This year, my gaming habits compared to recent years and continued moving away from Twitch and away from Pokemon. I spent a lot of time playing a few singular immersive games and working on gaming related projects. I also spent a lot of time exploring Japan, taking photos, and writing about the adventures, getting away from gaming screens.
I think I'm most proud of the work I did on Gamecube and Dreamcast. After putting together a soft-modded Playstation in 2024, I wanted to have access to more games of that era. Many Gamecube and Dreamcast games were available on Playstation, but they weren't the same. Plus, they had tons of unique games of their own.
I ordered all the parts in January, but my consoles were back in the US. It wouldn't be until summer that I was able to retrieve them. In October, I finally put together my Dreamcast. And in November, I put together my Gamecube. Both of them came together like a dream.
I haven't had time to fully play any games on these consoles, but one of these days, I'd like to go back to Zelda on Gamecube, and some of the other goofy games on Dreamcast.
Outside of projects, I spent the most time on Playstation.
My biggest games this year were those top three: Ghost of Tsushima, Horizon Forbidden West, and Assassin's Creed Shadows. Each of these games had a full immersive and expansive world that was fun to explore, for the most part.
Ghost and Shadows were the most similar of the three. Both took place in fuedal Japan during pivotal moments in history that their stories built from. It's interesting how Ghost was basically a "good" Assassin's Creed game, so the franchise came back with a game that rivals it. Both games have strong points in different categories. Ghost has far more thoughtful gameplay and story. Shadows has a more expansive world and relateable characters. Ultimately, I far prefer Shadows for its exploration and beautiful scenery. Also, Ghost constantly throws sadness, rape, and death in your face which turned me off.
After being disappointed with Ghost, I bought a cheap copy of Horizon and I was very surprised and delighted. Horizon was an amazing experience that learned a lot from its first title. It's interesting how over the course of the long game, Aloy actually seems to grow and care about the new world compared to before. As such, I became interested in the other characters, too. Hopefully they'll be able to complete their trilogy without any compromises.
I also played through Once Upon a Katamari in a weekend. This was the first new Katamari game in over a decade, and it was good! The new stages had a lot of variety and the settings were inventive. Unfortunately, I don't think they pushed creativity far enough. They should've added some totally new game modes, or a completely new unique graphical level.
Earlier in the year, I was still streaming some games on Twitch, but after March, I quit. It wasn't fun anymore. Steadily, my gaming habits have returned to playing immersive and story driven content alone. When other people joined the stream to chat about unrelated topics or they aren't really following the same story or they complain about things, it was a distraction and took away from the experience.
That's fine for games like Pokemon where the story doesn't matter and Twitch is just chatting with folks. It's not fine for the immersive games I wanted to play this year. When games got monotenous, putting on a podcast or a movie was much more beneficial.
Here are my meager Twitch stats until I quit in March.
Speaking on which, there was a new Pokemon game this year.
The hours are midleading, though. My Switch was playing Pokemon Z-A for nearly 300 hours, but it wasn't me playing it. After buying a controller with macros, the game could play itself and hunt for shiny Pokemon on its own. There were several days where I left everything on while I went to work, and came back 13 hours later to discover all the shiny Pokemon that had spawned.
Unfortunately, Pokemon Legends Z-A was my biggest disappointment of the year. The game is absolutely bland. Coming from Assassin's Creed Shadows with its beautifully detailed lifelike scenery to this boxy mono-colored environment was so hard. Obviously, the Switch can't do the same detail, but Pokemon Z-A has no style or life in its art design. It's so boring.
On top of that, the story is repetitive and boring, too. I never once cared about anything that happened to any of the characters. Pokemon characters never really stand out as distinctive, and when Z-A puts them front and center, it really shows how flat they are. The plot and story progression follows the same boring predictable pattern throughout.
The worst thing about this is its name, Pokemon Legends. Its predecessor, Pokemon Legends Arceus, felt totally fresh and fun. And building lore towards the overall Pokemon franchise was so creative. Pokemon Legends Z-A does nothing for the Pokemon franchise other than bringing in more Mega Pokemon. Coming from the first game, it's one of the most disappointing Pokemon games of all time. Awful.
Also, I played Tetris Effect Connected and Tetris Forever, and both games are amazing. I never really connected with Tetris Effect before on Playstation, but the "Connected" release on Switch felt much better. I think I just needed to get past a lot of the early music in the game. Tetris Forever is an amazing interactive documentary of the game's history which is an absolute must-play.
The Nintendo Year-in-Review also had a section of most played games throughout the system's life. This was also revealed recently through one of Nintendo's apps.
Not surprisingly, Animal Crossing is my all time most played game. There were so many days during Covid when I left the game running while I was trying to coordinate with folks online to buy items, or sell turnips, or buy turnips. Looking through that Nintendo app, I had a couple 18 hours days where the game was on, but I was doing something else.
Also, plenty of Pokemon and Zelda games on the list. Those are my most played and most owned Nintendo games of all time, so it makes sense that they would dominate the list.
Also as a fun aside, after watching a YouTuber play through this fun highway creation puzzle game, I wanted to give it a try, too.
I really enjoyed my time with Freeways. It's easy to turn on the game, and try to get through a puzzle or two while watching a TV show at the end of the day. It was also only $5! So cheap!
As another fun aside, with Xbox basically going out of business in the next year, I downloaded my life time achievements stats from True Achievements. You can take a look, if you'd like. Even though I bought a few Xbox One games and was close to buying an Xbox Series X two years ago, I haven't touched an Xbox since moving to Japan. My achievement story begins and ends with the 360.
Speaking of which, with the Playstation 2, Gamecube, and Dreamcast working perfectly, I don't have any immediately plans to do more modding. But, at some point, I would like to have a modded platform for Xbox 360 games. I have no idea what that would be. I have no idea how to mod an Xbox 360 in the same way I've done it for my 2000s era consoles. But, when I feel like I have more peace of mind, I might start looking into it. I feel like that's in the distant future, though, as I have so many other games I want to play first.
Also, modding a Wii or Wii U might come first. As much as I want to replay the Gamecube Zeldas, I really want to try Wind Waker HD on the Wii U.
For this year, I hope to spend more time with my Gamecube and Dreamcast. I would love to replay Twilight Princess. Also with the VMU Pro, I want to try and play through a game that fully uses it. There are also more immersive games that I skipped in recent years. I want to play through the Alan Wake games. I also want to play Ghost of Yotei and Death Stranding 2. I continually check Yahoo Auctions for cheap used copies.
Also, the Super Station One is currently shipping. Maybe this will finally get me to go through Ocarina of Time, and maybe play Majora's Mask for the first time. Another playthrough of Snatcher could be fun, too. I could actually take a ton of screenshots this time. Also, there's the recent Super Nintendo MSU version of Castlevania II with the Disk soundtrack.
Too many games. Too many hopes. I will probably just buy Death Stranding 2 and lose myself in it for a month or two.