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// 2024-01-12, 8 min read, #gaming #review
I've been building a massive backlog of video games for over two decades and in the back half of 2023 I became determined to work through it. Unfortunately, most of the games I completed in 2023 were new games or games that were new to me - that is, even if the game was an old game, it was not already on my backlog.
Video gaming is a major hobby of mine, however I struggle to communicate my experiences with the games I play, so I want to start writing about them to practice that. I'm going to start with a wrap up, summary of my feelings of the games I finished in 2023. Then in 2024, as I work through my backlog (honest this time!) I'll try to write up something a little bit longer for each game.
> Nintendo 64 (Wii Virtual Console, Wii U Virtual Console, Nintendo Switch Online)
This was a replay, as I had already played and finished the game on the N64 when I was younger. But it re-released on the N64 app on Switch and I could not resist. And it plays great even if you don't have an N64 controller because the C buttons are only used for opening and closing specific menus that you can access by pressing Start/+ anyway.
This one is just great. While I generally prefer the _slightly_ more in-depth combat system of Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, neither game has tons of weird systems to keep track of. At the same time, the timed hits and joystick movements required for various attacks and skills keeps battle from being a simple button mash through menus. 64 is a light hearted silly adventure with a very Nintendo brand of humor that mostly seems to exist in the various Mario RPG games. It never takes itself seriously, which makes for a pretty fun time.
And the music is a bop in almost every area. Stand out tracks are Toad Town, the standard battle theme, Bowser's theme, and the Koopa Bros theme.
If you liked Super Mario RPG or Mario & Luigi Super Star Saga, you'll very likely enjoy Paper Mario.
> Switch, Windows
I purchased this game sometime early 2023 or late 2022, so technically it might qualify for the backlog.
This is a blatant 2D Zelda-alike, but sadly it doesn't bring much new to the table. I also had a bit of trouble with hotboxes and timing my attacks when I started playing. It could have benefitted from some more tuning.
The narrative is presented as a bedtime tale told by an elder to their grandchildren. You see the dialog of the narration over the main game and sometimes you (as the grandchildren) get to change the events of the story. It's a neat way to tell the story, but ultimately it doesn't add a ton.
I finished this pretty early in the year and I lost the notes I took because they were on my now-deleted Twitter account. I think what kept pushing me through this game was the dungeons. They had decent design and decent puzzles. Again, nothing that makes the game stand out, but it was something. And it says something to me that without my notes I don't remember much of the game.
Not much else to say about this one.
> Gameboy (3DS Virtual Console, "Kirby's Dream Collection" Wii, Nintendo Switch Online)
Kirby's Dreamland 2 was actually my first Kirby game, and I had never played through the original Dreamland (barring the version of it in Kirby Super Star on the SNES), so I decided to run through this when it hit the Gameboy app on Switch. Short and sweet.
> Gamecube, Playstation 2, Xbox
Hey, a true backlog game! My save file for this game had not been modified since 2006. I was surprised to see I had only 60% completion of the game, since I put a ton of time into it. I didn't even have the story completed, which doesn't make sense to me because I have seen that ending multiple times. I sat down early early 2023 determined to finish the story on the hardest difficulty, and do as much of the other missions as possible. I did so and got up to about 96% completion rate. I decided to call it there. as every mission was completed. Some of the Arcade Leagues only have gold medals as opposed to platinum. That's good enough for me.
