It was a fairly good month, I'd say! 11 games for me. Mostly short ones, and finishing up some longer ones that I had started before, but it was definitely good!

Tales of Arise - Aug 01
Superliminal - Aug 08
Make a Good Mega Man Level: Episode Zero - Aug 10
Underground Blossom - Aug 13
Tomb Raider (2013) - Aug 14
Detective Grimoire (2007) - Aug 17 (Replay)
Return. - Aug 17
Detective Grimoire - Aug 17 (Replay)
CLANNAD: Side Stories - Aug 19
ENDER LILIES: Quietus of the Knights - Aug 24
Make a Good 48 Hour Mega Man Level Contest - Aug 24

I'd say my favorite from this bunch was actually Ender Lilies. I had basically no knowledge of the game before jumping in and I got way more into it than I thought I would. It was definitely fantastic. Apart from that we played a bunch of short games together with my girlfriend this month (UB, Detective Grimoires, and Return.) that we had in the list for quite a bit. I also continued going through the MaGMML games and I'm almost up to date with that. Just missing the third main entry, but that is supposedly to have a 1.1 release in the not so distant future and I want to wait for that before jumping in. Apart from that...Tales of Arise was very fun, but I mostly played that in July, Tomb Raider was good enough and I think I'll probably jump into the sequel in not that much time and CLANNAD: Side Stories and Superliminal both left me a bit disappointed. Not necessarily bad per say, but I expected a bit more.

For games in progress, I'm going through the first .hack game (which I don't know if I'll play much more of, since I may restart it later with my gf), No More Heroes 3 (which is not amazing for me but it's fun enough to relax to) and NEO: TWEWY (the current game we are going through with my girlfriend, game that I absolutely adore). Also, my backlog is now in the single digits, so pretty excited! That is a bit misleading since I know a couple that I'll probably add soon-ish and I have a separate backlog for games that I play with other people, but meh, details. I have a trip to Chile later this month so I may not make that much of a progress here, but who knows. May surprise myself with more completions than I expect

I'll nominate Kid Icarus: Uprising this time

July was definitely a month full of short games for me. So this list will be deceptively long!

Hidden Cats in Berlin - Jul 5
Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight (Replay) - Jul 5
Streets of Rage 4 - Jul 6
Love - Jul 7
Hidden Cats in Rome - Jul 7
Make a Good Mega Man Level - Jul 8
Hidden Cats in Santa's Realm - Jul 9
Hidden Cats in Spooky Town - Jul 20
Make a Good Mega Man Level 2 - Jul 20
Make a Good 24 Hour Mega Man Level - Jul 21
Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin - Jul 26

So...Yeah. A lot of Hidden Cats games, and a lot of Mega Man...The Hidden Cats games are fine enough. Not my favorite of the "hidden object" genre, but someone who has shared their steam library with me had them purchased, and they are good games to play when waiting for something while at work. Apart from that, I'm going through a bit of a rabbit hole of Make a Good Mega Man Level, which are kinda fun but more than anything interesting fan games. They are such a rollercoaster of quality and weird ideas that I can't help but find it charming. Will probably be playing more (all?) of those on August.

I also am just a couple hours away of finishing Tales of Arise, so it didn't make it this month for the recap, but will be here next month almost for sure. My backlog is looking rather thin to be honest, so unless I go on a buying or searching spree, I probably have my next games mostly lined up. Should be a good one!

Nominating Tomb Raider (2013) once again

Well... I did say I was going to make a post about specific things I enjoy about the game when the month ended...And now I'm about 13 days late... In my defense I enjoy a LOT about TWEWY...In fact, maybe a bit too much. I ended up writing an 11 word document about it, and I think I'd pretty much flood this thread if I posted that so...

Here is a link to my blog that I revived just for this. I didn't spend too much time in formatting as an actual blog entry since I was already a bit too late on this for my liking, but anyone feel free to go there and have a read! I tried my best to limit myself on the stuff I talked about (god knows I could have gone on for much longer) and to tag everything for spoilers in case anyone that wants to take a look hasn't finished it.

Here is the link: https://howlongtobeat.com/forum/thread/2081/2#post115915

TWEWY (The World Ends With You)

Preface

Sooo….Yeah! This probably will be a long one. I’ve made no effort to hide the fact that I absolutely adore this game, so forgive me for all my biases in this post. However, I really want to make an effort to share what and why I love TWEWY, and hopefully bring a bit of shared joy to anyone who didn’t really vibe with this game by experiencing it vicariously through heavily heavily rose tinted glasses. Also, I fully believe that this game was made with nothing but love from their developers and designers, and it shows in so many little touches that I think should be appreciated

Another thing is, while this is my favorite game of all time and I’d rate my personal enjoyment at a 10+/10, I don’t think this is a perfect game in any way, shape, or form. This game is definitely NOT for everyone, and I always have a hard time recommending it because of some issues. The gameplay being confusing to pick up (two screens and many attack types), the initial difficulty spike without retries, the general angstiness of the story particularly at the beginning, etc. However, when this game hits it HITS. This is most definitely a cult classic sort of game. There are very passionate fans (myself included) and they will praise this game all day long if you let them.

