Retrospective 2017

(I know it's a little late to post this, but I didn't have time to work on it after the year had started. Still, January 6th is rather early into the year.)

As usual, it’s time to say goodbye to the past year, and welcome the new one with open arms. I wish, to every single one of you, a 2018 filled with happiness and peace. May your businesses grow, may you spend quality time with your relatives, and may you make great gaming discoveries. More than anything else, I wish you a 2018 with plenty of good news. We all need that.

Lately, if a year seems to be going well for me, it’s on a personal level. I watch the yearly retrospectives on the political and cultural level and it’s sometimes pretty grim. Americans have spent a year already with their new President. The #MeToo hashtag has made a difference as accusations of sexual misconduct rolled by, targeting dozens of famous actors, directors, editors, musicians… We’re seeing society changing. And my wish is that it keeps on changing for the better in 2018. Victims standing up against their aggressors. People fighting injustice en masse. People helping others, any way they can. Letting cats and dogs live together… and actually get them to get along! Even the impossible is possible!

But that’s my idealist side speaking. I know change doesn’t happen overnight, the same way one can’t lose weight by getting a gym membership and going there once, to never go back. It takes time for society to improve. As for me? I prefer not to make promises that I can’t keep, but I do my best to accomplish them whenever possible.

On the personal side, 2017 was one of the best years of my life. Thirty minutes into the year, I caught a shiny Pokémon in Pokémon Sun, which was almost symbolic of a year of good luck. Then at the end of March I got a job, working night shifts at a gas station. It led to a few time management issues, as I was still adamant on writing my reviews for the blog in spite of my work/sleep schedule. You try writing 2000, sometimes 4000, words a week when you spend your nights at work and your days in bed. Sleeping. Wished I was luckier than that, but hey, I still have time to live and play games.

I went to the United States, took a plane alone – quite an achievement when I literally never took a plane to go anywhere before – and went to a convention where I met a bunch of friends I made over the Internet. Which convention was it? Does it matter? It was friggin’ awesome, as conventions are supposed to be.

But enough of that! I mean, I can’t be spending this whole article talking about myself! So now, let’s jump into the lists where I’ll be talking about… my blog! Boy, what a difference that makes! When it comes to reviews, Planned All Along has been very busy. Tons of reviews, some short, some long – seriously though, I had a lot of long reviews this year, which is kinda surprising considering my schedule. This year, I also reviewed my last Nintendo DS game, making it another milestone accomplished – and I still have plenty of Wii and 3DS titles in my library, not counting the 300+ games on Steam. To start this look at the last 365 days on this blog, first here’s some fun data.

Number of views (as of writing): over 558,000. Still hoping to reach the big million eventually. Maybe soon.

Number of main review posts: 335, of which 79 were posted this year.

Actual number of items reviewed this year (counting reviews of movies or music, and every game in a Steam Pack): 49

Month with the most views: July, with 40,277! My jaw dropped when I saw that number.

I only have a slight disappointment in that none of my articles published this year reached the Top 10 most viewed articles on the blog, but that’s not a big problem. As for traffic sources, I still have more viewers in the United States than anywhere else, but I’m surprised to see Canada in third place, below Russia.

Now that the boring trivia has been discussed, I’ll jump into my 10 favorite reviews of the year.

10. Bastion. I tried to do something special with this one, narrating it as Rucks, the… well, narrator. It was an experiment in style that I doubt I’ll try again, as the result was alright, but that certainly made the review unique.

9. Worst 12 Gimmick Pokémon. I rarely put Top 12s on lists like this one, but this is an idea I had for a while and I was happy to finally make it. Quite happy with how it turned out.

8. Cuphead. It’s rare that I get to discuss fresh, brand-new games on the blog, but Cuphead was such a marvelous title that I simply couldn’t wait. I had to talk about it.

7. Fossil Fighters. For some reason, I have that mindset that my final review for a console should be a big one. Way back in 2014, I spent a 4-part review looking at Yu-Gi-Oh! The Sacred Cards, my last GBA game. So I kept Fossil Fighters as the last DS game to review, to end on a high note.

6. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney and Apollo Justice:Ace Attorney. The Ace Attorney Month, as I call it, took place throughout all of March. Writing long reviews can be difficult at times, but with these games, I never ran out of material. The Ace Attorney series is usually pretty good, outside of a few points of criticism here or there, and I was happy to review these two games together, as both mark one protagonist’s rise to fame.

5. Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. I wanted to review this one for a while, but also wanted to keep it as an anniversary review. I also didn’t want to make it my third-year anniversary review since I had Super Paper Mario as my second year milestone. So, in 2017, the time had come to finally talk about this one, and I’m glad I did.

4. The Chosen RPG. Kind of an odd choice so high on the list, but I realized I had a lot of games on Steam that were made with the RPG Maker engines, and I felt that it would be a good idea to review them, always staying fair to the creators. Some RPG Maker games downloaded since are fantastic, others are pretty bad. It’s normal. Some developers start with this engine since it’s very user-friendly. I think it’s good to analyze one’s first work, so long as you stay fair and highlight what has been done right.

3. No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle. I love the NMH series, and I wanted to review the second title in the franchise before the third came out on the Switch. I love the deconstructive tone of the franchise, basking in its own violence while making a point that it shouldn’t be pleasant, and that every one of Travis’s victims had a point, a life, a past, and loved ones, even if we don’t see any of that. It’s the sort of thing we tend to forget.

2. Sonic Boom. I love this show, I love talking about it. There is so much material to cover – since my review, Season 2 ended and I would technically be able to write a new post about it – and maybe dedicate a Top 12 list to the show, that’s also possible. We’ll see. As for me, I’m looking forward to a possible Season 3!

1. Pixels. I reviewed quite a few movies throughout the year, but Pixels has become my favorite film review. A blend of great comedy (in my opinion, anyway), analysis, and thorough bashing of a piece of work that deserves every insult thrown its way. If there’s any review that I must be proud of in 2017, it’s this one. I hate to delve into negativism, but it’s true: There’s something therapeutic to bashing something awful. It’s fun for the critic, and it’s fun for the viewer. It may be hard to watch the movie you’re discussing, but if the resulting review is awesome, then those hours wasted watching garbage were all worth it.

This year, I had a lot of content published – many long reviews, but also a TON of short ones thanks to the Steam Packs. As a matter of fact, I would probably find myself including on these lists a lot of games reviewed on those articles. I am taking out any non-game reviews for these lists, only keeping it to games; let’s face it, if I included my movie reviews, the Worst list would be topped by Pixels and the Starbomb album, while the Top list would see Sonic Boom as #1. Also remember, this is only my opinion, if you were to rank these games in a different order I understand.

Worst 10 games reviewed on the blog in 2017:

10. A.I. War: Fleet Command. It’s not the worst thing ever, but overly-complex strategy games aren’t my thing. This entire thing was not helping me learn how the game plays, and as a result, I just wasn’t pulled in at all.

9. 7 Grand Steps, Step 1: What Ancients Begat. It plays like a coin-operated board game machine, and relies way too much on the Random Number God, which can screw you over thrice and never let you recover. It’s like a History class version of a Mario Party without mini-games.

8. Minion Masters. I don’t like games that seem to exist just to grab more money from you (and with the lootbox fever of 2017, we had no shortage of those especially among AAA games). This is a minor form of such, but still pretty bad as you need to pay if you want the better cards, and thus, the better chances of victory.

7. Pokémon Shuffle and Pokémon Picross. Putting them together because they belong together. They’re not bad on the surface, but ultimately they fall into the free-to-play trap of giving the player just enough to have some fun, while forcing them to pay to go any further eventually. And again: I can’t stand that.

6. The Chosen RPG. Oh, it’s bad. It’s very bad. But compared to other things on Steam, it works, it’s a complete game, and it tries to go a step further from other small RPG Maker games. It’s still bad, with a poor story, gratuitous fanservice, and some weird design choices – it deserves to be on a Worst 10 list, but doesn’t deserve to be on top of such a list.

