No, no, I haven’t played Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 yet, so stop asking me. Okay, so no one is asking me that, but I do intend on playing it soon. I ordered the Mirror Edition through a certain retailer-who-shall-not-be-named back in October and said retailer just keeps pushing back the delivery date. Because they suck. While I wait for it to arrive so that I can see what the hype is all about, I figured I would sit down and yap about what I’ve been playing. Winter blew in hard and fast this year, dumping over a foot of snow on the sleepy little Illinois town I live in. The old memories of winter game sessions past have come back to haunt me, making me want a Chrono Trigger remake more than ever, but I have plenty of games to keep me busy in the meantime. Maybe more games than I could ever play, if my newly populated Backloggd account is any indication, but I’ll talk more about that at the end of this post. For now, let’s get to the games. As often is the case, there may be spoilers in the text or screenshots below.
Ghost of Yōtei
Ghost of Yōtei was my most anticipated game of the year. Ghost of Tsushima was a really exciting surprise when it dropped in 2020. The original trailer for Tsushima looked really good, but I was skeptical about the combat. Was it a typical slash and roll game? If so, it might have been fine, but it might have also felt generic and bland. Thankfully, it ended up having some of the most satisfying combat I’ve encountered in a long time. I’m getting better at parrying in games, but I still tend to prefer dodging or blocking. I took to the parrying in Tsushima immediately, though, and loved the feeling of a perfect parry, especially when followed up with quick slashes that took down several enemies in the area. Like the Power Glove, it was So Bad™.
Yōtei refines and builds on what made Tsushima great, so of course I also love it a lot. The change in combat systems from stances to different weapons didn’t feel all that different to me. In both, I’m just pressing a button to change how I fight certain enemies, though I did like the variety in weaponry and the different combos that came with it. As with the stances in Tsushima, if you’d explained them to me before playing I might have said that it sounds too complicated for my taste, but in both cases the game introduces them at a pretty easy pace, and I picked them up quickly. Especially later in the game, when I felt very capable, it was a rush to start eliminating enemies with stealth in a camp, then making a dramatic leap down onto someone from a high platform, switching weapons to quickly take out a heavy, switching back to katana to face off against a dude trying to strike from behind, and on and on. Sure, I’d get myself in trouble every now and then, but when everything went right it felt so fluid and graceful and fun.
Much of what I loved in Tsushima is back, like the adorable foxes, platforming shrines, and the many beautifully designed katana and outfits. I will say I was a little mad about how long it takes to unlock the black dye merchant, though. I got The Armor of the Undying, my favorite set, early in the game, so I used it for most of my adventures. When I got it, I thought damn, this would so sick in black. And it did… many, many hours later when I finally unlocked the black dye right near the end of the game. Sigh. I also wished there were more bounty missions. It’s such a simple premise for a side quest, I know, but I really enjoyed tracking people down and (usually) slicing them up. The Mythic Tales were even more enjoyable, with lots of fun legends and really artistic sets to explore. I do miss Jin’s haiku, but Atsu’s sumi-e paintings were fun to do and captured a similar kind of reflective tranquility.
Speaking of Atsu, the most obvious difference between Tsushima and Yōtei is the story. I don’t know how much value there is in trying to decide which lead character was “better,” but I love them both. Jin’s quest to save his homeland, even at the expense of defying his father and the samurai tradition, was amazing, but I do love a good revenge story. Tracking down these infamous interlopers as Atsu, many of them oozing with nefarious intent, and killing them one by one as I remind them of their evil deeds, was awesome. Particularly in the state of the world at present, when it’s so easy to feel powerless to everything going on, having the ability to stand up against violent oppressors felt very cathartic. [SPOILERS ahead] I do think the narrative feints near the end, weakening its impact, when it clumsily tries to introduce a “maybe vengeance isn’t the answer” message in and after the assault on Matsumai Castle. Astu’s choice between staying to kill the Dragon and flee with Jubei and Oyuki felt forced and arbitrary, as did the finger-wagging about revenge not being the answer after. They didn’t need Atsu’s help to flee, and she (we) had done far more to topple Saito and his leaders than anyone up to that point. Yes, Atsu’s revenge was supposed to be about her family’s deaths and the argument is that she has a new family that she is failing to protect, but what about the locals who are also being slaughtered and who are also cheering on Atsu as she fights to liberate them? I wish more had been done to beef up that conflict, between family obligation and vengeful justice, because when it seemed like I was supposed to feel conflicted as a player, I was not. I wanted my revenge and to take down this bloodthirsty invader.
