Kicking off 2021 with a bang, I went to an old classic indie gem in anticipation for the highly anticipated sequel, Super Meat Boy Forever, which will likely come next on this list. Super Meat Boy is a platformers dream or nightmare depending on your position on punishing precision jumps. For me, it is exactly what I'm into and is even a game I tested my speedrunning skills at and had put up some decent times. Levels are typically very short and can be beaten in under a minute, but as you progress they develop a Kaizo like pattern where the player will replay the same jump again and again until mastering it and moving on to the next with consistency. During this playthrough I simulated somewhat of a speedrun (although I was incredibly rusty) but this game offers plenty of content which deviates from the standard path including a plethora of characters to unlock, each having uinque mechanics which allows a player to tackle a level in a variety of ways. Back in the day, I attempted to platinum this game but it requires you to beat some of the dark words flawlessly which I remember being one of the toughest trophies in gaming to achieve. Overall, a groundbreaking game for platforming an independent games in general, and I can't wait to dive into a sequel 10 years in the making

Despite the overhwhelming feel of nostalgia and pure glee when playing this series, Donkey Kong Country for the SNES is retro platforming perfection that dominates the test of time. This is a game that still today you can gather a couple of good friends, some stiff drinks, and pass the controllers around until beating it while having the best time. What really surprises me when revisiting this masterpiece is how steep yet fair the difficulty curb gets, and how this game can even challenge talented platformers of the modern era. The simple yet precise mechanics means that anyone can play it, but not anyone can beat some of the tougher content. Can't wait to play through the rest of the series this year. PS - The first mine cart level may be one of the most satisfyingly intense single button autoscrollers of all time.

Yeah. I do feel bad giving this game a 3. Super Meat Boy Forever is a sequel ten years in the making to the first game completed of 2021 and one of my favorite video games of all time. I feel bad giving it a 3 because it is probably the best auto runner of all time...but that's the problem - it's an auto runner. The original SMB was precision platforming at it's finest and that's all I wanted more of. This change to the game's core mechanic was bold, and although they pulled it off well, was undeniable disappointing to someone like me who just wanted new, fresh, pure platforming from this dev team. What's worse is I loved everything else - the story, the cutscenes, the artwork, the actual mechanics within the auto runner - but I still could not shed this feeling of disappointment.

Hmmm. Anyone that knows anything about my gaming tendencies know that roguelites have a very special place in my heart and is arguably my favorite genre. Enter Neon Abyss. A roguelite 2d platformer with a cunning resemblance to Enter the Gungeon, arguably my favorite game of all time. This game gives me that same sort of vibe and experience as Binding the Issac, Enter the Gungeon, and Wizard of Legend where every run feels like a unique journey of tough decisions and exciting builds. I was able to reach the credits in just a few sessions, so although not the hardest roguelite, it provides a variety of difficulty options to cater to every player. While the weapons themselves all have a relatively unique feel to them, a lot of the items share buffs which has led to some criticism, but they all seem to be at least relatively useful which is far more important. The pixel art and minimalist story are great and exactly what I'm looking for in this type of game. To me, this is what Exit the Gungeon should have been like when considering bringing EtG to a the 2D platforming world. Although I've reached the credit, this is a game that I will continue to grind and probably look to go platinum on the PS4 to join it's EtG, WoL, and BoI brethren.

One of the greatest sequels to one of the greatest platformers. DKC 2 kicks off right where the first one ended and keeps the momentum going throughout the game. Replacing the main Kong with Dixie seemed a bit strange at first, but her ability to glide with her hair completely changed the game's movement mechanics and it was definitely for the better. Although the first installment was tough, this game might be even tougher, especially nearing the end stages, but was still fair and balanced and a lot of fun. My only small complaint, and the reason I took half a point off the top score, is that I found the game deviated too much from standard, simple platforming and added too many gimmicks. They had to, understandibly, diversify stages and use animals to make things not too repetitive, but I felt they leaned on this too much. Regardless, it is a small gripe for an epic game and franchise - I can't wait to tackle the third this year as well.

A brand new looter/shooter. I was anticipating this game for months and was a rare occasion where I pre-ordered and paid full pop for a triple A title. Although the final product isn't quite what I expected, it still delivered and is currently scratching that farming itch on the same spot Borderlands 2 once held. This game has elements of Gears of War, Division, Borderlands and Destiny - some of my favorite games and series of all time. The combat is unique with every class having a plethora of abilities and a ridiculous amount of mods which leads to an infinite possibility for builds. Interestingly, the game focuses on these mods more than the gear itself. This means that the farming process is essentially collecting all these mods which can then be applied to various gear in an attempt to create the perfect min/max build. Another plus is that they went the Borderlands route of having everything achievable from playing this stand alone game, staying away from the Destiny concept of offerring there game as a service. I did find that although fun, once you found your build and play style the combat got a bit repetitive. This could be countered by switching up gear and abilities but then you sacrifice the power of your build which is kind of the whole point of the game. The end game takes the form of Expeditions which are in theory supposed to be tackled by an organized team of three, but I've been having a blast taking on the challenge of getting to the highest difficutly as a solo player and taking down these Expeditions by myself. This is a game looking to become a staple in my rotation, and edging out Destiny 2, at least for the moment in terms of my favorite looter/shooter to grind.

My second roguelite of the year comes in the form of Blazing Beaks, a top down twin stick shooter with a strong resemblance and feel, at least in combat mechanics, to one of my favorite games of all time - Enter the Gungeon. With this in mind, I had anticipated a relatively easy experience based on the time I've put in EtG. But goddamn, I was wrong. This game is tough - really tough. The unique mechanic that this game brought was the concept of artifacts. Enemies would randomly drop these after dying and upon picking them up will give the player numerous negative effects such as loss in firepower, duplicating enemies and so on. The theory is that a player will collect as many of these artifcats as possible and survive with them until turning them into the shops which are present in every area. The shopkeeper will then trade these 'bad' artifacts for good ones which would upgrade the character and give them new abilities. The other very important piece in this game is the gun the character holds and somewhere I think this game fell a bit short. Although there are multiple gun options every time you visit the shop, you can only carry one and most of the guns in this game are straight up terrible. This would typically mean that if I didn't get at least a decent gun in the first shop, I would reset and try again which is never a good sign for a roguelike and something that EtG so masterfully handled. Regardless, this was another fun game to grind and learn the enemy patterns and mechanics before finally beating it. This was a solid roguelike experience, but likely not enough to make it into any sort of rotation or for me to try to grind out every achievement and unlockable.

Uh yah, this was bad. Sometimes I browse the Switch store and look for some insanely cheap deals and what I hope to be hidden gems. Although this was cheap, this was no gem. Valentina is a terrible, poorly translated, and incomplete 2D platformer that catfished me with it's familiar looking pixel art. This game has almost nothing in it. Every area is like a repetitive, poorly designed Mario Maker level with all the wrong design choices. This includes everything from absolutely no diversity between areas to blind drops. This game also has some of the worst enemy and boss design I've ever come across. I soon realized that with limited ammo there was absolutely not point in even killing enemies so most of the game was just holding right and jumping until I ran into a blind drop and started again. The bosses fights equate to literally standing in place and spamming arrows over and over again - the only attack available throughout the whole game. I could go on and on but I think anyone can get the picture. I gave this game a generous 1.5 solely because of the pixel art and the two songs they had on their score were actually quite nice. In a year so far of playing almost nothing but classics or otherwise solid games, this was destined to occur.

