2024 July
To-Play: 15 | Completed: 7 | Retired: 2 | Evergreen: 1
Est. Time to beat: 9 Days 19 Hours
Managed to fight off the urge to buy any new games, especially Shadow of the Erdtree. Looking at the pace, I am behind what's needed to wrap the remaining 15(!) titles, with there being a handful of big ones.
COMPLETED
This was a big one on the list, it took me 73.5h to wrap doing almost all the content, skipping the arcade challenges, replays, final trials and NG+
Enjoyed the spectacle of it all. That combined with the first ever(?) non menu driven/character action gameplay for a Final Fantasy makes me really curious where they'll take the series next
I can see how it might be a divisive entry in the franchise; while you get familiar themes like crystals, chocobos, summons (called Eikons here), Moogles and franchise-staple monsters & weapons, fans of the franchise might not appreciate the lack of party control, the really simple equipment progression and the absence of status & elemental effects on top of the more action oriented gameplay
It took me almost 3 weeks to wrap the side quests that pop-up right before the point of return. They served as interesting character epilogues for almost everyone I met in the story.
While it appears like a fantasy story of medieval court & political intrigue, it ended up being a typical JRPG story of man vs god & fate that only truly started unfolding in the third & last act with a huge exposition dump though not at the level of The Witcher 2
Enjoyed my time with it
I don't mind that Netflix is somehow paying for ports of games over to mobile (provided the developers are compensated accordingly)
Very classic puzzle game that might not see much of an audience otherwise
[2025 Me: Netflix did end up porting and publishing more games like Monument Valley 3 and OXENFREE 2]
RETIRED
Checked out Mihoyo's successful third application of same monetization model on a different genre
Baby's first character action game?
Production is still top notch with an urban setting mixed with elements of Scifi
The gacha is a less thrilling end all the accessories are basically balls
Uninstalled after getting a sense of it
ON-GOING
Needed to catch-up on the To Play list
Very bleak and gloomy setting of Spanish flu infected London during WW1
Playing at story mode difficulty as recommended by others
Surprised by the system and story focus
Eyes were glazing over in the initial hours due to the sheer amount of dialogue but starting to really get into it
Popped back in after I finally wrapped my season of FM
I should probably stopped updating my installed mods because the modlist has since evolved to a different setup. Pretty incredible considering the game was launched all the way back in 2010. If it's working, maybe just leave it alone
EVERGREEN
I lied when I said I'm moving on, I finished another season and I blame the Euros?
I'm still watching role guides on YouTube and installed a psuedo-attributeless, performance stats focused skin
Maybe this will be the weekend game...
[2025 Me: yea… I ended up playing even more FM after this. I don’t think I knew FM25 got delayed (and eventually cancelled) yet]