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Most of my favs were played on Switch, because I haven't owned a Nintendo console in years and I'm glad to remember why I loved them in the past. 1) Animal Crossing New Horizons I picked this up in January 2021 and it saved my sanity in the latter portion of lockdown times. It was great to actually see something change a little bit every day after being trapped in the house for months. ACNH has been an oasis of peace in hosed times, and the first game in many years that actually improved my wellbeing in a noticeable way. 2) Dragon Quest XI Last year I'd have never though that I'd play a JRPG again after a decade and a half hiatus, but this brought me around. Utterly charming, accessible, and breezily paced, I'm grateful to the devs for showing me the potential of the JRPG formula. The only negative is that it sets the bar so high! 3) Monster Hunter Rise It's one of the best action games I've ever played. The maps are stunners, the monsters are brutal, and the multiplayer is seemless. QoL improvements make it easy to pick up and play. A very good entry in a special series. MHR is a Big Game 4) Spelunky 2 As with RPGs, I had written off platformers many years ago and had not played any since the mid 00s. For some reason this one spoke to me, and training up my skills here led me down a rabbit hole to Castlevania, Super Metroid, and several other classics that I've ignored for years. Thanks Derek Yu! 5) Jupiter Hell I play more roguelikes than any other genre and this one blew me away. I love the art, the music, the build strategies, it's everything I want was in a modern roguelike. Totally kickass, just like Doom. 6) Shiren The Wanderer 5: The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate Another roguelike, and a very drat good one at that. The DS port of the first Shiren was my first roguelike win, and seeing the manifold updates and brilliant refinements on display here was heartwarming. This dev team has clearly thought A LOT about roguelike design and created something like a Swiss watch. I'm extremely impressed. The sprite art is fantastic too and the rococo level designs in the deeper floors really pop. I'm glad to report that the online rescue system is still highly active. 7) Monster Train Another feat of brilliant design. I love all of it, even the WoW art. Slay the Spire is still the king but MT was something of a relief to play since it doesn't stomp me into the ground as hard. 8) Caves of Qud I didn't play a lot of this in 2021, but it's always in the back of mind when I play other games. Qud is a big loving juicy steak of a game, filled with secrets, personality, difficulty, grace, speculation, community, comedy, and queer utopian bears. It's a look at post-catastrophe life without pessimism. A big chunk of lore was added this year along with many new features, including some big gains in accessibility and flexibility. The pinnacle of the roguelike genre imo and landmark among RPGs more broadly. 9) Chivalry II A lovely community and lovely performance did not stop me from giggling like a fool every time I booted this up. Chivalry II is a blast in spite of itself and I never walk away from a match dissatisfied. Combat and movement feel super heavy and crunchy, aided by some gnarly sound design. 10) The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening Remake This one brought me around to classic gaming, along with Spelunky 2 and DQXI. I've never been a big Zelda fan, despite trying several since the N64 era, but none of them hooked me like this did. The map is small enough to run across quickly but dense enough with content to keep you searching and thinking constantly. There's very little wasted space or down time, which was frankly a relief after 60 hours spent running around in BotW, which I finished shortly before starting LA. There's a tightness and directness to the design that I find so appealing. No need for padding out content or side quests, alternate endings etc, just an amazing interlocking toy maze. The soundtrack is awesome, and I love the graphical presentation.
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Dec 13, 2021 09:45
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| # ¿ May 10, 2024 16:04 |
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