My Top Best / Worst Games of 2024
This is an annual list of my personal best and worst games of the year. To clarify, these are not literally the "best and worst" games of the year. They are titles I enjoyed or was let-down by based on my own preferences and expectations. Most of the "disappointing" titles are not even what I would consider bad games, they just weren't for me, or were not what I was expecting. All the games on this list I have either played to completion or abandoned. I have ordered the list based on my overall enjoyment (one being the best) of games I played in 2024. Most of the games listed here will not be brand new 2024 releases. They are games I played in 2024 that were new to me.
My first foray into the original Harvest Moon series (now called Story of Seasons) was a title called Friends of Mineral Town - a remake of a 20+ year old game. It stayed faithful to the original, to the point that it was basically the same game with a new coat of paint. That is all well and good for nostalgia seekers, but for me it was too dated and bare-bones compared to what you expect from the genre today. After being let down by Mineral Town I never thought I would touch another Story of Seasons game, but then Pioneers of Olive Town went on sale.
Unlike Mineral Town, Pioneers of Olive Town is a completely new entry in the series, so it includes many of the quality of life improvements pioneered by other games in the genre, most notably Stardew Valley. The player's farm is now highly customizable, and there is better automation and ways to grow plants out of season. You no longer need shears or a bucket taking up precious inventory space to milk cows or shear sheep. There is a good variety of crop and flower options, with new varieties unlocking as the years tick by. The progression overall just feels so much better than what was in Mineral Town. The only downside is that Olive Town over-corrects a bit too much and shifts the focus away from farming to manufacturing. You can't just use logs anymore. Now you have to process them into boards. Wool has to be turned into yarn and then into fabric. Weeds are made into rope which is then weaved into one-time use fish-baskets. This sort of thing makes sense in a building simulator like My Time at Portia, and Stardew Valley had this to some extent, but you could also just buy the processed products without having to make it yourself. So many items in Olive Town need processing and take so long to process that one third of the farm will likley be taken up by machines running 24/7.
Enough storage space to hold all the raw goods plus the various stages of processed goods always seemed to be in short supply without sacrificing yet another chunk of the farm to storage boxes. Even the refrigerator in the player's home never had enough space for the food items, so I was constantly having to look at what a recipe needed, running outside to get it from storage, and then having to run back inside. Very tedious. For some reason the silo can only hold 99 fodder while a regular storage box can hold 3,000. So what is the point of having a silo? The actual farming itself is also rather simple: plant, water, harvest. There is no fertilizer, no crop damage, and no need to improve plant quality. Feral livestock will also just appear on the land, which you can tame for free. I suppose it makes for a more relaxed experience, but a sad part of me can't help but wonder if someone is purposefully dumping these animals on the player's farm like a box of unwanted kittens.
They have olive trees and olive crystals in the game, but no olive egger chickens?
Besides farming, the other big draw of the genre is socializing. In Stardew Valley (arguably the best in the genre) things could get very heavy whenever it delved into real-world issues such as depression, addiction and PTSD. Pioneers of Olive Town by comparison is less serious and more 'feel good vibes'. All the characters are written to be likeable and charming without any real baggage or problems in their lives outside of the occasional missing bike or runaway cow. They're fine for what they are, just not particularly compelling or deep. You can also get married and have a child, but the child is found (given?) by the spirits of the woods. It's pretty weird, especially when none of the locals question where you got this random child from; my dark mind immediately jumped to baby farming and baby harvesting. I assume this was done because Olive Town doesn't have a doctor, which is also weird considering it is suppose to be a tourist destination. The main story goal is actually to attract more tourists to Olive Town. Why they want or need more tourists is never explained. The town looks fairly well off and doesn't seem to be in any dire need of more visitors. What the tourists are coming to Olive Town to see is never explained either. It's a pretty ordinary looking town with nothing especially noteworthy that would make it a tourist spot. Overall I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. I don't think I would play it again, but I got a decent amount of entertainment.
Marvelous Europe (developer subsidiary) donated £20,000 to part-fund the building of a new breeding facility at the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland's Highland Wildlife Park (RZSS) to save the critically endangered pine hoverfly, one of the UK's rarest species. It is hard to get funding for the conservation of insects because they don't have the presence and draw of an elephant or a tiger, but are arguably more important to the health of the environment. It was an unexpected and generous gift from Marvelous.
After burning out on master rank Monster Hunter World, I decided to try a different kind of hunting game. One in a genre I have never actually tried before. Most hunting games seem to be "arcady" (like Duck Hunt) or whatever Cabela's Dangerous Hunts 2013 is suppose to be. But Hunting Simulator 2 actually tries to simulate real-world hunting and hunting ethics. The graphics could look better, but are fine for what they are; about what I expected from a niche hunting game. There is a good amount of visual variation and elevation between the various environments. Occasionally it will rain when you visit a map, but there is no dynamic day/night or weather cycle. The same handful of animals also appear in nearly every location; North America and Europe share a Holarctic realm, so there is a lot of overlap in species. It would have been nice to have South American, Australian, African, or Asian regions with their distinct fauna, but that probably wasn't in the budget. The animal animations are also kinda basic. There is no animation or indication whatsoever for when a shot connects with an animal, which got me fined for "excessive shots" because I couldn't tell if I had hit the animal or not, and I wasn't sureif the game expected me to 'mercy kill' it like in Red Dead Redemption 2. Injured animals also just kind of stand still for a few seconds before running away and then limp indefinitely. Possibly an animation glitch, but a lot of the animal movements are funny like that and don't really react to the environment like you would expect them too. There are no herds, no foraging behaviors, and predators leisurely hang out with their prey for example.
