Now that I've finished StreetPass Mii Plaza: Monster Manor, let's talk about how brilliant it is

I've played most of the StreetPass Mii Plaza games Nintendo has made available to 3DS owners since early 2011, and I've had a blast with pretty much all of them.

The ones that have given me the most joy in that time: Battleground Z, Find Mii, Flower Town, Mii Force, Monster Manor and Ultimate Angler.

Besides Find Mii and Monster Manor, though, none of the just-mentioned titles were able to hold my attention or maintain my interest for more than a month or two.

The Prope-made Monster Manor, in particular, has enthralled me since I first bought and downloaded it. I can't estimate how much time I devoted to it in 2013, 2014 or 2015, but I can say it was almost singlehandedly responsible for me dumping more than 39 hours into StreetPass Mii Plaza in 2016.

I've also put a good number of hours into it this year. The reason: I wanted to finish the climb to Monster Manor's top floor before Nintendo pulls the plug on StreetPass (or, you know, before StreetPass encounters completely fall off a cliff).

Well, I did just that a couple of weeks ago. And now? I'm sort of depressed, to be honest. I was so sucked into this bite-sized adventure that I basically never wanted it to end.

As for what prompted me to develop such feelings about Monster Manor, well, the short answer is I loved--and continue to love--every aspect of it.

I love its deeper-than-it-first-appears gameplay, which bizarrely, yet successfully, combines elements of Tetris with those of a bare-bones RPG. I love the ghouls you encounter in the titular mansion's haunted hallways. I love the creatively designed and upgradeable weapons you find hidden in treasure chests that are tucked away in its rooms. I love its appropriately spooky--as well as jaunty--soundtrack.

And of course I love that it can be played in short spurts. Hell, I'd say it's supposed to be played in short spurts--whenever you get a handful of StreetPasses and whenever you have a few spare minutes. At any rate, games that don't ask for much of a commitment are the ones that are most compatible with my life at the moment, which only added to Monster Manor's appeal.

Sadly, as much as I love this digital morsel of a video game, and as much as I loved slowly but surely making my way through its 50 stages, I can't imagine I'll ever return to it now that I've seen its credit roll.

I know I could pick it up again down the road by StreetPassing myself (assuming Nintendo doesn't make that impossible by disabling the app entirely), but right now that sounds about as appetizing as returning to my aborted playthroughs of Hometown Story or Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley. (That's overstating things a tad, of course, but I'm sure you get the drift of what I'm saying here.)

Oh, well, at least I was able to experience Monster Manor in all its glory once.

How about you? Have any of you finished, or at least spent some time playing, Monster Manor? If so, share your thoughts and impressions in the comments section of this post.

Another option: share how you feel about the fact that we're unlikely to see games like this on the StreetPass-less Switch.

My favorite games of 2016 that weren't actually released in 2016

Well, this is the last of my "favorite games of 2016" posts.

I'm sorry the previous pair--here's one, and here's the other, if you've yet to read them--were so 3DS-centric, by the way. The fact is, other than the couple of hours I put into the Chrono Trigger DS port early this year, most of my "gaming time" in the last 12 months was devoted to 3DS titles.

Aside from the occasional "old" game, I mean.

Speaking of which, the titles discussed below, all of which were released before 2016 (most were released years, if not decades, before), are the ones I enjoyed the most this year.

Dragon Buster II (Famicom)--No one's ever going to call this one of the Famicom's best games. Hell, only a handful of folks are likely to call it one of the system's many overlooked gems. Still, there's no denying it's an intriguing title that's worth exploring if you've had your fill with that 8-bit console's "classics."

Just make sure you don't go into Dragon Buster II thinking the experience is going to be on par with, say, The Legend of Zelda or Faxandu or Crystalis. This cart has nothing on that trio in pretty much any area--music, graphics or gameplay. I spent a good number of hours with it in 2016 anyway, though, because I find its stark, dungeon-crawling action strangely captivating.

You see, Dragon Buster II is one of those games that offers players very little information. You're plopped into labyrinthine stage after labyrinthine stage with no map and no direction or assistance other than "find the key that'll allow you to leave." Said key is hidden inside a random enemy, which means you have to stalk each cavernous locale until it appears.

That Dragon Buster II compels despite its barebones premise, and despite its low-rent visuals and utter lack of backing music, goes a long way toward explaining why I devoted so much time to it this past fall.

Great Greed (GameBoy)--I've been meaning to play this Namco-made RPG (known as Bitamina Oukoku Monogatari in Japan) ever since some kind soul brought it to my attention in the comments of an earlier post--or maybe it was on Twitter or Facebook?--a number of years back.

Why did I wait until 2016 to bite the bullet and give it a go? I honestly don't know, although I have a feeling I dragged my feet for a good, long while because I was turned off by Great Greed's one-on-one, Dragon Quest-esque battles.

I'm now kicking myself for being so foolish, as the enemy encounters here are both snappy--and not just because there are so few participants--and a lot of fun. On top of that, the game's soundtrack is shockingly good and its many environments are wonderfully atypical for the genre. (My favorite is an old record factory--complete with spinning disks that have to be strategically traversed.)

Admittedly, the text in the North American version is rough--to the point of being nonsensical most of the time--but even that generally adds to Great Greed's charm. Sadly, I've yet to beat the game, but I'm planning to do just that early in 2017.

Monster Manor (3DS)--My 3DS Activity Log says I've put more than 35 hours into StreetPass Mii Plaza games so far this year. Almost all of that time was spent with the Prope-made Monster Manor, I can assure you.

Although it's not a game you can play for long, all of my five- and 10-minute stints with it apparently added up over the course of the last 12 months.

Monster Manor's the only StreetPass Mii Plaza title I still return to with any regularity, by the way. (Well, other than Puzzle Swap.) Why? I love its part Tetris, part RPG gameplay, for starters. I also love its wacky assortment of guns (the weapon of choice in Monster Manor). Its colorful cast of ghoulish baddies is a plus, too.

Sigh, I'm going to be so sad if this kind of experience isn't replicated on the Nintendo Switch.

SaGa Frontier (PlayStation)--It's been years since I last played SaGa Frontier. Which is a shame, as this weird, non-linear RPG is one of my all-time favorite games. As for why I returned to it earlier this year, that would be the fault of a guy named finchiekins. He approached me a few months ago about playing SaGa Frontier concurrently, with the goal being to record a podcast about it in 2017.

Sadly, I'm nowhere close to completing my playthrough of Lute's story. Still, I'm getting a kick out of revisiting some of my favorite locations in the game, like Koorong, Manhattan and Shrike. I'm also having a blast reacquainting myself with Kenji Ito's rocking soundtrack. More than anything, though, I'm loving SaGa Frontier's mind-blowing battles, which to this day make me giddier than those found in pretty much any other RPG.

Honestly, if I could play this on my Vita, I'd probably plunk more hours into it than any other game in 2017.

Which games--old or new--did you enjoy the most this past year? Share your thoughts and feelings on them in the comments section that follows.