TimeSplitters, gosh. I've only played 2 and Future Perfect (which is the third and final), so I can't comment on the first game, but the humor present in these two is so weird and silly. Free Radical was made up of a bunch of ex-Rareware devs so you have the goofiness of their collectathon platformers like Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong 64, with the gunplay and level design work of Goldeneye 64 and Perfect Dark. I love Perfect Dark so much, but I would choose TimeSplitters almost every time. It just feels more expansive and fun. The time travel aspect of the game allows them to give you so many different kinds of weapons, and in multiplayer you're not locked to any specific era. You can use your WW1 bolt action rifle to take out your friend with the future ray gun while you're fighting in a modern day snowy Siberia. And your friend is a snowman while you're a skeleton sheriff. The character selection for multiplayer is incredibly varied and the level designs are just sublime. Both 2 and Future Perfect feature a Map Maker where you can design your own levels. I don't remember much of 2's, but FP's is very in depth, allowing you to create logic and single player scenarios. It's really cool and the playerbase made a bunch of incredibly fascinating levels. They also made some wildly good renditions of levels from Goldeneye and Perfect Dark. I have _the_ perfect recreation of Complex on my memory cards still.
I had 2 on the Gamecube, but when FP came out I went straight for the PS2 version because it had online play. That was still in the era where online consoles were a bit of a novel experience. It was a ton of fun. Further, you could even upload and download custom maps. I looked through my memory card and I have easily fifty different maps downloaded on it.
2's single player campaign is a string of levels with loose narrative connection. You don't play as any specific character with a personality, because when you jump through time you inhabit another's body. There's no cohesive characterization because you're never the same person. In Future Perfect, you play as Cortez the entire time, in every time period. He's now paired up with a character from the era, and when I say character, I mean _character_. You've got the slutty Final Girl horror film trope, an Austin Powers knock off, a pre-Star Wars KOTOR human-hating robot, and more. You also fight alongside Cortez himself, then later three Cortezs. The game has really fun segments in the levels where Cortez from the future pops in like "hey help me with this and i'll give you X" so you help him do the thing and you get X to progress to the next part of the level. Then you find yourself playing that future Cortez later and handing that same macguffin off to the new past Cortez. The game knows it's playing with paradoxes and lampshades them every time. Which means yes when there are four Cortezs, you play every single one at some point. It's executed incredibly well.
The story is coherent and it feels like things are actually happening. The main villain is an over the top goofy evil mastermind type, and you're regularly in contact with a serious, but not stick-in-the-mud advisor type for mission briefings and the like. And it all works.
Future Perfect controls, well, perfectly. You can fully customize your controller layout however you want. Movement and aiming and shooting all feel fantastic. You feel like you're in full control the entire time. It's just a joy to play, and you never feel cheated when you get hit or die.
The expansive Arcade League and Challenges provide tons of extra gameplay and unique scenarios. There's tons of characters to unlock and so many weapons to play with. Quite a few different game modes, a solid multiplayer map selection, and the multiplayer bots are really well done.
There were quite a few challenges I got stuck on as a teen that, while still tough now, I was able to overcome. The feeling of finally doing that after 20 years made me so happy.
I just adore this game. Please pick it up if you're in the market for a fun and super well made FPS from the mid-aughts.
> Linux, macOS, Windows, Playstation 4/5, Xbox One/Series, Switch
Another proper backlog game! I purchased this game a few years ago and loved the characters, setting, and premise, but put it down because I became tired of the puzzle solving and dungeon length. Determined to finish the story, I picked it back up. And almost put it down again for the same reason.
I love the story, I love the characters (Emilie is fantastic, and the main character Lea is compelling). I HATED the dungeons. Each one got longer and the puzzles became increasingly tedious. I used the accessibility options to make puzzle timers twice as long so I could make my way through them with less frustration and I was still getting so annoyed at them. I saw in the description for the DLC that they advertised "our longest dungeon yet!" and that completely turned me off from finding out the DLC story. I truly will never buy the DLC because one of their major selling points is my least favorite part of the original game.
CrossCode is an entirely singleplayer, offline game, but it is set in an MMORPG world where you play as a character who's lost her memories and her voice, and has to figure out why she can't exit the game. Shades of .hack//sign, sure. It's executed incredibly well and the twist in CrossCode is very different from the twist in .hack//sign. It is very worth playing for the story, but don't feel bad if the puzzles wear you down. I love my dungeon puzzles in Zelda, Sea of Stars, etc., but CrossCode's really just were a drag.
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