That relatively small quibble aside, I loved Ghost of Yōtei just about as much as I loved Ghost of Tsushima, and I’m sad that it’s not really getting its flowers this awards season. Nothing beats riding my horse (Mochizuki) through fields of drifting flower petals, racing toward a mysterious forest that holds the story of a fallen samurai or vengeful spirit. The glance of an enemy’s blade as I parry and run them through. The chitter of a gleeful fox as it leads me to an undiscovered shrine. And I can’t forget my faithful wolf companion, who I fought alongside to free her compatriots and my own. There were some emotional moments in the game, but the one that got me the most was when I parted ways with my canine companion at the very end. Tears, man. So many tears.
PowerWash Simulator 2
PowerWash Sim 2 is definitely a “more of the same” sequel, but I am 1000% okay with that. The first game was such a surprise obsession for me that shaking up the simple formula of “see dirt, spray dirt” sounded scary to me. Luckily, the changes the devs made are mostly superficial or incremental, not revolutionary. They added a home base to customize, a few parts for the power washer, cosmetics, and (most importantly) more cats. Hell yeah.
As with the first game, I found a special kind of joy in the tranquility of steadily, methodically washing various objects and environments. You start slow, unsurprisingly, with a van, then a public restroom, then a campsite. You gradually work your way up to larger areas, like the outside of a gas station, a roller disco, and an outdoor adventure park. Just like with the first game, sometimes I would load into a big level like the planetarium and feel a sense of “oh shit. This is going to take forever…” But it only made the process and outcome that much more rewarding. I like starting at the “seams,” as I think of them: borders, corners, edges. It gives me an outline and separates huge areas into smaller compartments, which I then begin washing one by one. Sometimes I might step back and observe my progress, but often I’m so caught up in the process that I’m 80% done before I even realize it.
One of my favorite podcasts, Pew Pew Bang, had their own bespoke gaming awards this (their first) year, and one of the categories was “Best Game We Stayed Up Too Late Playing.” PowerWash Sim 2 would have won this category for me hands down. I’m already a night owl, but I would very frequently find myself getting lost in the dirty, dirty sauce as I blasted away layers of grime, only to snap out of it and look at my phone: 4:30am. Cool. Cool cool cool. But I loved it. I could listen to podcasts, talk to my cat, or just spin a playlist for hours and ultimately feel accomplished when I set the controller down. Plus, the weirdly deep and quirky story is back, with little sprinkles of humor and lore to look forward to at regular intervals. Will I want revolutionary updates in future installments? Maybe. For now, though, I’m content to keep spraying the night away with whatever new vehicles, buildings, and locations they give us. Also, not for nothing, I had two dreams about power washing things while I was playing this game. It infected my dreams.
Donkey Kong Bananza
My history with Donkey Kong outside of his appearance in things like Super Smash Bros. and Mario Kart is mostly limited to the original arcade games and the Donkey Kong Country games. I did play the original Mario vs. Donkey Kong, but that didn’t exactly feel like a true DK game. I loved the Donkey Kong Country games, though, so I should probably get around to playing Donkey Kong 64 and the other recent-ish 3D titles. That table setting aside, I really enjoyed my time with Bananza, even if it began to feel a bit long near the end (my playtime was about “65 hours or more,” according to my Switch 2).
It dragging on near the end could be my own fault, though. If you want it to be, Bananza is a big game. There are tons of bananas to chomp up, fossils to bash in, and outfits to unlock. I wasn’t taking a completionist route by any stretch, but I see banana, I get banana, even if I didn’t end up necessarily needing some of the abilities they unlocked. So I probably could have trimmed my playtime by 15 hours and made the final stretch, filled with a few final boss fake-outs, feel much less bloated. Big picture/length aside, I had a barrel blast (get it? get it?) playing this game. Smashing through walls, floors, enemies, and more never really got stale, and transforming into a hulking zebra or elephant to cause even more destruction or solve puzzles was a ton of fun.
