One sentence about each of the 21 games I finished in 2021

I somehow managed to finish 21 games this year. I say "somehow" here because for all of 2021 it felt like I played fewer games than I did in 2020.

Actually, it's possible I did play fewer games in 2021 than I played in 2020. And I surely spent less time with the games I played in 2021 than I did with the games I played in 2020, as my next post will make clear.

As for this post, it features—as the header above hopefully suggests—one-sentence "reviews" of each of the 21 games I completed this year.

Also, they're organized according to when I completed them. So, Shiren the Wanderer 5+ was the first game I "beat" in 2021, while Umrangi Generation Special Edition was the last.

Shiren the Wanderer 5+ (Switch)

I didn’t realize just how much I’ve always wanted to pillage towers at extreme threat of violence and even death until I dug my teeth into this beautifully complex roguelike.

Captain Toad (Switch)

Captain Toad is a cute and (mostly) chill puzzle-action game that I can honestly say I enjoyed more than I've enjoyed any of the proper Mario titles that have been released over the last few years.

Princess Debut (DS)

A fluffy and rather childish otome game that features a barebones rhythm component—via simple ballroom dance sequences—and attractive, manga-inspired art.

A Kappa’s Trail (DS)

An instant-classic, hidden-gem, touch-controlled, puzzle-action game from some of the same devs who gave the world Mother 3, Magical Starsign, and Fantasy Life.

Pikmin 3 Deluxe (Switch)

Exploring the game’s beautifully realized environments while capturing towering "enemies" and corralling similarly giant pieces of fruit is great fun; doing all of those things while watching a clock tick toward zero is not.

Bravely Default II (Switch)

Yes, it’s yet another RPG about those damned “four heroes of light,” but this one tweaks the formula, gameplay (the battles, especially), and aesthetics just enough to make it all seem fresh and exhilarating.

Gnosia (Switch)

I started this game expecting it to be little more than Raging Loop set in space, but what I got was an addictive Werewolf simulator with a thrilling drip-feed story—the opposite of RL’s, basically—and a swoon-worthy OST.

Poison Control (Switch)

Poison Control is a curious and snappy mashup of a dungeon-crawler, a third-person shooter, and Taito's classic quartermucher Qix, all set to a surprisingly dark assortment of stories and a subtly brilliant soundtrack.

Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk (Switch)

Come to this dungeon RPG for the 40-member parties (kind of, but kind of not), stay for the in-the-end-touching story and the interesting traversal elements.

Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir (Switch)

An attractive and captivating whodunit that occasionally frustrates due in large part to a clunky interface that sticks a little too close to its late-1980s roots.

Famicom Detective Club: The Girl Who Stands Behind (Switch)

Another modern remake of an old adventure game that originally graced the Famicom Disk System, though this one is more suspenseful and has a slightly more appealing setting and story.

Ripened Tingle’s Balloon Trip of Love (DS)

A point-and-click game starring everyone's favorite emotionally stunted oddball, Tingle, and sporting a story that's a silly riff on The Wizard of Oz; believe me, it's every bit as great as it sounds.

Gravity Rush (Vita)

Although its increasingly nonsensical story and always-aggravating combat regularly attempted to take my attention away from it, I don't think I've ever felt more like I'd stepped into the shoes—or spandex jumpsuit—of a superhero than I did while playing this gorgeous "gravity action" game.

Tearaway (Vita)

Tearaway is a breezy, Kirby-esque platformer that makes impressive and creative use of the Vita hardware and, as such, feels more like an amusement-park ride than a video game.

Airship Q (Vita)

Take Terraria, make the protagonist a cat, add a save-your-catnapped-sister story, and toss in a few honest-to-goodness, pull-your-hair-out-by-the-roots moments of jank-prompted frustration, and you have Airship Q.

Deltarune Chapter 1&2 (Switch)

This Undertale follow-up may or may not be a better game than its predecessor, but either way, it's a joy to play thanks to its wall-to-wall witty and silly text and its decision to fully lean into bullet-hell gameplay.

Mon Amour (Switch)

If you've ever wondered what Flappy Bird would look, sound, and play like if the creative geniuses at Onion Games (Black Bird, Dandy Dungeon) had made it, here's your answer.

Dungeon Encounters (Switch)

It's best to ignore how Dungeon Encounters looks, especially before you actually play it; instead, think of it as a minimalistic, top-down Etrian Odyssey that has you solve riddles to find new abilities, party members, treasures—even the final boss.

SaGa Frontier Remastered (Switch)

Although the stories that hold SaGa Frontier together are on the simple side, every other element of this Japanese role-player is out of this world: the eye-popping array of party members, the exotic enemy designs, the extraterrestrial locales, the electrifying battles, and—last, but certainly not least—the extraordinary soundtrack.