The final installment in this legendary, classic trilogy. This game picks up right where it's predecessor left off, bringing back Dixie Kong and introducing the beastly Kiddy Kong as a new protagonist. Like the two that came before it, this is Super Nintendo platforming, and platforming in general, at it's finest. They added a bit of more open world exploration elements, allowing the player to traverse the map by various boats, with tons of secrets and hidden levels that can be completed in the goal to reach 102% completion. The only criticism I have is simlar to the second entry, where some of the levels got too gimmicky for me instead of sticking with the raw platforming mechanics that made this series so great. What sets DKC3 apart from the other two are the boss fights which have considerably more personality to them and introduce a wide array of new mechanics to the game. It was such a pleasure going back in time and reliving these classics - it was a bit sad when the final credits rolled. However, this will be a series I'll come back to playing throughout my life and will always have a special place in my gaming heart.

After finishing the DKC series, I was still hungry for some classic SNES platforming action. I decided to give another title I remember from my youth, Aladdin, a go on the SNES classic and I'm so happy I did. As soon as I started playing I was flooded with nostalgia, remembering grinding these levels out in my best friend's basement when I was in elementary school. The gameplay is fairly standard, responsive platforming in well designed levels in beautiful 16 bit art. At times the platforming itself can be rather tight but my Kaizo training has served me well as I was breezing past parts I remember being stuck on for ages as a kid (i.e. magic carpet ride through lava level). The total playthrough took me just over two hours without having a game over and having to use the password system to get back to my place. A great way to spend a couple of hours gaming, and has inspired me to try some of the other Disney titles which I don't remember playing back in the day, such as The Lion King and Jungle Book. As this list grows throughout the year, the SNES continues to consistently impress.

Beautiful pixel art? Check. Precise twin stick combat mechanics? Check. Nostalgic yet mysterious background music? Check. Titan Souls nearly checks all the boxes for me an incredibly, albeit short, experience. You play as a mysterious, youthful, pixelated protagonist armed only with a bow and quiver. Much like the game it is inspired from, Shadows of the Collosus, the game consists of a series of boss fights where a single arrow to a boss' weak spot will render you victorious. Every boss is unique designed with interesting, precise mechanics. The fluidity of the gameplay allows you to quick kill most bosses with the right strategy and precise timing. I really have nothing bad to say about Titan Souls, the only reason it doesn't get a perfect score in my books is the length. A competent gamer with quick reactions can beat this game in a bout 3 hours and it leaves you begging for more. At this point, a Titan Souls 2 with the exact same mechanics and a bunch of brand new bosses would be very welcome and am hoping one day that'll happen. Good stuff.

Continuing the platforming binge, I decided to give charming looking game a try from the Amazon launcher. At first, admittedly, I was getting a bit of a Valentina vibe from the early gameplay and was worried this would go in that direction - but it didnt'. Adventures of Chris is a charming well written 2D platformer with a unique art style. You play as Chris, the prototypical fat nerd in high school who finally gets his big break when he gets sent on an adventure to save some friends while discovering his journey to becoming a hero. The mechanics start relatively simple but then become more complex over time as they came constantly introduces new abilities, the core mechanic being the ability to float and essentially flip the level upside down. A bit of a negative, and in similar vein to Valentina, is that the game would save and spawn you with full health after every room cleared with, as far as I could tell, no consequence. This would encourage spamming to get through the rooms as quick as possible, damage boosting the whole way. The game has RPG elements but once I realized how easy it was to farm the currency to buy upgrades, I spent about 20 minutes doing that before becoming almost invincible in terms of progressing through most stages. The boss fights were fairly simple, but each offerred a unique mechanic and was a slight difficutly spike for the game - especially the final boss. This was almost an odd difficutly spike in the sense that all of a sudden, you were required to stay floating, dashing to helium balloons to refill your supply, all the while attacking and dodging and fairly difficult boss. However, even this only took a few t ries. Admittedly, the game might be a significant more challenge on higher difficutly levels, so I shouldn't be too unfair. Overall, a nice little experience with a bit of a strange but, again, charming story.

I'm not going to lie - after finishing this year's playthrough I was going to give this a much lower rating before remembering a bit of context. I'm not going to go over the GoldenEye mechanics or story or gameplay because anyone with one iota of interest in reading this page will know all of that information in detail. I'm moreso going to reflect on playing this game in 2021 and what I noticed as a life long gamer. I'll start with the bad - the things that haven't aged well are rather predictable, the FPS mechanics and the graphics. After getting used to precise DualShock inspired twin stick FPS gameplay of this era, GoldenEye is a bit tough to go back to. The aggressive auto aim definitely helps, but the clunkyness surrounding the core mechanics of this game just can't be ignored. The graphics, I suppose, can be totally accepted given the era that produced them, but one thing that I either totally forgot about or have grown too spoiled to accomodate is the frame rate. After being accustomed to 100-120 frame rates on my rather budget custon PC, this was something I had a tough time dealing with. There are times during the campaign where the frame rate had to be 10fps or less, with the last mission really demonstrating how porous it was. However, mechanical and technical issues aside, this game still rules. I decided to do my re-playthrough on Secret Agent difficult, and this is definitely not an easy game. Even throughout the sometimes god awful frame drops this game does offer precise movement, aiming and planning exactly your next moves to beat some very difficult levels at Secret Agent, let alone 00 Agent. The one other mechanic that I discovered through this playthrough which I never knew and just have to take note of is the "guard alert" mechanic - or whatever you want to call it. I never realized that holding down the trigger on automatic weapons is what caused an endless supply of guards to arrive, not the weapon itself. This meant for difficutly missions such as Bunker 2, you could head shot guards, even with automatic weapons, and never alert the endless mobs that eventually kill you. Anyways, this was a pleasure to playthrough again despite some frustrations and needing to remind myself that I was playing a 24 year old game on a Craig's List bought CRT TV. Can't wait to continue to fill this list up with more N64 classics.

Admittedly, a 5 is a generous score - this is a bad game. However, the nostalgia factor bumped this up a few points because this was definitely part of my original set of N64 games. I'm not sure even what genre to classify this - I guess whatever one a very poorly made Metal Gear Solid would fall into. The combat is clunky, the item interactions are random, the graphics are terrible and what feels like periods of 15 frames per second doesn't help. There were some cool mechanics - the face changer that would allow you to assume the identity of another NPC felt kinda nice and I'm sure was a fairly revolutionary stealth mechanic back in the day, along with being a staple of the Mission Impossible series. The game only has four or five levels as it were, but quite a few chapters to those levels which actually makes for a fairly decently lengthed game. There was definitely a big puzzle element of the game, with deciding what to do and in which order proved to be a bigger challenge than the combat mechanics themselves. Enemies would die to one headshot and Ethan could take a considerable amount of bullet hits before dying, which I assume would not be the case under the "Impossible" difficulty setting. The one thing that wasn't too bad, considering the standard set at the time, was the story of the game. It took some of the core elements of the original movie, such as the NOC list and Phelps being a mole, and intertwined them in a fairly different adventure and narrative than what the original movie had - the scene where Ethan was dropping down in a lazer filled room to recover the NOC list notwithstanding. Overall, despite the low score, I enjoyed this playthrough and would recommend this game for someone to experience some vintage N64 mediocrity.

