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January 5, 2019

Retrospective 2018

If I'm trying to avoid delays, that's a bad start. (In my defense, I had a busier work week than usual.)

2018 was a tough year, huh? That’s a bit of an understatement, for some. Once again, it’s time to reflect on the past 12 months. On the social end of things, life hasn’t been super simple, but on a personal standpoint, 2018 has actually been pretty good for me. I actually worked all year, and my modest job as a nighttime cashier is still the job I’ve kept for the longest (I’ve had it since late March 2017 – that’s 21 months!). In return, it has allowed me to go to conventions, travel around the province for fun (I went to Montreal and Quebec on two separate occasions, trip I would have never done by myself before this year). I met one of my idols (who you can see on my “12 inspirations” list).

It hasn’t been an easy year in gaming, either. Can you believe Metal Gear Survive was released in 2018? I haven’t played it, thank God, but I remember Konami being so greedy as to charge 10$ for new save files in that game. If 2017 was the year of loot boxes, 2018 was the year of greed for a lot of companies, and it was also the year in which governments set their foot down and condemned loot boxes… yet at least one company refused to listen. Electronic Arts decided they would go to court for their right to profit off their customers’ gambling addictions. And I don’t think Bethesda will ever forget the accumulation of failures surrounding Fallout 76. That’s still very fresh in our memories… because every week they screw something up again.

As far as Planned All Along is concerned, I am actually quite proud of the number of games I reviewed this year. A lot of them were smaller Steam titles, because I can condense them into Steam Packs. It’s a change from the longer reviews that are bound to happen when I look at bigger games, whether on Nintendo platforms, or on Steam.

Without further ado, let’s get into the lists for this year. To start, a few stats.

Total views: 627 233
Number of review posts: 384, so only 49 since last year.
Actual number of things reviewed this year, including games, shows and movies: 58. Not half-bad.
Month with the most views: May 2018, with 8006 views.

Now: My 10 favorite reviews of the year!
10. The Yu-Gi-Oh! Month: I thought it was a particularly smart idea to start with a relatively well-made How To guide to play the card game, before jumping into the reviews of both a game that I had wanted to review for a long time, and another I played more than possibly any other on Steam.
9. Antagonist: You can feel in this review just how much I enjoyed this game made on RPG Maker, how much I loved all the parody characters and the zany plot.
8. Evoland: Yet another review in which I loved to report on all the changes the game goes through, and the many instances of self-deprecation about gaming.
7. Cubicle Quest: Yet another RPG Maker game that I loved, it was definitely worth recommending, and it was worth dedicating an entire part to.
6. Ready Player One: This long review of a divisive movie was fun to do. I love to compare between the film and the book, and even though the movie has a lot of the inherent flaws of the story present in the book, it at least tries to improve on a lot of elements, which is good. Admittedly, later articles I’ve read about it do highlight points I had forgotten to talk about, so perhaps it’s not my best review, but you can still enjoy it.
5. Surgeon Simulator: I felt this one had a lot of smart jokes, in no small part thanks to the already quite silly game itself.
4. Chosen 2: As much as I love to talk about good games, sometimes talking about bad ones can be quite enjoyable, and I really wanted to close the book on the two “Chosen” RPG Maker games fairly quickly. This one didn’t disappoint, being so bad. It led to a solid review, in my opinion.
3. Super Mario Galaxy: I really didn’t review a lot of Nintendo games this year, did I? This was my April 1st review, pretending to take place sometimes in 2050. It was nice to go off-the-wall crazy and imagine the weirdest possible bullcrap about the future. I should have gone crazier, like the Simpsons do every time.
2. Grand Theft Auto V: With six parts, this is one of my longest reviews ever, on a year where I was hoping not to do so many. However, I don’t regret the length of that review, as it was worth doing for the complex story. Loved writing that one.
1. Undertale: The second longest review in the history of this blog, with seven parts – and each one of them was worth it. Especially Parts 5 and 6. I loved paying homage to this game.

