Switch – Delfeir vs. the Backlog

Delfeir vs The Backlog General Update (Sept 2022)

Because the least I can do for my website is write stuff for it

Given that I’ve spent much of the year not updating this website, I figured I should rectify that.

Hi! I’m alive!

It’s been another one of those years that — while mercifully not spent in lockdown — has seen very little headway in any of the things I’d like to do or the projects I’ve begun. In addition to a status update on some of those, there’s a few games in particular I’ve played this year that I would like to write about, so I’ll put a spotlight on those in a mini-Backlog Report.

IGN Review of Galactic Civilizations IV

Let’s start off with the major positive news from the year: I got hired by IGN as a freelancer to review a game! If there was any doubt to myself (or others) that I’m not any good at what I do, that helped me dispel it significantly. Paid review work for one of the biggest games media sites on the internet? Regardless of your opinion of the website, that’s a big deal, and I was certainly thrilled. It was a good little opportunity to work with some very skilled, friendly, and communicative editors over there.

The only negatives about the experience were that the game in question (Galactic Civilizations IV) itself was not particularly good, but writing about it was nonetheless interesting. If you’ve not seen it yet, you can read the review over on IGN. I also wrote the script for the video version, which is slightly different and a lot more condensed due to word limits.

There’s more I’d like to write about GalCivs 4 that I didn’t touch on in the review, honestly. But the reason I elected to omit it from the review is that it’s a heavily political deep-dive into some of the systems and writing there, both as a political reading and as a kind of “eureka!” moment on why I always felt the series failed to meet my expectations. I think there’s plenty to say there, but it’s not what IGN is really about or particularly pertinent to the rest of the overall review. Hopefully I’ll get to put it up here at some point.

The Delfies 2021: Some Other Games I Liked This Year

You might actually find a western triple A game in here… but that’s unlikely.

If you haven’t read my Delfies 2021 Top 10 yet, you can find that here.

I found myself in the interesting place of having too many games and struggling to cut them down to a top 10 this year. At the same time, it felt like nothing in my top 10 could really compete with the top four or so from 2020, so it was harder still to make the selection. I’m ultimately satisfied with the placement of where everything ended up, but there were more games that I feel I could shine a light on. Some of them are the more mainstream triple A games that I enjoyed but ultimately washed over; some are indie games that were really charming in their own right but just couldn’t quite make the mark.

But hey, I’ve got a platform and time, so it’s only right that I spare some words for those as well.

With that sentiment in mind, I ended up ballooning this list even further. Many of these didn’t make the top 10 candidate list, and a few I’ve yet to finish at all (or they themselves are in early access, thus proving ineligible for now). Some I’ll get to in full later on, with any luck. This is more of a quantity over quality lightning round, but I’ll try to give them all a fair shake, and none of these are in any particular order.

Before we proceed, there’s a few games I also want to mention that interest me, but I’ve yet to actually start playing them properly or else they’d likely be here too. Those are: Everhood, Tales of Arise, Death’s Door, Psychonauts 2, FIST: Forged in Shadow Touch, The Forgotten City and Outer Wilds’s DLC Echoes of the Eye. I just haven’t had the chance to tackle them for more than an hour if at all yet, but they’re all in my immediate future. So now let’s cover the ones I actually did get to.

The Delfies 2021: Top 10

Objectively the only correct choices on the internet. That’s totally what this means.

2021 wasn’t a bad year for games, but it also didn’t feel like a particularly inspiring one. There wasn’t really any single game that absolutely blew me away or changed my perspectives on the hobby like 2020 did. In fact, the opposite happened: the one game that I dared to let my guard down and hype up for myself ended up disappointing me beyond what I thought possible. You will not be seeing Final Fantasy 14’s Endwalker expansion on this list; that gets its own article later on, and it’ll be far less celebratory.

Still, let’s not be a total downer on what’s meant to highlight the best of the year. Not until the end of the article, anyway. So, I’m going to split this into two articles. The one you’re reading now is what I personally consider my top 10 for the year. There’ll be a follow up article not long after to cover other games I enjoyed this year that didn’t make the cut, either because I didn’t finish them or didn’t find them quite as complete. I’ll also mention what systems I played them on specifically.

Without further ado, the Delfies of 2021!

Backlog Battle Report (May-July 2021)

Who needs in-depth coverage when you can have a lightning round?!

Writing’s been slow again, compounded by the usual suspects but also by a keyboard malfunction. This necessitated a new one: a Logitech G512 with brown tactile switches since I enjoy blasting people over Discord with my fast typing. Nothing special, but it does the job and it’s holding up so far. The malfunction happened while I was about halfway through writing this, though! That stalled me even further, but it also let me add new games to the list in the interim. If some of these entries seem like they were written separately, that’s why.

I’m still in between a bunch of articles and projects, but still have plenty of games played and things to talk about in general. Some of these will get a full piece eventually, should I manage to actually pull something together that I’m satisfied with. But until then, here’s what I’ve been playing for the last while.

