Retrospective 2025

Ughhhhhhhhhh…

For your sake and mine, I’ll spare you ten paragraphs of intense screaming at everything that was wrong this year. This fucking year. 2026 doesn’t look like it’s going to be much better, either. But god damn, 2025 was probably the worst year I’ve ever lived through. And look – for me, personally, years never go THAT badly. I keep my job, I am financially stable, I have decent relationships, the blog is doing well (in fact, it’s doing better than it’s ever been). But as someone with some empathy and who feels the need to keep track of news, these past twelve months were some of the most mentally and emotionally exhausting shit I’ve had to deal with.

I knew we were in for a bad time all the way back in January when-

CRAP! I said I wasn’t gonna do that! Okay, you know what? I’m going to focus on the blog. ‘Cause I really, REALLY don’t want to start on another tangent with all this. (And I’m holding back, ‘cause gaming, in general, has been a huge bearer of shitty news all year, from Nintendo’s attempt at patenting creature-battling to all the game development studios going mask-off with A.I. at the end of the year and – Dammit! Moving on!)

But it’s like I said. My year? On a purely personal standpoint? It was alright. Speaking strictly of employment and hobbies, that is. I think I mostly stayed true to my desire to keep this blog as a pure hobby, so that’s at least a net positive. I’ve written articles I had wanted to do for a while (the Sonic movies, Pokémon Sun/Moon and their rereleases), and I once again covered a decent number of games across the year. (If we count all the ones I covered in my itch.io and Nintendo Classics articles, then I technically covered more games this year than ever before, but… should those really count, with how short most of them were?) I'm just glad I started both of these, too, as they're two concepts I quite enjoy writing for.

I didn’t overshoot too badly with my Year Plans, but I think I could have done even more if I hadn’t landed myself a Balatro addiction. (Seriously. I’m 250+ hours in.) Perhaps the best blog-related achievement this year was the sheer number of views. It took me from 2013 to 2024 to reach a million views on the blog, then 2025 casually comes around and boosts those numbers by 450,000! For a short time around the last week of October and the first of November, I got over 9,000 views per day. Several days in a row. Ever since October, I’ve been getting over 55k views per month, blowing my previous record of views in a month (40k, back in May 2017) right out of the water. I still have no idea where this sudden spike came from, but hey, I’m not gonna complain!

Slowly but surely, I’m going through my collection – now, if only I wasn’t buying damn near as many games as I finish… Okay, enough chitchat, time for the yearly lists.

The Most Obscure Games I've Ever Covered - The List

The list – Other interesting results

After writing so many Top 12 lists, I decided I wanted to get creative with them. My two lists of worst marketing campaigns required a ton of research, and I loved that aspect; so I felt like digging into a different type of research, this time data collection. The results could be… interesting, after all. So hey, why not make a list of the least known games I’ve tried?

Just the first 8 questions... of 473.

For this article, I created a Google Form cataloguing every single game I reviewed on this blog (all 473 of them), and for each one, gave four options:

-I’ve played it (does not necessarily mean its player owns the game);

-I own / have owned it (considering how many gamers I know with massive backlogs of games they’ve never touched, I felt something would be missing if this wasn’t included);

-I heard of it (saw someone else play it on a livestream, or know of it through word-of-mouth, advertising, or reputation);

-Or I've never heard of it (the element that matters today).

I knew most games covered on this blog were likely to be in that last category, especially since I pivoted to playing and covering a lot of indie games after joining Steam in 2016. Yet, there are still plenty of surprises to be found.

At the time of writing, I had received 42 answers to this survey, but it was enough to cut down the list to… 34 titles. That’s a long way from 12; so expect me to lump together titles for which I have the same comments to make. Had I received 50 or 100 responses, maybe this would be different; maybe I would have ended up with much fewer unknown games, maybe even fewer than 12! Thus, you can take today’s article with a grain of salt, I know my sample isn’t as representative as it could have been. That said, I think the results are interesting! In fact, tune in this coming Monday for more data I’ve picked up from studying the survey results. By the way, you’ll notice that there isn’t a single console game on this list – it’s all PC, indie games. Oh, and if games are no longer available for purchase but their Steam page is still up, I’ll include a link to the page anyway.

Alright, let’s start this list! We open with…

12. Free stuff

Examples: Pink Hour, Pink Heaven, Elisa: The Innkeeper – Prequel

Oh, I remember thinking this one was so cute.