Some of the animal models could use work, such as the spindly back legs on the bison.
There are three geographic locations - Colorado, Texas, and Europe - each with two hunting grounds to choose from. Hunting ethics are stressed in this game, so you will have to buy licenses for each animal in each region. Poaching, taking excessive shots, killing female animals, and abandoning kills are all fineable offenses. Like in real life, you have to use the correct weapon type for the different animal sizes, and the game will flash a warning when you are using the wrong caliber or lack the required license. Weapons and scopes (caliber and reticle) can be selected and changed, as can your clothes, various gear items, and which breed of hunting dog will accompany you. I really like the idea of having a dog that can flush birds from ground-cover, follow a trail, and retrieve smaller game. Blood trails are hard to see, especially in thick brush, and are not usually worth the tedium of following, so the dog could theoretically remedy this. However, the canine will start following a trail and then stop unexpectedly, or start following the hunter instead of the trail. You have to spend a few hours leveling the dog up before it's of any real use on a hunt and I eventually just gave up on it. Most of the time I could follow the trail faster than the dog and without spooking every animal in the area along the way.
The thing I disliked the most was how sparsely populated the massive maps were. I spent several real-world hours walking around looking for something to do, wondering to myself why I was playing this game instead of doing something more productive. There are post-apocalyptic wasteland games more alive than this. After 20 to 30 hours it got a little better when I figured out where the animals spawned-in, so I wasn't traveling around empty voids anymore. I get that it is suppose to be realistic, but this game can be so obsessed with capturing the realism of hunting that it forgets to be a video game. I don't regret my experience with this game, but Red Dead Redemption 2 did a better job in my opinion of balancing realism versus fun while still giving me a fuller, more rewarding digital hunting experience.
A trophy room showcases your progression through the bestiary and acts as your base in-between hunts. Most of the taxidermy is in static poses and head mounts. You do not get to choose what goes where or what poses the full-body mounts are in. There is one trophy slot for each animal with no way to store multiples of the same species. So for "Legendary" (unique coat pattern) variants you will have to choose between the large normal-colored specimen you have or discarding it for a smaller version with rare colors.
Arise takes place in a setting divided between the medieval world of Dahna and the technologically advanced world of Rena. Three centuries ago, the Renans invaded and conquered Dahna, enslaving the population and dividing the land into five isolated realms. Each realm is ruled over by a Renan Lord. Periodically, the "Crown Contest" - a competition between Lords - is held to determine which of the five Lords will become the next Renan Sovereign. A masked Dahnan slave with no memories of his past, nicknamed "Iron Mask" (real name Alphen), gets himself involved with a rebel group called the Crimson Crows when they rescue a Renan girl called Shionne. Shionne is afflicted with a curse that hurts anyone who touches her. Unable to feel pain, Iron Mask is the only one who can touch Shionne and use a special blazing sword in her possession. Together they form an alliance to take down the five Lords. The premise is simple but strong. Things take a nosedive in the second half however, when the whole slave uprising narrative is abandoned for unrelated and poorly explained science-fiction elements that muddy the core themes. The ending is also well-trodden ground for the Tales series and did not feel like the natural conclusion to events.
For better context, here is a complete plot summary:Astral energy is a mana-like substance that exists in all living things as one of the six element types: Fire, Wind, Water and Earth are found on the planets of Dahna and Rena, while Light only exists on Dahna and Darkness exists only on Rena. Astral energy is regularly siphoned from Dahnan slaves and stored in one of five Master Cores (essentially batteries) possessed by the five Renan Lords. The Master Cores are used by the Renan Slave Lords to compete in an event called "The Crown Contest" which determines their next Sovereign.
In truth, the real native race of the planet Rena are metallic alien-like beings called "Helganquil". The astral energy of their planet gained sentience and gluttonously devoured all the energy present, nearly driving all life on Rena into extinction. To combat this, the Helganquil abducted Dahnan Mages and experimented on them on the space colony of Lenegis, turning them into the "Rena" seen throughout most of the game. The Crown Contest was a ruse to get the fake-Renans on Lenegis to harvest large quantities of energy from the Dahnan slaves.
When all six Master Cores are combined they form the "Renas Alma" which is used in a Spirit Channeling Ceremony to transfer energy from the planet Dahna to Rena. The ceremony is performed by a "Sovereign" who is always a Dahnan with equal affinity for every astral element (rare and usually only achieved through unnatural means) and a "Maiden" who is always a Renan that can supplement the Dark astral energy Dahna lack and maintain stability. Why the first ceremony from 300 years ago failed is never properly explained, but Naomi (a Maiden) likley sensed that something bad (the extinction of Dahna) would happen and so tried to stop it. This resulted in Alphen losing control, causing destruction to Lenegis, and Naori internalizing part of Rena's astral-spirit as the "thorns" (curse).
The planets of Dahna and Rena were always meant to be one - at least according to Rena - but somehow ended up as separate entities (how or why is never explained). Both planets are eventually merged into one through magical means and the practice of slavery presumably ends.
There are so many little inconsistencies that add up over time and make subsequent play-throughs difficult. This 11 hour deep dive covers them all.