I’ll have to definitely go through spoilers to give my full opinions and I’ll try to mark them as I go along and let you know how heavy of a spoiler it is or some other metric. Also, I’ll mostly be talking about the DS version since that one is my favorite from the three, but most non-combat things are very similar.

One last thing, I’ll leave a tl;dr after each section for a quick overview. Because I know I can get wordy

tl;dr: I love this game. It’s not for everyone, but it’s amazing to me and I don’t think it will ever not be my favorite.

Mechanics

This is probably one of the aspects that turn away the most people when they give the game a chance (particularly in the DS version which is harder to get used to, but happens in all three of ‘em). How combat is done is one of the most unique aspects of the original twewy release. There’s really nothing quite like it. Unique ideas is one of the things I personally enjoy most in gaming, so to me this was a hook when I started it for the first time.

Neku controls very well for a stylus-controlled system. Moving around is simple and most pins can be activated quickly. The different types of psyches also give a ton of variety for many different fight styles. You want to get close and personal? Enemy slash, and press rush attacks, and even impact run attacks can deal a ton of damage very quickly (my personal favorite types of pin). Wanna keep your distance? There are projectiles to shoot, traps to set, and objects to throw. Want to play a more supportive role and leave your partner to do the damage? Passive debuffs, healing, invincibility, stuns and so forth. Want to faint in real life and get sent to the hospital? Microphone activated pins to lose all your breath and get your head dizzy in no time flat!

The real thing is that you will most likely mix and match all this types of pins with just the strongest ones you get if you are rushing through the story, or cool combinations you find if just going through hunting them down whenever you can. This I feel is true character customization. There are so many games that say “You can play in whichever way you like! You can use a swords, axes, lances, or your fists to fight! They all have slightly different ranges, power and attack animations! Wow, variety!”. TWEWY is not like that. I’ve played this game around 7 times probably, and every single time I end up using a different set of pins and psyches, playing in different ways and finding other options that are very useful in different ways. My latest playthrough I mostly used AoE attacks for some reason with Jelly (Pin 282) at the end was probably my most used one in the end game. But I also had some healing,

And I’ve not even talked about the second screen and your partner yet! They are way simpler to control in general, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have their depth. Combo routes for getting stars, jumping and blocking at the right moments, and countering to their back when you need it can get very tricky in some hectic fights. I feel like your partner is there as a bonus for being able to concentrate on them. They can do well with minimal concern (with auto settings or just spamming in a general enemy direction) but can give you substantial benefits if you can concentrate on them. Another way this game allows for multiple playstyles in an organic way!

Finally, there is also the ways in which both characters interact. There is the obvious one, fusion attacks, and the more subtle one, the green puck. Fusion attacks are mostly spectacle, and a “please kill them and give me some health” panic option, and the main reward for actually using your partner well instead of just mashing (I quote the fusion one-liners to this day. Just because I’m a giant nerd like that). Also the different levels of fusion serves as a nice push and pull. You want to hold off on using your fusion attacks to get them to get the next level of them, and building a new fusion attack in the same chain fight is more difficult each time. But at the same time…The big shiny button that makes everything go away is juuuuuuuuust there….Just a little tap won’t hurt….Right?

But the green puck really is an amazing addition. It’s not intrusive enough that you need to master it (you can play most of the game without paying any attention to it), but giving you up to x5 multipliers for damage or healing can make such a difference if you want to strive for it in more difficult fights. Not a super fan of (spoiler for a noise type) ||taboo noise that basically require this mechanic||, but I guess it serves as a tutorial for the green puck in some way.

tl;dr: You can do a lot of different things, and many of them feel amazing. You don’t have to interact with every mechanic to have an effective fighting style, and you can mostly ignore the ones you don’t want to care about.

Difficulty

Now, this will probably be weird to read, but I also love the way TWEWY handles its difficulty. It doesn’t start super great (no easy mode to get your bearings with the combat style, no easy retry at the start, etc), but after you get all the basic customization options the difficult can feel just right for basically every fight. You are actually actively encouraged by the game (and expected to) to change the difficulty settings throughout the game to match your needs at that moment! It’s a way more fluid system of difficulty than I’ve seen in basically any other game, and I just thing that’s neat. I’ll go over every different difficulty system in detail because this opinions post isn’t lengthy enough as is.

The obvious one is the difficulty setting. You start with only Normal, but get the Easy mode after a bit and Hard mode some time later. There is also Ultimate difficulty, but if memory serves you can only get that one on the post-game. This is your standard difficulty configuration from most games. You kill enemies faster and they kill you slower in lower difficulties. Reverse for higher difficulties. The neat thing is that it also changes the pins you get for each noise. When you play a higher difficulty you may get pins from that difficulty or any difficulty below it as a reward, which somewhat encourages you to try the more difficult setting if you can. However, the reward system isn’t just “harder difficulty = better pins”, which would basically just means you get underpowered by playing easy mode. It’s true that some of the better pins in the game are from harder enemies, but there are many exclusive pins that you get for easier difficulties too that can be very useful

Now a more interesting difficulty system is the level adjust system. In the main menu you can temporarily reduce your set level to anywhere down to 1. Reducing the set level gives you less max HP to work with, but also dramatically increases the drop rate for rewards in the fights. For every level you reduce, you get a +100% change to get any specific pin that a noise drops (-1 level, 2x odds. -2 levels, 3x odds, and so on). You can also easily check the drop rate for specific pins in the noisepedia for any noise you have encountered before, so if you really really REALLY care about a specific reward, you know how much you may want to reduce your level by. Easily accessible information for rewards in a JRPG is always a good one in my book!

