Page 10 – Burning the midnight oil at noon

Spoiler: Contains No Actual Ghosts

Or: So I’ve Been Playing: Ghost of Tsushima.

I like open world games. Some of my favourite video games are of the open-world variety (The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Xenoblade Chronicles X). But even so, it is impossible to argue that despite their ambitious, sandboxy design… they can kinda start to feel a little samey after a while. Travel around to points of interest, liberate dozens of effectively identical forts from enemy occupation, manage your skill trees, fast travel a whole bunch. At the end of the day, if there isn’t something absolutely definitive about your game, it’ll just end up part of the generic open-world blob.

Sadly, Ghost of Tsushima has, so far, not done anything that stands out as particularly special to me. Therefore, as I play, I can’t help but feel like I’m just going through the motions. Which makes me sad, because there was clearly plenty of love poured into making this video game! I think that it’s a very good game in a lot of ways (the story is engaging, the world is gorgeous, the quality of life features are bountiful), but I’m just a little too desensitized to this style of game to enjoy the “game” part of it as much as I would like to.

But I’d rather not dump on Ghost of Tsushima. No, instead, I’d like to point out my very favourite thing about it.

Most open world games allow you to go to the map and choose a destination that you’d like to travel to. The game then puts a big glowy thing in the world at the spot you marked, and usually gives you an arrow or something to follow to make sure you’re always going the right way. Ghost of Tsushima does none of that. What it does instead is change the way that the wind is blowing so that it’s always guiding you to your goal. So instead of a big ol’ arrow on the HUD or a line on the ground that you follow, you’re watching blades of grass, leaves, smoke, embers, and so forth dance on the wind, and going along with them.

It’s a nice alternative that blends seamlessly into the game world, and I very much appreciate it. There’s also a secondary feature where following yellow birds and foxes will lead you to fun secrets. Being resourceful and respecting nature are pretty important themes of the game, and as such, replacing HUD elements with more natural means of guidance fits it to a tee. Ghost of Tsushima doesn’t even have an on-screen compass! While that does admittedly irk me once in a while, I still appreciate Sucker Punch’s devotion to keeping the HUD as minimal as possible. It’s truly for the best in a game that’s meant to emulate old-timey samurai films.

Top 10 of 2022: Runners Up

These get a separate post because the main article is long enough as-is, but I still felt like they deserved a little recognition!

Triangle Strategy (Square-Enix / Artdink, 2022)

This was probably the hardest finalist to cut. I’ve never been able to truly get into any tactical RPGs besides Final Fantasy Tactics, but Triangle Strategy came real close. The story is interesting, the choices you make carry a ton of weight (and there’s almost never a clear “correct” choice), and the battles are great fun. Despite all that, however, I got pulled away from it when I was only halfway though, and never felt compelled enough to pick it back up. I keep looking at the case and saying “I should really finish that”, but I have a feeling it’s just not going to happen.

TE’s Top 10 Video Games of 2022

Well, another year is behind us, and as usual, I frittered away a huge chunk of it playing video games. To help justify spending all that time on viddygames, here’s a big, long list of the ones that I liked most.

If this is your first time reading one of my Top X Games lists, I don’t make them based on games released in the previous year, but rather, games I played in the previous year. There is one constant rule: I must have played the game for the first time in the last year. And I added a new criteria for 2022, which is: no two games from the same franchise. Helps to keep the list a little more diversified. Oh, and the games are listed in the order that I played them. No playing favourites among the favourites.

Okay, that’s the preamble. Let’s go!

In 2021, I played most of the games in the Ys series, and most of them were really good. Ys: Memories of Celceta even managed to secure a spot on my Top 10 list for 2021. So the only video game “goal” I had going into 2022 was to finish off the Ys series by playing through the two games I had outstanding: Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana, and Ys IX: Monstrum Nox. Needless to say, they were also really good.

Lacrimosa of Dana in particular gets to adorn this list because it is definitely my favourite game in the series. It takes everything that was great about Memories of Celceta and makes them even better. So really, you could probably just read what I wrote last year and it would mostly still apply, and I could skip writing another paragraph here. But I suppose that I should at least go over some of the highlights. Specifically, I enjoy how the combat is exciting and very speedy, exploring is more fun than ever with map and treasure box completion percentages for every area, the metroidvania-style way that the world slowly opens up as you gain new traversal abilities is always appreciated, and I think that this game has the best cast of party members in the series.

One thing that I cannot praise enough about Ys VIII is that it has one of my absolute favourite video game soundtracks of all time. All Ys games have phenomenal music, but Ys VIII’s in particular really stands out to me. Not only did I get an imported physical copy of the soundtrack, but I also bought the Ys VIII: Super Ultimate arrange album, and I listen to both of them quite often. Sunshine Coastline specifically is straight up one of the best video game songs I’ve ever heard, and multiple official and cover versions of it live on my phone so I can listen to them all the time.