I feel a bit bad giving this game a 6.5. On the surface, it at least seemingly has everything I would want. Beautiful pixel art, unique turn based JRPG style combat on a grid, and an idyllic Hogwart's-like setting taking form of the school of Ikenfell. Interwoven between the more common combat mechanics are fairly unique but mostly easy challenges which occupy the many 'dungeons' the group traverses. The core combat mechanics itself is solid, especially mid to late game, and offers plenty of on the spot decision making and strategy. They have borrowed a mechanic from the legendary Super Mario RPG series where the player times an input with a character animation to deliver the most effective version of that attack. This all sounds solid - so why the 6.5? I think with a JRPG style game one of the most important elements, moreso than other genres, is the story and the theme and other common literary tropes. This is where Ikenfell, for me at least, comes up devastatingly short and I found myself almost sprinting through the final part of the game to be done with it. This isn't to say it has a bad story or bad theme, but it's just not for me. This game in some ways seems the product of our new coddled, over sensitive, virtue signaling world and it's something I just don't think I need in my video games. I knew I was in for a bit of a different experience the moment one of the characters reprimanded another for misusing pronouns, and another character declaring themselves as 'zer'. Even without the heavy social justice warrior overtones, the content was so soft and squishy it often felt like a badly written novel for eigiht year olds. I think I need a bit of grit and excitement in my JRPGs. In any event, despite the 6.5, I still enjoyed my playthrough for most of the game. The game itself was pretty easy, with healing potions being cheap enough to buy and always giving you an option to restore full HP in combat, but there were some notable difficutly spites - especially the final boss. Each character had interesting and unique abilities with an endless array of potential synnergies. Not a terrible game, but not a great game, and a game severely held back by what seems to be on all too common theme in this day and age.

Time to get back into some good games. Limbo is a 2D puzzle platformer set in some dystopian, purgatory or perhaps hellish world without much story or context as to why our character is there. The lack of this plot, though, helps shape the joyful mystery that surrounds this game as the player continues to explore this unknown setting. The controls are quite simple and fluid feeling, with the character being able only jump and grab objects. Even with the small number of inputs, however, the developers have allowed for a very robust experience as every section presented imaginative platforming and puzzles. Although a short game serves the purposes of the challenge, I think Limbo could have been a bit longer and a little more difficult. The platforming itself was quite easy, and when I was stuck it was mostly on the puzzle elements but never for too long. As mentioned, you're never too sure what's going on in Limbo, but I'm sure there is some sort of beautiful sadness theme going on with undetones, perhaps, of lost love or just loss in general. In any event, incredible, iconic indie game. I believe the developers have made some sort of spiritual successor to it and I will make sure to put it on this 2021 list.

As the year suddenly starts to close, I need to start beating some games fast. Enter Zip - Set One. This five to ten minute experience from an itch.io bundle was solid for what it was and definitely served the purpose of starting to fill up this list. This is a simple, bare bones game where you use the directional pad to control a block in a maze. The goal is to guide the block to the end of the maze before the timer runs out. Although you can see the potential here for some pretty fast paced, insane input combinations, the minimalistic 10 levels that were presented offered not much of a challenge and were beat fairly quickly. If the game claimed to be more then 6 would be a very generous score, but I graded this in the context of a very cheap and small game that served it's purpose. I'll have to draw on the Itch well a little more if I'm going to even make a dent in this year's challenge.

Four is a bit mean as a score for this game, but ultimately this is a 2D platformer which serves as a pretty weak reskin as one of the original Super Mario games. Don't get me wrong, for this challenge it served my purposes perfectly but there's not much going on here. The character you control is Bernie Sanders, and each level represents a different city on your campaign before facing off against an evil Republican boss in the final level of each world. This, of course, culminates in facing Mr. President Trump himself before dropping him in a jail cell just like all the others. There was a slight difficutly curve increase at the very end of the game, but this was still a game that could be beaten in 20-25 minutes. There were some entertaining cut scenes between worlds, with Bernie squaring off on the debate stage before hunting them down in the final stage of the world. With the quality of some of the games on the list this year, there's no way I could rate Super Bernie World that high, but it was what it was and served it's purpose.

It's crazy how in 2021 a point and click classic from the 90s can hold up, but it really does. Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis is a classic Lucas Arts point and click adventure game that puts Indiana in a whole new, perhaps loosely cannon based story which has him uncovering the secrets of the lost city of Atlantis. This is a game I played and loved in my youth, but definitely never beat it, and admittedly I'd still be playing it for a while if I hadn't looked up a few things. I feel bad about this, and almost considered not counting this as a beaten game, but like Day of the Tentacle and so many others, the puzzles can be quite obscure and random and the yearning to see some progress will push anyone over the edge. Regardless, this game is so much fun and offers a combination of a great storyline, beautiful pixel art for the time, humorous dialogue, and confounding, difficult puzzles. Admittedly, there were times when the solution did seem a bit capricious, but this was a signature for these sorts of games. What's even better about this game is that there were often multiple solutions to the same problem presented, multiple paths and multiple endings. I think I will always have one of these point and click games on the go as I progress through this challenge, but I will make a point of no longer looking up anything in a walkthrough and just try to chip away at it each time I play. Fantastic game that I'll probably revisit in the future - this time only with the memory of this playthrough and zero external help.

Masterpiece. I tend to throw that word around a little loosely, but that notion doesn't apply here. Black Mesa is a remastered version of the original Half-Life, a classic in it's own right, and uses a new engine to bring this game to life and make it even more viable in the modern day of gaming. Admittedly, when I first loaded Black Mesa up I thought it was a sort of spin off of Half Life with new characters and a new storyline and was a bit disappointed to find out what it really was. That disappointment didn't last long, as replaying the classic adventure of Gordon Freeman was a delight and the modern engine made for some stellar gameplay. Everything about this game is near perfection - the graphics, the storyline, the scenery, the dialogue, the weapons, the puzzles...I could go on and on. This is what a first person shooter campaign should look like and there's a reason Half Life 3 has been the most anticipated game for the last decade. The one thing that caught me a bit off guard with this game is the length. After a long, adventurous grind through the facility, Black Mesa has totally revamped the original Xen chapters and by themselves almost double the length of the game. It's a strange complaint, but admittedly I found these end chapters to go on a bit long and I was constantly surprised to see another room full of platforming, puzzles and shooting. Speaking of which, this game blends these gameplay elements beautifully for an overall dynamic experience. The haunting music score suits the game perfectly and gets the heart pumping as it emerses you in this beautifully crafted environment. There are not enough superlatives to describe this game so I'll stop here, but needless to say this is a immediate classic which needs to be played by every gamer out there. To the developers - simply bravo.