By the time the credits rolled it was clear that the overarching message the writers were trying to convey was that slavery, racism, and bigotry are not limited to any one race or location. Alphen straight up mentions that the Dahnans were enslaving other Dahnans long before the Renans arrived. The Renans were unknowingly enslaved by the Helganquil (aliens), who were themselves enslaved to the will of a sentient planet. You also have characters like Rinwell who are mistreated by the Dahnans for having magic like a Renan. And Rinwell hates the Renans for a good chunk of the story, unaware that the Renans are descended from Dahnan mages like herself. But as the player you hop from one liberated location to another without ever delving into the ramifications of slavery. Instead everyone is made out to be a victim, so no one is ever held accountable. The main cast even advocates for forgiving the slavers because they were only human and hating them won't solve anything (or something along those lines), which just completely sidesteps all moral questions Arise raises up to that point. The Renan Slave masters also don't react at all to the protagonist staging a successful rebellion and setting the slaves free for the first time in 300 years. After the first 2 kingdoms were liberated the other 3 Lords would have surely tried to recapture the other 2 realms, either separately or through an alliance. More slaves would have given each of them an advantage in the Crown Contest. Instead they wait patiently for the protagonist to challenge their respective realms. Nobody in the player's party ever asks how the Crown Contest works, who the current sovereign is or was supposed to be, or why every single Renan is from Lenegis rather than Rena itself. It all feels detached. There are sections that seem to be unfinished as well, such as the large empty spaces of Lenegis, which are designed like the other towns and dungeons but without any of the content. There are numerous times when it feels like remnants of an earlier story draft were left in, such as when Almeidrea (fourth Lord) calls Vholran (fifth Lord) her "Lord" and seems to regard him as a superior despite both of them being competitors. She also displays an interest in the Dahnan mages in her secret forest laboratory, which implies that she may have been more aware of the true history/lore of Dahna than the other Lords, but this is never expanded upon.
The character party contains a variety of personalities that are all compelling and likable enough, although none of them truly stood out as remarkable. In the past, skits (field conversations) were used to convey comedy, informative, and friendships or rivalries forming in the group. In Arise the skits don't add to the party dynamic and instead just rehash the same redundant questions that have already been covered by the main storyline. The antagonists aren't given much screen time and are pretty weak writing-wise as a result. They hardly even acknowledge each others existence. Like the villains, NPCs don't get much development either and any that could be memorable die early. There are a handful of side quests that are all the standard 'kill X monster' or 'fetch X item' type fair. At least one odd quest at the start of the game requires the player to wait for an NPC to decide what he wants to wear. It takes until the end of the game for him to finally pick something, but by that point the rewards are hardly worth it; perhaps this was intended as some kind of joke.
None of the dungeons were too complicated or overstayed their welcome, aside from the final one. Enemies were spread out well, so they never felt like a chore to get through, although the same ones are re-colored and recycled a lot. The combat system is fast, flashy, and Boost Strikes are powerful looking special attacks. It is easy to learn and gets the job done. The soundtrack is the same way. It mostly plays in the background without any recurring melodies or character themes. Kinda a letdown but it serves its purpose. The water-color aesthetics are where Arise truly shines. A lot of work was put into updating the visuals, so every area looks fresh and unique from the one that came before it while sporting quite the lovely color palette. It's honestly a shame there isn't a photo mode. All-in-all Arise has a pretty interesting premise with a very generic ending. Plothooks are resolved in the least satisfying ways possible. The villains have virtually no presence and very weak motivations, and every subject Tales of Arise covers is something that another Tales game has already done and done better: slavery / racism (Symphonia), two worlds at odds (Xillia), amnesia / engineered humanoids (Graces), justice / killing (Vesperia).
From what I have heard this game was extremely easy until an update over-corrected by nerfing at lot of the stats; so much of this game relies on raw stats over strategy. I started out by playing on normal and found it decently challenging until around chapter 3 and the "Reclaim Teggaria" mission which had a massive spike in difficulty that forced me to turn the difficulty down from normal to casual. And even then I still got slaughtered despite being over-leveled with the best gear available. From then onwards certain missions would be relatively easy while others in the same chapter would wreck me despite being above the minimum recommended level. At some point I just gave up on trying to keep all my units relevant and benched everyone except for my main four which I stuck with until the very end. This greatly over-leveled them to where the game felt balanced by chapters 6 and 7.
The gameplay is real-time strategy with pause (RTwP), although you only really 'pause' when selecting unit paths or rolling back an action. The deployable unit size is abnormally small at just four main units, each with its own backup member that can be swapped out a set number of times per battle. This limits what you can do strategically, and besides deciding what order to target enemies in and sometimes what direction to approach them from, there isn't any real tactical depth. There are no terrain hindrances or elevation to consider, no shortcuts to open up. Every mission has optional goals that are almost always to keep every unit alive and to finish in 6 or 8 minutes. The actual main mission goals are equally static, being to kill all enemies or on rare occasions to guard a barricade or protect a wagon. On the battlefield units auto-attack and will do additional 'ambush' damage when positioned behind an enemy, but this can be hard to control as the game may think that you are at the 'side' of an enemy rather than the 'rear'. Your units move around and clump together as well, making it hard to select the one you want. Their auto-attacks are supplemented by powerful weapon skills that can heal units, inflict status ailments on enemies, hit multiple targets, and disrupt heavy attacks. Each skill uses a set amount of EP (mana) and if you run out that's it. You can drink a potion to recover EP but you are limited to carrying only 3. EP management is further complicated by the fact that new enemies regularly spawn on maps, so you never know exactly how many enemies you will face. You also have no way of knowing what those enemies will be: human, animal, mini-boss. This makes it easy to burn through all your EP and potentially end up in an unwinnable situation.