The usual drill: two or three paragraphs tops (Future Delfeir here just to laugh at that statement…), focused more on quantity and general impressions than anything too detailed. It’s also not a completely exhaustive list, but mostly just the highlights and things that are worth talking about. Trust me, I won’t be short of things to talk about… this one clocks in at about six thousand words, so be warned. ‘ere we go!

Subnautica: Below Zero (PC)

I had to double check when I started writing this that I hadn’t talked about this one already here. Shows how much time has passed, I suppose. Either way, the Subnautica spinoff/sequel came out of Early Access a couple months back. I really enjoyed the original, so I was quick to “dive back in” to this one, hurr hurr. Regardless, it didn’t disappoint, and it was a good time all around. There’s still something about these two games and their alien environments that really stand out amidst the crowd of other survival games out there.

Below Zero is a shorter affair than its predecessor, and I wrapped it up in maybe half the time. It can be described as condensed in both good and bad ways. I don’t think there’s quite as many interesting or varied biomes to explore or materials to find. However, the technology progression and story pacing is much smoother, so Below Zero just seemed to flow better in general. I enjoyed the story better overall too, so there’s that. It’s an easy recommend for anyone who finds the concept intriguing, no matter your familiarity with the first.

I Will Now Proceed to Hype About Metroid Dread

It’s been 84 years… or feels like it, anyway.

Fuck. Yes.

New Pokemon Snap Review

Everyone else already subtitled their reviews with “Picture Perfect”, so I’m not gonna. It’s accurate though.

I half joked with friends when this game was about to come out that “2021’s GOTY will be out soon” and we all had a laugh. My desire to play the game was genuine and everything I’d seen of it in Nintendo Directs prior to launch seemed promising. Even so, I’m very much at odds with the Pokemon franchise these days. I liked seventh gen well enough, but didn’t touch Sword/Shield. It seemed that games like Temtem were delivering on the Pokemon concept in ways that actually reflected the twenty plus years of game design since the first two generations were released. By contrast, Pokemon games just seemed stale, not to mention going down a path of being “child friendly” to the point that it felt patronising to said children.

With all this in mind, I didn’t necessarily think that New Pokemon Snap would really be able to capture the magic again. Well, the joke’s on me. I’m no longer kidding when I say that New Pokemon Snap will almost certainly be in the short list of my games of the year.

Gnosia Review — Come For the Mafia, Stay For the Story

Taking a multiplayer game and making it a solo experience is interesting; weaving in a really strong narrative and characters in the process? That’s remarkable.

I originally set out to do a full review and breakdown of Gnosia in my usual fashion. As soon as I was done with the Bravely Default novels, it was next up on the hit list. That didn’t pan out as I’d hoped. There’s a disjointed, fragmented and ultimately unfinished attempt at a review draft in my files; I simply wasn’t able to write up something I was happy with in that style.

As such, this isn’t going to be a very structured piece. But I owe it to Gnosia to at least cover it and talk about it in some fashion, even if I’m mostly rambling. After all, I loved Gnosia and was genuinely surprised and impressed by it. So once again, I wish to use my platform to shine a light on something that will likely go unnoticed but really doesn’t deserve to. Go check out Gnosia if it at all sounds interesting to you by the time I’m done here.

Gnosia is a social deception party game like Mafia, Werewolf, Among Us and any such spinoff or variant. The crew and passengers of a refugee spaceship have been infiltrated by the titular Gnosia, who possess and masquerade as individuals and have to be sniffed out. Every night they’ll eliminate someone, so every day the crew has to discuss and vote on who is most sus. The unlucky target gets placed in cold sleep, and the process repeats until the Gnosia are all contained or they outnumber the remaining crew and take over.

The catch? It’s a single player story-driven RPG in addition to all of those things.

Bravely Default 2 Review — Default, But Brave About It

Less flawed, but also less ambitious… on the surface, at least. Dig deeper, and you’ll find Bravely Default 2 has something special.

Editor Delfeir here to preface this piece with a simple statement: There’s no content padding or looping in Bravely Default 2. That’s the question I’ve been asked the most by people, so let’s put that front and centre. Now on with the show!

Bravely Default 2 is pretty great. I’ve said this at the end of the original’s retrospective and hinted at it a few other times. Quantifying that statement is the best place to start this look at the newly released sequel. I think Bravely Default 2 is pretty great. I do not think it’s excellent, or groundbreaking, or exceptional. It’s also been released at a time when strong JRPGs are numerous again, unlike the original’s release window.

I am far less starved for my turn-based JRPG fix in 2021 than I was in 2013. Let’s not forget that in the last twelve months, Trails of Cold Steel 4 was released. That game was the exceptional culmination of nine games of consistently strong character writing and worldbuilding. Yakuza’s latest entry barged into the turn-based JRPG genre in a tremendous way. Persona 5 is still fresh in people’s hearts and minds thanks to the release of Royal and Persona 5: Strikers.

Real-time or hybrid JRPGs are likewise prevalent at this point in history, particularly within the series that inspired Bravely Default‘s existence. Final Fantasy 7 Remake brought the Final Fantasy series back in a big way; so much so that the non-MMORPG entries could now contemplate approaching the fucking pedestal of quality that Shadowbringers planted Final Fantasy 14 on.