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: February 2023

~ Game Over ~

Star Ocean: Till the End of Time (PS2) – You know how in FNAF, there’s “the one you shouldn’t have killed”? Well this is “the one I shouldn’t have played.” To be fair, it wasn’t that bad, and while I did enjoy some of my time with it, it was an absolute struggle to play much more often than I would have liked. Also the ending was poop. The biggest shame of it all is that I likely would have been totally ga-ga for this game if I’d played it back in 2004, but it just feels rough in 2023.

Picross S6 (Switch) – What more can I say than “it’s more Picross”? No, like, literally, it’s exactly the same format as the last two but with different puzzles. Which is all I ask for, but it doesn’t make for a very interesting review.

Kirby’s Dream Land (GB) – With the release of the Game Boy Online app on Switch… I took the opportunity to revisit some old favourites.

Nintendo Direct 2.8.2023

Uh, so this happened over a week ago. I watched it on my work laptop, to take advantage of the second screen, but I also can’t access WordPress from said laptop. So I wrote down all these notes while watching and only now have gotten around to publishing them.

Pikmin 4 – I like the music. New onion design? Ice pikmin… cool. Ooh! A pupper pal! Dungeons are back? Overall, it looks like another Pikmin, which is good since we haven’t had one in 10 years.

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: January 2023

~ Game Over ~

Mega Man X (SNES) – The annual tradition continues.

The Night of the Scissors (PC) – A very short -and surprisingly easy- hide-and-seek style indie horror. There are like three items to find, one puzzle, and a killer who just doesn’t seem to be around all that often. Needs some more meat on its bones.

Nightmare of Decay (PC) – Indie survival horror FPS that wears its inspirations on its sleeve. I really liked it, though it could be a bit frustrating at times. See here!

Twenty

Oh dang… The first post I ever made was dated December 2, 2022. So that means I’ve been at this for over twenty years now. Kinda bummed that I missed the anniversary!

If this website were anything more than an elaborate diary of the video games I play and the junk food I eat, I’d probably do something special to celebrate. Alas!

It’s (not really) a race!

I did some cursory searching, and I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned on this website that I have been actively participating in a local charity fundraiser, the Cerebral Palsy Stationary Bike Race, for the last four years. I bring it up because I just signed up for the 2023 race this week. And also because I would like to share this image from last year’s website:

If it’s not immediately clear why I wanted to share this image, squint a bit harder at that tiny guy on the far right. That’s me! I was selected to be on the friggin’ banner image! What an honor!

Now, I understand that whoever did this banner just grabbed a bunch of photos that the event photographers took and slapped ’em together. There was certainly no “I think we really need to make sure that Ryan is included in our promotional material” discussion, but it was heartening to see myself representing this great cause. Makes me feel like I’ve done something genuinely good with my life.

And, as mentioned above, I’m riding again this year. Donations aren’t being taken quite yet, but I hear they’re intending to start around January 25th or so. So here’s the link anyway. Just keep checking back until that big ol’ “Donate Now” button in the upper-right corner works. And then donate. You don’t even have to do it in my name. Just give a little something to help make someone else’s life a little better.

A List of Viddy Games from the Old Year

Happy 2023!

Here is a big ol’ list of all the video games that I spent a significant amount of time playing in 2022. It’s not a comprehensive list, as I left off a few little indie games that were more “experiences”, games that I gave up on after a single session, and games that aren’t really games (like Rocksmith and Fitness Boxing). If you’d like to know how I felt about any of them, I included the month in which I started playing each one, so you can conveniently look up the appropriate Month End Round-Up post.

Of note is that of the 75 games listed below, 53 were eligible for my “Top X of 2022” list. I’ve narrowed it down to the ones I liked best, and I was left with fifteen finalists. Now I have the unenviable task of deciding if I want my GOTY list to just be 15 games, or if I want to try to figure out which five to cut to make it a nice, round Top Ten. Or, should I add seven more games to make it the Top 22 of ’22? Find out in… I don’t know, like a week or two, maybe? I’m going to try to get it done before February, anyway.

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: December 2022

~ Game Over ~

Pokémon Scarlet (Switch) – Paldean Pokédex complete!

Mars Moose: Cosmic Quest: City Sights (PS1) – More of a curio than anything. It’s a 10-minute game for wee bairns, but still, I played it.

Trombone Champ (PC) – A wacky game that I don’t think really lived up to its potential. It’s not exactly the rhythm game it first appears to be, but nor does it go nearly as off the deep end as similar games like Frog Fractions or Inscryption.