The story is centered around the Blue Fox mercenary group and their involvement with various employers on the island of DioField, which is ruled over by the Kingdom of Alletain. The Kingdom is currently at war with the invading Trovelt-Schoevian Empire and maintains an uneasy peace with the Rowetale Alliance. The Blue Fox base acts as the player's hub area in-between missions where Andrias (the protagonist) can shop, upgrade, and replay old missions for experience and cash. It is also where Andrias can talk to members of the team who are varied in personalty but don't have much going on beyond that. They do not interact with each other outside of missions and do not have any Fire Emblem type supports. Naturally, this made it hard to get attached to any of them, and their deaths were likewise inconsequential on a personal-level but important in terms of how they impacted the power balance of the nations and their conflicts. Whenever internal conflicts between party members with opposing views did arise, those themes were never explored or resolved in any meaningful way. Major story events were equally vague or hand-waved away as all the important events are told through a narrated summary rather than being shown. For example: alliance talks break down, invaders seize land, pro-democracy advocates upset the ruling class, and the church is caught harming orphans. All this happens off-screen with few details given. It is a type of storytelling that left me feeling detached from the conflict, possibly by design. You see, the story isn't quite as shallow as it initially appears; there is actually a lot of interesting stuff going on behind the scenes, but you never get to see the setup to most of it. To really understand what is going on you need to beat the game and then read the library codex entries. Considering less than half of the people who purchase a game end up beating it (according to trophy / achievement statistics), how many of those gamers will then choose to read optional text after the credits have rolled? It's a really odd design choice, and I wish these story elements had been incorporated into the actual gameplay instead of being relegated to text.
For those curious, here are the details you only get by reading the character profiles after beating the game:
- Andrias, Umarida, and Duke Hende are Empire spies.
- Andrias was likley neutral on the war because he wants people who are altruistic and capable in power - no matter the nation. Neither 'rightful heir' to the Alletain Kingdom was ideal, so Andrias had Fredret, who seemed virtuous, pose as the deceased fourth-child Levantia Shaytham. And regardless of the outcome, Andrias was likley going to slay the Empire's ruthless general Zevatian no matter what.
- How Fredret faked the divine mark is never explained, but Princess Hezeliah knew he was a fraud from the start. She went along with the scheme anyway in order to be freed from her captivity.
- When the power went to Fredret's head, Andrias had to put him down in order to hand the Kingdom over to the Empire or allow the remaining heir Hezeliah to take over; likley as someone's puppet given how easily she is pushed around and manipulated.
- After leaving the Blue Foxes, Iscarion is killed by a thief or possibly an assassin sent by Andrias. Yulzim's killer in chapter 2 is also never identified, but could possibly have been Umarida acting on Duke Hende or Andrias' orders as they were all working together by that point in time and had the most to gain from his death.
While the balancing is an ongoing issue for DioField Chronicle, the foundation for a better sequel is here. The gameplay is easy to grasp, there is great artistic direction and some interesting ideas. It just needs fine adjustments. I really like where they went with the ending and would be curious to see where a sequel goes with it.
The Monster Hunter franchise alternates between mainline releases with big budgets and more experimental spin-off titles such as Rise. And a lot has changed. Farming has been meshed with the Argosy (trading ship), Tailraider Safaris are now the Mewcenaries, and the lizard mounts have been replaced by a palamute (dog) that the player can customize and ride. This makes getting around Rise's surprisingly vertical maps a breeze. The downside is that there isn't much of a reason to move vertically because most of the fights happen at ground level. A new 'wirebug' mechanic can be used to zip through the air and to take direct control of weakened monsters in order to puppet them into fights with other monsters. For some reason players now start every mission with a chunk of their health and stamina bar locked out. The only way to access this missing section is to collect glowing spirit-birds in the environment, which isn't so bad at first but becomes tedious over time, especially as the monsters get tougher. In many ways Rise feels like a regression from World due to the large number of cut features: the sling, mantles, stealth bushes, destructible environments, scoutflies, and investigations are gone. Different aggro ranges, idle animations, and turf wars for the monsters have either been reduced or are gone completely. Breaking monster parts no longer seems to impact their movement or ability to inflict status ailments, and a lot of returning monsters have been given their old move-sets back. Players that got their start with World are sure to be shocked by how aggressive the original barroth was. The hit boxes are also some of the worst I have encountered yet in a Monster Hunter title. It doesn't matter how far out of reach I am or even if I am up high on a cliff, an invisible force field is sure to find me, and I am not alone in this: video 1 and video 2.
Rise made me miss the boisterous energy around meals big enough to feed a family of eight. The Hunter and their dog now only eat dango; a sweet, usually vegetarian food. I hope they don't get diabetes.
The Switch's hardware limitations restrict how luxuriant the maps can be, so none of them are as vivid or alive as Worlds. Two maps from the third game (Tri) - the Sandy Plains and the Flooded Forest - were recreated in Rise's style with their battle-zones intact and the loading screens removed. The results are quite good and didn't feel gimmicky at all. Players still engage with the staple gameplay loop of hunting massive monsters to craft better gear in order to take down even more powerful animals, but it's easier than before. Part breaks and shiny drops are more plentiful, and gear requires fewer resources to craft. It's very friendly to new players and the lower part costs allow for more experimentation with different weapons, unlike in the mainline games where you kinda needed to pick your 'main' early and stick with it because the cost of switching later was detrimentally high. The weapon designs in general are much better than Worlds which used a "slap-on" design - the same bone or metal weapon base would have skin or feathers tacked on. Rise by comparison has fewer weapon upgrades but greater stat increases and visual variety. There is also better animal variety than World; wyverns still dominate in numbers, but there is an almost equal number of leviathans and fanged beasts, and at least one invertebrate. I also finally got the chance to fight a chameleos (an old monster that hasn't had many appearances) and learned to use the hunting horn - one of the series least played weapons - thanks to Rise re-working the weapon to be more user friendly. I had been curious about this weapon since my first Monster Hunter game, but never got into it due to the learning curve.
