JOBOCAN Game Reviews - Jovial Outlook Based on Centuries Analysing Nonsense

You know what? Since I’m so slow at posting reviews nowadays, why not simplify shit around this website? Instead of not putting out content at all, let’s just do possibly-monthly stuff. I’ll still do reviews for some of the more interesting shit if I manage to write them in a timely manner. But, if I don’t, I’ll just make posts like this. That way I don’t have an empty blog with nothing happening all the time.

So the plan is to just… talk about the games I’ve been playing. Say what’s been good, what’s been not good, and give a couple paragraphs about each.

Because it’s my first time doing this, I’ll include stuff from january and february. The included games this month are: Dungeons of Aether, 9 Years of Shadow, Mameda no Bakeru, Chained Echoes, Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth, Palworld, Granblue Fantasy: Relink, Penny’s Big Breakaway, Pocket Card Jockey Ride On and Balatro.

Hey. So apparently I haven’t posted at all in January other than today. lol. I have a review halfway written for Mameda no Bakeru, I will get that done at some point. I also want to talk about Palworld. And I’m also playing through Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, which has a depressingly awful localization so every time someone says something in japanese and the english translation is entirely wrong (which is almost every sentence), I just feel like playing it less… so I probably won’t review that because I probably won’t finish it. Disappointing because I was really hyped for it, but the fact that I understand japanese a bit is just sucking out the fun out.

So yeah, February is a month. It has games. I’m highlighting: 14 multiplats, 3 Switch games, 3 PC games, and a PS5 temporary exclusive. I remove a few remasters from the list because they were dumb, like Dark Forces and Brothers 😀 … It might seem like there’s a decent amount of games, but I dunno, there’s not much I’m all that hyped about. I’d say 1 “for sure” and like 3 maybes.

So let’s go!

Disclaimer: I only list games that I think are worth mentioning. This includes games I’m personally interested in, games that will likely be popular, highly advertised games, some more niche stuff I may notice, and such. Not just games I care about myself, I highlight as much as I think makes sense. And of course, I can’t see the future, so I may be missing games and I may be listing games that may get delayed.

Well the GotY and 2024 hype stuff is done, so back to the regular schedule. Game releases! I do have a review incoming for the japan-exclusive Mameda no Bakeru, once I’m done with it. I have been playing other stuff as well, not sure I’ll get reviews up for those. Namely Dungeons of Aether (very okay/10), 9 Years of Shadow (actually pretty good), and I bought but haven’t started Chained Echoes which I heard very good stuff about.

So here I’m highlighting: 8 multiplats, 2 Switch games, 2 PC games, and the dumbest release in history on PS5. As far as what I’m buying in those, there’s one of my most hyped games this year already so that’s one, and I have 2-3 maybes. Not a terrible start for the year.

Oh and Palworld I think is meant to come out in Early Access this month, I might have a look.

Let’s go and start 2024!

Disclaimer: I only list games that I think are worth mentioning. This includes games I’m personally interested in, games that will likely be popular, highly advertised games, some more niche stuff I may notice, and such. Not just games I care about myself, I highlight as much as I think makes sense. And of course, I can’t see the future, so I may be missing games and I may be listing games that may get delayed.

Okay I did my GotY post, now let’s stop looking at the past and look at the future… Hopefully 2024 brings just a bit more quality than 2023 did.

I’m just gonna do the usual, just talk about my top 6 most-hyped-for-now games, and then big lists of games I have some level of hype for, and a slightly smaller list of games that might be popular but that I don’t have hype for (some because they’re bad, some because they’re not really my thing).

So let’s go!

It’s time for the only Games of the Year awards that matter!
… Just kidding, no GotY awards matter. But I like doing them (which does, in fact, make this more relevant than the VGAs), so here we go.

I am choosing 5 winners, and then one TOP GAME OF THE YEAR winner, just to attempt at variety, and then posting all my honorable mentions which are games I liked but that weren’t GotY material. This is obviously going to be based on games I played myself (which is still over 50 games, even though I reviewed very few of those). So if there’s a game you liked and it doesn’t appear as one of my winners or honorable mentions… it’s because I didn’t play it. And I probably didn’t play it because it was obviously bad.

As far as notable games I skipped one that aren’t bad (or probably aren’t bad), there’s still a few of those. I skipped on both Like a Dragon games, Baldur’s Gate 3 (I will get it at some point), Persona 5 Tactica, Remnant 2, Hogwarts Legacy, Lies of P, Dave the Diver and probably a bunch of other games that were pretty popular and probably-good. Also didn’t play FF16 which… I’ve not been convinced it’s good, but I’m waiting for the PC version so I will review it when I do play it.

And there’s a few obviously bad games I didn’t touch, like Alan Wake 2, Starfield, Redfall and Diablo 4 (I played the beta, it was not good, so I skipped on the full game). And of course there’s some bad games I did play, like Forspoken and Sonic Superstars… or that were fairly subpar like Spongebob Cosmic Shake.

As a general rule, remakes and remasters will not make the list unless they’re substantially different from the original, but some might make it into the honorable mentions.

Anyways, time to rant quickly, then go through the winners and stuff. LET’S GO!

So this is the Game of the Year. Spoilers!

Yeah, when this was announced, I knew it would rank highly as one of my favorite games this year, but I didn’t know exactly how much.

