The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

I feel like these lists are the only time I ever blog anymore… but you know what? That’s fine. It’s my website! I can use it for whatever the heck I want.

Anyway, let’s look at a top ten games of the year I suppose.

Notable Missing Games
Disco Elysium: I’ve played about 30 minutes of it so far and I know I’m going to love it, but I didn’t really get to it! Oh well.
Astral Chain: A big chunk of the way through it, it’s very fun! But I’m not done with it and it’s kind of forgettable in a lot of ways? So I just decided not to throw it on here.
Granblue and Bandori: I love them with the passion of a thousand suns but it would be boring if I put them on here every year.

And now, a top ten.

10. Battle Breakers: Sometime during this year, I told myself “I will never play a gacha that requires a serious time investment again.” It was a good move, I think. I put too much time into gachas. But then this thing came along and said “Hey, here’s a gacha that just plays itself in the background while you grade papers” and then I went “fuck.” The game itself is not very good. The designs are flat-out stolen in a lot of places, and the little bit of writing and humor that is in the game is awful and terrible, but I just keep playing it. So I guess it does something right.

9. Call of Duty Mobile: I also don’t know why I keep playing this game, but again, I do, so it must be doing something right. This one, though, I have a good idea on what that is. This really does feel like Call of Duty on a phone. It plays very well, using this “as long as you’re aiming at a guy we’ll pull the trigger for you” control scheme, and it’s just been so long since I seriously played a shooter, I just keep being entranced by it. This added to the fact that most matches and things are scaled for mobile play, so they’re very short, and I’ve just been having a lot of fun turning my brain off and shooting dudes. I also keep winning a lot, but I think it’s because all the 10 year olds playing with me have ancient phones and are dealing with lag my nice new phone doesn’t have. Anyway, it takes me back to my CoD4 days.

8. Steamworld Quest: The Hand of Gilgamech: When I learned someone made a Slay the Spire style RPG, but like, RPG with story and stuff, I was excited to try it. And this game was very good! With five characters to choose from with unique deck types, and a lot of ways to combine them into a party of three, it was just a lot of fun. The world felt somewhat generic, but the writing was solid enough to make me like all the characters. If you like deck building stuff, please do play this. (This also made me go back and play Steamworld Heist, which is also fantastic, though not from this year. If you missed that, play that too.)

7. Wargroove: As an old school Advance Wars fan, I had to play this, and it did not disappoint. It did a lot to balance the CO powers of Advance Wars into something that made more sense, and the characters and story was a lot of fun. I did play it on a slightly easier mode, but I don’t regret that. I am not one for challenge in most things these days. But it seems like it would hit even on higher challenge levels. If you have any love for Advance Wars, and you slept on this, please don’t. Thanks.

6. Dauntless: What if Fortnite were MonHun? This is the question that Dauntless asks, and the answer is… it’d be a pretty fun game. It’s not nearly as deep as Monster Hunter, and has a ton of F2P hooks in it, but it’s very casual and breezy and designed to be played with three other randos, which MonHun is for sure not. (You can do it, of course, but sometimes you’re just going to have a group that is functionally useless. Dauntless doesn’t really have this issue). I had a lot of fun playing this right after its console launch, and it’s only gotten better with patches and updates. I still check in from time to time. It’s very good, and very free, and you should give it a try.

5. Luigi’s Mansion 3: This game has that “easy but working so hard to charm you” thing about it that makes me a lifelong Kirby fan. The gameplay is not hard (though occasionally I got frustrated trying to figure out what exactly it wanted me to do) but every moment is like “what new thing can we show you to make you smile?” It’s chill and fun and the idea of putting it in a themed hotel so that you can have a lot of different areas was a great idea. And I’m very into the lore that Luigi just has a ghost dog pet and Mario and Peach just kind of… don’t think that’s weird at all. Anyway, it’s not like… mind blowing. But it is charming all the way through.

4. Pokemon Sword: I don’t really care about collecting them all so I didn’t care about the National Dex thing. I just found this as a really fun entry in the Pokemon series. Sun/Moon blew me away with making me care about the characters for the first time in a Pokemon game. This one didn’t do a good job of that, but it was full of charm. Dynamaxing was shockingly fun, the raids were fun, the gym battles in the big stadiums with everyone cheering was fun… the Dreepy Line is the best fucking Pokemon they’ve made since Kommo-o! It was just a really good time. It certainly could have been better. Things like the wild area seemed solid but was kind of technically broken somewhat. But I really enjoyed it.

3. Monster Hunter World: Iceborne: Iceborne was a fantastic expansion that helped my MonHun obsession continue. I didn’t put in as much time as with World, because it was just More World, which was good, but I had other things to try. But so many of the new monsters were so great. I loved things like Coral Pukei, Namielle is very good, it was just a lot of fun all around. The updated move sets for the weapons with the slinger are all excellent additions that really helped a lot of issues with some weapons. There are some real bastards to fight in this version. Velkhana is just… really difficult, for example. But it’s great and worth it. I got really into Bow and Insect Glaive during this expansion, and they are both good weapons, by the way. Please play MonHun. It’s very good.

2. Fire Emblem: Three Houses: I love my war kids. Combining Fire Emblem’s titty-based trajectory with Persona was a genius move. I only played through the Golden Deer route. I would have loved to do more, but time and all that. But I really fell in love with so many of the characters. I really love Hilda, and Raphael, and Catherine… AND MANUELA! Gosh I love Manuela so much. There are so many good characters here. The story was fun, the combat was interesting, it was just everything I wanted from Fire Emblem as a late series “anime titty fan” fan of it. A good game.

1. Ring Fit Adventures: I had to put this on top because it is a game expressly made for me. An RPG where you attack by doing exercises with a big buff dragon obsessed with working out as the villain?
(Drageux is so fucking wonderful) It’s so good! On top of that, it’s just a pretty dang solid Pilates program. I have the “difficultly” maxed out, and I still tend to go a lot harder at the actual gym, (especially because the game starts pestering me about stopping for the day after like 20 minutes of workout, which is annoying) but it’s fantastic for getting in a little extra workout, or when I just feel like I’m full of energy and want to go for it for half an hour. I’m still working through the story, obviously, as it’s designed to take a while, but I am having a blast. I used it in the “Quick Workout” mode during my holiday travel as well, and it was really solid in that mode too! Ring Fit is a little expensive, but it is so worth it. I highly recommend it.