When I joined Steam, my first order of business was to find as many games as possible to add to my new collection, in a short time and on a small budget. The solution? Go down the list of Free games, and pick among those. Now, I’ll differentiate between Free-to-play (which can make its budget back through players’ in-game purchases), and full-on Free. Generally small stuff that a developer could easily give away without feeling a blow to their finances. I’d imagine that such games are often released without much fanfare, with their studios either banking on their pre-existing reputation (like Studio Pixel, which released the Pink duology but is better known for Cave Story+), or a freebie that ties well with the remainder of their output (like the Elisa prequel, which ties into games with a price tag). You have to seek these out, basically. With that said, offering free games is a winning strategy; it seems to have worked well for Epic Games’ own platform...

Retrospective 2024

Fuck 2024.

…

…

…

Oh, you expect me to say more? World’s going to Hell, magnitudes worse than it did 12 months ago. We can fully expect America to crumble under the weight of its own bullshit, pulling down several other countries (including possibly mine, because I’m right fucking next door!) along with it. Hate has won and is on the rise. And I would be here happily munching on my popcorn watching the leopards of the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party having the feast of the fucking millennium, if so many of my friends across the United States weren’t getting caught in the crossfire!

Will things get better? I’m doubting it more and more. I am genuinely terrified of what’s to come. Across the next months, across this year that has just begun, across the next four years and beyond. These are not flashbacks to 2017; no, it’s so much worse. I am not seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. And from my position, the best I can do is reskeet posts about current issues and show my support any way I can. If shit comes knocking at my door, I’ll take my signs and march in the streets. My scope of action is limited, so I’ll do what’s possible. It’s kind of odd just how militant I became against the rising bullshit when it struck. My first order of action was to leave the site formerly known as Twitter, and become a recurring poster on Bluesky instead. Join me over there, it’s got its issues we must fight against, but otherwise it’s going much better.

You know that joke from Airplane!, “I picked a bad week to quit drinking”? 2025 looks like a good year to start.

Okay, you know what? Life’s gonna suck, but if I keep crying about it, nothing will get done. Besides, you are not here to hear me mope, and moping won’t solve anything anyway. If you’re here today, you’re here to be distracted from the *gestures wildly at everything* and have some escapism. So… I’ll provide. It would do me some good, too, to think about something else for a moment.

...Okay.

Despite everything, it’s still me.

Retrospective 2023

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.

Retrospective 2022

#IStandWithUkraine

Every year is the same deal; a couple words about the year before I go over what I did for the blog throughout the previous 12 months. This time is no exception, but 2022 was… fuck me, it was a depressing year. Not terrible on a personal level, but worldwide? Well, let’s see…

The Russia-Ukraine war that began in February and is still going on. The resulting international turmoil caused gas prices to skyrocket (and they’re not quite back to where they started). That, in turn, had a disastrous effect on the prices of everything, causing inflation like we've seldom seen before in a single year, and if we’re not already in a recession, we’re headed that way. The Covid-19 pandemic, while much less disastrous than it was a year ago, is still around; and as I said, it might have become endemic, but hopefully there’s work being made on vaccines that can deal with all variants at once. Somehow, I still haven’t caught it. Everything piled up made for two dominant sensations all year: Dread and exhaustion.

In the world’s most cynical moments across the last 12 months, the best entertainment was pointing and laughing at several of the ultra-rich losing their fucking minds in radically different ways. Weird how Will Smith, of all people, set the tone for the year. I hope buying Twitter was worth it, Musk. The less said about Kanye the better. Same for Trump, but hopefully 2023 is the year his accumulated bullshit comes back to bite him in the ass.

Now that the tough part is done, the personal year: Mine went fairly well. Had a steady job all year, went to the United States for a convention, did and got a lot of fun stuff… Yeah, there isn’t much to say really. Despite all going fairly well, I have the impression that I was sort of… angry, this year? Maybe it’s the accumulation of everything in the previous paragraphs, but I also felt I was talking a lot about heavy topics on this very blog, and it might have been too much.