The Monster Hunter series has always had a tradition of setting the flagship monster up as a rival to the Hunter by having them make a surprise appearance in quests or disrupting the ecosystem and village life in some tangible way, but magnamalo just kinda appears without much fanfare. I mistakenly completed the 'hub quests' (multiplayer) first, instead of the 'village quests' (single player / low rank), so my first time even hearing about magnamalo was in the quest to defeat him. Had I completed the village quests first there still wouldn't have been any build-up, rivalry, or special gameplay interactions for this monster. At most he gets mentioned twice by NPCs and appears once in a cut-scene, so the mystery behind the hordes of monsters rampaging through the village ends up overshadowing him. I also miss when the flagship monster could just be a regular animal that fit ecologically into the game, like lagiacrus and nargacuga. I can tell you what habitats they prefer, what their roles in the environment are, what their daily habits are, and how they function on a physiological level, but I can't do that with magnamalo. From in-game text I know that his "digestive gases" are expelled through vents on his arms, back, face, and rear. But I don't get how he manages to throw this fart gas like a projectile, or why it is explosive in nature and purple in color (the same as poison). Visually magnamalo has the presence of an Elder Dragon - essentially a force of nature with special powers. In battle he can leap straight across the arena 2 or 3 times in a row, moves in erratic ways, has gigantic hit boxes, and uses multiple area of effect attacks in addition to having a special ailment (hellfire; aka blastblight) unique only to him. But he somehow isn't classified as an elder dragon. Someone just as confused as me actually made a silly cartoon that summarizes my feelings on magnamalo pretty well.
They
left out mythology-based monsters like kirin but included rajang, which
is powered up by kirin. Odogaron was also left out (presumably for the
lack of suitable environments) in favor of izuchi, an entirely new
monster based on the same yōkai (Kamaitachi) as Odogaron. One of the
NPCs is also sitting on a young (stunted?) tetsucabra, but the Hunter
never actually gets to fight one in-game. The opening cutscene of a
'wind serpent' in the clouds I thought for sure was going to be an
amatsu, but nope. The monster selection isn't bad by any means, just a
bit odd.
The main story is also a bit weird. For some reason the end-game boss monster can "resonate" with two twins in the village - essentially possessing them to use as mouthpieces. The story never actually does anything with this or bothers to explain it properly, so it is hard to quantify exactly what "resonance" can do and what its limits are. The twins only really talk to each other when in their possessed state and not to anyone else, so the telepathy could be accidental. By the end of the game I still had no idea why "resonance" effected the twins and no one else, or what its purpose was. Is it unique to wyverians or can it effect humans as well? Why were none of the other Wyverians in the village effected? Why were the twins only possessed and not enraged like the monster hordes? In the context of the Monster Hunter universe it is highly unusual to include something so supernatural. It's the sort of thing that wouldn't be out of place in a more anime type game like God Eater 3, which actually featured monster resonance quite heavily in its plot.
Bishaten was my favorite new monster. He isn't difficult but I enjoyed the uniqueness of his fruit mechanic and the idea that a simian-type monster would be smart enough to use basic tools/items (such as flashpods) against the Hunter.
Rise is ultimately fine for what it is, especially as a side entry, and I am glad the development team has a place where they can experiment with new stuff that may or may not make its way into the mainline games. Rampages, which are essentially tower defense, were a flop and likley won't return. Likewise the telepathy, vegetarian diets, and faster pace of fights just didn't feel like a Monster Hunter game to me. I have heard that the Sunbreak expansion corrects many of the base game's shortcomings, but I don't own it and I have no desire to. I have gotten my fill of Rise and am looking forward to Wilds.
The story is a simple black-and-white tale of a righteous prince using his magical ring to defeat an evil overlord. The exiled prince Alain will lead his Liberation Army in a campaign across the the five realms of Fevrith, freeing captured towns to gain access to shops, taverns, and unit upgrades. The massive cast of characters all have distinct personalities and managed to stand apart visually from one another. There are a number of slice-of-life support conversations that open up by having units fight together on the battlefield or dine together at a tavern. These character stories were compelling enough, but none stood out as particularly surprising or unexpected. The ones I remember the best are Amalia's (demonic?) possession and Auch's desire for approval from his late mother. At various points you can choose to execute or recruit a former enemy, but as far as I can tell there is no reason not to recruit every single time, as there are no negative consequences for it and execution will lock-out side quests. I did like that every member of the Liberation Army felt like they had a good reason for being there, be it ties to the royal family or for personal gain.
There is a great diversity of races, consisting of humans, elves, winged celestials, and various beast races.
