Another year has come and gone and I played some video games in that year. I also released a video game, which I think is pretty cool, but today I'm talking the stuff I didn't make. This is easily the fewest games I've had on one of these write-ups because so much of my year was dedicated to game dev. Also, a shocking number of these games were played on my twitch stream. I started streaming a bit more this year, especially since I debuted a live2d model, and I managed to stream a few games I've been meaning to play. Anyway, here they are in no particular order.

Visions of Mana

More than anything Visions of Mana exists in my memory as a very pretty game. It has a very strong visual style that's executed very well. It uses a fairly strong bloom effect, but it's one of the few games that I think uses it well. It perfectly suits the very soft and colorful style. I was even impressed with the character models (at least the main characters) being very carefully shaded to maintain that soft look.

The character designs are almost all very much up my alley as well. Heck, even some of the NPC designs activated some neurons (why did they make Morley's mom so cute??). It was only Palamena didn't fully vibe with me, since they tried to lean a bit sexier with her. Also, Julei has some big Qwarq gender energy.

Combat is a mixed bag. It's probably a bit too fast paced for its own good and the camera is way too slow, even when locked on. There's a tendency to push whichever target you're focusing on to the edge of the arena, which makes it impossible to see and react to what's going on behind you. Having shortcuts for certain spells and abilities is a very good addition, since opening the ring menu every time can really hurt the flow of battle, but you're going to be opening it constantly either way.

On the plus side of combat, the dodge feels great - it gives battles a much more dynamic feel, since you'll be jumping out of the way of attacks frequently while trying to keep up the offense. The most notable part of the combat for me was that many of the bosses are actually quite unique and fun. Regular battles became tiresome after a while, but some of the more unusual boss fights will definitely stay with me for a while.

Story wise, the game opens with a lot of interesting questions and mysteries, but leads to probably my biggest disappointment with Visions of Mana. The final third just doesn't really hit for me. Of all the directions they could do with those mysteries, they took very safe and boring routes. The pacing also really suffered in the final third, where everything seemed to happen far faster than the rest of the game had prepared me for.

Overall Visions of Mana is very pretty, has a fun cast of characters and has a solid enough battle system to string you along, but it's not the place to look if you want a very deep story.

FF5 Career Day

I wouldn't normally include a randomizer in this list, but I played so few games this year and Career Day is a very different experience to vanilla FF5 that I figured I'd include it.

Career day randomizes bosses, chests, shops and pretty much everything else where you get some sort of item or ability. You start with a random job and an airship in world 1 and are free to fight any bosses you have access to. This immediately broke most of my experience with the base game. Just getting into my mind that the bosses are randomized threw me for a loop many times. Grabbing every chest and checking every shop for spells, jobs, abilities and progression took a while to get used to as well.

It's a very different experience to vanilla and it put me on the back foot for a while. As someone who's played vanilla FF5 probably 40 times, I didn't expect what's essentially the same game to challenge me in completely new ways. I could come to a boss that turns out to be a roadblock and simply explore elsewhere to tackle other bosses and assemble more options to handle the problem. For instance I ran into Twintania in Karlabos's place. Bosses are scaled down to who they replace, so Twintania was much weaker, but was still able to put out several hundred damage to the whole party. It took a bit of exploring elsewhere before I could kill him.

Career day uses the SNES version of FF5, and while I prefer GBA, it's fine. What I don't care for though is the fan translation that was used. It's got some very strange translations that had me asking "what the heck is this thing?" every few minutes as I tried to suss out the more common name.

Some amount of extra knowledge can be required to finish a seed. I ran into this toward the end of my first run when I realized I was missing a tablet (4 tablets are needed to get through the final dungeon). I had found the submarine key long ago, but I had no idea how to access the submarine in world 2, so I was looking around for a while. I just happened to land my airship next to Xezat's fleet and found that both the wind drake and submarine were just sitting there. Figuring out that they spawned there was a little rough, but it thankfully only need to be figured out once. Maybe there's an NPC that tells you, but it would make more sense to me if they both spawned next to you when you enter world 2.

I'm a bit burned out on FF5 for now, but once I cool down for a bit I'll definitely be doing more career day.

Giraffe and Annika

Before it released I saw a trailer for Giraffe and Annika (in a Nintendo Direct, I think?) and thought to myself "hey that looks cute" and then I wishlisted it on Steam. A few years went by and I saw a trailer for the developer's next game, HARUKA: Beyond the Stars, and thought "that looks way up my alley. i'm wishlisting that." followed by "hey, that's the Giraffe and Annika dev. i should play that too". And so I played it.

First and foremost, G&A is a very cute game. Both Annika herself, all of the critters you meet, and the design of the world are just very endearing. The general environment design is well done as well. There's one late-game abstract area in particular that I remember vividly for its thought provoking design.