Another game where I feel a bit bad giving it a 6.5 and I know there are people will hail this as the second coming of Pokemon. In the same vein as Ikenfell, this had all the elements of a game that I should fall in love with. Beautiful pixel art with JRPG monster hunting, pokemon like turn based mechanics and to top it all off in the form of a 2D platformer. And having said that, there was a lot about this game I liked. The world's were simple but interesting, the platforming and puzzles were decent, but the main draw of the game were the monsters themselves and the complex min/maxxing to create a perfect team. But that's where this game lost me a bit - the complexity. I am a fan of complicating games, but this edged too closely to the side of tediousness and boredom. Every monster had a diverse, massive skill tree build, a weapon, three armor slots, a dark or light shifted variant, and also a feeding system that could boost stats. Now, if we were just dealing with 10 or 12 monsters this would be fine, but there are hundreds and to go through this process every single time got repetitive to where I only used ten maybe of the hundreds of monsters I had captured. Despite the complexity, it was clearly a well designed system. Pairing up a team of monsters for the perfect synnergy for a perfect encounter was a fun part of the game, I just wish the actual building process was streamlined a bit more. There's a possibility that with all the Kaizo and action packed FPS games I've been playing that the slower pace of a creature capturing game just doesn't do it for me anymore, but I'm willing to give a few more a try to test that theory.

Now, it's a bit strange to have a random, very indie, almost unknown game like Klaus rank two points higher than an alleged modern day cult classic like Monster Sanctuary, but the beauty of this is that it's my challenge and I can rate how I truly feel. Klaus is a fantastic 2D platformer that has the player control Klaus, a seemingly replaceable factory worker, as he wakes up in a basement floor and has to climb his way to the top of whatever building he woke up in. This includes escalating from chapther to chapter, with each one introducing a new environment with new mechanics. Early on in the game the player is introduced to the most unique and inspired mechanic, the ability control Klaus and his newly found sidekick K1, alternately or at the same time. Another great feature of this game is actually using the almost never employed touch pad of the PS4 controller, using it to control gates and switches in the environment. The platforming mechanics weren't perfect, but they still allowed for a smooth flowing, rewarding platforming experience. This game already had me sold a few chapters in, but upon reaching the 'coding' chapter which revealed that Klaus was a hacker, I was fully immersed and not looking back. The story had some philosophical undertones through Klaus' narrative to himself, questioning who he is and what his purpose is, and often breaking the fourth wall and communicating directly with the player, aware that he is being controlled. The game could have used a bit of a steeper difficulty curve, especially near the end, but it's hardly a complaint. There were some difficult and tight sections, but like Celeste this game is filled with checkpoints so the player is never repeating sections over and over again. The final scene ended a bit abruptly, hinting that the true ending could be revealed after collecting all the collectables which come in the form of memories. I will definitely be doing that. Just a fantastic platformer that I'm guessing nobody knows about - game's like this should get more shine than they do. I'll be looking forward to the next release from this dev team. Good stuff.

Modern day 2D platforming mastery. I had heard so much hype around Celeste being a modern day platformer classic, and it certainly lived up to that, and will undoubtedly go down as one of the greatest platformers of all time. Celeste is actually the name of the moutain that the female protagonist must climb, utilizing simple techniques over ever increasing mechanics as you progress throughout the game. The controls are limited to a jump, a dash, and a grab and that's all this game needs to deliver a remarkable experience. The story was a bit...childish perhaps to me, reminded me of Ikenfell a bit, but it was charming enough and the short cut scenes were well done and definitely did not take too much time out of the pure gameplay. The theme is some sort of, coming of age crisis interwoven with depression and pulling oneself out of the abyss and to climb to new heights. Despite the softness, it's charming enough. The one thing that took me aback about this game is it's difficulty, or lack thereof in terms of the base game. Some of the setups and jumps do require some precision and execution, but with progress being saved at the start of every short room, a completent platformer isn't getting stuck anywhere for too long with the majority of the rooms being one shottable. I know that the extra chapter and the B and C sides are where this known difficulty comes from, but I was surprised to see a lack of it in the base game. It may have been appropriate to wait until clearing all the content before reviewing, but the spirit of this challenge and the review are the thoughts after reaching a credits screen. All in all, incredible game and experience apparently made by a very, very small team. I'll play anything they put out in the future.

Continuing the platforming journey comes one with a bit of a twist. Max and the Curse of Brotherhood at first seems like a conventional minimalistic platformer consisting of moving, jumping and pushing and pulling objects with an emphasis on puzzle solving as opposed to precision platforming. The unique mechanic which gives this game it's identity is the use of stylus which allows the player to manipulate recurring objects by drawing them onto the screen. It reminded me of an old mobile game where I was impressed by that similar mechanic and wondered why it wasn't used more in the gaming world. This allowed multiple ways to solve sections depending on which shapes you were drawing and they way you combined them. Really cool. Especially of note were the Matrix/Max Payne slow down sections that had the player quickly maniuplate the environment to save Max before he fell or was trampled to his death. It wasn't pixel art, more polygon based, but it was nice and served it's purposes. Although this is presumably a very family friendly game, it didn't bother me in the same way that an over the top Ikenfell did and had a bit of a dark side while retaining it's youthful charm. There were 7 chapters in total with a varying amount of sub chapters and the game's length felt right for what it was. As mentioned, this game featured and it's difficulty game moreso than thee puzzle platforming sections than the precision one's, but in an era where there are endless incredible tight, precision platformers out there I think this is a nice reprieve. Great little game - would definitely check out a sequel.

Perfect Dark, an almost perfect game. As 2021 was the year I revisited Goldeneye, I thought it be appropriate to revisit it's spiritual successor as well. This time around, however, I went with the remastered version of Xbox and it was clearly a vast improvement to an already fairly polished product for it's time. This game improves on Goldeneye in almost every fashion - graphics, voice acting, depth, gun mechanics and so on. It was a helluva achievement for the 64 bit technology at the time and it still holds up today as a fantastic game. Although this game, like it's predecessor, relies heavily on combat to progress through the missions, a much greater emphasis is placed on puzzle solving and figuring out ways to achieve the often non linear list of objectives for every mission. Admittedly, and very much against my rules, there were two occasions when I had to consult something, but I think both are justified. The first is in one of the penultimate missions that has you shoot a lantern to activate a door - the problem is that this lantern is completely invisible. I'm convinced this is a bug due to screen brightness, but I sorta remember this being an issue almost 20 years ago. The other part was the final boss. The first time I got to him, I emptied all my ammo into him then watched him disappear into a wall. I was left standing there, ammoless, with no boss around. Convinced, again, this was some sort of a bug I checked it out and as it turns out that situation is intended or at least possible. The actual way to kill the boss is very cryptic and even when you know how to do it not obvious thanks to the poor target marking which I'm sure was standard for games at the time. Despite these issues, Perfect Dark is a fantastic, classic FPS and is especially a beautiful experience when playing the enhanced edition on more modern tech. There seems to be a sequel, Zero Hour, that exists in the same vein so I'll be sure to add it to the list of 2021 and knock it out before the year's end.

