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The Great(?) Video Game Spreadsheet Project: Year 32 Challenge!

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Evan_B:
Week 52: Current Weighted Top Twenty (as of 8/29/2024):
VVVVVV
Roller Coaster Tycoon 2
UNSIGHTED
Crawl
The Swapper
Paper Mario TTYD Remaster
Anodyne 2: Return to Dust
Inscryption
Donkey Kong (1994)
Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Crystal Project
Roller Coaster Tycoon (Deluxe)
Dandara
Mr. Driller Drill Land
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
ARMS
Into the Breach
Skwish
Tetris Effect Connected
Kirby's Air Ride
My birthday was yesterday, which means I get to say whatever the hell I want about video games.

Okay, I must have gotten my weekly numbers twisted at some point but I am now officially 33, so that means it’s time for some number crunching. Of my new purchases and backlog, I rated 62 new games this year. While my rating catalogue stood at 494 at the start of the year, it now stands at 601, meaning 45 rankings were from games that I had already completed and forgotten to include. I suspect this number will likely shrink as I continue this project, but I will also return to and recheck my library in the future. There are sadly and undoubtedly a number of games in my backlog that have evaded inclusion.

I have come to accept that I have made bad purchases in my lifetime. With that said, the ranking criteria is designed to be relatively non-biased, but that does call into question what earns a 5 in some areas. So. You’ll see that a 5 is labeled as “standout within genre” save for pacing, which is listed as “justified pacing for ambition.” This is arguably the most contentious ranking criterion that currently exists, because “justified” is a highly subjective metric. From some perspective, an incredibly bloated JRPG might be completely justified in its pacing, but as a now-33 year old, I can’t really justify that. This might also have to do with my purchasing habits, as I was perfectly fine when I had a long-ass RPG to chip away at in my youth as one of the few purchases I made.

As of right now, pacing is still a highly weighted category in my rankings, so maybe this needs re-evaluation. However, two of my highest-rated titles this year were JRPGs that fell into the 40-ish hour range, which might be my sweet spot for that genre of game. Many of my other highly rated games from this year and the list overall are incredibly concise, leaving a strong impression due to their brevity. I can’t help but wonder if some games are still cursed by the facade that length provides. 13 Sentinels is a great example of this- it’s content rich because of its narrative, not its strategy gameplay, or its inane, obtuse adventure game puzzles. In the other hand, Sayonara Wild Hearts is exactly as compelling as it needs to be with relatively little mechanical depth and a player-motivated gameplay loop. I can imagine myself playing one more than the other, even if I’ve decided to stop playing both.

Hey, speaking of one of those games, let’s take a look at my top five games from year 32:
Paper Mario TTYD Remaster
Crystal Project
1000xResist
Cobalt Core
Sayonara Wild Hearts

There’s one game here that should come as no surprise. The others, however, come from throughout the year and have become some of my favorite games of all time. Life is funny that way- sometimes, when you start paying more attention to a thing, you start to appreciate it a bit more.
Something else I’ve noticed is that I like indie games. A lot. Though I have played a number of games this year that have come from major developers and publishers, I’ve enjoyed just as many as those I haven’t. In some ways, I’d like to think I’m smarter about getting games I know I’ll like, but hey, I did play a Sonic game that I hated two years in a row.

My backlog, now updated, is at 200 games exactly, and there still might be some floating around there that haven't been listed. That's... upsetting, but many of these games are easily digestible, so I'm not all that concerned. There are many that are pretty hefty, though, so I'm going to have to scale back on purchases hard if I hope to ever make a dent in this thing. There are, unfortunately, so many games out there that look really appealing to me, some in long-beloved series, others of which I have a passing curiosity. But, based on the ruminations of my last post, maybe I need to be a whole lot more stringent on the games that I do pick up. After all, if these games really are just sitting there, is it really a good thing that I nabbed them at an absurd discount? The answer is no, and I feel a bit better about a game that I'm excited for and play through immediately after picking it up rather than these games I've long been curious about that sit on my physical/digital shelf.

The Switch is, without a doubt, the platform with the biggest library I've ever owned, and by default ends up being my favorite console device, despite its myriad quirks. Whatever comes after this not-so-little-handheld that could will need to have Dragon's Dogma 2 a hell of a strong pull to get me to pick one up, and really, so long as Zelda keeps getting made, I'll probably end up pulling the trigger at some point... but all those blanks that I've filled in with all these games will probably need to remain open.
Toree's Panic Pack (3.65) - Liked
This big old level pack features some of the developers longest, most complex, and incredibly challenging stages yet- but these levels really show the limitations of the Toree engine and level editor, and the cracks start to show. It's a bit buggy, but still a wild ride.

SteamWorld Heist II (3.50) - Liked
This game is bigger and arguably better than the first. Arguably. Okay, I'm the one arguing that it isn't as good as the first. It suffers from a bit of feature creep (in an indie game, which is really sad) and overstays its welcome. I like the dedicated level designs, but bigger is not always better.Next post will be a bit different, and (maybe?) more fun.

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