Giraffe and Annika is very charming, but it's also very obviously the developers' first big project. There are a number of small, but noticeable rough edges that a more experienced studio would have smoothed over. Annika's movement, for example, feels a bit like she's on ice because of her acceleration. Much of the level design is centered on objects in the physics simulation, even in cases where they should probably have more explicit behavior. It can make some of the platforming and object interactions feel a bit janky.

It's definitely not perfect, but Giraffe and Annika gets the most important parts right and that makes me even more excited for their next game.

Atlyss

I never expected to like a game about horny furries as much as I did. It was that MMORPG gameplay loop that really sucked me in for about 2 weeks. The cute character designs, fun retro 3d aesthetic and frantically-paced real-time combat definitely helped as well.

It's not often a game grabs me enough to get me actively excited about making progress in it. It ticked that number-go-up nerve with the loot, levels and dungeons that are legitimately pretty tough even at the right level. I've mostly sworn off MMORPGs at this point, after 14 years of World of Warcraft and 4 failed attempts to get into Final Fantasy 14, but this felt like the perfect simulation of an MMORPG without the hundreds of hours of investment.

I don't do much multiplayer gaming at all these days, but the multiplayer aspect of Atlyss is a big part. It's a very smooth online experience and can make some of the harder areas much more accessible. While encounters are tuned for multiple people, the advantage of enemies' attention being split is much stronger.

Atlyss is still in early access, with most of the game's content yet to be added and I'm very excited to see more in the future.

Rabbit and Steel

I'm not really sure why I enjoyed Rabbit and Steel so much. Maybe it's the roguelike progression with the chance to make a very powerful build. Maybe it's the fun multiplayer that creates a bit of chaos among friends. Maybe it's learning the patterns and successfully clearing a tough encounter. I'm not sure how much those come into play, but one factor is definitely the ease of modding the player sprites... which let me replace one of the wizard rabbits with my Tau.

Hypnospace Outlaw

Quite a few years ago I backed Hypnospace Outlaw on kickstarter because it looked like a fun concept. Not long after I starting making my own game, Project RyME, which has some surface level similarities with Hypnospace. Despite that, I didn't really take any inspiration from Hypnospace. In fact, I went out of my way to avoid seeing anything from Hypnospace to prevent myself from doing some toxic comparison. I told myself I wouldn't play Hypnospace until Project RyME released... and that's just what I did.

I really adore the aesthetic of Hypnospace. It perfectly captures that era of the early internet where people could easily setup their own quirky site, but with its own unique flavor. Just reading all of the pages and getting to know the people that created them was fun on its own.

The story is that you're basically an internet cop (ACAB) looking for people breaking the rules, but it progresses in a very satisfying and surprisingly emotional way. I honestly never imagined I would be genuinely moved by a Hot Dad music video, but here we are.

Just exploring the fake internet of Hypnosace was such a fun experience that I ended up doing a few streams of looking through the actual old internet, and I think those were some of my favorite streams that I've done. I'm not outright naming a game of the year, but Hypnospace would be a very strong contender.

Devil Dumper Doris

DDD is a Castlevania-like released in 2023 that has the feel of an indie flash game from 2008. It's quite short, simple and extremely janky, and yet I was more invested in this game than most this year. What's so special about it? It's very charming and legitimately fun. It's the first game of this kind from the developer and shows a lot of ernest love for the Castlevania series.

I started speedrunning Devil Dumper Doris, and I even started the leaderboard for it on speedrun.com. It's a surprisingly fun speedrun because 1: it's pretty short, usually under half an hour, 2: it's relatively easy to speedrun, and 3: the jankiness makes every run unique and interesting.

I even went as far as modding the game to fix a possible crash near the end of the game. I want to get back to speedrunning it still, though there's a bit of an issue where the game runs at different speeds on different computers. That makes timing runs a lot more difficult. Regardless, Devil Dumper Doris is a fun and charming game that y'all should play if you haven't.

Momodora: Moonlit Farewell

I loved Momodora Reverie Under the Moonlight, so I was excited to play the next game. Moonlit farewell is similar in a lot of ways. I enjoyed it quite a bit, but if I'm being honest, I can't really think of much to say about it. I feel like it's a little more difficult than RutM, possibly a result of designing around the smaller, faster characters. It also delves more into the rest of the Momodora series, with both Momo and Dora being prominent characters. I don't have too much experience with the first 3 Momodora games, so much of that is sadly lost on me. I enjoyed the game enough to 100% it, which says a lot. I very rarely do that for games anymore.

Castlevania 1

Despite playing all of the Igavanias a few years back and gaining a new appreciation for the Castlevania series, I had never really played any of the classic linear side-scrollers. On a whim this October I decided to stream an attempt at the original Castlevania on NES.

To put it bluntly, the initial experience was quite rough. My first stream of it included many, many game overs and eventually devolved into save state abuse before I got angry enough to give up. It's got that stereotypical "Nintendo-hard" difficulty, where you'll get knocked back into a pit or overwhelmed with a dozen obstacles flying at you that are nearly impossible to dodge. The powerup system is pretty obtuse as well, with whip and sub-weapon upgrades depending on the number of hearts collected or destroyed objects. Basically you need a lot of experience to get through the game effectively.