Liquid Kids (Switch)

This side-scrolling Bubble Bobble—basically, though the protagonist is a roly-poly platypus rather than lime-green dinosaur—is an arcade game through and through, with cheap deaths around every other corner, but it's also a blast to play thanks to how fun it is to throw "water bombs" everywhere and at everything.

Umurangi Generation Special Edition (Switch)

If Gnosia is a Werewolf simulator, Umurangi Generation is a document-the-end-of-the-world-using-a-DSLR-camera simulator—and a damn good one, at that.

See also: one sentence about each of the 24 games I finished in 2020

My favorite games of 2021 that weren't actually released in 2021

Although I played and loved a lot of games this year that were actually released in the last 12 months, I also played and loved a lot of games that came out before 2021.

In particular, I played more Vita games in 2021 than I have in years—three of which are highlighted below. I also played a handful of DS games.

A Kappa’s Trail (DS)

This Nintendo DSiWare game is a breath of fresh air for several reasons, though the most noteworthy are that it makes full use of the DS system's touch screen (in fact, the machine's directional pad or face buttons are disabled during play) and it forces players to figure out what to do right from the word go.

Granted, I'd hardly call this digital release one of my favorite games of 2021 if all it offered were a lack of handholding and slick, stylus-centric controls. On that note, A Kappa's Trail is also quite a looker, no shock given the wizards at Brownie Brown (of Mother 3 and Magical Starsign fame) made it. Its lead-a-big-headed-kappa-to-the-end-of-each-winding-stage-while-avoiding-myriad-pitfalls-and-perils gameplay is unique, too, not to mention tense, thanks to the creepy disembodied hand that slowly stalks you and threatens to cut short your otherwise jaunty journey.

Don't worry, the latter isn't overly off-putting; instead, it injects the game with a welcome dose of drama that elevates the experience beyond "pleasant but boring."

Airship Q (PC/Vita)

When I imported my copy of this game many moons ago, all I knew about it was that it was supposed to be Terraria with cats. In reality, that description isn't entirely accurate. Airship Q is a far more straightforward title than Terraria, though this doesn't mean it's constricted. On the contrary, it's as open as you could hope for it to be; however, there are times you'll be forced in a particular direction to advance Airship Q's rather meager story.

Now to throw some cold water onto this little "review": Airship Q is a bit janky. In particular, its block- and physics-based world regularly does its best to spoil your progress and fun by trapping your craft or keeping you from reaching your intended destination. This usually induces laughs rather than rage, but don't be shocked if it causes the occasional fit. It shouldn't prompt you to huffily pull the plug on your playthrough, though, or at least it shouldn't if you do like I did and think of this aspect of the game as charming instead of irritating.

Gravity Rush (PS4/Vita)

Gravity Rush is one of those games that are filled with brazen, brilliant ideas that never fully gel. The characters (Kat, the protagonist, especially) and steampunk-ish setting fascinate, and its soundtrack alternatingly soothes and soars. Speaking of soaring, dashing and falling through the air as the aforementioned Kat is one of the more exhilarating experiences I've had in a game in eons.

Dashing and falling into one or more of Gravity Rush's low-key nightmarish enemies, on the other hand, tends to be tiresome rather than breathtaking, and it didn't take me long to both dread and even detest such tussles. Fulfilling the game's many missions gets old quickly, too, though not as completely as its battles.

Perhaps appropriately, the story in Gravity Rush veers wildly between riveting and ridiculous—almost like it exists to meld the game's positive and negative attributes. It leans toward the former more than the latter, though, and that was enough for me.

A ringing endorsement, right? Maybe not, but the fact is I'm still thinking of my time with Gravity Rush, and I'm also already contemplating taking another stab at it. In other words, its pros outweigh its cons, or at least they did for me. Considering how bold Gravity Rush is overall, putting up with its handful of quibbles isn't such a difficult task.  

Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk (PC/PS4/Switch)

I avoided starting Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk for ages because screenshots of it intimidated me. Specifically, the number of party members depicted in said screens got me thinking this dungeon-crawling RPG would be far too convoluted for my feeble brain. After finishing and putting more than 75 hours into it, I'm glad to report it's not. In fact, its multi-character battles are far more conventional than initial impressions suggest.

Which isn't to say Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk is traditional to a fault. It actually offers up several innovations that make it seem surprisingly fresh. Two standout examples: you can jump over pits while exploring its many maze-like dungeons, and you can break through walls to examine previously inaccessible areas.

Building and customizing your party, which can eventually include as many as 40 members (each of whom are puppets, not humans), provides a similarly unique thrill. Unfortunately, it's a bit too deep to delve into here. The game does a decent job of explaining it as you go along, thankfully.

Another area in which Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk excels is its story. Hell, a dungeon role-playing game having anything more than a barebones backstory is worth noting, but the one included here wouldn't be out of place in your typical JRPG. That it ends up being rather poignant only adds to the allure.