The game felt great to play, I really liked the relationship between DK and Paulina, and [SPOILER] the reveal of the actual final boss to be King K. Rool was very cool. There were lots of easter eggs and nods to other DK games, like the retro DKC levels (hell yeah), musical motifs spliced with the new music, returning characters, and more. Also, I think I might have to start a series of posts called “I’m not a furry, but…” because there are enough animal-based characters that I find myself strangely attracted to that it should be noted for posterity. I don’t care, Poppy has got it going on. The attitude, the hair, the enemy-to-ally of it all? I’d let her donkey my kong, if you know what I’m saying. Nope, never mind, I don’t even know what that means. Anyway, Bananza was a great game and I can see why it received so many accolades this awards season.
Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater
I have a very clear memory about Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (PS2) that I’ve been meaning to write a Gaming Memories post about. I’ll do that soon, but suffice to say I had a great time with the original MGS3 and was very excited when I saw the first trailer for Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater. I’m on the side that is happy that it’s a 99% faithful recreation and not a reconstruction, like recent Resident Evil games. As much as I love those, I think a game like MGS3 has a certain charm in its silliness and occasional jank. I have seen some people complain about the ambiance lost with the removal of the kind of fuzzy haze that the original had (partially due to graphical limitations), but I like the clear, highly defined graphics and I’m not sure a modern game would look the same with that kind of nostalgic fuzz.
Either way, it was a lot of fun playing as Naked Snake once again. Some of it seems even sillier now than when I first played it, like Snake’s obsession with the most basic features of basic firearms and Ocelot’s infamous meow (which I had somehow scrubbed from my memory despite playing the original like seven times), and the thrill of the survival mechanics isn’t quite there after all these years, but it’s still a very fun, very unique game that I have tons of fond memories with. I still loved changing camo to blend in with different environments, the challenge of doing a non-lethal run, hoarding nudie mags like I do in real life and wait what, nevermind, I also loved seeing all of these familiar characters in super high fidelity.
One new memory I’ll share before I move on: The game opens with Snake starting the Virtuous Mission, HALO jumping into a Soviet forest in spectacular fashion. When the cutscene ended, I was in awe of my surroundings. The trees, foliage, etc. looked so good. Once I gathered myself and my gear, I moved to the next area: Dremuchij Swampland. I remembered this was the first area you enter because of the very goofy but also cute gavial crocodiles that skulk about. I can’t remember if you get the Crocodile Suit and Croc Cap from a pre-order or collector’s edition bonus, but I had it to start the game which was very cool because I don’t think I’d ever had it that early before. I could just cruise through this swampy area with that suit! I pulled the suit on, put on my cap, and started sneaking my way through the swamp by lowering myself into a crawl in the shallow water. Where I drowned. Immediately. In a croc suit and three inches of water. Sweet.
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
I’ve played most of the mainline Zelda games, but there are some glaring omissions in my play history, none more notable than The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Growing up an avid reader of video game magazines (and later websites), I frequently saw Link to the Past near the top of not only greatest Zelda games lists, but greatest games of all time lists. I think I missed it originally because I didn’t fall in love with Zelda games until Ocarina of Time on the N64. I liked the original The Legend of Zelda for NES and have a lot of nostalgic love for Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (the title screen and music still give me chills), but by the time I was bottling fairies and riding Epona in Ocarina of Time, Link to the Past felt dusty and outdated (this was the early days of 3D games, when this wasn’t an uncommon sentiment). I did try to play it via the Virtual Console on my WiiU at one point, but for some reason the opening, uh, five minutes(?) didn’t grab me so I moved on.