Then something strange happened. I wanted revenge. I wanted to finish the game without save states and redeem myself. I watched dot_lvl's video explaining how to no-death clear the game and did a bit of practice on each level. Then I streamed it again and, while it wasn't deathless or even 1CC, I finished it within a reasonable timeframe.

It was a bit rewarding to get revenge, but it also felt a little hollow. The only reason I was able to beat it was watching dot's video, which contained a huge wealth of information and tricks to get through efficiently. To me relying on that feels like it's going against the game's design. It's designed to require extensive trial and error over many hours so that you figure everything out yourself, and I just skipped all of that.

Do I think getting help with games is cheating? Absolutely not. I reference FAQs and walkthroughs all the time without a second thought, but I only use them as a last resort, and very sparingly because I don't want them to effectively play the game for me. In Castlevania's case it felt like I was simply following a step-by-step guide the whole way and not having any genuine interaction with the game.

That brutal trial and error difficulty is a huge turn-off for me in just about any game, and Castlevania 1 is no different. While I respect Castlevania 1 for launching the series and being a landmark title on the NES, I just don't like its core design.

Super Junkoid

Super Junkoid is a Super Metroid romhack about a girl named Junko exploring a strange nightmare to destroy the serpent that's been stalking her. I'm not usually one for romhacks, but Kojanue's (https://bsky.app/profile/kojanue.space) enthusiasm for it convinced me to try the game.

I'm glad I played it because it was a very unique experience. Despite being built on top of Super Metroid, with many similarities to Super Metroid, it felt like a fundamentally different experience. The very extensive sprite replacements are a big part of that, with very lovely and intriguing custom sprite art.

The most striking part of the game is how unsettling it can be. There are quite a few gruesome and surreal scenes that really sell the nightmare-scape aspect. Suddenly coming across the gaping, bloody maw of a giant god-worm is something that'll stay with me for a while. I streamed my playthrough and 2 of the 3 times I've used my live2d model's "horrified" expression were with Super Junkoid.

The level design is another big highlight. Metroidvanias can be tricky to design because you want to lead the player in the right direction without telling them where to go to maintain the sense of freedom. Super Junkoid handles this very well with subtle signposting and strategically restricting the player. It makes for a very smooth experience without much of the wandering around aimlessly looking for progression that can hurt the flow of a metroidvania.

Any fan of metroid or metroidvanias should definitely give Super Junkoid a try if you can stomach the more disturbing content.

Baten Kaitos HD

A few years ago I promised a friend that I would play Baten Kaitos if it was ever re-released for modern systems. He's a big fan of the games and was eager to hold me to my promise when they finally did re-release. It took me a little while to actually start, but I did play it. I already posted some of my thoughts on cohost, so I'll plop that in here.

To start off it's a card battler/deck builder, which I already don't like. Seeing cards in a game is always a big turn-off for me. The basic gist is that you've got a hand of cards and you play one or more of them when you're attacking or defending. It heavily encourages combos where you play multiple cards at a time.

Only certain cards can be used for offense and others for defense, so it's very common to run into a situation where you've got a hand full of defense or combo-dependent cards (card that require a combo to already be in progress). When that happens, you can't attack and usually need to waste one invalid card to essentially skip your turn. Playing defensive cards on the defense phase will let you cycle through them quicker, but if the enemies decide to not target that character, you won't get a chance. It feels like it should be easier to discard stuff because of that.

Another bizarre decision is the class upgrades. They increase stats, deck size and combo length, but they also *reduce* the amount of time you have to play your cards. You start out with unlimited time, but by class level 5 (where I am), you have 10 seconds to make your choice on the attack phase. Defense turns require you to select cards based on how quickly the enemies attack. For some enemies' first attack, it's very difficult to play something in time.

I'm playing the remaster on switch, which has some nice quality of life features like speedup - very useful feature because the battles are agonizingly slow normally. But wait it's actually kinda broken. Setting battles to 200% speed makes *everything* faster, meaning you have half as much time to play your cards. Some of the timings can be tight at 100%, and the game gets nearly unplayable at 200%+.

The highly random nature of drawing cards is probably the most frustrating part. Multiple times now I've lost a 10-15 minute boss battle because I just couldn't draw any healing items, while clearing it easily the next time when the draws were a little better.

I'm really trying to like the game, but it kills my mood when it decides to be uncooperative.

Alright, that's the end of my cohost rant about the battle system. I really didn't like the battle system, but I really did appreciate the creativity in the world and character design. It's very unique and some areas are bizarrely beautiful.

I really wanted to enjoy the game more, but by the end I was so done with the battle system that I turned on the 1-hit kill option in the remaster's special options. I felt awful basically skipping even the final boss like that, but I was very much not in the mood to do a half hour fight only to lose at the last minute and have to redo everything.