Welcome to my last retrospective for 2024, where I give a rough summary on every game I've either beaten or made sufficient-enough progress on to write about during the last 3 months of the year. These are written in chronological order, but I will have my "Top 10" stack for the year ready. Special to this entry, I'll write up a short overview of the year at the end of this entry, kind of like a reflection and setting myself up for next year. Sit back, sip some hot cocoa, and enjoy!

I started this game in 2023, got about 50 hours between then and early Jan of this year. As part of my first set of "unfinished business" games, I decided to tie it out this quarter. While I will say as a whole the game is a step up from Portia, it definitely could've used some fat trimming. I felt stuck in a seemingly endless slog of mid-game progression before finally making it to end-game tier stuff. It feels like you constantly have to keep up with gathering materials to make all kinds of items to do commissions to make money to buy more stuff and progress with the story more. It also suffers the same issue from Portia with regards to needless padding of wait time to progress the main story at certain points. I dropped the game after 84 hours with some post-game story left, but I'm okay with that. It can get very grindy, but it is fun making progress and building up both your house and your yard. There's lots of sidequests that pop up throughout the game, making Sandrock feel livelier than Portia. Regardless of my complaints above, I do think Sandrock is an excellent game and has a TON of content to work through, memorable NPCs, and lots to do aside from just main story and gathering resources. It's worth the asking price if you're looking for something like Stardew but more RPG-y and focused on building than farming.
Irrelevant to the game itself, I'm not a fan of Pathea's decision to pump out TONS of DLC for this game including some romance quests. They also announced their 3rd game, Evershine, which I will be keeping an eye on but did they REALLY need another Kickstarter campaign?

Similar to My Time at Sandrock, I got about 50 hours in during Q2 2024 after watching the Fallout show (recommended, if you haven't seen yet) and put it down due to getting bored. I have finished the main story, siding with the Institute, decked out a pretty cool manor, and navigated through Nuka World. NW was cool enough. I didn't really care for the raider factions and felt they kinda ruined it, but you can deal with that too. Still a good game, but it just doesn't hit the same that F3/NV did.

Me writing about this yet again should come as no surprise if you've read the other retrospectives, but 1.0 has finally come out and doubled the amount of achievements since I last played, so here we go again for the last time. They added a lot of content since I last played. A technically endless final dungeon. A lot more gear to unlock and uncommon variants you can keep if you beat the final boss. A "main story" questline to follow. Lots of rebalancing and an artifact system to make your future runs go crazy, and it's still fun and most builds are still somewhat viable. There's a lot. Honestly almost too much in terms of achievements especially some are exceptionally grindy, but plentiful in classes, abilities, and ways to play the game. I did clear the "main story" and did quite a bit of post-game content to unlock more gear and whatnot, but getting the 100% will be something I do only if I'm craving a VS-like and aren't in the mood for others. Well worth the asking price.

I decided to jump to the sequel instead of the "next" game in the series first, Arcade, just because the gameplay was the same between the two. Comparatively, this game is a LOT easier than the first. I only played about 20 minutes and I already had the 5th world unlocked. A couple of the new mechanics are neat, like killing certain enemies moving you and the indicator for the apples is nice QOL. Not sure why the game is $4 more than LP1 especially if it's this much shorter, but I digress. LP2 still has that charm of the first game and it's chock-full of secrets too.

With some social events happening throughout the quarter, I decided to pick this back up and finish the cups on all classes. I did play MK8 on the Wii U and even bought the season passes. Looking back I probably shouldn't have wasted my money, but playing it now reaffirms me I didn't? MK8 is pretty much the peak of all Mario Kart. It's very polished, very fun, very customizable, has a huge roster of characters and some customization to boot, and numerous tracks. It's just pure fun and I can see why it's high on everyone's recommended Switch list and why it gets bundled a lot. I do have a bit more personal love for Wii and Double Dash, but there is no contesting MK8D's greatness.

I got this back in June and played a few chapters, but I held off on finishing it until I went on some trips this quarter to play it through. I can see why so many people like it and why there's this cult following for it somewhat. The artstyles, music and character designs are all really great and charming. The QoL they added from the Gamecube is pretty nice and makes for less tedious backtracking (which the original was a little notorious for, if you were going for 100%). As a game on its own, I really like how Paper Mario: TTYD's RPG systems work in terms of stats, badges and overall builds you can do. Of course some builds are grossly better than others, but there's still plenty of fun to have with the non-meta builds. The story telling is nice and full of humor that even holds up today. It's just a great game full of content, unique RPG aspects, and fun.