5. Spectral Force Genesis. Another complex strategy game that just couldn’t keep my interest. If you ask me, there’s a difference between bad and bland. You remember the bad for how bad it is; you can’t remember the forgettable. Which is why this one made the list. Forgettable is almost a worse crime for a game than to be bad.

4. Fingerbones. The story thoroughly disgusted me, and as soon as I published the review I took this out of my collection. This short walking simulator isn’t worth 15 minutes of your time.

3. Caveman World: Mountains of Unga Boonga. A bad platformer that can’t justify itself. It may be somebody’s first game, in which case I could give it some leeway – but it’s so bland and poor that ultimately, spending any money on it is a bad idea. It’s at least playable, I suppose.

2. Biodrone Battle. I notice that many of the games on this list ranked for being forgettable more than bad, but this one has both. It’s almost impossible to beat, and it’s so boring that you’re not really encouraged to move forward in it. It plays well, but there’s nothing to keep your interest here.

1. The Astonishing Game. Yeah! It’s the worst game I reviewed this year! Even if I wasn’t a Dream Theater fanboy feeling betrayed by such a shitty game, I would still be dealing with a glitchy, shitty game with menus that wouldn’t disappear from the screen. The base concept is good and it has an awesome soundtrack, taken from The Astonishing album. But it’s practically unplayable, and that’s probably the worst crime in my opinion.

Top 10 games reviewed on the blog in 2017:

10. Mario Super Sluggers. Almost surprising to see this sport game in a Best list, coming from a guy like me, but this one was fun. I rarely have a sport game that makes me come back over and over to play it.

9. Shantae: Risky’s Revenge. It’s short for a Metroidvania game, but it offers a good challenge and has a lot of replay value. Plus, it’s my first visit into the Shantae franchise.

8. Chroma Squad. An unexpected mix of genres (management simulator and action RPG) over a self-aware story about Tokusatsu and Sentai shows. What’s not to like?

7. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney/Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney. Again putting them together, as I think the two are similar in quality. I have more criticism of Apollo Justice, but it’s still pretty great.

6. The Disney Afternoon Collection. Six retro games, including three that I had never played before? That’s awesome, no?

5. Fossil Fighters. Despite a story that gets very silly at times and makes you go back and forth endlessly, as well as a few other points of criticism I have, this is a very interesting entry in the Mon genre and definitely worth checking out.

4. DuckTales Remastered. I may complain that the game forces you to explore the levels, but the HD, ultra-detailed version of a NES classic (re-reviewed at the end of the year) is very good, perhaps better than the original, and something to try once.

3. Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. I’m kind of glad that I was finally able to talk about this game, and revisiting it for this review was quite awesome.

2. Bastion. Superb quality, an intelligent story with a narrator that gives perfect commentary on everything that’s going on in the game… and of course, you’ll want to play it over and over again. It’s an awesome title and deserves all the praise it’s been getting since its publication.

1. Cuphead. We had a hunch that we were going to get something great as the previews for the game rolled out, but nobody expected something quite to that extent. The amazing animation quality and memorable designs, coupled with the immense difficulty, make this a title that, much like a novel, make you come back as long as you haven’t finished it. And worth of experiencing it multiple times. One of the best games of 2017, hands-down.

Now that I’ve weighed in on the best of the worst, it’s time to think about the future. As usual, I make plans, never being sure to keep them – so I make things I hope to achieve. Here are 10 things I hope I can do in 2018.

10. The fifth anniversary review: Calling it now, it’s gonna be Undertale. No skipping it, I even have the perfect concept for it.