Determined to scratch this historically significant giant off my backlog before I dived into my copy of Expedition 33, I made it a point to actually get into it this time. And, surprise surprise, it wasn’t hard. I do own a copy of the SNES version, but I chose to take the easy route and play it on my Switch 2 via Nintendo Switch Online. Hey, I don’t feel at all guilty about using the handy rewind and save state features. When I finally crawled out of bed as Link and started to explore Hyrule, I was… slightly underwhelmed? Maybe that sounds like I’m being a contrarian hipster, but I guess after hearing about how incredible and perfect the game was, I was expecting something more? That’s on me, not the game, of course, but I had to mention it. I was also weirdly surprised by how much like the original The Legend of Zelda it was. Link moves from screen to screen, the same enemies populate a given area, you attack them from just the top, bottom, or sides, occasionally you push or pull something. It felt very basic, and when I looked at the map and how relatively small this version of Hyrule was (unfair to compare it to 3D versions, I know, I know), I was left feeling a bit like “oh… so this is it? Huh.”
Fear not, hardcore Zelda fans, and put down the tridents. I did eventually come to see why this game is so beloved. First of all, the “small” Kingdom of Hyrule was doubled in size when I discovered the Dark World version of the map. And, yes, the gameplay is relatively simple and straightforward, but the levels and combinations of enemies/environmental dangers became increasingly more complex and challenging. I breezed through the first few dungeons in the game, but the later ones were pretty daunting. I don’t know how I would have had the patience to overcome the final dungeon without the rewind feature. I also had frequent attacks of nostalgia, despite having never played the game. I loved the animated The Legend of Zelda show as a kid, and though it’s based on the NES game, so many of the enemies and items are in Link to the Past, too. By the end of the game, I got it. It may not be my favorite Zelda game, but I did love my time with it. Besides being a great game, it ignited the warm, fuzzy memories that I associate with tossing my bookbag aside and powering up my SNES to lose myself in adventure. And I’ve finally checked it off the ol’ backlog. Phew.
Hypnospace Outlaw
I’ve written about my love of desktop sims like Emily is Away, Her Story, and Secret Little Haven, so it’s no surprise that a friend has been recommending Hypnospace Outlaw to me for years. I finally got around to it, and it really does seem like I have a weakness for games that recreate late 90s/early 2000s online environments (even with lots of creative liberties). The game takes place in 1999, which was just a couple years before I fully got online, but the fictional OS and web browser did make me think of Netscape Communicator and early Yahoo sites.
I had so much fun exploring the many unique yet familiar user pages. The conservative Christian page with a cult-like aura, the edgy, angsty teen, the chaotic group of nerds trying to maintain a shared space. The overuse of animated gifs and terrible background music was spot on, as was the tone with which some of the users wrote. It had a very “this is so new, hello world, wow, I’m really posting on The World Wide Web” vibe, which to my recollection is very accurate. It all tickled a unique brand of nostalgia for me that seems so hard to recreate in other mediums. The story was also very fun, and there were some genuinely very funny beats. My favorite was banning the use of a copyrighted image and deleting references to it on one of the more buttoned-up conservative user’s pages, and having her freak out and start rallying other like-minded people to her cause. Good times.
Gears of War: Reloaded
I played the first three Gears of War games on Xbox 360, and they were among the really great first-party series that made me heavily favor my 360 over PS3 that generation. Gears of War was violent, yes, but it was the intense cover-based shootouts and co-op experience that really drew me in. So, to honor my best memories with the game, I chose to play this remastered version co-op as well, with my friend Paul. I think we were both shocked that it took us only two play sessions to clear the story in six hours. I’m sure there was a lot more trial and error/dying in our original playthroughs those many years ago, but damn.
Like a lot of recent remasters, Gears of War: Reloaded looked and played just how we remembered (which is to say much better than it actually looked and played at release). Similar to my playthrough of the remaster of the first Mass Effect, however, one thing that stood out to me was the now-outdated level design. Massive doors, the inability to have too many enemies on screen at once, checkpointing that yoinks your co-op partner to your location, etc. Such were games at the time, though, and I still had a lot of fun replaying this game. Finding cogs, the sound of checkpoints and achievements (weirdly, it has both the Xbox achievement sound and the PlayStation trophy sound because I played it on PS5), the thrill of nailing a perfect reload, the powerful sniper rifle… all wonderful reminders of a simpler time in gaming.
