gemini://gem.lizsugar.me/2024/01/29/2023-in-games-part-2.gmi

This is a game from summer 2022, so, backlog appropriate! I love the Xenoblade series so much, however I had put this one on pause after hitting about 150 hours in it. Picked it back up and finished the game at maybe 220 hours. I didn't put it down because there was anything wrong with the game, but rather that that's a lot of time to put into a singular game without playing anything else. Burnout, perhaps. This is easily the most amount of time I have put into any Xenoblade game. The break was maybe four or five months, and when I came back I felt reinvigorated, renewed, ready to defeat Moebius.

The Xenoblade Chronicles series is perhaps my most favorite game series of the past twelve years, with XC1 releasing on the Wii in North America in 2012. I fell in love immediately with it way back when. I got X on Wii U and 2 on Switch on their respective launch dates, and poured tons of time into each. I replayed 1 when it got rereleased on the Switch, it's new DLC story too, and started up a second play of X before 3 came out, but didn't finish X in time. In all honesty, X still remains my favorite of the four games purely due to its world building (largely done through side quests where you interact with a lot of unique side characters) and sense of freedom, as well as its more science fiction nature. It is also the only truly open world entry in the series, which is underscored when you get access to your Skell (mech) and can fly through the entire world with no loading zones. It's no wonder Nintendo tapped Monolith Soft to help develop Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Wii U, Switch) and Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Switch).

But this is about 3, not X. 3 is nearly tied with 1 for my favorite of the numbered entries (2 is pretty far down the list simply because of the heavy use of anime tropes and misogynistic character designs and behaviors, despite a great story). The characters in 3 are all incredibly likeable in my opinion, the battle system is sufficiently complex without being overwhelming (with some mechanics being more straightforward and understandable than they were in previous games), and the world building is superb. The premise of the world is completely unique to any of the previous games in the Xenoblade series. To be fair, each entry is pretty super unique, but if you've played 1 and 2, you can see how those worlds were mashed together to create something entirely new and special. And it never ever feels like a rehash of the previous games, even when you do stumble across ruins from Bionis or an old Titan from Alrest. There are several super big reveals that tie the games together, and honestly it's all performed incredibly well, to the point that you could enter the series with the third game and still have a great experience.

I read a lot of people who disliked the ending, who said it wasn't satisfying, but I think it worked perfectly for the message the game was going for, and it's something I fall into a lot. The main bad guys harp on about "the endless now" while the good guys are all about choosing their individual futures, which, well, without spoiling anything, I'll just say that the meaning of "the endless now" really hit me when I looked at my playtime in the game and how I kept searching for side quests to do simply because I did not want to leave that world or those characters behind. The bad guys were not originally BAD, they are fulfilling the purpose they were designed for, and they have incredibly understandable desires. They just have been protecting things for so long that their methods have become twisted and evil.

I adore the central six main characters. Each member is unique and fleshed out and relatable. They're fun, funny, and refreshing. A game where you're likely to put over a hundred hours into it requires characters that don't annoy you, and I think Xenoblade Chronicles 3 does that superbly well. The side characters and temporary party members (heroes) are fantastic too. Everyone really feels like they were fully developed and realized as actual people, even side characters with no voiced lines or related side quests. There are so many memorable character moments. I'll definitely be revisiting this one in several years.

This is DLC for Xenoblade Chronicles 3. I spent another 40 or so hours in this one. This was about the perfect culmination of the Xenoblade story that I could have hoped for – keeping in mind that Xenoblade Chronicles X is currently still disconnected from the rest of the series (even though they took the time to make a direct connection to Xenosaga (which many people believe is also a connection to X, but that's super tenuous)).

Oh my god. So, a lot of people were let down by the ending to 3 as I said above, but what I stated above wasn't the only reason. Many wanted more fanservice, and they wanted more explanation, and they wanted – well, fans at large are never easy to please. But what especially bothers me is the amount of voices I heard saying that Future Redeemed is what 3 should have been from the start. That simply would not have worked!

