Last year, I published a big list with bite-sized reviews of every game I completed in 2024. I intended to do the same this year, but as the list grew ever-longer, I realized that I was setting myself up for a novella-sized post at the end of the year, so I decided to break it up into monthly bits and start publishing them now. Once I catch up, this will also let me review each set of games with them fresher in my mind, as well. I’ve played so many dang games this year I’m not sure I remember how I felt about some of them at this point. Without further ado, here are the games of January:
Xenogears (PS)
I intended for this to be the last game I finished in 2024, but instead it dragged on a little bit at the end there, which is a phrase which kind of sums up the experience of playing Xenogears. After being a little underwhelmed by Chrono Trigger last year I wasn’t sure if this game would live up to its copious hype, either, but I was honestly blown away by the first half and change of this classic. Xenogears is insanely ambitious to a fault, but it’s hard not to admire just how hard Takahashi Tetsuya and gang went on this one. The graphics are stunning for the original PlayStation, the scope is huge with tons of varied environments, there are two completely separate combat systems and they’re both good, and you get to pilot a giant fucking robot. Sadly, Xenogears is just as well known for its failure to live up to its ambition as anything, and the famously unfinished second disk where the game becomes nothing but cutscenes and boss battles in the Gears does kind of leave a sour taste in the mouth. I know some people consider this one of the best game stories of all time, but to be honest, I think those people maybe also haven’t seen Evangelion, of which this game is majorly cribbing. What I did love about it was the varied and beautiful world and the absolute spectacle of the storytelling, which gets excised completely for the former and seriously curtailed for the latter just as the game should be hitting its climax. Still, it’s a game that feels shockingly modern in its sensibilities for a title from 1998 and is an easy recommendation for anyone who likes RPGs.
Demon’s Souls (PS3)
The emergence of the Souls series, From Software as a globally respected developer and Miyazaki Hidetaka as a celebrity was arguably the most significant development in gaming in the 2010s, so it’s always been a bit embarrassing that I’ve never completed any Souls game. Well, not anymore. What pushed me over the edge was, weirdly, playing Stranger of Paradise last year. That great effort by Team Ninja made me want to play their Soulslike Nioh, but it felt really weird to play Nioh without having played any actual Souls games. So I decided to go back to the beginning and just play Demon’s fucking Souls. The PS3 version, also known as the correct version. I was always more intimidated by Demon’s than any other Souls game, but I just felt that I had to start with the first one. To make it short, the game is an absolute masterpiece, in everything from its combat and level design to its oppressive atmosphere and great music, and it’s easy to understand why it was a cult phenomenon that eventually kicked off the biggest trend in games since Halo made the first person shooter into a mainstream console genre. The game is utterly absorbing and I found myself thinking about it at all hours of the day. I’d be at my desk at work just thinking about what level I should tackle next, or what stat I should put my latest haul of boss souls into. Ultimately the game is not that hard if you play by its rules, which means being cautious and remembering that overconfidence is, in the words of Jerma, a slow and insane killer.
Minishoot’ Adventures (Steam)
The above apostrophe is, for some reason, not a typo. I resolved to play more indie games this year and that was partially inspired by this particular game, which I saw on John Fetterman’s GOTY list and really wanted to try out. The name is terrible but the actual game is inspired. It’s a twin stick shooter that takes place inside a Zelda game. In other words, you explore a big overworld full of secrets, go into dungeons and solve puzzles, collect heart pieces, and fight bosses—but all of the gameplay is a shoot-’em-up. It’s seriously some peanut-butter-and-chocolate type shit, even if the shooting gameplay is not remotely challenging if you are any kind of experienced shmup player. I only have 1CCs of the easiest Touhou games under my belt and I still found it easy enough to be relaxing, but that was honestly fine. It was a totally chill experience zooming around the world and uncovering secrets while occasionally blasting some dudes, helped along by the fact that movement as the player ship just feels so good. I didn’t feel like getting the 100% needed to unlock the postgame boss, but it was a fun experience for sure.
Zettai Zetsumei Toshi (PS2)
I can’t remember exactly when I first laid eyes on Zettai Zetsumei Toshi, but I know it was definitely in its cursed localized form as Disaster Report. This game hails from an age when localizers would still re-texture all the Japanese characters in a game to have blonde hair and name them things like Kevin or Steve. When most games are about killing or at least defeating things, though, the idea of an action-adventure game where your sole objective was to survive a disaster was compelling to me. It ends up being a bit of a lie when vagaries of the plot see you chased by assault rifle-toting men who you end up killing by crashing their helicopter, but still. The game is a cult classic on both sides of the Pacific thanks to its truly unique gameplay. You gotta fill up your water bottles and make sure to drink regularly. Sometimes the water is dirty and you gotta use a portable filter on it. The R1 button lets you brace yourself against aftershocks so you don’t fall and hit your head. There just isn’t another game like this, and the disaster (a huge earthquake on an artificial island which leads to the island itself sinking) is genuinely thrilling to survive even at PS2 levels of fidelity. Of course, in classic Japanese fashion, the story itself ends up being not one of survival but of corporate malfeasance and government corruption. There’s a reason the protagonist is specifically a journalist. The funny thing, though, is there is kind of a romance mechanic in the game. There are two possible female partners who accompany you throughout the game, and if you choose the right options (and, apparently, make sure to share enough water with them) the protagonist will fall in love with your chosen girl and decide to die with them as the island goes down instead of escaping and writing the article that would hold the bad guys to account. But they are cute, so you can hardly blame the guy, really.
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