Happy New Year, everyone! I can’t get over how quickly the years are moving these days. At this rate I’ll be retiring next month! I’ve gotta work even harder and save even more. This is what I get for spending my twenties and thirties gaming…
This year, for the first time in like 5 years, I feel like I can actually achieve the gaming targets I’m about to set. First off, I’m wiping out my entire backlog. Gone, finished. It doesn’t exist any more. If there’s anything I haven’t played so far, that means I wasn’t that interested to begin with, so I’m not going to worry about it, even if I’ve bought it already.
Secondly, I’ve realized from this year’s experiences that I still have it in me to play non-gacha, non-mobile games to completion (okay the only traditional JRPG I finished this year was Persona 5 Royal, but it was a doozy). On the other hand, none of the mobile games released or scheduled for release recently piqued my interest except Infinity Nikki, which my potato PC can’t even play.
What that tells me is that I need to dial back on the mobile games and focus more on the offline games – which means I probably won’t be re-installing Genshin Impact in 2025 like I said I would. Actually I felt an indescribable sense of relief and joy once that thing was off my computer and I have no desire to go back to it, but maaaybe if they ever add a text skip option, I’ll consider it. I’ll also be taking yet another break from Epic Seven at the end of January, leaving only Another Eden and Love Nikki as my mobile games. Those two don’t demand a lot of time on a daily basis, so I can fit other games in pretty easily.
And for the games I actually mean to play, I’ve realized that it’s easiest for me to play things on my Switch these days. My eyesight isn’t great and my back hurts when I sit up too long, so gaming is most comfortable when it’s on my bed with the screen a few inches from my face. This is not advisable, btw, please don’t copy me. I’ll be seeking proper medical advice in a bit, and definitely ramping up exercises to strengthen my core. Still, at present, I gotta be realistic about what I will actually do: play more Switch games. Here’s what I seriously mean to try this year:
1. Triangle Strategy: I’ve been discouraged from starting it because I heard it has over an hour of cutscenes before you even get to play anything. But it comes really strongly recommended, AND I made it through the Xenosaga trilogy, so I’ll give it a shot. Get some popcorn and coke for that first hour and take it from there. And if I can’t stand it, I’ll drop it. “It is enough to play just an hour of Triangle Strategy.”
2. Atelier Ryza 2: Lost Legends & The Secret Fairy: While the first Atelier Ryza game wasn’t perfect, I had a good time with it and rediscovered my love for the Atelier series through it. I haven’t finished Ryza 1 yet, but if it ends well, I’ll let some time pass and then give the sequel a try. I paid $17.99 for the first game, so I’ll be watching and waiting for the second one to sink to that price as well. If I could wait five years to play Ryza, I don’t mind waiting a while for Ryza 2.
3. Persona 5 Strikers: The post-game experience kinda soured me on Persona 5 Royal or I would have played Strikers already. I’m not as gung-ho about the Persona 5 world as I was before the sucky post-game, but I still have fond memories of it, and I listen to the soundtrack all the time. I figure Strikers can’t be that bad, and it should tide me over while I wait for Persona 6 in 2030 or whenever. I wouldn’t mind replaying Persona 3 FES at some point either, assuming my PS2 still works.
4. Xenoblade Chronicles X: Day one buy, of course. What took Nintendo so long?! Although my playthrough of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 fizzled to a halt after a while, I still got over 100 hours of fun exploration along the way. As long as the story of XCX is not too cringey and there’s plenty to explore, I think it’ll be great.
5. Ring Fit Adventure: I played it for a while but stopped because of unexplained ankle pain. I need to review my running form and get proper shoes for it, but after that I’ll be back in the saddle. I probably tried to move through the stages too fast as well, so I’ll be going a lot slower and focusing on getting comfortable at each level before pushing further. More on that once I get everything in a row and restart, God willing before the end of January.
6. Monster Hunter Rise: An unexpected addition, eh? I decided to step outside my comfort zone just a tiny bit this year, though to be honest I don’t know how far I can get in this. My nephew is very eager to teach me how to play it, so it’ll be useful for bonding with the niblings, if nothing else. TBH I don’t usually let them touch my gaming stuff because I’m not an idiot they’re not always careful, and their parents are broke. But I’ve occasionally had good experiences by trying things I don’t normally play – like Phantasy Star Portable – so I’m going to give MH Rise an honest try. I might try The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild as well, for the same reason, but let’s see how this goes first.
And there you have it. Six resolutions aren’t too many IMO, especially interspersed with my usual Picross sprees and other miscellaneous games. In a gone-by era, I could have finished them all in three months and come back for more, but that’s life for you. For personal resolutions, I wasn’t as careful with my health as I should have been last year, so I’ll try to work on that more in 2025. I’ll also try to read at least one full book a month in a vain effort to reclaim my lost attention span. And I might try to pick up a new language to keep the ol’ grey matter sharp. I’ve dabbled in several over the years, but it’s about time I got serious with one.
That’s it for the new year’s greetings and resolutions. I hope everyone reading this has a “happy” new year as well! All the best with your own resolutions!
Happy New Year!
I’ll look forward to you and Triangle Strategy, if you manage to get through it
Many happy returns! I’ll treat it like a movie and give it my very best shot!
Happy New Year! I’ve never posted here before but I just want to say thank you for the super cool blog and sharing your insights into playing unknown RPGs in the past. I’m a learner of Japanese (still pretty new) but I can play a lot of these games in Japanese with the help of OCR, and it’s been a blast. I have a list that I compiled of all Japanese only (technically Asia only as some did release in Korea, China, etc) games with voice acting, as I believe voice acting really helps learners like myself.
https://backloggd.com/u/gcgsauce28/list/japan-only-games-with-voice-acting/
Hope you give it a look, and several of the games here I found a lot of information and insight into them in your blog! Thanks again!
That’s a lovely site. Not all of those games had significant amounts of voice acting though, e.g. Ore no Shikabane etc.
I found voice acting and subtitles super helpful for language learning as well. If you’re into visual novels, just a single playthrough will teach you tons of vocabulary while allowing you to go at your own pace and do multiple replays to memorize things. Highly recommended
unless you detest VNs like I do.I’ve never played a VN! Except the three famicom detective games on the switch which are not really VNs imo. I tried a couple but the porn parts were a bit too much for me so I quit. I was thinking of giving Tsukumonogatari a shot because I honestly like the character art but your review wasn’t so positive lol. Hope you get to play some cool Japan only games this year, I read you wanted to try Black Matrix a couple years ago, that’s a game I want to get to this year as a fellow SRPG fan.
I did want to try Black Matrix, along with a bunch of other old games, but I kind of overdosed on SRPGs over the years, so I’m only slowly getting back to playing them. Tsukumonogatari was a fun playthrough despite the flaws. It’s best to focus on your own tastes and interesting in gaming without being unduly influenced by reviews and other gamers, or you’ll miss a lot of good stuff.