Balatro or DRG Survivors
If Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth doesn’t end up as my GOTY, I will be utterly amazed. Might be in my all-time Top 10.
Played a lot of Palworld and enjoyed it quite a bit. Didn’t/doesn’t have tons of long legs for me, so when Last Epoch hit 1.0, it seemed a good time to dive back into that for a bit. If I had to pick one or the other, it’d have to be Palworld. Looking forward to where they go in the future and poking back in periodically.
I finished up the first playthrough of Wo Long, which I’m enjoying but hasn’t grabbed me as hard as either Nioh or Stranger of Paradise due.
Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island is off to a great start and probably a lock for March GotM, but it was only out for 2 days of February.
I started the month with every intention of putting significant time into getting better at Crimzon Clover and Street Fighter 6. I even bought a leverless controller, since I had liked playing other fighting games on keyboard. But then I didn’t like the layout, and started thinking about different approaches. Then before I knew it, I had bought a 3D printer, and most of my normal game time started going to learning how to design 3D models. So my game of the month is Fusion 360.
Finished off Cyberpunk 2077. Only thing left on the table is NCPD quests and street races for cash.
Started Solasta. Just got the crown.
Dipped into Vampire Survivors for the update/Adventure mode.
Aside from that, I found it grating that the garden that you were supposed to be designing was a cluttered mess at the end. That was the most annoying aspect for me since the payoff just wasn’t there. Aesthetically, it made me very anxious.
The gameplay, of course, was great. I like their take on Solitaire; it’s an enhanced version of TriPeaks for those familiar with the Microsoft Solitaire collection, without the tri-peaks.
I got started on BG3 a little late and then took a bit of a break when I felt kinda stuck, so I finally got back into that and finished it, and it was basically all I played in Feb.
Medieval Dynasty and Palworld
Got way into colony management survival-lite games in Feb.
I’ve been all over the place lately in trying to deal with the backlog. I’ve been playing a lot of games for a little bit of time each - I know, this will only ensure I never actually make a dent in my backlog as far as finishing anything, but at least I feel I’m getting to actually play the games I own.
February started strong with Baldur’s Gate 3, then I moved between Cyberpunk, Grim Dawn, Tales of Arise, Nier Automata, Disco Elysium, and recently Elden Ring (to prepare for upcoming DLC) - this isn’t even counting the handheld Switch JRPs I’ve been playing.
I really want to play BG3 more, but I sometimes only have 30 - 45 minutes to play at a time, and I feel I accomplish very little in that game in that amount of time.
All that said, my GotM would have to be Persona 3 remake, since I played that one the most.
I think(?) there’s some option under difficulty or HUD about marking enemies? It was a while ago. The last patch is also supposed to have been more stealth friendly I saw.
Aliens: Dark Descent for me.
PC gaming space was Jagged Alliance 3. I didn’t pay much attention to the game when it was being developed. When it was released, all I knew is it was well received. I purchased it during the Steam Winter sale and found myself completely impressed. It exceeded all my expectations. This game definitely has the feel of a modern Jagged Alliance game. And what I like most about the JA games is the characters feel memorable. It’s what I hated about XCom/X-Com soldiers lacking genuine personality. In JA, many of these characters have been around since the 90’s with the first game and there’s a distinct familiarity with them.
In the Boardgaming space, it was again Uprising: Curse of the Last Emperor. As a 4x style co-op (solo) boardgame experience, it keeps on attracting me with staying up late to play one more chapter. I’ve started including the expansion content and playing around with that. What I appreciate most about this game is that I can tell very early on if I’m going to lose. But victory never feels assured until the final scoring happens.
Not a big gaming month, but later in the month, I got back into Age of Wonders 4, which I am enjoying, warts and all.
Tons of games, but I have mostly been catching up the state of Steam save on the Switch version of the Binding of Isaac (1001%, finally!) and finally played through Astlibra, a game our generous @Marquac gifted me over a year ago, and it is simply phenomenal. Lots of modern Japanese narrative tropes, but the action and scale of it evokes the best games Japan committed on the late 80s to mid 90s.
Spoiler: Next month’s game of the month is Balatro.
You just had to pick the toadfolk option, didn’t you? :3
Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth - (PS5)
It’s just delightful from the first moment. I’m about 50% of the way through the story, with most of the time-consuming minigames finished, so I’m readying myself for the final push.
Runners up:
- Shiren the Wanderer: Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island - (Switch) - An incredible entry in the series. Will definitely be my most-played game in March.
- Balatro - (PC) - It’s fantastic.
- Pentiment - (Switch) - I picked up the Switch port, and the game was just okay? I think I’m squarely in its target audience and I was surprised to find it lifeless and unengaging. Gorgeous presentation, though.
:) Next game, I play toads, for sure!
So sorry to to hear this! I absolutely loved it, partly for the presentation, but for me it did an amazing job of portraying the time period, right down to the limited agency I felt as protagonist. Very few games I remember left me with such a good sense of my place in society as I went about my business.
I may have come off a bit too harsh, as the game did a great job making me feel like a part of the town and is marvelously researched. But the adventure game structure felt like more of a chore than anything, and I was only truly excited to have a handful of conversations. I respect the work, but was disappointed in the game experience.