All of the above titles are still fresh in the JRPG zeitgeist for the release of Bravely Default 2. This is the kind of competition and, dare I say, elevation of the genre that was largely absent in the PS3/360 generation. Bravely Default could get away with being a mostly strong return to form with a few creative twists. Bravely Default 2 doesn’t have that luxury.

Yes, it’s pretty great. But that’s not really the same kind of benchmark we’re used to getting anymore, and so I worry that Bravely Default 2 will largely pass unnoticed by history. It seems to have garnered a lot less discussion, has a few more middling reviews, and I only know a handful of people who are even playing it. Practically none of those people have gotten much further than the halfway point at the time of writing, even.

But I do think Bravely Default 2 is pretty great, and so I want to make sure a positive (albeit critical) spotlight is shone on it. There is something here that’s worth acknowledging at the very least. In fact, there’s a point in the game which genuinely made me grin like an idiot at the sheer audacity of what the developers pulled off in one shining creative flourish. That’s the kind of stuff I’ll be highlighting after the meat of the review. With all that in mind, let’s dig in deeper.

Backlog Battle Report (4th Dec ’17)

Home stretch of the year, which means I’m quietly compelling a bunch of arbitrary awards of which I can laud upon the many storied games of 2017 for nobody in particular to comment on. It’s a hobby, everyone does it, and I’d like to look back on what has been a stellar year in game releases (albeit less so in industry developments) with some positive words. That’s coming soon, but for now, here’s the week’s gaming.

Heroes of the Storm (PC)

So last week I spoke about how Blizzard had introduced a PvE Brawl into the game, but commented that I felt it was too easy and would have liked to see multiple difficulty settings or more challenging versions. Well, this week the Brawl is the same, but on Heroic difficulty, and it is pretty much exactly what I was hoping for.

On the basic difficulty, you could pick pretty much any composition and have people run to all corners of the map and still likely pull through. On Heroic, going on your own is a death sentence if people aren’t on hand to save you. Enemy heroes will slaughter you if they CC chain you well, it’s pretty easy to get overrun, item effects are necessary for easing your way and the final boss is challenging no matter how you set up your team. Speaking of which, there’s numerous team compositions that I’d imagine would just have no hope.

In about a dozen attempts with various friends or people accompanying me, I’ve only cleared it once or twice. We had a full group of five at one point in voice comms, messing around with various group makeups and trying to figure out a way that suited us. We didn’t clear it, and sometimes we just messed up and got brutally beaten, but we were all laughing and enjoying ourselves immensely. It’s a lot of fun, and having to band together and focus like that is a welcome challenge.

I don’t know how much it would affect the game’s overall population, queue times, and so on if this style of mode became permanent. But if it was, I’d likely play it a fair bit. This is great, and kudos to Blizzard for trying it out. I hope to see more stuff like this soon.

Beyond just the Brawl, there’s been a few normal games but nothing too much to write home about. I’m working once more on getting as many heroes as I can close to leveling without actually doing so, since the Christmas event is right around the corner. I might as well aim to get as much limited time loot from chests as I can, and it worked out pretty nicely for me last time. Hoping to get one of the Christmas Valla skins. I’ve also got the gold ready for Hanzo and almost for Alexstrasza in addition. Should be a fun time.

Continue reading “Backlog Battle Report (4th Dec ’17)”

Backlog Battle Report (27th Nov ’17)

I’m thoroughly embarrassed with myself this week. I’ve worked on some pretty critical games, mostly on the Switch as usual. I’ve published both my Blaster Master Zero review and Ittle Dew 2+ review for Switch Indie Reviews. Overall, things are pretty good. But there’s a lot of playtime in one game that… well, see for yourself.

Realm Grinder (PC)

Cookie Clicker has so much to answer for. Alternatively, I’m trapped in here somebody please send help.

So Realm Grinder is an idle/clicker game, where you can click the screen repeatedly to generate coins, which you then buy buildings with to generate more coins… rinse and repeat to absolutely ludicrous examples of scientific notation. There’s a little more to do, but not really a lot; just spend your coins, leave it idle for a bit, and return every so often.

There’s very little game, and most of the time I don’t actually bother clicking it or doing much, but I’ve been checking in on it for the past week and leaving it open for a staggering amount of time. Even though I could just let it run for extended periods, I can’t help but check in it compulsively way too regularly. I’ll often be juggling it while eating meals, watching videos, or waiting in Heroes queues.

It’s bizarre why I stick with it at all, but I don’t know. I get some kind of twisted satisfaction watching the numbers creep ever higher. It’s the illusion of progress and advancement, I guess. I tend to be drawn to MMORPGs for the exact same reason, though this is far more blunt and pointless about it.

I’m curious just how far I can get it going. More “features” and aspects to manage do become available as you advance, but it’s usually a case of waiting for days to make it so. I suppose it’s harmless, but again, I’m embarrassed at how much time I’ve sunk into it even just to tune in and build things.

Anyway, there’s my secret shame. I’d give a progress report in it for those interested, but I honestly don’t really know how I’d gauge such a thing. Again, we’re at pretty stupid numbers of zeroes appended to everything already.

Continue reading “Backlog Battle Report (27th Nov ’17)”