Now, would this iconic, revolutionary, classic game of yesteryear get a 9 if it was released in 2021? Absolutely not. One could argue this game hasn't aged nearly as well as the previous entry on this list which was made in the same era - Perfect Dark. Despite what speedrunners would have you think, the movement and physics feel downright clunky at times and controlling the camera can often feel horrible. But I'll be damned if I'm going to disrespect this game with anything less than the score I gave it. Super Mario 64 is still quintessential platforming placed inside whichi might be the most memorable and nostalgic setting of all the Mario entries. Upon this modern day playthrough what really stood out to me is the puzzling nature of the game, with each star having an often cryptic description and absolutely no prompts on what to do once you're in a level. Speaking of levels, I was definitely reminded on just how diverse and creative the assortment of levels were. They were, of course, limited in texture and smoothness due to the polygonical (if that's a word) limitations of the 64 bit machine at the time, but it didn't stop Nintendo from putting the player in an adventure that seemingly covered all biomes and possible worlds. If the game required all 120 stars to be collected for completion, this would be a very, very difficult game without a guide so thankfully they let you mix and match 70 to reach the final encounter. Most of the stars were relatively easy once you knew what you were doing, with the exception being some of the later levels and most notably the magic carpet ride level where one small input error would result in death and starting the entire autoscrolling experience again. This game, much like the other Mario titles of that era, in part defined by childhood and will always have a very special place in my heart. I must sound like a broken record at this point, but the Everdrive 64 continues to be one of the best gaming purchases I've ever made, and I can't wait to keep exploring these classic titles in the state they were meant to be played in.

Perfect. Absolute, undeniable perfection. Hades is kinda like Celeste, a game that I had heard nothing but great things about, knew it was right up my alley, but for some reason put if off until now. I don't know why I do that, but goddamn am I glad I played this instant classic because it is just that. Hades is a 3D, top down, twin stick rogue lite set in the Underworld of Greek mythological lore. The player controls Zagreus, the son of Hades, and tells the story of his escape attempts from his father's realm with a desire to reunite with his mother, Persephone, and uncover the dark secrets of their families history. The game's fundamental roguelite mechanics follows that of a game like Undermine, rather than Gungeon or Isaac, with the character growing stronger after each run and making each subsequent run that much easier. The combat mechanics themselves play out like some sort of beautiful symphony, with the character ussing a variety of weapons and dashing iframes to dance with the enemies as the player moves from room to room. The room rewards themselves are particularly unique, as there will often be multiple doors with a symbol above them indicating what type of rewards the player will get for clearing the room. It feels fantastic to beat this quite difficult yet fair game for the first time, but that's only where it starts. To get to the credits and complete the story, the player must defeat Hades and reach Greece 10 times, a feat which admittedly grows easier as the player grows in skill and strength. The voice acting, the writing itself, the artwork are all absolutely top tier and lead to an overwhelmingly beautiful and fun experience. I've heard this game won multiple awards in the year it was released, and now I see exactly why. Any gamer worth their salt needs to play this immediately and experience it in all it's glory. I will check out EVERY subsequent game from this developing team - they have earned my respect and admiration for life.

Well this was a cute little platformer. A game of medium difficulty that can be easily beat in one playthrough - almost perfect for this challenge. 10 Second Ninja is a classic platformer which has the player take control of an unknown Ninja who mysteriously boards an enemy ship in attempt to save his bird friends (I think?). Although the story and the plot were lacking, the gameplay was solid and as the name suggests consisted of very short levels where you required to complete them in 10 seconds or less. Completing a level, in this sense, meant destroying all the enemies on the screen with either your Katana or throwing stars. This usually requires a bit of thought at the beginning of the level to plan your route, and then some moderately precise inputs and timing to execute the plan. This game gives that feeling of timing and speed that you want in a fast paced, 2D platformer of this nature and for what it was definitely delivered in terms of it's combat and movement mechanics. The story, artwork, setting etc. all left a bit to be desired, but I may be just a bit jaded coming off the previous entry in this list which was a masterpiece. How quickly you went through a level within 10 seconds would determine your star rating for that level, with the game requiring what seems to be an average of two stars per level to beat the game. If the game required 3 stars per level, this would be an entirely different conversation in terms of difficulty and it might be one of the hardest entries on this list. However, it was quick, short and easy and as mentioned a perfect game for this challenge as we move towards the end of the year and crunch time. If there ever was some sort of sequel, I would surely play.

And the nostalgia continues. For these classic N64 experience I don't really feel the need to do an in depth description of the gameplay, combat mechanics etc. but moreso by experience with it in 2021. This game still rocks. It's the terrestrial/space combat game which paved the way for modern day, impressive, next generation titles such as Star Wars: Squadrons. What stood out to me this time around was how fluid the game felt for such an old title. Apparently the game is locked at 20 FPS, but if you told me it was 40 or even 60 I wouldn't be completely shocked. The other thing that stood out, which I had forgotten about a bit, is the number of paths the player can take to reach Andross. Apparently which path you take will determine your difficutly experience - mine was that of a very smoothe ride until the final two levels where I felt a sharp difficulty increase almost out of nowhere (I suspect I was on an easier path until then). The final thing that stood out was the actual variety of controls and maneuvaribility the player had for such an ancient game. It took me until the penultimate fights to realize how to turn quicker, for example, and it opened up a huge new variety of moves to get the jump on, at that point, very high level AI. The final boss was also quite tough, with a tad of puzzle mechanics in figuring out exactly when and where to shoot and how to dodge his increasingly difficult attacks. Having said all that, I beat the game in what felt like an hour or so without the need for any continues or retarts. And a final nod to the final escape from Venom where Fox is guided by the spirit of his slain father to find the correct path out - a touching and heartwarming moment no doubt. This is a classic I'll probably revisit outside of the challenge to explore those other paths and soak in the entire Star Fox experience.

One of my first true loves. This game still plays like a dream and retains all the charm and character that I remember. I used to grind this game endlessly as a kid, easily rising to the top player out of my friend group with a particular synnergy with Ness, a character from another one of my favorite games of all times. I, admittedly, to not give this game a true experience this time around, as I beat it on Normal difficulty in what felt like less than 20 minutes. Although this was done in the spirit of this challenge, it was still a pleasure to revisit the brawler that started them all and in my very bias opinion the absolute best entry into the Smash series. Due to the lower frames, this game requires more prediction I would say then some of the more higher framed, reactionary titles but that's kinda the way I like it. All the stages are uniquely designed, all the characters have a diverse, fun ability set which allows such a variety of playstyles. Because this was a brand new file, I actually didn't have my favorite character Ness unlocked yet so I charged through the game with Pikachu, another favorite from my youth. On Normal difficutly this game is almost too easy, but there is little doubt in my mind that if I set the difficutly to Very Hard I would not be storming through in under 20 minutes. I was almost surprised to see the credits after completion, thinking it might be like 1080 Snowboarding where the credits would only come after beating the game on the most difficult setting and Thank God for that. The toxicity of the Smash scene that has spawned from this has perhaps cast a bit of a dark light on the series and consequently this game, but not for me. This, like the entry before, is an absolute classic on the N64 and is inspiring to continue grinding these incredible games which have stood the test of time.