9. 2018 will be a year filled with video game movies. I have four or five still that I need to review (I bought three recently). We also have quite a few video game films coming out to theaters. Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle is out now, with fairly good reviews. We have Ready Player One, which I am not actually looking forward to (and I’ll explain why when I get to reviewing it). All of this, topped off by the sequel to… Oh yeah! The sequel to Wreck-It Ralph comes out this December! That’s gonna be awesome! And then there’s possibly a Super Mario movie coming out in a few years... Which, by the way, the announcement for that film came out a month after my (poor) article on “7 adaptations I want to see”, which had a CGI Mario movie as the #1 item on the list! How’s that for predictions?

8. More streaming. It’s difficult to find the time to stream lately because of work – but whenever I can, I stream. I still need to work on my reactions. I also need to find a way to bring in more viewers. And keep their interest, too.

7. I really, really need to do a Sonic Month again – and review one Wii game and at least one Steam game.

6. I also really need to do another Rabbids Month. Now that I’ve moved on to Nintendo 3DS games, which means I could review Rabbids Rumble – and the month would also be the time to review Rabbids Go Home for the Wii and Rabbids Invasion.

5. Constant updates on which Steam games I keep and which ones I don’t. Usually after each set of Steam reviews, which means the next one would be… right after Steam Pack 8. In a few weeks.

4. Maybe offer myself a redesign of the blog for its fifth anniversary, in July.

3. A review of Grand Theft Auto V. Why? Because it’s too large a game, takes too much space on my computer, and I didn’t pay for it only to delete it without playing it, dangit!

2. An attempt at making the Planned All Along community more active. Among other things, I added a Steam group lately, and you’re all free to join. It also offers very quick recaps of my reviews of games found on Steam.

1. Maybe an actual video review? Or a movie review vlog? That’s up in the air. I need to get a decent microphone, my camera is okay but nothing spectacular… I also need to work on improving my tempo, my tone, not always sound monotonous… the same issues I have for my Twitch streams.

Things I hoped to achieve in 2017 (taken from Retrospective 2016):

1. A job in journalism – unfortunately not, but I did get a job and I’ve had it for over nine months now. Still looking for something as a reporter, though.

2. Ace Attorney Month – ACHIEVED!

3. A “Mon” Month – HALF-ACHIEVED! I didn’t do it proper, but I reviewed one of the two games I wanted to review in that hypothetical themed month: Fossil Fighters. (The other one was Spectrobes Origins.)

4. Year 4 anniversary – A Link To The Past. Unfortunately not, as I reviewed Super Mario RPG instead – but I hope I can review this game in 2018, albeit not as an anniversary review.

5. Streaming my gameplays – ACHIEVED! Poorly, but I was more active on Twitch than ever before.

6. Post my Let’s Play to YouTube – nope, I didn’t do that. And I don’t know if I ever will…

7. A story as my Halloween Special – nope, couldn’t do that. I did go for a horror game review instead, though.

8. Sonic Month, Rabbids Month, Mario Month – nope, nope, nope. July came close to be one, and might have been a Mario Month in disguise (as I reviewed Super Maio RPG right after Mario Super Sluggers), but I didn’t call it a themed month.

9. Make title cards for old reviews that don’t have them – not achieved, unfortunately, but with my hectic schedule it’s somewhat understandable.

My best title cards of 2017

I like whenever I can make little effects like this.

I can make a good score with my face right there!

I've had that suit since... what, 2014?
I can still put it on, apparently.

If you pay attention, you might notice how every color is
repreasented by its role in the game (black fighter, red hero,
blue techie, yellow speedster, pink healer - holding plasters)

Sometimes, I am not to be the focus of the title card.

Well there's some uncanny valley for ya.

Painfully colored with green on a cheap software.

My first experiment with .gif title cards - which, as I found
out, spoils them as .gifs when I advertise my reviews on
various Google+ Communities.

SURPRISE! (Unless you saw that it was a .gif, in which case
I'm sorry... everyone else, I hope I caught you off-guard!)

A simple effect, but it works. The cup just makes it funnier
to me.

(Picked through my Title Cards page)

And…

This covers everything! Man, this was a longer article than I thought. Anyway, keep reading this blog, each and every one of you is awesome, and I wish every one of my readers a happy 2018, with plenty of good news. Bye!