You say that adjusting your level and changing the difficulty is not enough customization for you? Well then, let me introduce you to chain battles then! Chain battles is yet another way for increasing your battle rewards, but this time mostly restricted to the common enemies. I don’t think the game makes this super obvious, but the difficulty here is not only in chaining the battles so your damage carries over and you have more spent uses of any healing pins. It also makes the difficulty of each battle after the first a bit harder. Which means…You want to have an extremely tough fight? Get a long chain and put the difficult noise at the very last. You want easier rewards with not too much hassle? Put easy fights at the end to increase your chain multiplier while not having to worry too much!

Now let’s get to indirect difficulty setting mechanics. Alongside the difficulty setting there is a setting for often you want your partner to go into auto mode. If you are really struggling with keeping them in mind, or you just want to focus more on Neku you can just set it so auto takes over immediately. And if you want to leave them as a sitting duck unless you press a button you can turn off auto mode. You can always take manual control of your partner in the middle of the fight if you like, so technically having auto in a lower setting is easier. It just changes the pressure you have to pay attention to them.

All in all, by combining all these four systems in different ways you can some extremely specific feels to the game that may suit you just right. You are having a bit too easy of a time? Drop down your level a few pegs and turn off auto-partner fully. You want to get some quick money? Let’s do some chain battling on a harder difficulty. That boss is giving you trouble? Easy mode with your current highest level should take care of that! You want that specific pin that has a 0.5% drop rate? How about we increase that to 100% drop rate by dropping down 20 levels and going for a 10 chain link battle?

In most games I just choose my difficulty setting at the start and forget about it. In some good games the game may tell me sporadically “Hey, you are having too easy/hard of a time. Want to switch it up to X difficulty?”. Twewy just…Gives you a lot of options, and they all feel different and substantial.

tl;dr: It has a ton of ways to adjust the game to your liking, and rewards you for doing so. I love being able to change things on the fly and being rewarded for taking a higher challenge while not being punished for making things easier on myself.

Aesthetics, Music, and general Style

Now, if you ask anyone who knows about twewy, how the game looks and their general style is one of the first things that always come up in the conversation. There is no accounting for taste, but one thing that I think we can all agree on is that this game does NOT look or sound generic at all. I’ll be honest, I’m not much of a visuals or music guy, so this section will probably feel a bit more shallow than the others. I just like how this thing looks and sounds, man!

The character design is probably my personal favorite part of the visual sense of the game. The designs feel very bold with the thick black lines. They are expressive and interesting without really being too over the top (obviously, this is from a anime-ish JRPG standpoint). The different characters personalities and characteristics get very clearly conveyed but both the way their different expressions and poses, as well as the way they dress. Obviously clothes are important for the visual style of most videogame characters, but clothes carry a very important role in TWEWY’s Shibuya, so the ability to tell you something about the character is greatly appreciated and a great tie in between the character design and the setting itself.

For other graphics stuff, I do like how Shibuya itself looks but it’s probably not the strongest part (definitely feels like DS is a limiting factor here). The in fight background feel a bit better and some boss fights have very interesting effects, but I wouldn’t go too much further than them being “nice”. The noises designs I do definitely very much enjoy, and they all very much feel like they are linked by a common thread.

Now let’s talk music! I have said before that if you are on the fence if you will like this game or not, go listen to some of the songs in the soundtrack (Twister and Calling probably being the first ones that I link if they feel like it). I feel the music does an amazing job of capturing the feel of the game. Can’t describe it with words very well, but it just suits the game so well… I wish I knew more about music in general so I could better express what makes it great… But I enjoy it listening to it outside of the game, and it heightens the game at every moment. A+ here, TWEWY. (And just as a random note, my favorite song on the soundtrack is probably “O-Parts” :D)

tl;dr: Style yes. Me like like. Music good. Me listen lots. If you don’t know the music, go listen to some of it please.

Story

Now here it is! Alongside the gameplay, this is the other pilar that this game stands on for my personal enjoyment. Story is somewhat divisive between people. A common complaint is that it is a bit too-angsty (particuarly with the focal point being Neku) and that is targetted to much to teenagers. Full disclosure, I played this game when I was a teen myself so I was totally in the target audience with this one at the time! I do agree that this game resonates with one more on their teen years. But about the angsty part? I actually think the game does a good job subverting this more and more as the game progresses. I’ll talk more about this later, on the “Theme” section of this mega-post. For now, I’ll talk about the story itself and what I like most!

This section will be FULL GAME SPOILERS. Please do not read on if you are planning to play the game yourself (or watch the anime, which is decent!). I’ll start each section with what I’ll be talking about in case you are curious, but please don’t read on if you don’t want to get spoiled. This won’t be a full story overview, but just a collection of things I personally enjoy. Let’s get to it!