From February, I talked about Nazis in several reviews (Pokémon X / MadWorld / South Park), wrote articles discussing pretty heavy topics (Doki Doki Literature Club, the Top 12 worst marketing campaigns), problematic creators (and J.K. Rowling only sinks lower every day)... It was a heavy year, and though I feel I said what I had to say, I really hope future years for this blog aren’t as heavy as this. The downside being that, whereas I covered a LOT of games in 2021 by virtue of having two sets of Quick Reviews, I covered a lot less games this year (end result is 37). That said, some of the articles posted this year now rank among my favorites, so that’s good.

Oh, and this year I also joined Backloggd in order to keep track of everything I’ve covered and plan to cover. Check out that collection here!

Well, time for the retrospective.

My favorite reviews/articles of 2022

10. Say No! More. I rarely get to use styles or effects in my Quick Reviews. For this very No-focused game, I tried to keep the tone of someone selling the game like a program. If only it felt more like a game than an interactive film…

9. Doki Doki Literature Club!. A tough one, I may have been a little heavy-handed on the game’s discussion of difficult topics, but that review had been a long time coming and I’m glad I covered the game. I’m also glad that despite my commentary, I tried to keep the same creepy feel through the images, the comments, the implications and the tone of the article overall. (By the way, did you notice the titlecard for that one was a gif? Took me forever to make that work.)

8. Eternal Senia/Legend of Mysteria. This year got me covering two more RPG Maker games that went in completely different, yet both clever and inventive ways. One is more of an action RPG, another goes the route of a point-and-click mystery. This is why I want to cover so many of these games even if some would consider them inconsequential; there’s a trove of creativity to be found when looking for the better games to be born from that RPG-making software.

7. All VGFlicks, ranked worst to best. With how far I’ve come with this blog and the many film reviews I’ve done on it, I felt this catch-up was most appropriate, and helped me condense my points about each film (including many that I hope to cover in greater depth later) quite well.

6. South Park: The Stick of Truth. Another article that was a long time coming, and the M-Rated Month was the perfect time for it. Stick of Truth had been sitting in my library half-played for a while and I felt I had the right format now to cover it properly (as an example, I wouldn’t have done it in the days where I didn’t split my reviews with undertitles).

5. The tricky question of supporting problematic creators; An essay-ish. The introduction to this year’s anniversary review, the two LEGO Harry Potter games, is a very odd choice for this list, but I like my points and like the conclusion I come to. It’s not the best thing I’ve ever written, but I felt it had to be said and I had to weigh in on the J.K. Rowling controversy(ies?) before tackling anything related to Harry Potter. Either way, it’s done.

4. Pokémon X. This was another big game for me to cover and I felt I did it justice, covering absolutely everything that I felt worked with and what didn’t, across Gen 6 in general, but in Pokémon X in particular (seeing as most of my issues involve the plot of X and its sister version Y).

3. TOEM. Little to say with this one, I thoroughly enjoyed my experience with the game and, though it was a Quick Review, I felt my appreciation really shined through in spite of the short format.

2. Pokémon 2000: The Power of One. One of my best analytical reviews so far. I’ve found myself coming back to it frequently to re-read my own words, that’s how good I felt I had managed it. Really a highlight of my year, and on top of that, it’s covering a film I was looking forward to reviewing. Hopefully Pokémon 3 isn’t gonna wait another 7 years!

1. Top 12 Worst Video Game Marketing Campaigns. That idea hit me like a ton of bricks just as I was completing my Quick Reviews this year and, even though in my review cycles it wasn’t the “right time” to publish a Top 12, the idea entranced me so much that I just had to. The writing went so well that I wrote the entire thing in maybe three days – and that’s including all the in-depth research. It’s one of the articles I’m most proud of in the history of the blog, and I feel it’s one of my works that I would recommend to a new reader. Hell, this one feels it could actually break through in a big way.

Favorite title cards this year

The 10 worst games reviewed on the blog in 2022

10. Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc. The bottom of the list is made of games that weren’t necessarily bad per se, just disappointing or lacking in some areas. While it brings interesting ideas to the franchise, Rayman 3 has a few too cumbersome ideas and mechanics that make it a bit of a pain to play.

9. Particle Mace. Again not that bad, just that it’s about as simple as it gets, being basically a new take on the classic Asteroids.

8. Just Dance 2. Only on here because, when compared to literally every other game I’ve covered in the series, it’s lesser. Which I can understand; it was the second title in the entire franchise. Still, its failings are only more noticeable as a result.

