall but I did not need another .Hack story…

The Messenger
Nothing new, but it’s good. Better than any NES game, developers seems to
have finally learned what was good about old games and what was bad and
should be fixed with modern designs.

Slain Back From Hell
A terrible title and trailer made me not to want to play it,
but a friend said it was okay and it was!

Delta Rune
Yup, it’s Undertale 2. Still not a big fan but it has it’s moments.

Blossom Tales
Another Zelda-like, I never understand why they need to copy everything
including the bad parts… or why not even raise the challenge? Why make
the already easy Zelda games even easier? Oh well, exploring is still fun
and any Zelda fan should like this!

Void Memories
The worst 2D Dark Souls I have played, very unpolished.
It does have a few amazing bosses but not really worth
playing just for those.

Odallus
Another Metroidvania, more Castlevania where you can jump between stages
but still, a few Metroid references and designs too. Not bad!

Death’s Gambit
A bit more story focus than other 2D Dark Souls, I enjoyed this one,
far too easy but I had fun playing it at least.

Sonic Mania
Just another flipper simulator.

Insanly Twisted Shadow Planet
Oh this old game, it turned out to be a nice little game, the ring menu
works really well in this and even though it is short you really get to
use all abilities.

Rosenkreuzstilette Freudenstachel
Another Megaman clone with references to far too many games,
silly, yes, but I probably enjoyed it more than Megaman 11.

Usurper
More 2D Dark Souls, a lot of them this year. uninspired environments
but an interesting world with many odd design decisions in it.

BELOW
I was so happy when this got a surprise release this year but sadly
it turned out to be the biggest disappointment in years…
every design decision feels like the opposite of what I would have done
or expected of the game… The worst being the random generation of course.
The second half of the game is just the same room repeated over and over
with the same enemies and sound, it is a terrible, repetitive game.

Viviette
I’m a bit in love with this, like a modern version of Laplace no Ma,
it even has a reference to that game!
Some puzzles could be better maybe but exploring this horror mansion and
its perfect pixels is the best, a trailer won’t do it justice since it is
so dark most of the time but I am really impressed.
Oh, and the sound is really good in this as well.

Shantae: 1/2 Genie Hero
Just more Shantae, fun but also the easiest game I have played, seriously,
you get an upgrade that makes you INVINCIBLE. Standing inside the
final bosses and their attacks without taking any damage is not fun.

The Mummy Demastered
THESE PIXELS. It’s been a while since I played something that truly was
balanced and designed JUST like a Metroid but this is.
Sadly that also means very low challenge for those that explore,
I died once in the game, because I tried to…

Touhou: Scarlet Curiosity
Second…third rate YS? Still fun, I need to watch a speedrun of this,
you can move at a ridiculous speed and thanks to the balance in the
game you will still be able to beat it. Got the good ending to!

Timespinner
Final game of the year, a good end. Another metroidvania with
crazy good pixels, especially the parallax backgrounds felt like a
new level. This is another example where they just decided to copy
everything good and bad from Symphony of the night but somehow it
bothers me less than in Chasm even though this borrow even more.
Oh well, got all endings, 100% etc. Once again a far too easy game
for me, of course, this offers a hard option so I guess I will
replay it in the future.

That is that!
What a spectacular year, as you might have noticed very few games were
“fillers” Lots of quality games, long RPGs, long-awaited indie titles and
finished games started years ago.

This should be top 3 released:

1: Dragon Quest XI
2: Octopath Traveler
3: Iconoclasts

And this top 3 among the rest:

1: Dark Souls 3
2: Legend of Heroes Trails of Cold Steel II
3: Ara Fell?

The disappointment of the year was by far BELOW

Happy New Year to all, may it be filled with exactly 30 good games
and lots of Xeno items!