Beat and Rhyme Spoilers. ||Weird play to start, huh? Don’t know why, but I enjoyed Beat on my latest playthrough, so I want to give a special mention. There are some neat foreshadowing things with these two, but nothing major. That Beat is trying to hide their true relationship from Rhyme is hinted at on Day 2 when he hesitates to introduce her, and the way they both died very blatantly shown when Rhyme saves beat on Day 4. Both pretty cool on replays, but nothing more than that.

Now why did I resonate with Beat in particular this time? Beat feels like an extremely well-done foil for Neku as both a rival and a partner. When he is a Reaper during Week 2, he is basically fighting for the same thing as Neku, but going through it in an opposite way. They both just want to save the person they care about that depends on them, without thinking much about their own well being aside from needing to stay alive to save them.

Later on, when he is a partner, he clashes with Neku more than any other, even though their goals are more aligned than with either Shiki or Joshua. His impulsiveness is a nice contrast to Neku’s more methodical approach to problem solving, and they argue all the time about what to do next and the panic setting in. They are both powerhouses in terms of raw power by this point, but Week 3 mission not being something fighting based catches Beat completely out of his element. Also, since Neku after finishing Week 2 and feeling like he should have trusted Joshua, Beat serves as a nice final personal growth challenge of trusting your partner and respecting others, by pairing with very much his polar opposite in attitude.||

Intro movie Spoilers. ||Another weird spoiler section! Just want to point out a couple of neat things on the intro movie. It walks the thin line of giving you a lot of info about the story without spoiling its twists, and I think it achieves it great. It shows all main characters as expected and lets you know with colors and expressions “this one good, this one bad, this one kinda?” as a general intro should, but not much more than that on a first watching. I just like rewatching it. Stuff like Beat being concerned about Rhyme from minute one, and Joshua already looking into Neku on Day 1 are nice hints that are not overly obvious but fun to catch on a second viewing.||

Reapers Spoilers ||Some minor things to point out about some reapers. It’s fun how the Game Master for both Week 1 and Week 2 are almost completely indifferent towards Neku, but instead choose to fixate on his partners. On Week 1 he just wants Shiki to be his food since she has so much jealousy, and on Week 2 Minamimoto has as his main objective getting rid of Joshua in any way he can. And in both cases Neku thinks they are talking about him. At least on Week 3 he realizes that the Game Master is going after Beat when he sees the stuff about Noise Rhyme first hand…||

Joshua Spoilers ||This is the guy you need to talk about on a spoiler section. Him and Mr. H for sure. There is not too much I wanna add. I just love checking in on people playing through the game and hearing their theories about them. It’s almost a 50%/50% if they think Joshua is the actual murderer for Neku, what role he occupies in the grand scheme, what Mr. H. is doing or even is… And it’s definitely not even fully clear even by games end! If you want to know more there are ways to know more, but this pair is one of the best executed secret good/bad/neutral guy guess who that I’ve seen||

Post-Game story

You want some real juicy stuff? The post game in this game is one of the most amazing things it has in my opinion. It is absolutely not necessary to enjoy the game (hate when games make their postgame mandatory for reaching a resolution), but it gives the players that really want to dig deeper so much more background information and extra characters interactions.

The post-game is divided in two main aspects (three if you have the Final Remix version). Another Day, and the Secret Reports (And A New Day in Final Remix). A New Day is basically a prologue for the story on NEO: TWEWY and only tacked on many many years later, so I won’t talk about that too much. It has some fun gameplay additions and lets you know a little more about the greater lore of the franchise, but nothing really important. But I want to talk about the other two!

Another Day is basically a side Alternate Universe story that happens on a single day. It’s super wacky with a “Yu-Gi-Oh” or “Beyblade” kinda feel to it. The world almost revolves around a children’s game called Tin Pin Slammer (which is a minigame I enjoy oh so much), and the story itself is lighthearted and is just for seeing the different characters interact in a less serious fashion when their lives are not really at stake. If you enjoy these guys, you will probably enjoy them being a bit goofier and poking fun at themselves. Now for some slight spoilers for this mode, Another Day also contains ||the Super Secret Boss and Final Time Attack, both of which have some story attached to them. This is the only part of Another Day that has any connection with the main story, giving some nice info about Mr. H and about Joshua respectively.|| This gives some nice background info, but nothing that you would be lesser for not knowing.

But the Secret Reports? Oh, those are great. I vividly remember the first time playing through the game hunting them down, ravenous for getting to read the next one. This part of the post-game basically asks you to do extra side-stuff in the main story. Some of it is new interactions with some characters, but it’s mostly hunting down specific noise, going to specific places, etc. You don’t have to fully play the story (you get an option to jump to any day freely whenever you want after you finish the main game), but you have to re-play through some stuff. These little reports offer a ton of background information about the game. How the universe works, what important characters are doing in the background, explaining what appear to be plot-holes, etc. If you like the universe, I encourage you to hunt them down or look them up online! They are super interesting!

tl;dr: The story is great if a bit angsty at the beginning. It hits better when you are a teen for its message, but can still be enjoyed as an adult. The post-game is amazing lore-wise and to get to know characters, but you don’t miss anything major if you skip it. Reading it online is a fine alternative if you are somewhat interested in the world.

