It's that time of year again, folks! And, no, I'm not talking about the winter holidays. I'm talking about the time of year where I wring my hands over all the games I failed to play this year.
Sadly, the games discussed below are just the tip of this particular iceberg. They're the ones I most want to experience before 2017 comes to an end, though, so that's why I decided to single them out here.
I guess I'll have to publish a follow-up post early in 2018 that reveals whether or not I actually spent time with these titles and, if so, what I think of them, eh?
In the meantime, here's a bit of commentary on why I so desperately want to put at least a couple of hours into each of these 3DS, Switch, and Vita games in the next month and a half.
Dragon Quest XI (3DS)--I was so excited about this game's Japanese release, and yet I forgot about it shortly after it arrived on my doorstep in August. OK, so it's possible my memory issues were aided a bit by my wariness of the endless lines of barely decipherable Japanese text it'll surely throw at me. Also helping matters, or maybe I should say making them worse: the potential for this version of
Dragon Quest XI, or even the supposed Switch port, to be released in North America sometime in 2018. Still, I spent good money on this Japanese 3DS copy, so I should at least attempt to play it before the year is out, right?
Hey! Pikmin (3DS)--This side-scrolling, platforming offshoot of Nintendo's popular
Pikmin series hasn't exactly garnered rave reviews since it first hit digital and retail store shelves earlier this year.
I had a lot of fun ambling through its demo, though, so I ignored the negative word of mouth and picked up a copy a month or so ago. Anyway, I have a feeling
Hey! Pikmin will prove to be a good game to play in small spurts, so I'll do my best to at least boot it up over the upcoming holiday weekend.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch)--Here's the first game of this post I don't yet own. I have a feeling that won't be true for much longer, though, as it's basically the only thing I asked my parents to buy me for my rapidly approaching birthday. Assuming a copy of
Breath of the Wild does find its way into my hands soon, it'll be interesting to discover if the game's my cup of tea or not. I haven't often loved Link's three-demensional adventures, after all, with the Nintendo 64 version of
Ocarina of Time being the lone exception. I'm completely enamored with this one's aesthetic, though, so hopefully that'll help it worm its way into my heart.
Skyrim (Switch)--At the moment, I feel like one of the few people in the world, or at least one of the few people in North America, who has yet to play some version of
Skyrim. That's mainly because I've only owned one console capable of playing it--the Xbox 360--and the only boxed game I bought for it was
Deadly Premonition. Even if I'd been more willing to build up a catalog for that system, though, I doubt I would've added this title to it. It just doesn't look like my kind of game, if you get my drift. That said, I'm currently finding it intriguing enough that I'll probably ask for it as a Christmas gift. Surely I'll have (mostly) burned myself out on
Breath of the Wild by then?
Stardew Valley (Switch)--My original plan was to purchase this Switch port of Eric Barone's
Harvest Moon clone as soon as I wrapped up my
Golf Story playthrough. (Speaking of which, here's my
Golf Story review.) Right after that happened, though,
Super Mario Odyssey was plopped onto my doormat. And now I'm done with
Odyssey, but
Breath of the Wild and
Skyrim are right around the corner. Maybe I should just bite the bullet and buy it this weekend, even if doing so wouldn't be the wisest way to spend my hard-earned cash. Worst-case scenario: I barely devote any time to it this year, but then thoroughly dig my teeth into it early next.
Undertale (Vita)--Do you ever buy a game and then forget you bought it? That's basically what happened with me and this recently published port of Toby Fox's genre-busting role-playing game. Actually, I've now forgotten I own this portable version of
Undertale a few times. Which is pretty darn sad, as I've wanted to play it on my Vita ever since I worked my way through its first handful of hours on my laptop a couple of years back. Given my rejuvenated interest in the Vita--thanks in large part to the game that follows--I think it's a pretty safe bet I'll make it much farther than that this time around.
VA-11 HALL-A (Vita)--OK, so I'm already playing this one. In my defense, I started this post before I began the game. Regardless, I've been itching to play
VA-11 HALL-A, which is best described as one part bartender simulator and one part visual novel, since I first became aware of it last summer. As I generally despise playing games on my laptop, I held out for this just-released Vita port. All I'll say here is it's been more than worth the wait. (Don't worry, I'll share some initial
VA-11 HALL-A impressions in an upcoming post.)
Have you bought any games this year that you desperately want to at least start before 2017 ends? If so, let me (and others) know about them in the comments section below.
See also: '
Five long-awaited 3DS, Switch and Vita games I wish would be released already'