I got this game back in April when it was given away as (seemingly) a joke, but I got around to playing it during October with a couple friends. Is it a lot like Lethal Company? Yes. Is it still fun? Yes. Is it better than LC? I'd say so since I got bored of LC much faster. Having to find enemies, interact with them AND record them for content to get more views is hilarious, especially once you start unlocking things like emotes. The game is MUCH more lenient and forgiving than LC too. It's a bit unpolished and the same-y feeling locations can get a little boring, but I had a great time with it.

Another October-y game that I put off for a couple years, but I picked it back up and am finally really experiencing. It's fine. Building a castle is pretty fun and I like all the options you have with it. Being a vampire is pretty neat, getting different forms that can give different abilities is cool. Having an army of servants and prisoners held hostage is also an interesting concept. It's just, if you're playing in PvE it's a bit boring, linear, and grindy (though you can customize some of these options up and a lot of people recommend doing it anyway). V Rising was definitely made with groups and/or PvP in mind, and for something ARPG-like, the gear progression is a bit boring and mostly linear. Abilities don't really feel too unique. The game's difficulty is weird and not in the good way. I like having to fight bosses to unlock more abilities, recipes et al, but some of the unlocks that give you better gear are locked behind bosses that are rather challenging for your level. V Rising's base-building and exploring is fun, but the combat aspect is lackluster and frustrating at times, at least if you're playing solo PvE. A mixed, but good enough bag. I'd get it only if you have friends to play with or want to dip into PvP.

After LP1 and 2, I jumped to this one. Its gameplay is definitely different, focused more on slower, precise movements and shooting. It's not as great as LP1 and 2, being more restricted in movement and having to play almost perfectly in the second half of the game just to pass the level. Some of the levels early on are satisfying to get through, but a lot of them are just trial and error figuring out how to spawn what monsters and what order to kill them. Has its fun moments, but I dropped it shrugging and am glad this style didn't get picked up again.

I played the first one last year and loved it. Was a nice balance of old-school Doom with modern QoL and updates like an XP system and a "skill tree" that could change your primary weapons. The Cthulhu themes were cool too. FmF2 came out of early access this quarter so I dipped in and gave it a shot. It's same-y but also different. Still the cool Cthulhu themes, the music, the similar gameplay. They did away with the leveling system, changed the health/armor system, and the weapon system. Now you can buy and swap out each of your 6 weapons to different types which is neat enough. The dark tome system now lets you pick up to a mix of 3 passives/actives. A downgrade from the first, same with the health/armor. The levels feel a bit more bloated and the game feels pretty punishing with health/armor pickups so your selections are almost picked for you and overall you feel limited in your combat options. Don't get me wrong, it's still a good game; just a couple steps down from its predecessor.

This isn't a backlogged game, but I put about 100 hours into it as I'm writing this entry. This is definitely the most hardcore zombie game I've ever played. There's a lot of somewhat realistic mechanics to deal with. Clothing and weather, food and drink, power/water management when they go off, building things via carpentry, learning to get better at shooting a gun, the zombies as they are, car mechanics. There's just a lot, and the game IS tough, but it's a lot of fun and very satisfying to escape a horde. The world gradually looks more decrepit the further you play, and having to scavenge for resources when the power/water go out and food goes bad makes it really feel like a survival game. There have been SEVERAL tense moments and sighs of relief. Plus the amount of options you can tweak to give yourself the experience YOU want is solid. To me, that's what makes a great survival game, even a horror game at that. Solid recommendation, and one of the best the genre has to offer.

I was challenged to play this last quarter and after picking up the 3 games before it, here we are. While I didn't like Arcade too much, I don't mind this one. It takes a platformer approach and the game feels more chill? Not as intense on the action (though some moments go crazy), the platforming mechanics are good, the collectibles are fun to find per norm, and the way mechanics get introduced is slow and steady. The levels overall are much longer than the other games, for better and worse, but overall I found it a welcome entry into the LP series and do recommend you check it out.