Theme

So I’ll now talk about the general theme of the game and what it wants to say and how it does it. The message is not something extremely original by itself, but I want to bring attention to little details about how it is achieved, and why I think it’s executed so well.. The main messages for this game in my opinion are ||how learning and trusting others can help you grow|| and ||the joy of people diversity itself||.

I’ll now talk about how Neku’s progress through twewy reflects this, and why I think it’s done so well. ||Well…This is really about both Neku and Neku’s partners, but saying partners in plural is a bit spoiler-y. I just want to talk about the growth Neku has during the entire game and the way Shiki, Joshua, and Beat help him in particular.

Neku is an angst machine at the start of the game. That much is true. He needs to get pushed by Mr. H. to start trying to sync with Shiki. But really the load of the work is done by Shiki herself. Being so easygoing, considerate, and passionate (also a bit of a pushover) makes her like an easy tutorial for Neku in terms of respecting and trusting others. But what really starts turning his attitude is learning the struggle of Shiki with her inferiority complex with Eri. This is the first wake up call that actually hits him about other people’s problems and how it affects their own internal worlds. After this he not only cares more about Shiki herself during Day 6, but also shows actual concern for Beat on Day 7. At the end of Week 1 he changes from “People are horrible and I don’t need them” to “People are mostly annoying, but there are exceptions”. It’s definitely progress! To match this his next entry fee changes from “His Memory” which is super personal to “Shiki”, which is the person he currently appreciates the most.

Week 2 is probably the most challenging for Neku in his personal growth. Joshua at this point just wants Neku to win and is not particuarly interested in him changing. Joshua is untrustworthy from the first instant since he forms the pact by his own without Neku even knowing about it (in fact, he doesn’t know who his partner is until after the first fight!). Obviously Week 2 is absolutely filled to the brim with Joshua giving off bad vibes, so the progress in Neku’s attitude is a bit stalled at this point. There is no day in Week 2 that a new thing is not revealed about or hinted at from Joshua in universe, so he always has a new reason to be wary. Mr. H still pushes him to trust him however, and by the end of the weak he (mistakenly) learns that Joshua did not kill him and that he can trust him. He also has some very nice moments with Nao and Sota (those two other players), Reapers like 777, and the Tin Pin community. How much he thinks other people are important can be seen more clearly when Taboo noise start attacking everyone, in which he can choose to either help or leave them be. In all cases he shows clear empathy, even if you decide he believes it’s better to not help others at that time. By the End of Week 2 he changes from “People are mostly annoying, but there are exceptions” to “Everyone has something unique, and everyone can help anyone”. The final words from Joshua also resonate with him a ton at this point (although he doesn’t fully internalize it just yet) which were “If you give up on yourself, you give up on the world”. To match this his new entry fee is “Every other player” (AKA everyone who can help him, and not every PERSON).

By Week 3 his growth just needs some adjusting but has made major progress. With Beat by his side, he mostly needs to learn that trusting others doesn’t mean just ignoring what you think, by trying to convince him about better courses of action. This is mostly symbolized in the mission Pinky gives them about Reaper Sport 4, in which he goes the full day trusting him even though he knows Beat is getting it wrong. Even by the end of the game, he is fully on board with letting Beat be the new Composer since he trusts him. One final note is that, by the end of the game, the actual attitude towards people in general is left up to the player. Because the message of this game is NOT “You should like everyone, everyone is great” but instead “You should learn from other people, and open yourself to them to grow”. Kitaniji directly asks Neku if he likes people, and you have the option to say either Yes or No. This has exactly 0 impact on the game and story after because this is not important for the message. People need people to grow as people, whether you like them or not is not the important part.||

Apart from this, there are also some other things that I want to point out about the theme! There is the fact that, throughout the entire game, you are able to read random people's minds! This is mostly something minor and for flavor, but it heightens the message of ||every person having their own personal views and feelings, and why reaching out to them may be interesting. It doubles the impact when on the final days' everyones thoughts get highjacked to think the same thing, as it paints that as unnatural and a horror to live in.||

Other minor stuff that reflect and show these themes can be seen throughout the game. ||The ramen story in which the owner loses himself by cooking extravagant ramen and can later reconnect by making the ramen he wants to make. The interactions between Lollipop and Pinky with Neku and Beat even though they are on completely different sides. The girls in Shiki Day 4 not trusting each other even though they wanted the same thing. Etc.||

The theme is made also super obvious by the end credits, in which ||the game title changes from The World Ends With You to The World Begins With You||. Fun fact, the title of TWEWY in japanese translates to “What a wonderful world”! I think it fits very well although a bit on the nose!

tl;dr: This is not a simple. “Hey, let’s all be friends!” JRPG theme, but more about how one interacts with the world and why that can be good and bad. It’s interesting when you look deeper into it

Other Minor Personal Favorites Things and Moments

I very much like the store and friendship system in this game! This is so minor, but I always loved ranking up in the different shops and see how the attitude of the clerks changed after you become a regular shopper at each place. Being able to read their minds to see past their customer service face is a huge plus for this. This gives so much character to each shop and (even each brand) outside of just being “the menu where you buy the things“. And you are encouraged to see this change in them by the locked ability system. Just a neat touch.

