Valkyrie Profile could’ve been one of Squeenix’s big series. But they just kinda started pretending it doesn’t exist. The first one was solid and had a good PSP port (that just got ported to PS4 and PS5), the sequel on PS2 was pretty good but a bit more traditional, and then there was a DS game that I haven’t played unfortunately.

So this spin-off was announced a little bit matter-of-factly in I think a Sony Direct. I kinda wanted to get it solely because it was a new VP game, pretty much. So I did, when the PC version came out 2 months late, and then I took like a month to actually play it because I had so much other stuff to play. And then I took a couple weeks to review it.

Well let’s go! This won’t be super long.

So this game is a game that took… really long to come out, and seems to have had a kinda troubled development, what with the change of devs what seems like no more than a year before release, and it was delayed… like, 3 or 4 times… But people were pretty excited for this one, and I was one of them.

So it came out in July, and I… bought it in November at half price during Black Friday. Yeah I took a while to get to it.

So let’s see if the long-awaited game is good!

2023 is starting! January is usually not a very big month for games, and I’d say this January isn’t changing the trend. But there’s still a few big things coming out anyways. And I’m still doing my thing, I have 2 reviews I’m currently writing, they should pop up soon, and there’s gonna be more to come.

So for January 2023, I’m highlighting: 12 multiplats, 1 Switch exclusive and 1 PC exclusive. As far as anything I’d buy, there’s 2 I’m getting for sure, 2 I’m pretty sure I’m getting, and a maybe or two more. So not a very big month, but there’s stuff coming out, mostly later in the month.

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.

And no I’m not including such masterpieces as “Webcam Sex” and “Hentai EroElf”. Steam has really weird standards, I gotta say. Japanese RPGs and visual novels get censored or taken off the store weirdly frequently for no reason at all, but those shitty puzzle games with nudity remain somehow.

*EDIT 12/31: Added a game, oops*

Well the GotY stuff is done, so not much is left to do this year other than… get hyped for next year! I also have 2 reviews that I’m writing, and the january release list. So I’m doing stuff!

2022 was a pretty fun year with a lot of pretty solid games. 2023… I’m not quite sure if it’s lining up to be quite as good, but it very easily could. There’s a good number of really interesting games coming up, but I’m actually not sure about big badass games yet, as a whole.

So I’ll do my yearly usual post, giving my top 6-ish hyped games, make a big list of big-to-small games I’m interested in, and make a list of big games I’m not interested in. Just trying to get excited about the future and stuff.

So let’s go!

So I reviewed a decent amount of games this year. But I played more than what I reviewed. I did have a few “I don’t want to review X game” posts, where I’d give a quick synopsis of why a review felt a bit pointless, or I didn’t finish the game and had little to say about it. Like Dawn of the Monsters which I found kinda meh, or Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes which I really liked but didn’t review because it’s just another Warriors game.

So I figured, let’s take all these games I played and didn’t review, and put them all in one big stupid post. Why not!

Here are the games I’m having a look at in this post: Windjammers 2, Gunvolt Chronicles: Luminous Avenger iX 2, Azure Striker Gunvolt 3, Hot Wheels Unleashed, Blossom Tales 2, River City Saga: Three Kingdoms, Shovel Knight Dig, Metal Hellsinger, Omega Labyrinth Life, River City Girls 2, Freedom Planet 2, Demon Throttle, Gungrave G.O.R.E., Ground Divers. A bit of a random post, but hey I like talking about most of the games I play, so there it is.

Well, let’s go!

I stopped watching Rick and Morty after season 3, which was a pretty shit season overall with only a few high points. I know basically nothing else about Justin Roiland’s other work, and have not played any of his previous games. But this one looked pretty cool, I liked some of the ideas I was seeing here. So I picked it up!

Well, let’s see if the game with the Morty gun is any good!

I saw videos of this a few times. It looked cool. So I bought it. And now I’m reviewing it.

Only hype, detailed intros on this website, I tell ya.

Let’s go and see if this is good or whatever!

Squeenix sure are busy boys right now. They had so much stuff this year, but especially since September. Since then they’ve released Diofield Chronicles, Valkyrie Elysium, Dragon Quest X Offline (for those who speak japanese), Star Ocean: The Divine Force, Harvestella and Tactics Ogre: Reborn, and then there’s a few more coming out in December with Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song Remastered, Dragon Quest Treasures and Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion. That’s a lot of games for one company in just a couple months, and that didn’t include a few collections and ports (like the upcoming PS4/5 port of Valkyrie Profile Lenneth), and I’m actually not sure what their involvement with Front Mission 1st: Remake is as most info I’m finding doesn’t include them (which is weird since it was always published and sometimes developed by Square)… And it’s not like they were quiet the rest in the year with some BANGERS like Stranger of Paradise. There’s not a lot of companies with output like this anymore, it’s pretty cool to see.

As for Harvestella, I always thought it looked cool, but also it’s in a subgenre I have basically no familiarity with. Basically, the last farming game I played was Harvest Moon. On the SNES. I haven’t touched any since. I have yet to try the Rune Factory series, which I feel like I should. I haven’t touched Stardew Valley either. And there’s just so many farming games right now, but I haven’t played any of them. So I figured… why not start here! I did hear some people were disappointed in the demo, but that Squeenix actually fixed some of the issues people had there in the final version, so that’s great to hear.

Let’s check out if my first farming game since the SNES is cool!

Star Ocean is a series. It has games. Some of them are good, namely the first 3, and I remember having fun with the fourth even though that one was rather disliked overall. The fifth, on PS4, is one of the few RPGs I gave up on after less than 5 hours played. I don’t even really remember it, I just didn’t like it.

So this new one was kinda announced out of nowhere, I think in a Playstation Direct, and to basically no hype at all… So I picked it up at launch, finished it weeks ago, started playing and reviewing other things, and now I’m finally reviewing this.

Well, let’s go and talk about this video game!

Man I have so much to review still. Just got the Pokemon review out, I have Star Ocean and Harvestella reviews on the go (coming eventually), and I just started Evil West, I haven’t started Valkyrie Elysium yet (taking a slight break from RPGs), and I’ll need to get Gungrave and Front Mission 1st: Remake and maybe The Knight Witch and whatever the shit’s coming out in December… busy busy busy. Might need to move things around as far as what I’ll play/review… I don’t NEED The Knight Witch.

But yeah, there’s stuff coming out in December. Decembers are usually relegated to smaller releases, maybe one big one on one of the systems but it’s never super busy. This isn’t much different, but there’s still a bunch of potentially good stuff and at least one game I’m really excited about. So this time I’m highlighting: 13 multiplats, 2 Switch games and 1 PC game. As for what I’ll be buying/reviewing from these, there’s ONE “for sure ASAP”, and 7-8 games that are at varying levels of maybe.

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.