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- Jan 1 - Neon Chrome (PC)
Jan 2 - Dispersio (PC)
Jan 9 - Numbus (PC)
Jan 11 - Hero Siege (PC)
Jan 14 - Castle of no Escape 2 (PC)
Jan 20 - Toy Odyssey (PC)
Jan 23 - 20XX (PC)
Jan 25 - Battle Chef Brigade (Switch)
Jan 29 - Kamiko (Switch)
Feb 1 - Guild of Dungeoneering (PC)
Feb 3 - KByte (PC)
Feb 7 - Cat Quest (Switch)
Feb 11 - DYE (PC)
Mar 7 - The End is Nigh (Switch)
Mar 10 - Shadow Warrior 2 (PC)
Mar 16 - The Keep (PC)
Mar 17 - The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky the 3rd (PC)
Mar 18 - Hue (PC)
Mar 22 - Song of the Deep (PC)
Mar 28 - Metro: 2033 Redux (PC)
Apr 4 - Blossom Tales: The Sleeping King (Switch)
Apr 6 - Xeodrifter (Switch)
Apr 8 - Has-Been Heroes (Switch)
Apr 14 - Slime-san (Switch)
Apr 20 - ReThink (PC)
Apr 22 - Little King's Story (PC)
Apr 24 - Headlander (PC)
Apr 28 - Dex (PC)
Apr 30 - SUPERHOT (PC)
May 6 - Azure Striker Gunvolt (Switch)
May 7 - The Ball (PC)
May 21 - Drakensang (PC)
May 23 - Spectrum (PC)
May 25 - Oceanhorn: Monster of the Uncharted Seas (Switch)
May 27 - The Sexy Brutale (PC)
Jun 4 - Immortal Redneck (PC)
Jun 5 - Momodora: Reverie Under The Moonlight (PC)
Jun 11 - Prey (PC)
Jun 14 - Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap (Switch)
Jun 16 - Scrap Garden (PC)
Jun 17 - LostWinds (PC)
Jun 20 - Straimium Immortaly (PC)
Jun 25 - Dreaming Sarah (PC)
Jun 26 - Poi: Explorer Edition (Switch)
Jun 29 - Dungeon Souls (PC)
Jul 2 - Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze (Switch)
Jul 6 - Bleed 2 (Switch)
Jul 11 - Risen (PC)
Jul 18 - Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus (PC)
Jul 22 - Defender's Quest: Valley of the Forgotten (PC)
Aug 8 - Styx: Master of Shadows (PC)
Aug 9 - Steamworld Dig 2 (Switch)
Aug 15 - Owlboy (Switch)
Aug 18 - DOOM [2016] (PC)
Aug 21 - Unbox: Newbie's Adventure (PC)
Sept 5 - Nioh (PC)
Sept 10 - Weapon Shop Fantasy (PC)
Sept 11 - Hard Reset Redux (PC)
Sept 15 - Ghost 1.0 (PC)
Sept 16 - The Turing Test (PC)
Sept 20 - Azure Striker Gunvolt 2 (Switch)
Sept 28 - Battle Chasers: Nightwar (Switch)
Sept 28 - Metroid: Samus Returns (3DS)
Oct 1 - A.R.E.S. Extinction Agenda EX (PC)
Oct 5 - On Rusty Trails (PC)
Oct 8 - Metro: Last Light Redux (PC)
Oct 9 - Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker (Switch)
Oct 22 - Escape Goat 2 (PC)
Nov 4 - EARTH DEFENSE FORCE 4.1 The Shadow of New Despair (PC)
Nov 6 - Mordheim: City of the Damned (PC)
Nov 7 - NeuroVoider (Switch)
Nov 11 - Atelier Lydie & Suelle: The Alchemists and the Mysterious Paintings (Switch)
Nov 17 - Beyond Good & Evil (PC)
Nov 23 - Asura: Vengeance Expansion (PC)
Nov 26 - Bayonetta (Switch)
Nov 27 - Monster Slayers (PC)
Dec 4 - Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon (Switch)
Dec 7 - The Tenth Line (PC)
Dec 13 - Furi (Switch)
The boss rush game I was looking forward to getting to. Controls are really responsive but the dodge takes getting used to. See, the dodge can be charged which affects how far you move during it. This has a side effect that you dodge when you release the button instead of press it which will throw off your timing of things for a bit. Playing through normal difficulty, you never need the charge but you certainly do on hard.
Each boss gives you 3 lives to beat. Getting past a phase of a boss full heals you and gives you back a life (max 3) so you get plenty of chance to learn whatever attacks are coming your way. Losing a life only puts you back to the start of the phase, only a full game over puts you back to the fight's start. You must slash and shoot your way through the boss when you can and use the dodge and parry (it even heals you slightly) to avoid damage yourself. Things get frantic very fast and I love it. There isn't a single unfair attack in their repertoire. Getting hit means you somehow screwed up, not that the boss got in a cheap shot. The hard mode is a great example of how to do difficulty right. Bosses take more damage to get through their phases but their attack damage is unchanged. Their attack patterns, however, are greatly changed to make things much harder to avoid. As an idea, the 4th boss on hard took me more deaths than all of normal (which honestly wasn't too bad).
The only negative I have here are the between bosses bits. You do the walk and talk with an NPC but the walking is quite slow and it can sometimes be confusing which way you need to go. There is a button that makes the walking automatic but I only realized this right before the final boss. The automatic walking probably should have been the default.
Dec 16 - World to the West (PC)
Another puzzle game from the makers of Teslagrad. This time its isometric and the puzzles are not so good. I found them very straight forward with no thought required. Even with that, what really sunk this game for me is the character swapping. You get to swap between four characters here and you can only swap at totems that scatter the world. The totems also serve as teleporters. The big problem is that you can only teleport to totems you've been to with that specific character. So if Character A gets to Totem X, Character B can't teleport to Totem X until they manage to walk over to it themselves. This makes things very tedious, having to regularly go over the same exact areas multiple times just because they don't activate for all characters. It makes it all feel like it is wasting your time.
Dec 19 - Leap of Fate (PC)
A mostly nifty little roguelite (hey, I had to get one of these in here). Isometric action and you only get currency for your upgrades on special kills (any non-basic attack) so it requires some planning to get the most out of it. Permanent rewards are earned by doing missions during the game. Annoyingly, hard mode is unlocked by these missions so it is very possible to beat normal and hard mode is still locked. Hard mode also gets a bit RNG. The upgrades you get are in a tree and the available upgrades you can choose from are always there but the position of them in the tree is all RNG so some of them early on can make a run significantly easier than others.
Dec 25 - Bomb Squad Academy (PC)
Last for the year, a puzzle game. Defuse the bomb within the timer to move on. It is all very basic logic gates and a couple other bits to stop the boom. It is extremely easy and short. As in, 45 minutes to do everything. It is really not worth it. If you really want a bomb diffusing game, look at Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes instead for a fabulous multiplayer game.
Year End
This is the first year I've paid attention to the count. It was 82. Things from all over the spectrum in there but out of all of it, Doom 2016 and as a very late entry, Furi, lead the pack for me. Still need to get around to things like Octopath that I'm starting January and Celeste whenever. Here's to a new year, everyone.