Worst 10 games reviewed on the blog in 2018:
10. Dyna Bomb. It feels like a mobile game and plays like a mobile game. I never figured out how or why sometimes the game no longer wants to be played, as if there were lives but we’re never shown them. Sure, it plays well, but the long levels and the money-based power-up system are a turnoff.
9. Dev Guy. At least it’s short, but a lot of jokes are very poor, and the short games that can be played on the colleagues’ computers are just… poor. All in all, a poor experience, but at least it’s easy to 100% its achievements.
8. gravilon. When you can’t make it out of World 1… As a puzzle platformer, it’s okay, but multiple design choices annoyed me enough to stop playing early on. The power-up that switches gravity is small and difficult to get, and the maps get too large, making it difficult to plan ahead, in this game where planning ahead feels necessary.
7. Rabbids Rumble. A shame that this was one of my first 3DS games, purchased at a convention no less. I love the Rabbids, but the ball was dropped this one time. Too few mini-games, and a focus on collectible battlers (which rarely have nothing of interest aside from being new skins), with also too narrow of a selection in the silly attacks that can be used. All in all, a very lackluster title, the most lackluster Rabbids game out there in my opinion.
6. ROCKETSROCKETSROCKETS. I knew I would struggle with a title that focuses on multiplayer, but this could have been just fine… had it not been such a mess. It’s pretty and fast-paced, sure, but I just had no interest in it and I feel like the fun of this game would wane pretty quickly.
5. Chosen 2. At least it plays well, and can be finished… even if it’s difficult. I did, however, notice the heightened difficulty, topped by all the biggest issues of the original Chosen RPG – namely, the pointless fanservice. Applied to the main character’s mother and servant, no less. But hey, they barely look like they’re 18, so it’s okay. It also lacked any bonus material that the original had.
4. Who’s Your Daddy. Unlike the previous point, this one does not play well. It’s a broken mess, with very few interesting options for single-player, and the multiplayer is too barren to really be worth it. A game that I wanted to try out, and it left me rather disappointed.
3. Gun Rocket. When you can’t even finish the first world… Seriously, this one is so poorly-made. I would have probably given it a fairer chance, had it not been for the problem that the ship will explode by itself far too often when a level begins. That’s kind of a problem.
2. Disillusions Manga Horror. I thought I had forgotten this one, but no, something this terrible is hard to forget. A poorly-built “adventure” which, for some reason, has time scores, even though it’s basically just a quest for events around small maps. It’s… terrible.
1. LocoSoccer. I could barely play any of this one, it was so damn bad. You’re not told how to play it well, the 2D plane makes for a very poor soccer experience, and of course, the physics are nothing but godawful. Blergh.

Best 10 games reviewed on the blog in 2018:
10. Trick & Treat. This year, I wanted to review more RPG Maker games in order to find diamonds in the rough, and boy did I find. Trick & Treat, while short, is a very fun experience that plays around with a few horror tropes. It’s never really scary, but it’s a pleasure to play through.
9. Cubicle Quest. Speaking of good RPG Maker games, there’s one more. In spite of a few glitches here and there, such as some battles crashing when the fight menu doesn’t appear, this is a complete game that can keep you busy for 15 or more hours. The metaphor substituting problems of the real world by monsters in an RPG setting works surprisingly well, and there’s always more stuff to find. It does require a lot of grinding, though.
8. 3D Ultra Minigolf Adventures Deluxe. Sometimes, you just have to be entertaining. While not a perfect title, this little mini-golf experience had many creative levels, and it’s one of the few games that I went back to beat more than once. A strong recommendation.
7. Surgeon Simulator. Yeah, we can say whatever we want about the controls. It’s meant to be difficult. It’s meant to be a clumsy guy operating the same poor sap with nothing but his left hand. But it’s equally bloody and hilarious when failures happen, and the added challenges are all pretty great. Love this one.
6. Evoland. Or how to represent the history of video games in a quick, sweet little RPG. The evolution, you could say.
5. Antagonist. Possibly one of the best RPG Maker games played this year, or it wouldn’t be so high on the list. An engaging story with great twists and turns, a unique idea of making an RPG like a visual novel that includes battles (although the battles are always the same, that’s a bit unfortunate). I love everything about it.
4. Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist. I love this game because it features all the eras of Yu-Gi-Oh!, all the characters I enjoy from the series. Over four hundred possible duels, and more options than that… I am still trying to collect all the cards, by the way. And complete every single deck in the game. It’s long, I have more than 250 hours on this one.
3. Super Mario Galaxy. Just a great Mario title, extremely creative and quite challenging at times. It does have a few flaws, such as the mere existence of the Spring Mushroom, but other than that it’s an awesome Wii title.
2. Undertale. I adore this one, because I love the moral and how it permeates the entirety of the story. There are hundreds of moments of brilliance in this story, and though I love the review I made for it, I don’t think I could have made this one justice. Play it. Now.
1. Grand Theft Auto V. With so much content and missions to do, as well as this gigantic map to visit, this had to be my Number 1. I spent a lot of time visiting the map of this game, and though I haven’t actually seen everything that can be seen, I can safely say I would gladly go back anytime.

