Page 17 – Burning the midnight oil at noon

TE’s Top 10 Video Games of 2021

You know what this is. Rules are as such:

I had to play a game for the first time in 2021 for it to be a nominee.

That is all. The games are listed in the order that I played them. Let us commence!

Sinnoh woes

I’ve been playing a lot of Pokémon Shining Pearl lately, in an effort to complete the game’s Pokédex. Because going through all that trouble once for the original game just wasn’t enough for me, I suppose. Gotta do it all again!

And as I sat on my couch a few nights ago, grinding away countless hours to complete my checklist of digital creatures, it dawned on me that Sinnoh is not the worst region in the Pokémon series because of its HMs, or its confusing and inconvenient map. No, Sinnoh is a pain in the butt because it has, by volume, the highest number of stupid gimmicks for finding pokémon.

2021 Reflections: Part 2: On the Topic of Zeldas

Well, my friends, I’ve done it. Throughout the course of 2021, I played every “core” Legend of Zelda video game (and one spin-off). It was a fun “project”, and I finally played/finished the few titles that I’d never gotten around to before.

What everyone is dying to know, I’m sure, is where Breath of the Wild is going to fit on my ranking list. And I’m finding it incredibly difficult to place it! Honestly, BotW is such a radical departure from the typical Zelda formula that it feels like comparing a papaya to oranges. So I think that finding a place for it will require me to stop and really consider why I’ve placed each game as I have.

2021 Reflections: Part 1 of what will surely be many

I like that Nintendo sends out little summaries of your gaming statistics at the end of each year now. Well, I don’t like seeing the actual figure of hours I’ve wasted on video games, but I’m a big fan of data! Unfortunately, their 2021 website is a little less printscreen-friendly than it was in 2020, so you only get to see the highlights:

Keeping in mind that this is only effective as of December 14, so we can probably add another 10 hours of Breath of the Wild on there (nice).

Otherwise… shocking revelations! 48 hours of Fitness Boxing 2 is fine, but it should have been double that, in my opinion. I’ve really been slacking off as far as exercise goes, but it’s just so hard to care, you know? 47 hours in Monster Hunter Rise is nigh unbelievable to me. I typically log between 200-300 hours in any given MH game, and for my money, Rise is the most fun game in the series to date. So what gives? Probably too much Zelda.

The January spike would have been due mostly to Picross S4. March was when Monster Hunter hit, but I also spent what felt like forever playing Pixel Puzzle Makeout League. April was all about Ys Origin and Picross S5. August saw high numbers thanks to the plodding The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. I spent a lot of time in October playing all of the games in the Castlevania Anniversary Collection, and it’s safe to say that November and December were split between Breath of the Wild and Pokémon Shining Pearl.

How many of those would I have remembered if not for my handy-dandy month end posts? Fewer than you might think!

A glitched trap

Metroid Dread was probably my most anticipated game of 2021, and it absolutely delivered. It was exciting and fun from start to finish, and very immaculately polished. A truly excellent video game.

To contrast, Five Nights at Freddy’s: Security Breach would have been my second-most anticipated game of the year, and it was… well, it was botched. While I did have a great time playing it, and I think there’s a good game in there, it is so broken and bugged that I wouldn’t fault you for calling it unplayable.

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: December 2021

~ Game Over ~

Ys Seven (PC) – I wrote about how I was struggling a bit near the halfway point, but the difficulty of Nightmare mode kind of cleared up after that. At least until the final bosses, which required a heck of a lot of grinding to beat. Still a very good game, just not one you should play on the hardest difficulty setting.

The Room (PC) – Having no relation to the infamous movie of the same name, this is a game about solving a series of puzzle boxes. It was a lot of fun, though the puzzles were maybe a little bit on the easy side. Took less than two hours to complete all five chapters, and I look forward to playing the sequels.

24 Days of Desire (24): Christmas Crunch

I know that I already did a Cap’n Crunch post, but it’s Xmas Eve and I wanted to do an entry that’s specifically related to the holiday(s). There honestly aren’t too many Xmas-related things that I want, so we’ll have to swallow our pride and go for the low-hanging fruit: seasonal cereal.

I guess there are a lot to choose from, when it comes to cereals that get a red-and-green-coloured rebrand ’round December. Or, at least, there’s a lot to choose from if you’re an American. I went looking for any sort of holiday-flavoured cereals against my better judgement (to stay out of stores because COVID) and found squat for my troubles.

24 Days of Desire (23): Resident Evil VR

It seems like there was a very long time where VR was just something I’d never be able to have for myself. It needs a huge room, an expensive headset, an even more expensive computer… There were just so many barriers to entry that I just ignored VR as a thing that existed.

Then Facebook started bombarding me with Oculus Quest 2 ads, and at some point I decided to see what it was all about. Now here we are a year later, and I’m enjoying a… fairly limited library of VR games. There just aren’t all that many games available for Quest 2. But that actually doesn’t matter, because it has the best game of them all: Resident Evil 4.

24 Days of Desire (22): Fazbear Frights

I was all gung-ho to write this post about how I wanted a physical collection of the Fazbear Frights book series, and how I was sad that in this age of digital everything it would likely never happen.

And then I was proved wrong. It’s happening in February of 2022.

24 Days of Desire (21): Band-Maid

I’d like to say that I’ve really missed going to concerts during COVID times, but I really go to all that many concerts to begin with. At least one a year, I’d say, which could seem like a lot to some, but I think there’s definitely room for improvement.

I also don’t really miss concerts because I’ve checked off a lot of the most important boxes on my “bands to see live” list: Queen, Tesla, Matthew Good (twice), Joe Satriani, Dweezil Zappa. As for the ones that are still outstanding? Thrice, Tonight Alive, Story of the Year, TWRP… oh, and Band-Maid. We absolutely cannot forget Band-Maid.