This is a game that I had seen first on the Get Indie Gaming YouTube channel and it immediately piqued my interest. It had the apperance of top down roguelite Zelda styled hybrid with some great pixel art, my favorite kinda art, to boot. This game was fun, but didn't quite live up to the self created hype. Since I created the hype, I didn't let it too negattively affect the score, but I still couldn't go much higer than a 7. The seeds of what appear to be a great game are here, but the content was simply lacking. The basic gameplay was as expected and advertised, but it didn't go too far beyond that. The only direct damage equpiment was a simple melee attack, whether with a sword, fork or shovel, with limited range and again, just not much there. The passive, non equippable items seemed to be mostly linked directly to the plot and progression which made for not much varaition in playstyle or builds. The mechanic that did have some success, in my view, is the dungeon puzzle mechanics which reminded me of a better Ikenfell. This would include, for example, setting yourself on fire and using a teleportation gun to then burn down an entrance to a blocked door. Although I enjoyed this, there wasn't much of a challenge presented with most dungeons being completed in what felt like a speedruns time (not actually, but they were pretty damn easy). The boss fights were, again, ok but left a lot to be desired - mainly walking around the room with your sword and waiting to dodge an attack and strike a few times before rinse and repeating. Some bosses had the option of using the bomb or fire mechanics which did add a bit of diversity. Where this game definitely scored for me was it's charm, plot, environments, pixel art and so on. It did have a child friendly quality to it but was also had some dark undertones, as we learn the history of the town and the Turnip Boy's family history. Walking around the village and engaging in dialogue gave that same sorta JRPG feeling that's always been comforting to me. All in all, a cute little game that was beaten in what felt like an hour or two, but I do feel like it almost played like a demo of sorts and would set the foundation for a more robust game and release.

It's definitely a bit odd that I enjoy Point and Click games as much as I do. Not because of what I believe to be their objective quality and uniquely fun gameplay, but because my other favorite genre is at almost the polar opposite end of the spectrum, which involves incredibly precise inputs and an adept ability to pick up complex game mechanics. But for whatever reasonm the non-Telltale classic point and click genre resonates with me on a strange, nostalgic level, and Full Throttle definitely helped bolster this cause. In a year where I also revisited the Indiana Jones PnC classic, I felt it was apt to give this game another spin after 20+ years and I'm so glad I did. Like the aforementioned Jones title, I don't think I even finished this game in my youth so it was a nice mix of nostalgia with definitely new experiences. As far as the genres go, I felt this title quite a bit less cryptic than the Fate of Atlantis or even Day of the Tentacle. The puzzles and item interactions were tough, but there wasn't seeminly an infinite possibility of combinations with something totally random being the solution which, in my opinion, hurt the others in this genre. The only interactive options in this game were grab, kick, look and talk/taste which could be used in a variety of combinations with the environment and the objects that were picked up. Mechanically, what really set this game apart from the others, although some have tried to apply this, was the timing in the pointing and clicking, often allowing the player only a few frames to make the right interaction to solve the puzzle. This led to much more diversity in actions to an otherwise very simple interface. What really delivered with this game, which seems almost a requisite in such a genre, was the artwork and most importantly the story. You play as a badass, outlawed biker accused of the murder of one of the patriarchs of the biker society. It set the ground for a gritty yet humorous tale that probably couldn't exist in 2021. I had a few issues with the game that maybe held back it's already great score. The first was some of the actual combat mechanics when riding your bike on the open road. There wa a section of the game which required the player to fight other bikers on the road, suddenly shifting the point and click genre to a more action, timing based game. I found these interactions fairly poorly executed and the timing of the hits seeming random and not all that well thought out. However, there was really only one section where this criticism could apply. The second part was some of the very basic navigation options about where you're able to travel to not being apparent. I was stuck in one section for quite a while, after exhausting most of the possible envrionment and item interactions, all because I didn't pan the cursor on a particular part of the screeen which led me know I could travel to another area. Again, a relatively minor complain. Full Throttle remains an absolute classic in the genre, and will be for years to come. Part of me thinks that this glory age of point and click games are over, and the other part of me says I need to test some of these more modern games in the genre and see if this theory is true. In that vein, I think Blind Prophet may be the first to see if it can hold a candle to the games in this list that has come before it. Stay tuned.

Zelda mixed with Enter the Gungeon. Instead of doing what I normally do, with games like Celeste or Hades, and biding my time before tackling a game which obviously piques my interested, I decided to play Archvale just days after the release as it was available on the absolute best deal in gaming - the Xbox Pass for PC. It was actually a friend who brought it to my attention first as he thought this filled every criteria in terms of what I was looking for in a game, and he was definitely right. As alluded to, Archvale has the core mechanics of a Gungeon like bullet hell entrenched in a RPG world like Zelda but with the min/maxxing capabilities of a JRPG like a modern day Pokemon or Monster Sanctuary. It has beautiful pixel art and at least 10 unique environments, each carrying enemies with equally unique designs and bullet spray patterns. The game starts off relatively easy, but has a sharp difficulty curve as it employs a Hollow Knight map mechanic of opening most of the world without telling you explicity where you should go next. For whatever reason, I, for the most part, intuitively found the next path of least resistance and had a very enjoyable, stress free playthrough. Builds could be changed and optimized relatively easily - I was sporting a Magic based build for most of the game before finding a Bow which was seemingly incredibly OP, and immediately maxxed out my range stats and breezed through the rest of the game with relative ease. I must say, like Hades, I immediately look for the build which most resembles Gungeon which although could be seen as a bad thing, I think it's incredible these games give you the viability to play the gamestyle you're most comfortable with and the one you have the most fun with. In terms of the bullet hell rooms themselves, I do think it's apropro to compare this to Gungeon as the two games seem to be almost inextricably connected (even though they're not). The bullets, enemies, and projectiles in this game seem, at least from limited experience with it, much more difficult to dodge but it's much more forgiving when you actually get it. Often you enter rooms with just a barrage of bulllets on the screen and almost nowhere to go, but if you take out a few enemies and in the process take a few hits, in won't be long before the next few rooms have a fountain in it which allows you to recover all your health, and save your progress. In this vein, the only fights I replayed consistently were boss fights and even then were only a handful of times, respectively. The game provided a deep yet intuitive min maxxing system based on your playstyle, in the form of your weapon, armor, and badges that was much more accessible and modifiable then say a game like the 21st entry on this list - Monster Sanctuary. I finished the game in about 10 hours without much frustration, but based on some Steam reviews and Reddit, playing the game on Hardcore would offer you the true bullethole experience this game suggests that could result in a massive, multi day, very frustrating grinding playthrough. I don't have many criticisms for this game, and some of my criticisms would actually be positives for hardcore fans of this genre, but even though I got lucky, I could have used with maybe some direction in terms of what areas were appropriate to go to based on my current level and power. I do feel a sense of anxiety when entering a new world and not knowing if I'm going to get one shot instantly or absolutely stomp the enemies in front of me. Once I found my build, however, I was good to go and felt ready to dominate any area which is undoubtedly a great feeling. Archvale is a game which spoke to me on many levels and also served as a perfect game for the challenge as it was difficult, interesting, but over within 3 days. I have a sneaking suspicious this game was made by a relatively small team, and if so, only furthers the narrative that small teams making indie games are incredible. This year is winding down with a boom.