Future Redeemed builds entirely on everything we've learned and experienced in all three of the numbered entries. There is no possible way Future Redeemed would have worked without 3. We learn more about Moebius, we learn more about Origin, we learn more about Keves and Agnus, we learn about what happened to our beloved heroes from 1 and 2, we learn more about then entire world of Aionios. Everything we learn is built upon what we know from 1, 2, AND 3. Future Redeemed answers questions asked by 3. The story of Future Redeemed is only earned through the story of all three numbered games. It could not stand AS the third entry, because it is entirely supplemental _to_ the third entry.

And in that light, Future Redeemed is fantastic. It's the perfect endcap to the Xenoblade Chronicles saga. It's set many, many (potentially thousands of) years before 3, but in the same world as 3. Things are still in flux, roles are still being figured out, our heroes from the first two games have grown up and matured and show up here to guide a new world. You see the building blocks of the societies in 3, you more clearly understand motivations and history for every faction, and how it all got corrupted. I don't think Future Redeemed's story would work as a sequel to 1 or 2, but I think it works perfectly as a prequel to 3.

The new main characters are unique and fleshed out (and set up a lot of the smaller story- and bloodlines seen in the main game), returning characters are given more room to breathe, and the modified systems work great. Battles play out differently with a slightly new combat system (much like Future Connected slightly changed 1's battle system), there's new systems for world exploration and gathering too. It's all new enough that I didn't realize I spent nearly a full game's worth of time playing a DLC story.

I could write about Xenoblade forever, and indeed these two entries are a bit of a mess because of that. Again, writing these reviews is partially in service of building my writing skills. I gotta put _something_ out, and if that something is just a bit of over-enthusiastic fangirling at this point, it's still something :)

This was basically SEGA's answer to The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. It plays very similarly: completing dungeons along the way to saving the world. This isn't as simple a clone as Blossom Tales (see my previous entry in this series) is though, as your primary acquisition isn't specific items to solve puzzles, but rather animal companions. You collect several and can equip two at any time. Each animal has its own unique ability or effect, and with two equipped you can combine or augment their abilities further. It's really clever and results in unique puzzle and dungeon design.

Another 90s SNES game I had not heard of until SNES Drunk featured it. I had to find the ROM, then use the English patch (I have, _issues_, with the English patch), and then I also applied an easy mode patch because let's face it, I'm not 15 anymore. Even with the easy mode patch still took me like 45 hours to complete the game. And it was a really good test of my Anbernic RG353V handheld device.

Super straightforward SNES RPG of the era. There's nothing particularly unique about the gameplay. You have regular attacks, you have psychic attacks that operate like Final Fantasy magic attacks or Earthbound PSI attacks, special skills that are their own unique thing, items, etc. Battle is all menu driven, there's no timed hits or unique mechanics or anything special, so battles end up being a bit of a slog sometimes. The unpatched game also has a pretty high encounter rate with a high difficulty. The easy mode patch drastically reduces the encounter rate and difficulty while increasing your rewards so your character growth is still on track throughout the game.

Speaking of Earthbound, G.O.D. gets likened to it a _lot_, and I'm not sure that I would agree fully. It certainly is a weird game. A lot of the enemies are just _weird_. It also takes place on our Earth in the 1990s much like Earthbound is implied to, except here you literally visit various real life cities and sites across the world. You're also fighting against an invading alien force.

But beyond that, I don't see much comparison in terms of weirdness or story. I've played a good portion of Earthbound and I've watched my wife play through it (she's a huge Mother fan). G.O.D. doesn't really employ the same kind of humor or weirdness in my experience. It honestly feels a lot more straightforward of a story and only features a bit of humor or weirdness on the surface. Earthbound's is pretty deeply entwined into its story and gameplay. They're just very different experiences and I don't think they compare like that.

Speech tropes that are pretty racist depending on the culture you're interacting with at the moment. This could go either way as to who's at fault. I'm not going to pretend Japan is free of bigotry, either in the 1990s or now.

Donald fucking Trump's 2016 campaign slogan, used by a small gaggle of NPCs in New York City who are anti-alien. The context is that there are literal outer space aliens who are attacking Earth and killing humans. But COME ON that slogan and the racism it endorses has no place anywhere, and it really took me out of the game. This is absolutely a line from the translation team. Further, using it in this context where the aliens are actually legit the bad guys feels like a statement by the translators in support of Trump's anti-immigrant (among his other types of) racism. At least I didn't have to pay money to use this translation.