Units move in real-time across an overworld map, capturing command posts and dealing with concealed enemy units and choke points. Siege weapons and traps may also be employed. When two units meet it will initiate a battle that plays out automatically in real-time without input from the player. The skirmish lasts until one side is depleted of people or until points used to perform actions are exhausted on both sides. Before deployment, teams (units) of up to five characters are arranged in a 2x3 grid. The order they will attack in is determined by their 'initiative' value. Arrangement also matters. Some classes are better at guarding (themselves and other units) and are best positioned in front of or next to long range classes. Items that increase speed, damage, and defense can also be used in advance.
It is refreshing to get a gardening simulator that isn't about growing and selling vegetable crops. Instead the player cultivates a community garden full of decorative plants and lawn ornaments. The locals will provide a few seeds and tools to get the player started, but past that you will need to create flower bouquets from clipped flowers to sell in the marketplace via an honor system display. There are four seasons, but these are mostly cosmetic and only impact the availability of certain items in the shop.
Each species of plant is available for purchase in the marketplace right away, but will only come in a single 'base' color. Special color variants are obtained randomly from seeds produced by mature plants in the garden. There is also an assortment of gnomes, trellises, planters, wind chimes, benches, and ponds to decorate the yard with. These can be rotated, stacked, and clipped into other objects. However, there is a limit to the number of plants and decorations you can have. After planting the greenhouse I had reached about 80% of the plant cap, so I needed to lean heavily on decor to fill out the remaining bare patches of the yard. It was disheartening, but I can also accept that this is likley due to hardware limitations. And it isn't like these plants are static; when clipped the leaves grow back, they climb rocks and buildings, and they grow or wither in front of your eyes.
It would've been nice to have had animals like hummingbirds or butterflies show up when certain plants are grown. Instead the most you get is fish by placing a statue near a stream. Honestly there are so many improvements and additional decorative plants or elements such as xeriscaping that could be added in the future or in a sequel. I would be excited for anything new from this humble little game.
NPCs only appear as 2D images next to a dialogue box, but are all excellently designed and very likable. What little story is present was surprisingly touching.
There is a group of magic users called "deities" by some and "witches" by others. In places where they are disliked the witches live in ateliers where they bring dolls to life using soul juice extracted from people and animals defeated in combat. These dolls are then ridden around and used in battle. The game is only medium length at roughly 10 hours long, and doesn't do anything surprising or revolutionary but was written well enough to hold my attention. Wholesome and simple, but still engaging.
Three Hopes is a re-telling of the story from Three Houses. It diverges from the main timeline by introducing a new player character, Shez, as a student at the academy and having Jeritza fill in as a professor instead of the previous protagonist, Byleth. Solon is outed early and Monica is saved from Kronya. There are three routes depending on which house you side with after the prologue:
Blue Lions:
Because the Remire Village Massacre, Flame Emperor and Dimitri's exile never happen in this timeline, he never goes insane. With Dimitri mellowed out, he assumes more of a leadership role and the responsibilities that go along with it. Most of the focus is on protecting the Church and Kingdom lands from the Empire's incursion, which requires a bit of backtracking across the same lands multiple times. This version felt the most unfinished of the three arcs and lacked the emotional punches of its Three Houses counterpart. The Agarthans are the main villains now instead of Edelgard (she becomes a vegetable), who turns into a Hegemon Husk in a single cutscene for no discernible reason. It comes the closest to possibly ending the war Edelgard started, but Claude straight up says that he plans to challenge the Church himself in the future.
Golden Deer:
Golden Deer goes in a new direction by having them ally with the Empire instead of the Kingdom and actively attacking the Church, more so than Edelgard herself. It makes the Church out to be a bigger menace to Fódlan than "Those Who Slither in the Dark", further downplaying any threat posed by the Agarthans (the BBEG of Three Houses), who were already weak villains. Claude's past with Almyra is brought up, only to be dropped and never spoken of again. It felt the most padded out of the three routes; lots of attack X territory, but then 'oh no' there is an emergency elsewhere so we have to abandon the progress we've made here to deal with this other threat. It is the only path where all three nations have a chance to remain independent, though it seems unlikely.
Black Eagle:
This route felt the most grand in scale in terms of its cutscenes, plot twists, surprise attacks and treachery. They are the only group to not fully trust Shez (which is sensible) and had the greatest opportunity to uncover more about Shez's past. They never do though, and the final bosses are the same two from the Blue Lions and Golden Deer routes but weaker. The war also goes on with no foreseeable end.
Three Hopes simultaneously gives too much and too little. After two 100+ hour long games, 7 different paths (10 if you count allying or not with Byleth) and encyclopedias worth of dialogue, we still know next to nothing about Sothis, the Nabateans, Arval/Epimenides (counterpart to Sothis), and the Agarthans/Slitherers. Everything else, be it the land, noble legacies, crests or war history is laid out in painstaking detail. We never even get any proper interactions between Sothis and Arval (her rival?). I did at least sense a bond between Arval and Shez, which I never got with Sothis and Byleth. The Agarthan/TWSITD faction still felt undercooked and in need of a separate route; cut content hints at one having been considered. I was hoping for a little more than the same war fought with the same people but slightly different and unfinished as all the routes conclude with a cliffhanger ending. Why weren't the Agarthan's a playable route? Why wasn't the conflict between Sothis and Arval more of a focus? That's the stuff I didn't get in Three Houses and wanted to know more about. In the end they just generate more questions than answers:
- How did Epimenides loose Arval?
- How did Shez end up with Arval?
- Did Shez's mother (biological or adoptive) have anything to do with it?
- Where did Sothis come from and why did she decide to stay in Fodlan?
