Absolutely, iii was my most anticipated showcase this year and they delivered big time. Katana Zero DLC was the highlight for me, but I got two more wishlists from the rest of the video as well.

Last year’s showcase was good, but this one blew my mind. I’m already counting the days for next year’s.

The showcase itself is 1 hour long, the rest is interviews/devs commentary for some of the games.

Dying Light had a mediocre story and repetitive gameplay, but the parkour mechanic was what made it interesting in the long run. Jumping around and climbing stuff was so satisfying.

As for side scrollers, Ori might not be the most difficult platformer I’ve ever played, but it certainly was the most fun, thanks in no short part to the fluid and dynamic movement of the main character. The camera is also very wide, to allow you to see the road ahead clearly, which is not something that all platformers do right, surprisingly enough.

Not much to say but this is the usual comment to thank you for your wonderful posts.

Enjoy Rome! Be sure to try our Carbonara at some point! :P

Yeah, community-made Pokemon games really hit some heights in recent years. Too bad Nintendo is so opposed to the homebrew scene.

I had lots of fun with Pokémon Odyssey last year, patiently waiting for the final update that should come this year as well. As I said, 2025 is packed!

Between this update, the new Digimon Story game and LumenTale, looks like this year will be packed for monster collector enthusiasts.

And Pokémon, I guess, but I lost interest in that franchise years ago.

So sad about GoG’s revenue drop. It’s my store of choice and I genuinely find it more unintrusive than Steam, but if it keeps going like this, I wonder how long it will exist. Hopefully they manage to turn things around.

The answer to that question depends on your tastes, your current situation (amount of free time, mood, etc…) and many more. There’s no such thing as the “best” when it comes to a subjective piece of media.

I can’t even decide on my favourite game, because what I like and what I want to play depends on the aforementioned factors. I may be interested in a strong narrative today, on puzzles tomorrow, and on a crazy platformer game next. Different games resonate with me differently depending on when I play them.

Games that really stayed with me are (in no particular order) Xenogears, Metal Gear Solid, CrossCode, Digimon World, Oddworld Abe’s Odyssey, Ace Combat 4-6, The Talos Principle, Ori and the Blind Forest, Threads of Fate, and I also spent a crazy amount of hours on Stronghold, Advance Wars: Days of Ruin and Medieval II Total War. There’s, like, at least half a dozen different genres in that list and all those games are very different from one another, but all had different qualities that resonated with me for one reason or the other.

It’s always a brighter day when I can wake up and read your gaming rants :)

About the GoG store’s second class treatment: it’s always worth it to email the publisher and ask them if they plan on updating their game on GoG!

I did exactly that a few months ago when I wanted to buy I was a teenage exocolonist - emailed Finji and let them know that their game was not up to date on the platform I wanted to buy the game on. They replied rather quickly and the game was updated a few days later. It was very nice because the game was on sale and, thanks to their quick reply, I was able to not miss the sale.

Still waiting for MS to do something right this whole generation.

Mildly surprised to see another installment in this series after all these years, but I’m pretty excited.

For those who don’t know, Styx is a AA stealth game where you play as a goblin assassin (the titular Styx). It spawned as a spin off of another fantasy game (Of orcs and men) where you played as both the goblin and an orc warrior, which was unfortunately a bit too janky for my tastes.

The focus on stealth of the following installments really benefitted the series, imo. While they still carry a bit of janky-ness (as many AA titles do), they are nevertheless a lot of fun! The story in the first one was very good as well. I still haven’t finished the second one, so I can’t comment much on it.

The first two games are also currently discounted on Steam and GoG ($2 for the first one and $3 for the second), and I think they are very much worth that much.

I really enjoyed Tunic for the same reason as you! It has nice and cozy vibes but manages to challenge the player without ever feeling too cheap or overwhelmingly difficult, in both combat and puzzles. I really was reminded of old-school gaming, in a good way.

The only thing I disliked is how cryptic the last few puzzles were, to the point that I doubt the vast percentage of the player base would be able to figure them out without resorting to a guide. I certainly wasn’t. I love puzzle games and I love games like Talos Principle and Crosscode. I guess I just didn’t like how meta-gamey some of the solutions (and the reward for the puzzles) were.

PS. Another great post and the formatting is excellent. Congrats!

As a fellow enthusiast with an obsessive-compulsive drive to write about my hobbies (not necessarily video-game related, but quite similar) i know that these things take a while to write, especially when you take the time to format everything correctly, link the sources, etc.

So I wanted to echo the others here and say that I really appreciate your work here. It was a fun way to start my day, and I’m looking forward to your next post :)

Sony has stopped releasing games on GoG ever since they required login to the PSN. For example, you can buy God of War and Horizon Zero Dawn on GoG, but you can’t buy Ragnarok or Forbidden West.

They lifted the requirement a few weeks ago, but the games still have not been released on GoG, and at this point it’s doubtful they will.

Are they? Genuine question. Some of the FF titles I’ve played in the past were technical marvels on their respective consoles. FFXIII still gives modern games a run for their money on the graphical department, despite being 15 years old at this point. Not sure how they fare up nowadays though.

Fucking finally.