Dispatch
I’m so glad I was able to fit this one in before the end of the year. Despite being a big superhero and comics fan, this game somehow slipped under my radar. I haven’t heard many people talking about it (among my friends and the podcasts I listen to, at least), but it sure seemed to garner some awards season attention. So when I was chatting with a colleague and he said it was one of his favorite surprises of the year, that sealed it. I bought it immediately and started it right after finishing Zelda. And I am in love.
It’s a short game, shorter than I’d like (only because I want more [insert meme of Kylo Ren screaming “MORE!” here]), but I was fully invested in the characters and story right from the jump. Heck yeah I was flirting with Blonde Blazer, but eventually I began to fall for Invisigal. Robert’s relationship with Chase? His rivalry with Flambae? Yes to all that and more. The writing and voice acting is top notch. It’s the kind of script where every other line may elicit a smirk or chuckle, but I genuinely found myself laughing out loud after several especially funny lines. And, yeah, tearing up a few times as well. Because it’s so heavily narrative and short, I’ll avoid any spoilers, but I will say that it ended up being one of my favorite games of the year, for sure.
Journey to Silius
As a former kid who used to browse the game aisle at Blockbuster with wide eyes and an empty wallet (and an amateur collector), I’ve seen a lot of NES cover art in my time. But when I spotted the cover for Journey to Silius at a small used game shop in Michigan, I was struck by how alien it looked. I don’t think I’d ever seen it before, but I was instantly drawn to the retro-futuristic planetscape, the eclipse, the stars, the 80s sci-fi font… I bought it without a thought and threw it on the backlog pile. I was browsing the NES games on Switch Online recently and I saw that Journey to Silius was actually in the collection! Stunned, I decided it was time to check out the game with the cool cover art.
I have to admit, it was so far from what I expected that it kind of threw me. Looking at the cover art, of this seemingly isolated world with broken down technowalls under an ominous but enchanting starfield and eclipse, when I clicked on the game icon I expected to be greeted by moody, mysterious music. Something like Metroid. Nope. The upbeat beeps and boops of 8bit sci-fi action titles hit me for a shock. The game, too, was far less atmospheric than I’d expected, playing more like Contra than Metroid. In just the first level, there are so many enemies and environmental dangers, all seemingly placed exactly where the player might jump, land, or stand, that even with Switch Online’s rewind feature I was struggling. Maybe once upon a time I might have had more patience for this kind of game. Or, hey, maybe some day in the future I will, too. For now, I’m glad I tried it and can strike it from my backlog, but it wasn’t quite what I was looking for based on the enchanting cover art.
Backloggd
Speaking of backlogs, I wanted to briefly touch on one part of my motivation to revisit and start chipping away at my backlog: Backloggd, a site where you can build, organize, and track your game collection. It’s not a collector site, though, so don’t expect there to be much in the way of hardware, peripherals, condition, etc. I have a separate document that I use to track my collection, and I do note if I’ve played or beat games on there, but I really like having a place where I can add games, see cover art, write reviews, and more. If I’m being honest… it’s mostly about the cover art. I really love seeing grids of cool game covers, heh. It took me many hours to add my entire collection (like, so many hours it started feeling like work!), but it was actually a blast going through my games, revisiting titles that I haven’t played but have been meaning to for years. As I searched for each game, I found myself with conflicted emotions. On the one hand, it was fun seeing how many games I have yet to play, some of them I’m sure to love. On the other hand, I have… a lot of games I own but haven’t played, so I also felt an odd sense of guilt and dread. Like, will I ever finish them? Will that fateful day that I often dream about, where I’m totally free to just play through my entire catalog, ever actually come? Probably not anytime soon, and until then I was inspired enough to start chipping away at some of them, as noted above with The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Journey to Silius. I really wanted to pop the Metroid Prime Trilogy into my Wii U and play Prime 2 and 3 before I dive into Metroid Prime 4 soon, but I just knew as soon as I did that Nintendo would announce the long/heavily rumored remasters. I did also play a couple hours of Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, but I installed the new cart battery backwards and lost my save so I don’t wanna talk about it. Insert that angry emoji where it’s blowing air out of its nose here. But if all goes well, my future catch-up posts may just be littered with bits of old games I continue to scratch off my ever-growing list. For now, it’s on to Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Finally.
A New Game Plus 