Yet another year that’s been alright for me, yet one that’s been catastrophic on a larger scale. The Ukraine-Russia war is still ongoing, and we have the Israel-Hamas war on top of that. Canada is on its way to a recession, the prices of everything skyrocketed this year, and I can feel the financial dread increasing. Speaking of dread, there’s a lot of it regarding next year's elections in the United States. I don’t think Americans quite realize just how influential, for better and especially for worse, their politics are to the rest of the world, and there’s potential for another disaster. On the plus side, just as I predicted last year, some people are finally getting their just desserts. Let’s hope the trend continues in 2024.
Meanwhile, X, Formerly Twitter (nobody will ever call it just X), is somehow still around, despite every attempt from Elon Musk, accidental or not, to destroy it from within. The guy even had an AI designed for the website, called Grok, and it instantly turned on Musk and his ass-backwards, teenage edgelord worldviews. Some will say I shouldn’t feast while billionaires have their crap blow up in their faces; I don’t care. Pass the popcorn.
But of course, things are always a little brighter on a personal level. Let’s see... On the negative, I think I never went to more funerals than this year, I caught Covid in August for what I assume to be the first time (In fact, I don't recall being sick as often in a single year as I was in 2023), and I’ve had a streak of intense bad luck in the very last days that were topped off by another cold. However, I can recount many positives: I finished paying my car; I got myself a Switch and a brand new computer; I again went to a convention in the U.S.; I joined Bluesky; I discovered new music bands I’m now addicted to; and I participated to two podcasts in French, which have been posted to YouTube, the two videos are this one and this one if you’re interested.
Oh, and some time ago I donated to a Kickstarter by Stray Fawn Studios, who made Niche – a genetics survival game. In my original review of that game, I said I wanted a plushie of the starting character. Well, guess what:
I originally said that as a joke! I’ll have to joke about that more often!
I remember not being too happy with how serious and downbeat many of my articles were back in 2022. This was corrected in 2023, but the tradeoff is that I feel like I didn’t review a lot of games overall. Only 34 in total. On the plus side, I love my idea of the Year Plans, even if I didn’t cover as many of them as I would have liked; I’ll do these again this year. I had a smart idea with the Gaming Memories, filling in time on weeks without a proper article. I celebrated the tenth anniversary of the blog, and I’m almost at a million views on the blog. So far so good, I guess. I also had my first article hidden by a content warning by Blogger; because I wasn’t clear enough that my article titled “Just Die Already” was about an indie game, hence why I specified the studio in the retitle. I don’t know what to expect regarding my output in 2024. In the meantime, how about I do my retrospective now?
My favorite reviews/articles of 2023
10. Rampage. Gotta acknowledge my January movie reviews in some capacity. I’ll probably do a few like this at the start of the year again.
9. Beyond Good and Evil. It was great to experience such a famous and beloved title for the first time, and I think I conveyed its story and my impressions well.
8. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. This has been a year where I covered a handful of highly appreciated titles, so I’m glad I reported on this one (even if I still think it hasn’t aged super well gameplay-wise).
7. Top 12 Boss Battle Types. It was fun to figure out which types were my favorites and how they ranked, and it feels like I conveyed it well.
6. Freedom Planet. That one had been on my radar for a while, it was great to discover it at last!
5. WarioWare: Get It Together. It was a little clunky to have a paragraph detailing how every character plays, but it was much more complete than just leaving a sentence or two within a paragraph for it.
4. Streamline. Even though I couldn’t really play this one, I still played fair and gave it as best a eulogy as I could, considering the odd situation with this one.
3. The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog. Rarely has a review, short or long, ever been this easy to write. The only reason it doesn’t rank higher is that it’s a Quick one.
2. Sonic Forces. Didn’t get nearly enough views for the effort I put into it. I tried to cover every single aspect and analyze the story in as much depth as I could, so that makes the article stand out.
1. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D. Playing through it did enlighten me to why this game is so beloved and influential.
Favorite title cards this year
Top 10 worst games reviewed on the blog in 2023
Disqualified: Streamline, since it did not work at all, but I still had to mention it.
10. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Oof, I’m gonna be thrown rocks. This year, like most years, a lot of entries on this list aren't bad per se; most of them ust didn’t leave as good an impression on me. Sands of Time, while an important moment in gaming, is also terribly repetitive. It’s good, but the flaws stood out too much.
9. NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams. I can say I tried the NiGHTS franchise through and through, and yeah, it just doesn't click with me. It looks pretty, has some fun ideas and I felt more invested in it, but it’s still not a game I feel myself ever going back to. I did end up enjoying it a bit more than the previous NiGHTS game I played...
8. Jones on Fire. It’s a perfectly serviceable endless runner, but there’s not much else to it, and the grinding required by the end gets extreme for no real good reason other than padding.
7. Squirbs. A very tough game where every single step and jump matters, on account of controlling two characters at once. It’s fine, but it doesn’t have much to make it stand out compared to the slew of puzzle platformers out there.
6. Dimension Jump. This game no longer available for purchase is an 8bit puzzle platformer with high difficulty, making the list again mainly because it doesn’t stand out all that much.
5. Business Tour. It’s basically just Monopoly with multiplayer options, speedier mechanics, and the trappings of the free-to-play system. I don’t imagine myself playing this one any more.
4. Sonic Forces. Moving on to the actual bad games on the list... well, your mileage might vary on that one. I kinda enjoy Sonic Forces, but I do acknowledge that it’s very much on the easy side and its story is an utter mess.
3. Tiny Bridge: Ratventure. Another game that didn’t hook me much if at all, even if I do appreciate the base concept.
2. Just Die Already. It’s... it’s weird to keep repeating “it’s not bad” on a list of the worst games I played this year. In this case, it’s more that the game is entirely based around one single joke pushed to the extreme, so your enjoyment depends on whether you can stand that joke and the intentionally poor controls.
1. Zero Reflex. It’s technically not all that bad, maybe a bit short, but I guess I was a lot more annoyed by the reveal that the devs behind the game might have faked the results to a contest they held around their product.
Top 10 best games reviewed on the blog in 2023
10. Super Mario 3D Land. An odd mishmash of 2D Mario and 3D Mario that manages to impress nonetheless with its unconventional level construction and offer plenty of extra challenges on the way.
9. 11-11 Memories Retold. A beautiful story of soldiers on opposite lines during the First World War, all conveyed through an impressionist style. It’s worth playing, for both the spectacle and the story.
8. Yono and the Celestial Elephants. A lovely little title about an elephant from the skies who decides to solve everyone’s problems. It’s super-cute, has a nice mix of puzzle and platform, and is one of the games I was more than happy to play beginning to end even during the Quick Reviews.
7. The Hex. Playing around with genre like this, with the intention to mess with every genre to tell a very perplexing story with an epic finale. Yep, it’s a Daniel Mullins Games product alright.
6. WarioWare: Get It Together. I always liked WarioWare games, and this reflected in this entry, where I was so overjoyed to play as the devs who normally just present the microgames. Plus, this was my first review of a Switch game!
5. Carto. Yet another adorable game with possibly one of the most unique concepts I’ve seen (moving and rotating map pieces to move around the world) and great puzzles resulting from the idea. It’s worth a try, Heck, it’s worth playing from beginning to end!
4. Beyond Good and Evil. The Ubisoft classic deserves all the praise it gets, with its endearing characters, mix of stealth, action and photography, and gradual freedom of exploration – all for a 2003 game. It’s awesome.
3. Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap. Another game I felt the need to finish even if it was just for a Quick Review, this remake of a classic has a great visual style with its hand-drawn sprites, plays well, has lots of secrets, and the game is plenty of fun.
2. The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog. Heh, yeah. Couldn’t let this one out of this list, and I knew it would rank high. Not only is the visual novel jam-packed with great moments, the “runner” game is also pretty great on its own.
1. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D. Maybe I’m just following the trends by putting it at the top of the list, but I do have to acknowledge how important this game has been to the industry, it deserves most of the praise, even if some parts of it have aged.