This game probably deserves a higher score but I just couldn't bring myself to go higher than a 7.5. Golf Story is a lovely top down, pixel art RPG infused with a really solid golfing game. It's heavily story oriented, but features an abundance of side quests which typically involve some sort of specialized golf challenge. The actual golfing mechanics themselves are rock solid - not the most complete and dynamic set of mechanics but certainly enough to get the job done. What really shines in terms of the actual golfing, however, are the various environments and in turn courses to play, all with unique features and are generally of escalating difficulty. The game pushes the player a little bit in terms of being actual good at the golfing component, but there weren't too many matches or tournaments I lost throughout the course of my playthrough if any. This all sounds like it should be a higher rating than what I gave it, but for whatever reason I found the game dragged on a bit and I found myself almost rushing to completion, skipping over the last batch of side quests which is never a good idea. The story, dialogue, writing and humor itself was ok, much better than Ikenfell but nowhere close to something like Full Throttle. All in all this was a solid experience and although I'll likely never experience it, I imagine there is a multiplayer component and if it's as fun as playing against the AI then the rating may go up a couple notches. There was nothing revolutionary or ground breaking here but I'm happy I played it.

I could probably go lower here, but sorta like Super Bernie World the game sorta gave me what I was expecting. Ghoul Boy is a retro inspired RPG created in the same vein as something like Cyber Shadow, but it feels as though the devs were stuck too much in retro mode and didn't add anything new to the plate. The pixel art is solid, but it's definitely the best part of this game and that's not necessarily a good thing. The 2D platforming mechanics are simple and effective - with the standard double jump, the throwing consumable, and the melee weapon. Upgrades are present but rather lacking, as the store offers three items for purchase and that's it, rendering any more currency you earn pretty useless except for replenishing your health bar and consumables along the journey. The actual combat itself is ok - it's fairly intuitive and responsive but there's really not much here. The design of enemies are cool, but also rather simplistic which can also be said about the bosses. The last boss I literally stood in front of him and spammed attack while tanking damage and finished him first try - generally not the greatest sign for solid game design. One unique and cool feature of this platformer was a spear which you could throw and turn into a platform itself. Other games have done this, but it stood out here as it allowed multiple pathways in an otherwise very linear experience. I feel like I'm being a bit harsh, I think this game was about a dollar in the Switch store, but in a year of truly great games, one after the other, Ghoul Boy needs to take it's place accordingly. Don't get me wrong, this is an enjoyable 2-3 hour experience and a hundred times better than something like the hapless Valentina. I may have ever scored this higher, but there is a bug near the end of the game that almost makes it unplayable and almost made me quit before I found a way around it. Not great, maybe good, but not terrible and like many others on this list, was very suitable for this challenge as it can be completed in one small sitting.

A short, little tribute to one of the greatest platforming games of all time, Super Meat Boy. Dead Dungeon does indeed operate in a similar manner to the game that it is clearly paying homage to. It is a short, 2D, minimalistic platformer consisting of 60 levels with varying degrees of difficulty. By minimalistic, I'm referring to the fact that the game, like Super Meat Boy, largely consisted of moving around and jumping but this showed far less depth than it's legendary predecessor. The game didn't have much in terms of 'worlds' but it seemed that every 10 levels or so there was a newish backdrop with new enemy mechanics introduced. There wasn't much in terms of a story, but from the still images presented at the start of the game and at the end of it, it had something to do with rescuing a bunch of Super Meat Boy like clones on a journey to eat a donut (I think?). The artwork felt a little lacking here, while being inspired from 2BIT retro gaming it kinda lacked the charm that I've been used to with some of the other entries on this list. The game has a general increasing difficutly curve, but has some weird spikes with some very tight, precision platforming on some levels that would take dozens of attempts and then the next one which could be easily one shotted. A true difficutly spike could be the final boss, some sort of sinister clone of Meat Boy himself, which involved some skill mixed with falling spike RNG. However, much like the entry before this, Dead Dungeon is a game which can quite easily be beaten in a very short single session. Not all that much to be said about this one, but it was a great game for the challenge and maybe with some added development and depth could be something cool.

Another tribute to a legendary platformer, but moreso in the run and gun genre, with Biolab Wars this time clearly nodding it's head to the Contra series. In that sense, the game was effective. It delivered a nostalgic trip down SNES or even NES retro memory lane but again, much like a few other games in this end of year Switch cleanup, it fell quite a bit short in terms of depth. The artwork was great, but the enemies and especially bosses felt uninspired. Most of the combat was in the form of shooting enemies with 1 of 3 weapon types from a safe distance, or damage boost through enemies with the litany of health and pickups the game provided. The only real difficulty came with enemy projectile knockbacks, pushing the player into a bottomless pit that would be a instant death - this felt a bit unbalanced with the rest of the game, but oh well. The bosses had a bit more creativity then those of say, Ghoul Boy, but at the end of the day only had a few moves that were easy to memorize and they were all killed with relative ease. There were multiple characters, but from what I could tell the only difference was their appearance and this felt like a bit of a miss, some variety in gameplay would have been a nice touch to a fairly dry game. The plot was relatively non existent save for some pretty meaningless dialogue at the beginning of the game that doesn't get revisited to the end, and when it did I saw no connection at all. I'm dumping on this pretty hard, but it really ain't that bad. As far as short little tribute to the Contra era of run and guns go, this delivered and again, was perfect for the last minute push in this challenge

Ok, now we're getting back to the good stuff. The Blind Prophet is sort of a point and click graphic novel hybrid that has some of the best artwork I've seen in gaming, period. I'm not an expert in graphic novels, in fact I don't know if I've ever read one covere to cover, but I might start to if they're presented in the same fashion and artistry that this game is. Goddamnit this was good. The actual point and click puzzling in the game ranged from pretty easy to moderately difficult, with nothing being close to as cryptic as some of the stuff in The Fate of Atlantis or Full Throttle even. There was only one time I really got stuck, which was putting a body back together, and I just couldn't wrap my head around what the game was going for. Other than that, the relative ease of the puzzles made this a very enjoyable experience and also let the main elements of this game shine - the artwork and the story. The story is one of Bartholomew, an apostle sent from heaven to purge the demons out of a town which has become corrupted with their presence. The area of play itself was relatively small, but each street and mansion and cathedral were all so beautiful and consistent of tons of hidden gems that were there strictly for the viewers enjoyment. The story takes Bart to strip clubs, drug bars, party busses, haunted mansions and cathedrals just to name a few. Each location is uniquely designed and a pleasure to walk through and observe the aforementioned incredibly impressive artistry. As the story continues, we have some actual good thematic content for a game and an insight into the human condition when it comes to sin and virtue. Bart slays demon after demon before revealing the final truth, that the demon behind it all is actually a fallen apostle who has given up on humanity for good. The ending was a bit sad, but also perfect for this game and we'll hopefully get some resolution or even continue this story in the sequel. This game is beautiful violence and was a delight to play through. These point and click adventure games continue to deliver.

