Let’s sum up this year’s blog, shall we?
I started 2016 in Japan. It was a fun place for retro game shopping, checking out Japan-exclusive stuff, and arcades. I won’t link all the posts but scroll back to January in the archive to see some stuff related to that.
I endeavoured to play through as many Avatar games as I could this year as well. My quest went quite well; the quality of the games was about what I expected but with some nice surprises. I even came to appreciate certain select elements about the movie adaptation. See my summary post here for the reviews. I did in fact stop short; there’s a few titles I never got to. One day.
I got a new PSP this year at my birthday, and used it a fair bit to catch up on a library of mostly handheld ports. It’s a weird piece of hardware but the games are decent enough. You should be able to see my year with the PSP in this tag.
I kept some other hobbies ticking over: continuing with pixel art, I did two comic translation projects only but they were fun, updated my Zelda timeline a few times and did a Metroid one, organised my collection of video game comics, and briefly dabbled in the Sims 4 (I made other character sets but never posted about it; they weren’t as good as the Zelda ones). DKU Honourable Mentions has continued as well but kind of dropped off around midyear… hopefully that can get back on track in the new year despite my continuing hiatus from the forums.
I also started a streaming series, which has been exciting for me. I’ve generally been playing a retro game that’s new to me each week at my Twitch channel, to an audience of one (love you Gibbon) and sometimes even two or three. I get to experience new games and ramble on about whatever I want, it’s great!
But mostly I’ve been playing and reviewing games. By my count I’ve played through 15 console/PC games and about 35 handheld/mobile games, although some were emulated and I haven’t counted some streamed games even if I finished them. It’s imprecise, oh well. Lots of licensed stuff this year, more Lego, a few JRPGs, Picross, etc. So! Awards show time.
Best Nostalgia: I haven’t posted about it yet, but I’ve been playing Jet Set Radio Future on my old Xbox Zero, and after the bad taste JSR HD left it’s a ridiculously joyous and fresh explosion of happy brain states, and a genuinely great game to boot. Runner up: Bubsy.
Least Awful Licensed Game: Star Wars the Force Unleashed on PSP was super neat, a cut-down game that nevertheless delivered extra content and a convincing alternative way to experience the story. Runner up: Lego Marvel Super Heroes.
Best Picross: A hotly contested category, with Zelda and Pokemon licensed titles competing with the usual “e” releases (which I haven’t gotten around to finishing), the 3D one on DS, and my streamed look back at the Japanese SNES games. But the prize goes to that one omake page from the Bombom Donkey Kong Country vol 2 manga, which has a misprint that causes it to be unsolvable.
Overrated: Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (compared to later games anyway), Jet Set Radio, Epic Mickey
Underrated: Super Monkey Ball Adventure, several Avatar games, Sabre Wulf GBA
As for the actual “GOTY” award, well… there isn’t one. But games I really liked that I haven’t mentioned yet are Ni no Kuni, Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, Star Fox 64 3D, Me & My Katamari, and Pokemon Moon (which I haven’t quite finished and have yet to review). Oh wait I forgot Hyrule Warriors Legends, which I also failed to review but has my most logged hours this year and which has received all the love from my heart! Ok yeah, that’s the GOTY. Thanks for sticking around, friends!