Hello! John here. You may know me from my work at 8-4 (and 8-4 Play!)—or if you’ve been around the sun a few dozen times, you may remember me from my days at Electronic Gaming Monthly, where I served as reviews editor in the late 90s.
These days, I’m busy running two companies in Japan so I don’t have a whole lot of free time, but with a year as exciting as this one, I made it a point to sleep less and ditch as many social and professional responsibilities as I could to try and keep up. Still, it feels like my backlog doubled this year. I haven’t (yet) spent more than a couple hours each with a whole bunch of stuff I want to play: Baldur’s Gate 3, Cocoon, Lies of P, Armored Core 6, Diablo IV, Spider-Man 2, Starfield, Octopath II, Hi-Fi Rush, the Star Ocean 2 remake...... The list goes on and on. In any case, here’s what I actually DID play a lot of—after I was finally able to put last year’s Tactics Ogre: Reborn down (which was awesome, by the way):
10. Final Fantasy XVI
This is a tough one. As an FF14 lover, I had super high hopes for this game, especially after that sick demo. But even though I played it for more than 60 hours as of this writing, I still haven’t been able to bring myself to finish it (I’m apparently close to the end). The story peaks like a quarter of the way in and then it just sort of inches forward for a Really Long Time and I guess it eventually just drained my enthusiasm. The visuals are incredible, the music is superb, and the voice acting is likewise excellent—but combat is repetitive, battles are too long and drawn out, and the side quests are abysmal. Still, I like it, and I plan to see it through. I just wish I loved it.
9. The Making of Karateka
What an exciting concept this is. Just as with last year’s Atari 50, Digital Eclipse is once again doing the Lord’s work by providing the best kind of documentary one could ask for: one that’s actually playable. I’m a big believer in preserving video game history, and if you ask me, this is by far the best and most interesting way to do it. As a console kid growing up, I went into this not knowing a whole lot about Karateka, but I came away from it feeling like I’d known the game—and its creator Jordan Mechner—my entire life. Also, his 92-year-old dad is in it too, and he’s amazing. If you haven’t played this yet, you’re missing out.
8. Super Mario RPG
I haven’t finished this yet (as of early December), but I’m enjoying it plenty for what it is—a polished, if conservative, nostalgia trip back to 1996, the first and only time I ever played through the original game. I say “conservative” because outside of a few quality-of-life adjustments to bring things more in tune with modern releases, it feels extremely faithful to the original SMRPG. If I had revisited it numerous times over the years, I might be a bit disappointed, but as it stands now, I’m happy it exists. Also, Yoko Shimomura’s soundtrack remains one of the best of all-time.
7. Super Mario Bros. Wonder
It’s good. It’s real good. Worth taking slow and relishing. I wish online co-op allowed you to play on the same level, like couch co-op does. Or more specifically, I wish I looked that up before I bought separate copies for myself and my wife. (Whoops.)