There are some ways this game was a bit ahead of its time. Look at the pin level up and evolution system for example. It has the mingle system with is basically a precursor to the streetpass functionality from the 3DS, while also having the shutdown PP system which levels up your pins just for taking breaks.

I’ve said it above, but I also like Tin Pin Slammer way more than I think the game expected me to…? I don’t know why, but I always wanted to play multiplayer with someone else. Never got to, though…Hopefully some day…

Pig Noises are also a neat way of making collectibles! They appear way before you know about them and you can stumble into them. When you know about them you can definitely search for them. And if you dig a bit more and you learn about the pig indicator icon it’s very easy to know where they are! It’s also cool that these collectibles offer a unique challenge each and give you a very specific reward by themselves. I can’t help but track these down every time I play through the game!

tl;dr: I’m a massive nerd and think way to hard about TWEWY way too often

Final Thoughts

Really, customization and expression is the name of the game here. I love how free this game makes me feel with its gameplay, and I played this game at a time in my life that it’s core theme of appreciating everyone for who they are and opening up to the world resonated with me. It may be cheesy (and some may say pitiable) but I feel that this game changed me in subtle ways during my teenage years. Being more accepting of different people for how they think, while also mantaining my own sense of self and what makes myself me.

I love this freaking game so much. It’s super important to me on a personal level, and I hope everyone that gives it a chance gets a little bit out of it! It’s a game made with a lot of passion behind it, and I think it shows clear through its entire run.

tl;dr: Thanks for reading! In case it wasn’t clear, I love this game!

I'll try nominating Tomb Raider (2013) once again

Playing the Final Remix version on handheld. I’m on the fourth day. I’m wondering if there will be some overtime after the last day as it feels like I got here pretty quick? Neku as a character is a little too angsty for me but I am enjoying the game. I do see why it’s been recommended for handheld play; this would have been fun on NDS.

Something that surprised me was the idle game mechanic (for earning PP). I feel like I never saw something like this until the mobile game era. As the game is still keeping track even when I’m sleep mode I think it negatively affected one of my boss fights? I had to temporarily put it down and tapped past the results too fast but I thought the fight time was longer than it should have been. Highest charge I got for a fusion attack was 3.0 on a particularly good run.

The Shutdown PP (the idle game mechanic) is very interesting for its time, I agree. On the original DS version there was also "Mingle" PP, which was basically a predecessor for the StreetPass functionality on the 3DS. You could walk around with Mingle mode activated and you would get PP for passing other users that were also mingling (called "ESP'er"s in game), or that had another game on their DS running (called "Civvies" in game). Since just going around with your active DS wasn't that common at the time there were also "Alien" encounters, which was basically that you could get a random bonus sometimes while mingling.

These three types of progress were pretty innovative for the time, which I definitely give kudos for. There are some other aspects of the PP system that I certainly do not like, but I think those are a bit spoiler-y...? Not a major spoiler in any way, but just in case you don't want any extra information spoiler tagging: The evolution system requiring certain types of PP can be very annoying. I understand that a Pin randomly evolving for you and not for a friend can lead to those "playground" rumors type of things, but I don't think the game is good for that sort of thing. What ends up happening with the evolution system is that you get locked from a better Pin for either battling too much, leaving a Pin equipped while you were away, or just not wanting to mingle...And you don't even know you are missing out! And if you do know you are missing out, you just need to grind specific types of PP which is just not fun.

I'm not sure about the boss fight thing you are talking about, though... I don't remember anything like that on the Switch version, but I've run into some bugs on the NDS version for pausing at weird times. I remember one time for example that I used a fusion attack just when the last enemy was killed, the animation played, but since there were no enemies when the game returned to the battlefield I just got stuck there with nothing to kill and no way to quit that particular fight. So I wouldn't be surprised if there was something weird with the timer if sleep was involved in any way.

So, yeah. This is definitely my favorite game ever, so I'm more than happy that this won GotM! I think I played through this game about 5 times in the past, and I really don't get tired of it. To this day I haven't played anything similar to it when it comes to mechanics, and the story and setting also really got me hooked when I played it as a late teenager.

However, I'll say, this is certainly not the best game ever made. It has its fair share of issues, and new players tend to get a bit confused/annoyed when trying the battle system for the first part of the game since it's so unlike pretty much anything else. It demands a lot of divided attention which is not super easy to get used to.

I'll probably be starting a new playthrough of this one this week to ensure I'm remembering stuff correctly and because I always can use an excuse to play through it again.

I hope everyone who joins has a good time with it!

A nice good couple of games this month for me! I don't think I'll finish either of the two I'm currently playing today, but this is definitely my highest number of completions this year on a single month with 12 of 'em!