The 10 wishes I had for this blog on 2018, and whether I accomplished them in the past 12 months.
10. The fifth anniversary review: Undertale. I did that one!
9. I realize that point was about the various video game movies coming out in 2018, though I didn’t quite phrase it that way. I did review Ready Player One this year, a few months only after its release. A review of Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is ready and coming, and I reviewed Ralph Breaks the Internet as a side-review, so there’s that. However, this year was severely lacking in movie reviews, probably due to the two big game reviews of 2018, and the various hiatuses caused by my job and lack of free time.
8. More streaming? I am not quite sure I actually achieved that one. I do know I played a lot of Jackbox games with friends (namely, Drawful 2 and Quiplash), but I don’t know if I could say that I streamed more this year than in 2017.
7. A Sonic Month? I unfortunately couldn’t. Would’ve ben great though.
6. A Rabbids month? I did that one! I’m happy.
5. Constant updates on my Steam collection. I didn’t quite do that one, mostly because I realized rather quickly that such a thing would not be very useful. I don’t review quite enough games to make that worth it. However, I will be using this Retrospective for a quick update on my collection.
4. A redesign of the blog? I didn’t do that, unfortunately.
3. A review of Grand Theft Auto V : I did that one!
2. Making the Planned All Along community stronger. With the shutdown of Google+ this year, I will be moving my community to Discord, where I should be able to keep up with the news and the fans. It should help the community quite a bit.
1. A proper video review. I didn’t do that, unfortunately.

My projects for 2019:
10. A great anniversary review. For the sixth anniversary, I am still weighing my options. I have no shortage of long games on Steam, but I also have more than a few titles that I have on the Wii’s Virtual Console, or among my Nintendo 3DS games, that I could use as my anniversary review. I might try to go for a game that isn’t a first-party Nintendo title.
9. A Sonic Month. I’ll try this again! Mind you, I don’t have a choice but to make this happen eventually, as I still have two Sonic games on the Wii… and a LOT of Sonic games on Steam, in part thanks to a bundle purchased recently.
8. More Steam Packs? It’s in the plans. I have a new methodology in which I play through the shorter games of my collection, which means I can get through many games quickly. It helps quite a bit. I don’t want my blog to be nothing but Steam Packs and Steam game reviews, but considering the size of my Steam collection…
7. A redesign of the site during the summer? I’ll see what I can do.
6. Update everything on the blog. By that, I mean all the additional pages. I want to keep the Archives updated, and add more to the About Me, Title Cards, Links, Thanks and Extras of the site
5. A proper Halloween special: I didn’t have one this year, and it’s a missed opportunity in my opinion as there are many games I could have reviewed for that occasion. I have quite a few “horror” Steam games, as well as at least one Wii game that could have fit the bill.
4. More streaming. I promise this every time, and I always fail. Maybe I will actually do it in 2019.
3. Create title cards for a lot of old reviews that don’t have any. It’s a challenge I set for myself, and it’s something I have been trying to do since 2015. If I wasn’t lacking the time to do these, I would. Perhaps I’ll find some time this year.
2. An odd choice, but… Less long reviews. If there’s one thing I realized in 2018, it’s that longer reviews take much more time to be made. These reviews can cause me to go on hiatus until they’re ready, and I don’t like to do that. However, I know I still have some big games to review, I just hope I won’t end up making long reviews too often.
1. Create a stronger community through a Planned All Along Discord server. You can access it here. It’s still just starting, but if I could have a few members it would be sweet.

And now, I have actually gathered enough titles reviewed on Steam to go back and change things around a bit. One thing I may have forgotten to mention is that I delete from my collection whichever titles I felt were bad, or the ones I plain didn't like. In spite of that, I still have 47 games currently in the Reviewed folder of my Steam library. Even then, I feel a start-of-year cleanup is required. I will remove 4 titles among those, and then I will edit my Favorites list to be approximately 1/4th of the list of remaining games. Somes choices will be tough.

Games removed:
Airscape: The Fall of Gravity
Intelligent Design: An Evolutionary Sandbox
Jigoku Kisetsukan: Sense of the Seasons
Worm.Is The Game

New list of favorites:
3D Ultra Minigolf Adventures Deluxe
Bastion
Castle of Illusion
Cuphead
DuckTales Remastered
GTA V
Quiplash
Rayman Origins
Surgeon Simulator
Undertale
Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist

Alright then, see you throughout 2019 for more reviews.

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