Invalid characterset or character set not supported The Big List of Games I Beat in 2021 pt.6





The Big List of Games I Beat in 2021 pt.6
July 31, 2021

In 2020, I decided I was going to stop buying new games and declare war on the backlog. Much like the majority of gamers, I own more games than I can ever play in a lifetime but countless games I want to play get shuffled further and further to the back while the endless stream of new stuff gets stacked on top of them. It was a success! Aside from cashing in steam vouchers over Christmas that I had received as a gift, I purchased exactly zero new games, and the backlog was sufficiently injured. Any current year games I played were at the behest of constant backlog enemy Jason Venter, who even now is plotting ways to trick me into playing more visual novels. THE GOAL: Do the same thing in 2021. Block Venter. Profit.

This update has been a long time coming because Jason finally succeeded and I took on a massive JRPG I never asked for and didn’t initially want.

//In Progress//

Xanadu Next started as a curiosity play. I didn’t have a decided next game, and this Ys-like dungeon crawler has the obscure oddity factor I lean towards. It was originally an N-Gage exclusive before Falcom shined it up, made sweeping alterations and put it out on the PC. It’s kind of brilliant; a low-key AJRPG metroidvania that gives you one huge sprawling dungeon then slowly equips you with what you need to pick through previous dead ends. I'm getting my arse handed to me by the third big boss right now. It’s a massive undead spider that fires thorax missiles. I’m having a blast.

//New Entry//


Edge of Eternity was the big one. I’ve been very 2000-ish in my games this year, oly pary by choice, because I seem to have gone on a bit of a Japanese game run. Still, this might be the most fun I’ve had with a JRPG since Lost Odyssey. It’s a shame the current PC version is an incomplete game; the main plot is all there, but it’s missing a lot of side and post game content right now, but it could be something special when it’s all been put together. The tagline pun is aimed at that, but might be too much of a thinker.
Review // yes


World Series Baseball Starring Deion Sanders’ most interesting feature is the startling absence of Deion Sanders. Whoever the bloody hell that is…
Review // begrudgingly


Yakuza Kiwami 2 is done. Dragged my overpowered arse up to the boss fight endgame, and caved everyone’s skulls in with dragon sticks, which I earnt from a street fight I only entered accidently. Very good game, updated to tie in to Zero more, but built more from Six’s engine. I’ve got more of the series to go through yet, but probably the best antagonist of the series for me thus far.
Review // yes.

//The Backlog Mortuary//


8Doors: Arum's Afterlife Adventure Last stage kicked the crap out of me, but finally beating it down was hugely satisfying. Excellent Metroidvania game based around Korean purgatory myths. Not usually my genre of choice, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Review // yes.


American Patriots: The Swamp Fox: There’s no win conditions attached to this game, so the only way to beat it is to stop playing. It’s a barebones horde-mode FPS that’s very limited in options. I’ve played it enough to be underwhelmed; I’m done with it.
Review// yes


The Beard in the Mirror: Goofy retro point & click openly inspired by Sierra’s Quest games. Got maybe halfway through a few years back, then stopped for reasons I no longer remember. Been threatening to go back and finish it for ages and now have.
Review// yes.


Chronicles of Cyberpunk: You know when a game’s been rotting in the library forever when you notice it has since turned free-to-play. Such is the fate of Chronicles, which is best described as bloody weird. It’s a dystopian low-fi walking simulator that obsessively cycles through all the cyberpunk tropes. Niche, but I liked it.
Review // maybe/next time I’m very drunk


Chronicle of Innsmouth: Mountains of Madness isn’t what I expected. I thought it would just be a case of maybe my favourite Lovecraft story being transplanted wholesale into the AGS engine, but it’s more of its own tale based around the Cthulhu mythos, which is pretty cool. Pretty short, but engaging enough. It starts strong and loses momentum throughout, so its short runtime is probably a blessing. Well worth playing.
Review // yes.