Ori and the Will of the Wisps - May 04
Half-Minute Hero: The Second Coming - May 04
Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory - May 05
New Super Mario Bros. - May 07
Super Mario Land - May 08
Tunic - May 09
Overboard! - May 14
Kirby's Halloween Adventure - May 17
Dave the Diver - May 20
Rhythm Heaven Fever - May 20
A Tower Full of Cats - May 23
PICO PARK: Classic Edition - May 24

Highlights of the month for me I'd say were Ori and Tunic for sure! But I had a lot of fun with pretty much every game here. I'm finally "up to date" with KH, which is a journey I wouldn't personally really recommend although they are fun enough, and I finally finished Half-Minute Hero which I had been chipping away for quite some time (it got very repetitive by the half way point). Apart from that Rhythm Heaven and other rhythm games always scratch a good itch for me, and A BLANK Full of Cats is definitely my favorite series of those little "find the hidden thing-y" type game. I'm also kinda sad that I didn't super enjoy Dave the Diver with all of the good things that I heard from it since its release, but hey, different stuff for different people.

Currently I'm going through Card Shark that some of my fellow FCL people may know I've had my eye on for quite some time, and the Yakuza trip continues with Like a Dragon. Both are great so far, and I'm guessing will be completed by end of June!

My backlog is running a bit short on games that I think have a chance of winning, and that I think would be fun to discuss....How about Tomb Raider (2013)?

Started it yesterday and played a bit more earlier today. I'm about 3 hours in and I cleared what I think is the first "dungeon" and am now in the part where you reunite with Ku and need to escape from the big Owl monster thing.

So far, I'm very much enjoying my time with the game. For some reason I think the movement and mechanics seem to click much easier with me than the first Ori game, not sure why. It has been a while since I played the first one, but I seem to remember there were a couple of movement options that felt somewhat awkward on the first one personally. However, I haven't found anything like that so far, so that's definitely a personal positive!

I also love how it feels to move. Even after a couple of small upgrades, it feels like you move so fast and that you can just zoom around if you react fast enough to where you should be going next. Looking forward to playing more of this soon, hopefully!

This month I definitely cut back a lot on my gaming time compared to the rest of the year. In part because I was feeling a bit burnt down, and in part because there were some good but tiring things going on in my regular life, so really not that much energy for gaming. Two short games, a short to middle length game, and a longer one but that I had completed about 75% of it before this month started

Valiant Hearts: The Great War - Apr 14
The White Door - Apr 15
Final Fantasy X - Apr 27
Metroid Prime Remastered - Apr 30

I had fun with all of these, but none of them were really exceptional to be honest. Which I feel has been my experience basically all of 2024 so far. The best one for me was probably Valiant Hearts, but that's not really of how good of a game it is, but what it does with history and how everything is portrayed. More as an experience than just fun actual gaming time. And I think I've had more fun with other Rusty Lake games over The White Door, but it had some interesting things at least.

For this month, I'm feeling a bit more energized and want to dive back in into some good ol' backlog games. Will be participating in Ori 2 since it won GotM, and hopefully finish up the other two games I'm currently going through. After that...We shall see!

Think it's about time to start nominations for next month, huh? I'll be nominating Ori and the Will of the Wisps for this month. I need an excuse to start playing it, and gotm would be a good one. I'm looking very much forward to it, but a friend gave me a big arachnophobia warning, so I also need a bit of a push

I finally got around to playing this! I actually went all the way through it during this weekend. For a minute there I thought I wasn't going to get much time during this month to go through it. After nominating it for so long that would have been a bit sad...

I very much liked this experience! The gameplay itself is not amazing, but I found it serviceable enough. It reminded me a bit of stuff like The Liar Princess and The Blind Prince, which had ok enough controls and superb style and story (although I'd say that gameplay on that one was less fun).

I'm only familiar with the broadest and most general facts of WWI, so I feel like I learned a bit going through the game on that topic. The characters themselves felt fleshed out enough to feel a bit attached to them, but also generic enough so their experience could be extrapolated to more general groups of participants in the great war. Stuff like their diaries, and some of the letters that are found as collectibles I found were excellent to keep the human perspective of the conflict, which is definitely part of what the game tries to achieve.

Also, for as heavy a topic as this is, I didn't feel quite as emotionally taxed as I could have been. The game made a good effort to keep the tone light while not shying away from some of the more impactful aspects of this part of history. That was very interesting to experience. Comparing this one to stuff like This War of Mine, this one feels much lighter. It's the same way I also felt with My Memory of Us, although that one was a bit more character focused. I feel Valiant Hearts was better as a teaching tool than either of those, although the others felt more personal which made them have a different emotional impact.

All in all, definitely glad I went through it, and that I nominated it for so long! I wouldn't say it's necessarily a "fun" game, but it was more engaging than I expected, and I finished it not feeling drained and with a bit more information in my head.

March was another month of good to great gaming endeavors on my side. Nothing truly amazing, but nothing too bad either. And definitely more than a couple that I had been looking forward to!

Cats Hidden in Georgia - Mar 02
Kingdom Hearts III - Mar 04
Return of the Obra Dinn - Mar 05
Kingdom Two Crowns - Mar 12
Brave Hero Yuusha EX - Mar 14
Monster Prom 3: Monster Roadtrip - Mar 19
Lost Judgment - Mar 19
Bugsnax - Mar 21
Sifu - Mar 22

Probably the ones I enjoyed most were Monster Prom 3 (mostly for the people who I played with), Return of the Obra Dinn, Sifu, and Lost Judgment. But as I said before, I had a good time with all of these and I would recommend almost all of them up to a certain extent.