This is a series that us non-japanese people haven’t gotten any of in a long while. The last game in the series we got in the west is Dragon Quest Monsters Joker 2, in 2010. We missed on the Pro version of Joker 2 (which is particularly stupid because the Pro version came out in Japan 6 months before the vanilla version came out in the west… where’s the logic?). We missed on Joker 3 and its “Pro” version. We missed on the 3D remakes of DQM1 and DQM2. We missed on all the mobile games (Wanted, Super Light, and the mobile port of the 3D remake of DQM1) except for Tact which barely counts. And we even somehow missed on Terry’s Wonderland Retro which is just a port of the Game Boy version of DQM1 with some extra UI added around the game screen (with stuff like monster stats and labyrinth info)… which is a really fucking stupid game not to port to the west considering an english translation literally already exists from 25 years ago… It IS a fantastic series, but Squeenix hates us.

But when this was announced for a worldwide release, the hype was off the charts. FINALLY we get a new one!

So let’s see exactly how good it is… or whatever it is I’ll write after this, I have no idea.

Every year, the VGAs remind us that they’re awful, boring and stupid. Why do people keep watching? I make sure to watch someone that is “reacting” to it just to be sure they don’t get my view. Fuck Geoff the Lizardman’s shitty show. It’s been a shitshow since when it started in 2003 on Spike TV, and it’s still shit despite the (barely) rebrand.

The nominees are decided by people who legitimately do not play games (Evidence: Alan Wake 2 was nominated in many categories… And Dave the Diver was nominated in the indie category even though it’s literally not indie), the winners are decided by people who legitimately do not play games (Evidence: Pizza Tower wasn’t in the indie category, and lost the one category it was nominated in… Also Alan Wake 2 won in multiple categories), and gamers have very little say on what goes on there. Not a single award given in any of these categories is worth taking seriously, because it’s all decided by people who have no idea what’s going on. Even if there’s audience voting, it actually doesn’t matter because the weight of the audience in the decision is minimal… and, as the Player’s Voice category showed, the people who vote in this stupid show are clearly not qualified to do so when a game from 2 years ago almost fucking wins.

Some people say they watch it for the World Premieres… Okay, watch the World Premieres when they’re uploaded on youtube a few minutes later. Not like they’re ever any good, of course. Or worth suffering through the VGAs to watch them. This year had the Visions of Mana trailer, and Monster Hunter Wilds being announced a year too early which is a waste of time, and that REALLY fucking weird Sega trailer where new games for Jet Set Radio, Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, Shinobi and Crazy Taxi (cool announcements, but why announce 5 games in the span of 40 seconds? Stupid trailer). You could’ve just seen these on youtube or twitter. No need for the VGAs to exist.

Fuck the VGAs.

…There’s automatically a Read More button but there’s nothing more to read.

Really didn’t have much to talk about this month. Didn’t really have a good reason to do reviews other than Mario RPG. Like, I finished Ghostrunner 2, that was okay. Almost finished Hardhat Wombat (newest game by some people who worked on Plants vs Zombies), that’s pretty fun. Played a whole lot of Mahjong Soul because I decided to be good at Mahjong and rank up (and I did). But there’s not much I really felt like posting about… Oh and I picked up Cyberpunk, maybe that’ll be okay, I’m not super sure about it yet.

So here I’m highlighting: 3 multiplats, 2 Switch releases and 1 PC release. There’s very little. One of the most hype games of the year… and that’s about it. There’s a few things I decided on purpose not to highlight, and a lot of stuff that didn’t manage to catch even a little bit of my attention…  Like, am I really supposed to highlight a shitty VR FNAF game? Fuck that, just watch the 50 videos MatPat will make out of it. Several other games I say that I don’t feel warrant the highlighting. Also Apple Arcade is not a real platform… Just a reminder.

Oh and Xbox is getting BG3, but I didn’t find a precise date so it’s not in here.

Let’s go and wonder why I bothered posting this!

Disclaimer: I only list games that I think are worth mentioning. This includes games I’m personally interested in, games that will likely be popular, highly advertised games, some more niche stuff I may notice, and such. Not just games I care about myself, I highlight as much as I think makes sense. And of course, I can’t see the future, so I may be missing games and I may be listing games that may get delayed.

I think I need to be the singular voice of dissent towards this game. Not because it’s bad, far from it, but it’s a major symptom of a malady that has been turning the entire gaming industry to shit for many years.

While there was excitement for this game when it was announced, and it’s seemingly doing amazing (consistently staying above Super Mario Wonder on the eshop), it’s also something of a “why would you do this” kind of game.

So let’s talk about it!

I put out reviews this month! And didn’t put out other stuff I wanted to! Yay! Currently playing Ghostrunner 2 and Hardhat Wombat, not sure if I’ll fully review either yet, but they’re good.

So here I’m highlighting: 20 multiplats, 3 Switch games and 1 PC game. As far as anything I’m actually buying… There’s 2 I’m getting for sure, and, like, 1 or 2 maybes. No much there. Lots of interesting stuff that I just happen to not care about.

Let’s go I guess!

Disclaimer: I only list games that I think are worth mentioning. This includes games I’m personally interested in, games that will likely be popular, highly advertised games, some more niche stuff I may notice, and such. Not just games I care about myself, I highlight as much as I think makes sense. And of course, I can’t see the future, so I may be missing games and I may be listing games that may get delayed.