The 10 goals I had for this year, and whether they were accomplished
10. A redesign of the blog: Hasn’t really happened, aside from very small changes for the 10th anniversary.
9. An update to the other pages of the blog: Not really, either.
8. Make more attempts to grow the community around Planned All Along: I’m not entirely sure if it worked, I didn’t do much in that regard, but 2023 did feel like I was starting to have a bit more of an entourage through this hobby of mine. Doesn’t really count as a community, but it’s something!
7. Make a video for YouTube: ...do the two podcasts count even if they’re not mine?
6. Cover more games from Uplay (now Ubisoft Connect): I covered two (Beyond Good and Evil and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time), was hoping to cover one more (Assassin’s Creed III) but didn’t get around to it in time.
5. Cover more Wii games: I also covered two in 2023, which is better than 1 or 0. Hopefully I cover two more in 2024!
4. Cover more than one 3DS game this year: I did it! Super Mario 3D Land and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D.
3. A full month of movie reviews: Did that, all throughout February. Covered three movies.
2. Stream more often: Once more promised, once more failed. And this time, the two podcasts don’t count because, although they were recorded on a stream, it wasn’t mine. The occasions just didn’t present themselves.
1. Get a Switch: Eeeyep, that’s a success!
10 new goals for 2024
10. A redesign of the blog. Maybe this time will be the right one?
9. A rework of the other pages of the blog. About Me, Title Cards, Thanks and Extras.
8. Make a video for YouTube – a real one, this time.
7. Cover games from all the platforms I own games on. Well, most (still not sure how to approach the games on the itch.io app, but I’ve got games on Steam, GOG Galaxy and Ubisoft Connect, and console-wise, for Nintendo 3DS, Wii and Switch. That’s a lot!)
6. Covering a few more movies. I’m still wondering if I would cover 2 or 3 this year... Whichever is the case, I think I’ll do them at the start of the year again.
5. A weird one: Slow down on buying games. I swear, every year I try my best not to get too many games, and I end up with a backlog bigger than the year before. I might try to keep my money for important things, like...
4. Paying for some important repairs to my new computer. Its graphics card already has minor, non-threatening issues during normal use, but it causes one game to cause a Blue Screen of Death. I kinda want to avoid that.
3. Try a couple of new franchises. As you’ll see from my Year Plans, I do have a small handful of those to look forward to.
2. I still haven’t thought of what it could be, but I would like to have a significant anniversary review this year. In 2023 it made sense to leave that spot open to an article about the blog’s 10th anniversary, but this time, I want to do something more.
1. Odd one, but... I’ll try to take it easy this year. I want to have a lot of reviews done, but I don’t want to feel too stressed about it.
The games I’m removing from my Steam collection this year
Business Tour
Fortified
Narcissu 1st and 2nd
NiGHTS Into Dreams...
Saviors
The Swapper
The new list of favorites, with roughly 1/6th of the Steam games reviewed so far
Gaming plans for 2024
Once again, I’m making a list of games I hope to go through this year. I didn’t cover quite as many as I had hoped in 2023, not for lack of trying. The left column consists of this new year’s Quick Reviews (when I get to them). The right-side list is comprised of all the other Steam games I hope to do. During the selection process, I ended up randomly selecting games I own that are sequels to other games I also own that I haven’t played, so I included those too (examples being Psychonauts and Yooka-Laylee). The original random selection was also lacking in titles from other places (both my Nintendo consoles and other gaming platforms), so I added one or two of each. I might focus on those before going through with the longer Steam games... we’ll see.
The other titles, separated by platform:
Nintendo 3DS: Hyrule Warriors: Legends;
Wii: Trauma Center: Second Opinion, Sonic Unleashed;
Virtual Console: Phantasy Star II;
Switch: Mario Party Superstars, Kirby and the Forgotten Land;
GOG GALAXY: Sang-Froid: Tales of Werewolves;
Ubisoft Connect: For Honor, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell.
See you around, and once again, happy 2024.
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