Cuyo: Simple, easy platformer with puzzle elements attached to a limited jump mechanic. Cute, but not especially challenging.
Review // yes


Dungeons of Naheulbeuk: Goofy fantasy parody story told alongside genuinely faithful D&D-built turn based strategy battles. It’s surprisingly good stuff. I didn’t expect great things from this when Jason randomly dropped it on me some time last year, but I put the hours in, got pretty far, then saw my progress get mercilessly deleted when the game updated to full retail edition, destroying all my review edition save files in the process. Took a break, started anew, and killed so many cave spiders. The little shits.
Review// yes


Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned: Gabriel has been my fallback series for when my PC blows up and I’m stuck with my decade old laptop to game on. Why do I have a decade old laptop floating around? Because games like Knight are arseholes to getting running on modern rigs, and their re-released games often have zero work done on them to change that. I found 3 to be the weakest of the series, but still quite worth the hassle.
Review // maybe if I ever finish the half-penned drafts of the previous Knight games.


Halo: Reach: I’ve beaten Reach before; I’ve beaten Reach several times, in fact, but I finally broke my buy no new games rule to get the Halo collection on a huge discount. What started as a dry run just to make sure Reach ran out OK turned into a full run through the game in Normal mode. Man, I still adore this game. It’s my favourite Halo by some distance. It’s so full of despair while the others are more or less a power trip. Thinking about re-reviewing it. We’ll see.
Review: pre-existing


Insanium: Heavily based on a very old game I really dug, so it’s an easy bet to say I also dug this. Sometimes it takes the homage too far rather than risk trying to make a real go at a unique spin of an old idea. In space, no one can hear you copy and paste.
Review // yes


Loop Hero is an oddity of several genres mixed together with a purposefully dated aesthetic that shouldn’t work, but does. It’s a game I thought I was only playing in little bubbles before I noticed Steam had recorded 30+ hours spent in the game. It’s a weird punishing grindfest that’s also forgiving with clear progression provided at the same time. It’s kind of brilliant.
Review // yes


Lost Words: Beyond the Page is the story about a girl writing a story, and how both of those things are affected by the sudden disruption in her life. It’s packaged as a 2D platformer, but it’s more about solving easy puzzles based around using keywords to manipulate your surroundings. As a game, it’s decent enough, but it’s the writing and the voice acting that are Lost Word’s main strength. Absolutely not for everyone, probably more of an experience than it is a flat out video game.
Review // yes


Narita Boy: Genuinely enjoyable throwback game that is happy to flirt with our nostalgia of 8/16bit gaming, but still does its own thing. Really enjoyed it, and has a synth OST that'll unassumingly blow your mind.
Review: yes


Sarawak: A simple text adventure game that took me about an hour and a half to play through. You progress by solving simple puzzles or by advancing conversations. It’s over before it begins and the ending is a bit of a damp squib, but I enjoyed it. Puzzles were never hard enough to rage quit over, but often not easy enough to be a mere triviality.
Review// yes


Tokyo Xanadu eX+: Finally beat this game. And then I beat the post-boss chapter to unlock the true ending. AND THEN I beat the eX+ after game chapters to finally wrap everything up. Phew! I’ve been picking away at this game since the start of the year, and it’s had to take a back seat to games I’ve had to beat there and then, but it’s been a blast. JRPGs used to be the main staple of my gaming diet and while having less free time in my life has put an end to that, it’s nice to revisit.
Review // probably


Utawarerumono: Prelude to the Fallen: Half visual novel, half turn based strat, I fell in love with this weeby nonsense around 2004-ish when I spent many days downloading the original game and fan translation on my trash desktop cobbled together from bits of other people’s desktops they no longer wanted. I’ve bitterly watched as first Japan and then smug Sony owners mocked me with their ability to play the sequels and then the re-re-release, but my time is finally now!
Review // yes


Voyage: It’s a fun little cinematic adventure that tries to do a few things differently, but fails to really commit to them. It isn’t a long game, but it crams a lot of its hand painted world into its somewhat short runtime.
Review // yes

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