An interesting little Bomberman like steam punk era puzzle game. You control your pixelated character from a top down view with the goal of reaching the ladder in every level to take you to the next stage. There are three objectives to every stage - find the ladder, get all the weapon parts and destroy every robot in the level. I was doing every objective during the first world, but quickly realized that just reaching the ladder would probably suffice in beating the game and seeing the credits. I was right, and this presumably significantly lowered the difficulty the rest of the way and made for a quite easy experience. This game wasn't terrible, and met the expectations from the description and screenshots, but it was undoutedly lackluster and didn't offer much for a player to sink their teeth into. The graphics were nice, the music was cool, and the gameplay itself was fine for what this, I would assume, fairly niche genre is. Besides the excellent Blind Prophet, these Switch games of late haven't had much in terms of a storyline and this was no exception, but for such a short and random game this wasn't really a problem. Gameplay wise, fighting the actual robots and timing the bombs correctly did have a fun cat and mouse element, but once I realized how to quickly beat the game the focus became finding that latter and moving on to the next level. A short, easy, and mediocre game which suited this challenge quite nicely.

I feel a bit hypocritical for ranking a game this high, but this one went out of it's way to not demand much of itself or take itself seriously and it delivered on the promise of an exact recreation of a retro, Game Boy experience. I wasn't totally sure if this was a recreation of an actual GB game or a new game made to emulate one, but if it's a latter then they truly did do a great job of recreating this nostalgic, very simple gameplay. You play as Squidlit, a squid of sorts, and make your way through a few levels of black and white 2D platforming, armed with a jump and the ability to shoot ink drops downwards. Most enemies are 'killed' in one shot and most could probably be skipped altogether. The bosses added a bit of dynamicism and creativity, with one in particular forcing the player to jump inside a book, and inking a paragraph or two before being spat out and repeating the cycle. The black and white backdrops didn't blackdrops and very minimal bit design didn't allow too much in the way of creativity, but for what the devs were working with they did a solid job. After venturing through the minimalistic 2D world, Squidlit finally reaches a magic wizard of sorts, quickly disposes of him, and the game is over in the course of 30 minutes or so. Again, a 6.5 feels pretty generous for this game but whatever, it was reminiscent of Super Mario for game boy and I had a good time. It also allowed me to knock out a game ridiculously quick for the challenge. Kudos for the devs for capturing the feeling of this special time in gaming history.

Amidst this block of pretty damn Switch games comes this absolute gem - Xeodrifter. This was a tiny little Metroidvania that was so damn good - it might only be hindered by it's rather short length. But goddam this was a decent little game. The gameplay and mechanics followed the tropes of a metroidvania, ripe with armor and weapon upgrades and plenty of inaccesible areas that need to be returned to once the proper upgrade/device has been acquired. The combat itself was relatively simple and was that of a classic runner and gunner, with jumping and shooting being the tools for destruction. There are four different areas to explore in the form of planets that can be traveled to with the little space ship. The reason for doing this is to acquire materials to repair a part of the ship which is broken, allowing the Xeodrifter to hit warp speed and return home. Each planet has differing enemies and are comprimsed of one or two bosses that will drop the upgrades neceesary for the character to progress. What I really enjoyed about these bosses that although rather tough, they were all part of the same family or species and had similar attack patterns that could be studied and memorised. Each encounter does grow in difficutly, however, as theses bosses will add one or two mechanics each subsequent fight. One really special part of this game was an ability that allowed the player to 'shift' to the background layer and platform on what is something like a Layer 2 feature in Kaizo hacks. This was very cool and something I haven't really seen miuch of, and certainly wasn't expecting from this hidden gem. The player is armed with a single gun, but through standard upgrades able to build it and min/max it in a sense that suits the player's play style. Binding of Isaac had taught me that DPS comes in the form of damage and rate of fire so I dumped all my points in there and ended up with what appeared to be a very powerful weapon during the end game which made short work of the final boss. The game definitely doesn't give you much in terms of hints or direction or an indication of where to go next, but upon further examination of the menu UI it sorta does and it definitely felt appropriate for this genre. The only thing the menu UI could have done a bit better in terms of explaining things is what the gun powerups do, as the pictures were a bit vague and often misleading. Even though I was barreling through games to put up a respectable number for games beaten this year, Xeodrifter definitely left me wanting more. A quick Google search revelaed that this was released in 2014, otherwise it would have been in my picks for a top indie game of the year. Finally, the artwork and music were beautiful in that hypotnizing, perfect retro pixel art way. If this was a full fledged game and not beatable in under 2 hours I think I would be forced to give this even a higher score. Well done devs.

Well from the score you can see this was a pretty bad, forgettable experience, but I had to give it at least a .5 above Valentina, the worst game I've played this year, as it wasn't THAT bad and at least it was over soon. Cat Milk is another Super Meat Boy, 2D platformer clone with a very similar layout to the previously beaten Dead Dungeon, with the latter being a much better experience overall. The goal through each of the 30 levels or so is to get the milk on the screen and return to the spawn point. You control a cat to do this, and the levels themselves consist of bouncy donut like things, springs, spikes and a few other staples of this type of genre. The movement and fluidity of the platform was ok, but the interaction with the objects seemed pretty random with the same jump or spring killing you while the exact same inputs in an earlier attempt would be fine. The difficulty was all over the place, with a level requiring a super precise, almost frame perfect jump and dozens of attempts and then the next 5 being easily one shottable. The art was...rather ugly, and I played the game without volume so can't comment on that but honestly would not expect much. This was, as mentioned, a forgetable experience but hey - at least it was short.

Ah, the final game of 2021. 43 isn't so bad considering about half of them came in the last few months. So in comes Him and Her. This game is a puzzle platformer with the unique feature of the level rotating when the character walks around the corner of an object. The story is cute - not too much is revealed but you play as a boy and each one of the 34 levels has you attempting to reunite with Her, presumably your partner. The game had beautiful, hand drawn art with what I thought at first were some dark, depressing overtones but this never really came to fruition. Although the idea and design of the game was solid, the design of the levels themselves seemed a bit sloppy and some were not well thought out at all and quite easily cheesable. I, of course, love the cheese but there's no doubt that's the sign of a poorly designed game. The game made use of portals, albeit not too extensively, but these were also not designed that well and kind of an ugly UI choice on an otherwise minimalistic and pleasent game to look at. I should mention there is a hard mode which would up the game's difficulty significantly as it doesn't allow you to zoom out and see the whole puzzle and plan your route accordingly. The year ends with not a bang, not with a whimper, but with a short, cute and passable game.