Last month I also started playing through two games that are long-ish that I've not yet completed, those being Final Fantasy X and Half-Minute Hero: The Second Coming. Although... I'm not quite sure if I'll beat them both on April. I'm feeling a bit burnt out at the moment, so it may be a week or two until I start fully gaming again as a main hobby. Work and life have been good but definitely tiring lately, so I find myself more and more just relaxing and putting some mindless thing on when on my free time. We shall see, I guess!

I'll nominate Valiant Hearts: The Great War for the regular GOTM. No nomination for April's Fools (at least not yet)

I had a lot of fun this month with my completions! I wouldn't say any of these was a total banger that had me completely hooked until I finished it, but most of these were definitely above average for my own enjoyment!

Astra Hunter Zosma - Feb 05
13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim (Replay) - Feb 05
Trials of Mana - Feb 06
Cube Escape: Paradox - Feb 12
Persona 4: Dancing All Night - Feb 12
Celeste 64: Fragments of the Mountain - Feb 18
Layton's Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaires' Conspiracy - Feb 20
Splatoon 3: Side Order - Feb 23
Finding Paradise - Feb 29

There was stuff that I've been waiting for a while like Astra Hunter Zosma, that is from a small indie dev that I've been following for a bit after I beat Soma Spirits some time ago, and I've been on a huge Splatoon streak for quite a while now, so the Side Order DLC was also a good fit for this month. Apart from that with my girlfriend we finally finished our playthrough of 13 Sentinels which I ver much enjoyed going through again after knowing the twists, and she also got really hooked. So all around a good time! Also, Celeste 64 was way better than any 1 week long development game had any right to be.

Nominating Valiant Hearts: The Great War once again

Not my biggest month in term of completions, but an alright start to the year I'd say

Child of Light - Jan 01
Khimera: Puzzle Island - Jan 01
Kirby's Pinball Land - Jan 04
Kingdom Hearts 0.2: Birth by Sleep - A Fragmentary Passage - Jan 05
The Last of Us Remastered - Jan 11
Storyteller - Jan 15
Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth - Jan 25

I wouldn't say there has been any huge standout, to be honest. I got way more into Puzzle Island than I thought I would, but nothing mind-blowing. It was also the usual "crazy start of year" month in life, and a passing flu didn't help matters much. But I had fun overall I'd say!

I'll probably stop nominating this soon since it's going lower and lower in the voting each time instead of picking up steam. But I'll try at least once more. Nominating Valiant Hearts: The Great War

December was a good cap for my gaming year, I'd say! Some variety and some of the longer games from my backlog finally done. And some games I truly truly enjoyed!

Yakuza 5 - Dec 03
Adventure - Dec 04
Cats Hidden in Italy - Dec 04
Cats Hidden in Bali - Dec 05
Cats Hidden in Maple Hollow - Dec 05
Sprout (2007) - Dec 12
Octopath Traveler - Dec 12
Yakuza 6: The Song of Life - Dec 14
Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight - Dec 17
Shaman King: Master of Spirits - Dec 18
An Arcade Full of Cats - Dec 27

Well...Maybe not that much of variety as I first thought... A lot of hidden cats games, and two Yakuzas... But hey, at least having Octopath there and a Rhythm game is at least SOME variety! I also spent a bunch of time on Persona Q2, Khimera: Puzzle Island, and Child of Light, which will probably be completions in January. Had quite a bit of fun this month!

I actually got through a lot of my backlog this year! It was in about 70 titles at the start, and now I'm at 32. I made a concious effort to not really buy almost any new ones, so that certainly helped. Definitely added a bunch of titles anyways (mainly free games, stuff that friends sent my way, or emulated), but it was good self restraint effort

1) Hades - Not much to say about this one. General consensus is that it's amazing, and I'll happily agree
2) TLOZ: Tears of the Kingdom - Same as above even though it's an entirely different type of game
3) Judgment - The private eye / attorney spin on the Yakuza formula is an excellent addition to what has become one of my favorite gaming franchises
4) Octopath Traveler - Think people who like this kind of game will already be familiar with it, so nothing more to add
5) Yakuza 4 - This was a heavily Yakuza'd year for me, and this one was the best of the mainline I played on 2023
6) A Castle Full of Cats - Find the hidden cats game. This game is astoundingly amazing for this genre, and great in general. I'll die on this hill
7) Doom Eternal - I'm not an FPS guy really, but is this game good or what? Love the speed and impact of the new Doom games a lot
8) Soma Union - Sequel to Soma Spirits (Not well-known RPGMaker game series). The only Mother-inspired series that has been able to really hold my attention. Very charming
9) Cinderella Phenomenon - Fairy-tale inspired VN. The underlying concept is very interesting, and the story is well executed in general
10) Spiritfarer - Very wholesome game. Was surprised by how there was always something to actively do from the start all the way to the very end

Special mentions: Cult of the Lamb, Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance HD, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge, Ys IX: Monstrum Nox, Yakuza Kiwami 2

Special mentions for games I thought I was going to hate and retire almost immediately but ended up having a surprisingly good time: Hand of Fate, Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy

This year was goooood for me in gaming. 110 completions in total counting some replays, and quite a nice variety of genres and themes.

Nominating Valiant Hearts: The Great War once again