Another boomer shooter I discovered thanks to good ol' Civvie. I got this one for free from Prime Gaming, so shoutouts to Amazon for making my ever-growing membership cost actually worth it! Anyway, this game is weird. Kinda janky, kinda unbalanced, but a lot of cool elements went into it too. The limb system is really cool, certain weapons being more effective at blowing off arms and legs and seeing the impact it had on making the enemies easier to deal with. The bosses were interesting puzzles, albeit a bit janky. The weapon balance... varied. I played on normal and died a lot more than I expected, so it definitely brought the challenge. The translation gives me Symphony of the Night levels of hysteria, complimented with the main VA who sounded so radiantly positive and energetic while reading about his dead comrades and his passion about time travel. Overall, it was alright. Neat to see a relic from 1997 get the same remaster treatment as other shooters that have been coming out lately.

I decided to pick this up because I wasn't in the mood to do my usual Beat Saber workout. I never played Fruit Ninja in any capacity, and my first game session was fun! Simple but addicting fun, and my arms were getting tired from swinging around so much. That said, the more I played the less I enjoyed it overall. Classic mode is your standard fare, but the bombs are extremely annoying to deal with in VR and the fact you game over instantly instead of just get a miss is annoying. Arcade is the most fun mode, but it's extremely random every time and I don't think you should need to bank on RNG giving you the most power-ups to get the highest score, especially when some moments the game just randomly goes slow and ruins the flow. My go-to mode for when I grind out the achievements because it is still fun. Zen is basically Arcade, but no power-ups/bombs and slightly longer time. Would've preferred an in-between mode that didn't have bombs but had the other power-ups. The survival mode is pretty neat, but again dealing with the bombs to take out the basket monsters gets annoying. Minor bits of hit detection being off too. It's pretty fun if you can grab it for less than $2 like I did, but I wouldn't pay asking price and I wish dealing with the bombs was handled better.

I bought this during the fall sale based off the premise alone: a semi-idler that hangs out at the bottom of your window (or side)? Sounds neat. It's a farming game where you grind unlocks, build out your land, and make that money. I wouldn't call it dopamine-inducing like some other idle games, but it's cute, its premise works well, there's replayability with the different farms, and it had its good moments of silliness. Unique experience for sure.

In my younger years I always liked marble games.. Marble Arena on PC, Marble Blast on PC, Marble Blast Ultra on Xbox... you get the gist. I picked this up during the fall sale as a fun way to relive nostalgia and just have something I can pick up and put down. It's great, The physics feel tight. The levels are fun, finding the unlocks in each level is a cool challenge, the replayability is very high, and it's still frustrating but not AS bad as some of the older games. You also get the classic version for free, which I haven't touched yet but the free addition is nice. I don't think it's worth 30 bucks, but if you can get it for $15 or less and have fun memories of games like this, I can recommend it easily.

Much better than the first one. More fleshed out modes while still maintaining some of the modes from the first games. Contrary to common opinion, I don't mind the level format this game takes especially since the old modes are included. I'm also biased but having archery be included is a plus. Having a world to explore for goodies is fun. There's way more replayability and the unlocks are handled much cooler. Worth checking out on sale and if you just want some light-hearted, fruit-slashing action.

This quarter has been largely about "loose ends". I've started numerous games throughout the year but put on hold for numerous reasons (mostly me being distracted) or played games in prior years and haven't picked them up for whatever reason, so I dedicated time this quarter to tying them out. Some games like HoT finally got a 1.0 release. Others like My Time at Sandrock and Fallout 4 I just got fatigued on but not sick of enough to drop, so it's cathartic to see these through to the end of their main stories. Some I just waited for an opportune time to play (MK8D and Paper Mario during travel).

Closing the book on 2024, it's been a good year for me, at least comparatively. Much better backlog progress this year than the last two years. It's kind of funny to reflect on how Q1 had the most strong hitters while the other quarters were same-y. Some good, some bad, but nothing too crazy. I dropped 6 games this year (one I didn't write about), counted 34 (as of 11/11/24) beat, spent considerably less on gaming this year than the past couple years, and took better care of myself personally. I'm hoping next year keeps up this positive momentum and hopefully I play some bigger hits. Have a great end of the year celebration, can't wait to keep up with your guys' progress next year!