The gameplay is Dynasty Warriors type hack-and-slash with a handful of button combos. You can pause the gameplay to issue commands to your teammates to perform certain actions in real time, like defending allies, attacking a target, or opening chests and the AI is competent enough to accomplish most tasks. It was simple but entertaining enough to hold my attention. Like in Three Houses you can train units and change or upgrade their class, and supports return but they are restricted to certain characters.
After being saved from drowning by a mysterious woman named Karen, the player character is asked to search for her friend who went missing in the nearby ruins. While exploring the ruins, the player stumbles into a restored version of the city during the time of the Roman Empire. The handful of residents living there - which include ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans - all follow a "Golden Rule", where if any of them were to commit a sin, everyone would be turned to gold as punishment by the Gods. No one is sure what counts as a punishable sin, but the magistrate asks the player to use their status as the 'newcomer' to discover who is most likley to sin.
The player has the ability to loop time - repeating the same day while retaining both physical objects and information obtained from the previous loop. The narrative is one that discourages violence, brute force and combat, and instead asks the player to talk, listen, and think. It delves heavily into moral philosophy, asking questions such as what counts as a sin? Who gets to decide what is right and what is wrong? Does cultural context matter? Rufius for example, has a condition that causes him extreme pain and makes him irritable, which he takes out on Vergil. With treatment Rufius becomes much more pleasant and takes steps to correct his previous bad actions. If Rufius couldn't control his behavior before treatment, then how responsible is he for his actions? Desius has the only medicine that can save a woman's life, but will only part with it for an exorbitant sum of money. Is the Golden Rule then to blame for creating an environment where anyone who can't afford treatment must die? The player can always steal the medicine and carry it over into the next loop, essentially duplicating the item, but is this moral? A life will be spared, but to obtain this item everyone will need to be turned to gold at least once. It is a loophole the player is exploiting, not unlike how Desius operates. The narrative also explores society's relationship with its laws, religion, history, and cultural appropriation. The Greek residents for example, think the Romans appropriated their religion and the Egyptians think the Greeks appropriated theirs, but are resistant to the idea that they did the same to the Sumerians. I don't want to give too much away because this game is best experienced blind. It is roughly 6 hours long but very well written and thought provoking.
"Special" is a port and minimalist remaster of the original handheld title. Rune Factory 3 was the game to introduce many of the series staple gameplay systems and is when the Rune Factory series "finally got good" according to most fans. That said, the remaster retains some of the rough edges from those early days. The controls are slippery and finicky, causing Micah (protagonist) to hit the wrong field tiles. Other times if you aren't standing in the exact spot the game wants you to be in it will be impossible to collect resources from ore and stumps, even though visually it looks like you should be able to.
Of the three games I have played (RF3, RF4, and RF5), this entry in the series has my favorite player home.
The colorful cast of characters are considered to be the most eccentric of any Rune Factory game and I love it. There is just something about Rune Factory's brand of 'quirky character' that suits their world. Sofia and Sherman for example, always say the opposite of what they mean. I thought for sure this 'quirk' would grate on my nerves after a while, but to the contrary I adapted surprisingly fast and began looking forward to every comical conversation their unusual speech patterns produced. The dungeons and story are shorter than Rune Factory 4, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. It still has a respectable length full of worthwhile content, which I prefer over longer games that waste my time with filler. The shorter length also makes it a good entry point for people looking to get into the franchise because it establishes the core mechanics used in Rune Factory 4 and 5 without requiring a large time commitment.
Fulfilling requests from NPCs is one way to increase your bond with them but many requests lack clarity, such as Zaid's "Come See Me" request, in which I accidentally went down the wrong path because there was a fork in the road and I had no way of knowing which path to take. I then had to defeat all the enemies within a designated area without touching the portals used to cross a river or the area would reset. This requires using either a lily pad seed or specially made boots - which the request gave no indication I would need. Zaid also has to stay alive and there is no way to revive him with items. Other times the requests have you doing things like catching birds that look as if they are part of the background scenery. To catch them you will also need to use controls that are never used anywhere else and you likley won't know exist. It wastes a lot of real-world time on backtracking, looking up guides, and restarting quests which could've been avoided with some additional text.
RF3's main gimmick is the protagonist's ability to turn into a sheep, which I assumed would lead to some fun interactions, especially when the main obstacle to be overcome in the narrative is a divide between two races: univir and humans. The univir were banished from the human town of Sharance for reasons nobody remembers, and the leaders of both villages hate each other because that is just how it has always been. The player is never told what transpired to cause this whole debacle, but the townspeople are all for getting back together and do just that by throwing a party. I know this is a game aimed at a younger audience, but I was kinda expecting there to be a little more substance to the conflict. Some kind of cultural misunderstanding, past trauma or incident that Micah would act as a mediator for. Instead there isn't any real tension or issue to resolve. The conflict is wholly artificial and easily mended. Micah being a half-race isn't even really incorporated into the story at all. It is made out to be a big secret that he has to keep, but then no one ever rejects him when they find out. To the contrary, he is always met with immediate acceptance and cuddles. One of the town's residents is actually a mermaid and another is a half-race like Micah, so it makes sense that a shapeshifting sheep wouldn't bother these people. I just hate that its another artificial non-issue and a fun mechanic with wasted potential.
How someone can be a half-monster is never explained; I certainly hope a human didn't sleep with a sheep, or a bird in Raven's case. Marian mentions that shapeshifting is a thing powerful magic users can do. Could it be related to RF4's Guardian transformations or RF5's were-people?