The story ends up having some really cool twists that I didn't expect, and it has a satisfying conclusion if you know how to get there (it's not tough, but definitely look up a guide). But I struggle to recommend Growth or Devolution until I know for sure the intentions of the translation team.

I spent easily 100 hours in Breath of the Wild, nearly double that in Tears of the Kingdom. I got so distracted and burned out on side quests that I put the game down. Determined to finish the story, I picked it back up and made a push for that. Completely and utterly worth it. An absolutely amazing ending.

I was very surprised at how easy it was to get back into this version of Hyrule and also just how different they made it compared to Breath of the Wild, such that traversing the same locales and landscape did not feel like a complete rehash. Lots of new things to check out and do, and Hyrule felt even more alive this time around.

I swear to god this game could have ended at at least six different points in the story and it would have worked. The end of the game kept going and going and going. I was getting frustrated with how often there was just _more_. But it ended super and was a fun playthrough, especially once I grasped the deeper mechanics of the combat system, which was actually quite fun and strategic.

It also does something I haven't personally seen much of: a major character _gives up_ (though in this case it's for a pretty brief period of time). I've played a handful of RPGs across various series and the usual message is "I have to keep pushing, I have to!" and "Everyone needs me, I will not fail them!" So seeing the character give up, not push forward, and people start to turn away from him because of it; I just thought it was really cool, even if it was undone ten minutes later with actually those same tropes I just mentioned. I guess just the fact that Justin questioned himself and his quest, fell face down in the mud (literally), cursed himself, and gave up for even a time was a breath of fresh air against hyper heroistic characters.

Unfortunately though there's a lot of 90s era misogyny. Two women are critical to saving the world, which is a nice twist from the era, but the way they're spoken down to and shoved aside by the men the entire time is awful. If the writers were trying to send a message about misogyny, they didn't do it well. Especially Sue. Oh my god, her stated goal, for the ENTIRE GAME, is to grow up and show Justin how pretty of a woman she's become. Sue and Justin are not related, they're just friends, but they're so close as to be sister and brother. They are far enough in age, at their young ages, where it gets really weird that she wants to grow up pretty for him. Further, Justin and Feena get together which Sue was pushing for all the time anyway. Why does Sue have to prove to Justin she's pretty? In the end scenes, her entire monologue is about how she's grown up to be a pretty woman and she's excited to show Justin, as she goes to welcome Justin and Feena home for the first time in many years. And then she gets mobbed by their SIX children, which, how long were those two away for??? That's basically her entire character. It's gross.

It's otherwise a fun game. The story is a pretty standard PS1 RPG story. You can see the reveals coming a mile away. But that isn't necessarily a bad thing in this case. Just as long as you can get around the horrible writing of the girls and women.

I adore Pikmin so much. So much that I purchased and completed Pikmin 3 Deluxe on Switch even though I did exactly that ten years ago with Pikmin 3 on the Wii U. Pikmin 4 has some interesting story decisions (it seems to be a bit of a retelling than a continuation of the previous stories), but I adored it from start to end. I think my only real dislike of the game is how easy the enemies and especially the bosses felt. However, the story mode is much longer than that of Pikmin 3, so it's kind of a trade off there. Ideally I would have a game with the same length as 4 with the difficulty of 1, 2, and 3. But even still, I thoroughly enjoyed my time with 4 and highly recommend it to people who love strategy and planning and cuteness. I did really appreciate the new nighttime game mode. It's a welcome addition to the series, and I hope to see something like it in future entries.

And that's it! Now I intend to put up reviews of the games I finish in 2024, within a window after I finish them. I would also finally like to finish my review of my Anbernic RG353V handheld emulation device.

2023 in Games - Part 2

Xenoblade Chronicles 3

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Future Redeemed

Crusader of Centy

Growth or Devolution

Zelda Tears of the Kingdom

GRANDIA

Pikmin 4