Ripened Tingle's Balloon Trip of Love (DS)

Ripened Tingle's Balloon Trip of Love is such a bizarre mashup of ideas that I'm frankly amazed the powers that be at Nintendo greenlit its development. It's a point-and-click game that stars everyone's favorite jumpsuit-wearing oddball, Tingle, and sports a story that parodies The Wizard of Oz.

Actually, there's more to Ripened Tingle's Balloon Trip of Love than just pointing and clicking. You solve puzzles, complete mini-games, and even woo some ladies, too.

Whether or not you tend to enjoy this genre, it's worth checking out—in large part because it was developed by the talented crew at Vanpool, an offshoot of the renowned Love-de-Lic (known for cult classics Moon: Remix RPG Adventure and UFO: A Day in the Life).

Spelunky (PC/PS4/Switch/Vita)

Admittedly, my obsession with Spelunky began after I bought the Switch port that released this past autumn. I quickly moved over to the Vita version, though, and that's where I spent most of my time with this masochistic title.

That I enjoyed it enough to play it for more than 20 hours is a near-miracle, I must say. This type of platformer has never been my cup of tea for all sorts of reasons I won't bore you with now. What's different about Spelunky? For starters, I feel like I'm at least slightly more in control of my destiny while playing it than I do while attempting similar efforts. Also, dying in Spelunky rarely devastates me. And even when it approaches doing so, I still typically end up laughing at the comedic cruelty of it all before moving on to just one more run.

If you're wondering why I or anyone else would willingly go through such hell over and over again, well, my only answer is that I like the challenge of it. Success, at both the individual stage and overall game level, always seems within reach—if only I could do this next time, or not do that. It's easy to blame yourself, rather than the game, for failing, though never so harshly you give up and move on to something less taxing. 

See also: my favorite games of 2020 that weren't released in 2020

Five games I'd probably pick up if I owned a PlayStation Vita

Although I'm hardly what you'd call a "Vita hater," I'm also not exactly the biggest fan of Sony's latest handheld.

Still, a handful of its games have captivated me enough that I don't think it's completely out of the question that I'll own a Vita someday (especially considering I'm far more interested in portable, rather than console, gaming these days).

Should that "someday" ever arrive, here are five Vita games I'd seriously consider picking up alongside the bulky, OLED-screened system:

1. @field--What do you get when you combine Hot Shots Golf and pinball? Apparently you get this Sega-made game. Don't worry, I don't quite understand how a golf-pinball mash-up is supposed to play either. Something like mini-golf, perhaps? Regardless, I'm intrigued.

2. Dokuro--I've written about my interest in this puzzler-platformer before, so there isn't much more to say about it here. What I will say: if possible, I'd prefer to pay a premium and pick up the Japanese retail version of this game--just so I can sit and stare at its beautiful box art.

3. Gravity Rush--So many people trumpeted this title's merits around the time of its release that I actually stopped paying attention to it. (What can I say? I'm sometimes contrary like that.) Anyway, now that I've had a chance to reflect a bit, I think I can see why gamers went gaga over it and I'm curious to give it a spin myself.

4. Persona 4 Golden--Full disclosure: I've never before played the original version of Persona 4. In fact, I don't even own a copy of the game--although it's been on my "to buy" list since it was released. Everyone says this is the best version of it, so maybe I'll just skip the PS2 release and buy this one instead (should I ever purchase a Vita, of course).

5. Sei Madou Monogatari--The two main reasons I'm interested in this sure-to-be-Japan-only Vita title: 1) I've long been a fan of the Madou Monogatari series of dungeon-crawlers and 2) I like that this one looks more than a bit like Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon.

Other possibilities: The Legend of Heroes: Sen no Kiseki, Orgarhythm, Muramasa: The Demon Blade, Tearaway and Touch My Katamari.

I'd totally (probably) buy Sound Shapes if I owned a PS3 or Vita

I know I'm a bit late to the party on this one--it was released early last week, after all, although it won't hit the streets in Europe until tomorrow--but what do you expect from someone who owns neither a PS3 nor a Vita?

Even then, you'd think this Queasy Games-developed title would have appeared on my radar before this past weekend, when I read about it on the geek out! blog.

As for why I'd totally (probably) pick up Sound Shapes if I owned a PS3 or Vita: I really like its minimalist, LocoRoco-meets-NightSky aesthetic, for starters. Also, I'm intrigued by its gameplay, which seems to be an appealing mash-up of a platformer and a rhythm title.



The only thing that makes me a bit, well, queasy about this digital release: Its $14.99 price tag. Still, I'd likely bite the bullet and hand over my hard-earned cash for it if I owned a Vita, as only a couple of its games have caught my attention thus far (namely @field, Dokuro and Gravity Daze/Rush).

See also: 'Sega's doing its darndest to lead me @field' and 'Surprise, surprise: The first (and only) Vita game that interests me is an odd, niche-y one'