Sandrock is a farming-sim type game centered around refining raw materials and building things rather than raising crops and animals, although you can still do a little bit of that if you like. Compared to Portia, the previous game in the series, Sandrock is a big step-up in terms of scale and quality. There is so much more variety, things to do, and the mechanics have been refined. Fewer machines are needed now to process materials and they finish tasks much quicker than before. Mining isn't as tedious as it used to be and provides more resources than its predecessor. Mining/salvage companies can also be hired to gather most (not all) materials for you during the late game, freeing up time for other activities. More unique NPC requests and events help to further break up the monotony of regular commission work. I also really like that the Builder keeps in touch with their friends and family through the mail, including replying to messages. This is the only game in the genre I have played where the protagonist not only had a life before coming to Sandrock, but their friends and parents actually come to visit. The builder also receives the local newspaper (if you subscribe) through the mail, along with gifts from friends and letters from an anonymous pen-pal. Every member of the community was a joy to be around and I ended up missing every one of them - from the charming saloon owner Owen to the local eccentric Unsuur - when the credits rolled. Even the villains - Matilda, Pen, Stev, and Yan - were pleasantly quirky and left a noticeable absence.
For such a "cozy game" Sandrock could be surprisingly dark and deep at times, which caught me completely off guard in a good way. It delved into how well-intentioned people can use their creed to do harm, and how that creed can be manipulated by less kind individuals. They explore the impact of infidelity on a relationship and the harm it can do to someone who unknowingly got involved with a 'taken' person. A major character (Logan) has a parent that "went out to get milk", and in one of the more heart-breaking storylines (Fang) there is outright child abuse and a lack of parental responsibility. This is also one of the rare few games in the genre that I have seen include single parents - the father of an adopted child (Logan) and a divorced mother (Catori) - both of which are romanceable and very well written. The main story missions were surprisingly intense with good conspiracies, betrayals, and the dialogue had me laughing multiple times, especially anything from Cooper who was always on point. Sandrock really managed to capture the hardships of frontier living and survival. It always felt like there was something at stake or some looming threat on the horizon - be it attacks from wildlife, outlaws, water shortages, lack of funding, foul weather, or the possible invasion of the Duvos Empire. With a town that is essentially on life support, every outsider questions why anyone would willingly choose to live in a place so harsh and dangerous. It makes the starting point really feel like rock bottom and where you end up, while not a tropical paradise, still a place that was built up by your hand and given a second chance at life - something that is mirrored in many of the relationships you can form with the townsfolk.
The NPC's constant interactions with each other and their collective involvement in major events, as well as the community's willingness to weather any hardship together, created an attachment to this fictional world that I didn't quite get with Portia.
While my time was overwhelmingly positive, I did encounter a few issues, namely screen tearing, infinite loading screens (a restart fixed it), and NPCs fusing together. These were infrequent enough that they amounted to little more than slight annoyances, but still left a negative mark on an otherwise stellar experience. My Builder also had dark circles appear around their eyes that I thought were a graphical glitch for the longest time. They turned out to be related to how much sleep the Builder receives. I like the idea but I don't think the visuals communicated it well. With future releases going in a more realistic direction perhaps this sort of thing will read better. What really got to me though, was having to spend a great deal of real-world time individually stacking ores, materials, and relic pieces in storage chests. Chests are already linked (in a way), so why can't they automatically detect which chest has a similar item and automatically stack them? Why do I have to manually cycle through each chest? This was the one daily chore that I dreaded each in-game day.
Somehow the home decorating has both improved and regressed from Portia. You can build and decorate your own custom home from scratch instead of using pre-made ones, but the min and max room sizes were a bit restrictive, especially with how large the stairs could be. On console certain roof types wouldn't work/align correctly. There is a decent selection of furniture but most of it can't be built or purchased; it has to be obtained from quests (some missable), a mystery box (of limited quantity), or from paid DLC. For some reason furniture can be painted on PC but not on consoles, and the text indicating that furniture can be painted wasn't changed or removed in the console versions. Not only is this an odd disparity that limits player creativity, but I have played more realistic and complex games than Sandrock that allowed for items to be re-colored on console. So I know this sort of thing is possible on console. Additionally, most furniture has slots for item placement, but there are very few things besides books that can be placed on the furniture. Relics, ores, toys, stationery, and NPC gifts to the player have 3D models in-game that you can't place on desks or shelves. Food can't go in the fridge, spices cant go in the spice rack, guns cant go in weapon displays, and mugs and vases can't go on tables. All the parts for a high level of player customization and creativity are here, you just can't use them.
Romance exists but it is minimal. Each character only has 1 to 2 dating specific quests and almost none of them have post-marriage content, which is fine because this is a building/farming simulator first and foremost, not a dating sim. Kids are optional and will grow up to be around the same age as the other children in-game. The player's kids will mostly be clones of the builder's appearance and are essentially furniture. No one mentions them, including their step-siblings. They never go to school with the other kids and there aren't any family related outings, play-dates, or activities to do with them. While unfortunate, it is pretty standard for the genre. Rune Factory 4 and 5 are the only games of this type that I have seen treat player children as proper NPCs with their own personalities and quest-lines. What is atypical is that the player is expected to raise a baby: daily feeding, gifts, sickness, and diaper changing. It is enough to detract from the core gameplay loop and make you wish for Stardew Valley's dove feature. Thankfully the babies do grow up and become self-sufficient, but they are never as likable as the NPC kids who have actual personalities.
The 150 hours spent on my first playthrough went by quickly and I would have kept playing if there was more.
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