7. Fortified! We now hit the part of the list where games failed to keep my interest – perhaps due to their own flaws, or simply because the topic didn’t keep me invested. Either way, they’re not necessarily “bad”, but certainly seem to miss that little something. Fortified!, while having the clever idea of mixing tower defense and real-time strategy, falls into that category for me.

6. The Deadly Tower of Monsters. Same for this one – while I do appreciate the tone of the game that’s made like an old ‘60s film with cheap special effects being commented by the director, I tried to play as far as possible into it but eventually the gameplay and repetitiveness annoyed me.

5. The Swapper. Same chorus as the previous two, and yet again it’s a game I really wanted to enjoy – it’s well-regarded, but it took too long to find its stride and I lost interest. Shame, too, because a Metroidvania-like made out of Claymation with a unique puzzle platformer mechanic should have made for an incredible experience.

4. ShipLord. Yet another game that feels like it’s “missing” something. Or a lot of things, really.

3. God Game: The Odyssey. What if Lemmings, but on the sea with water- and wind-based mechanics? Clunky is the result. Not particularly good or fun overall, though there are clever puzzles now and then. Really there isn’t much else I could say about this one.

2. The Maze Escaper. It looks pretty, at least when it comes to lighting and reflections, but it’s just mazes, over and over, and some robots. Really feels like someone making a demo game to test a new development software and selling the end result. That said, I still do hope this paves the way to projects from that same creator that feel more like proper games.

1. DETOUR. This game combining real-time strategy and resource management could have been so much better, but I gave up at the first level past the nine-level tutorial. The difficulty ramps up much too quickly for players to keep up, and the gameplay becomes quickly annoying and bothersome, especially in regards to the CPU opponents. Really not worth your time or money. Yeah, worst game I’ve covered this year, easily. It’s not even pretty.

The 10 best games reviewed on the blog in 2022

10. Super Win the Game. In a year spent reviewing several great games, making this list was a lot tougher to make. Then again, it’s tough to make every year. Says a lot that at the bottom of the list is a very difficult but ultimately completely fair and balanced platformer (no, this isn’t meant as a pique at Rayman 1, what are you talking about?) that I greatly enjoyed playing through.

9. Just Dance 4. I’ve covered so many Just Dance games by this point that I don’t know if they should even be on the radar for this list, but JD4 has a great selection of songs, cool extra songs and modes, and the Dance Quests really add substance and challenge that other entries in the franchise don’t have. Hard for me to say whether any older Just Dance games are must-plays, but this one was worth more than what I spent on it!

8. Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion. An adorable Zelda-like featuring living veggies, an intriguing story, and pretty good twists and gags. When a game makes me wish it was longer, then it’s done things right. A bit on the easy side, but still very good.

7. Rayman 2: The Great Escape. I really enjoyed doing that Rayman retrospective late in 2022, as I had 4 Rayman games waiting to be played and I went through all of them in rapid succession. Of them, Rayman 2 was a definite standout and, though it has little things that feel missing now that I’ve played through the others, I feel it was an excellent foundation the franchise could have kept building on.

6. The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth. I still haven’t gotten past Mom’s Heart, but whatever. On the topic of roguelikes, I was glad I actually got to cover the definitive, genre-defining title this year. Yeah, it’s pretty damn tough and you need a very peculiar sense of humor to really appreciate it, but damn, if it gels with you, then it’s one Hell of a ride that might just never end (I’m not even at 100 hours, but people playing it for thousands of hours is not unheard of!)

5. Pokémon X. Yeah, I have my gripes about the story, but let’s be honest – despite that downside, the rest of Pokémon X is actually pretty great. Then again I’m biased for Pokémon games with a greater number of creatures to catch. The world is nice to explore, and the new gameplay mechanics were implemented quite well. It may not be the best main series title in the franchise, but X and Y deserve a lot more credit than they usually get.

4. Superliminal. Talk about messing with your senses. Not only does this inventive puzzle game focus on visual and perceptive trickeries, it keeps on finding new ways to astonish the player with these tricks. One of the best experiences all year, and one I heartily recommend to everyone who hasn’t tried it yet.

3. Rayman Legends. Though I said I loved the second game in the Rayman series, Legends is probably where I felt the most fulfilled, with not only 5 new worlds and tons of extra levels, but also a selection of stages from Origins, and a bunch of playable characters and other bonuses to look for. Pure awesome.

2. South Park: The Stick of Truth. As said earlier, I was due to play through that game, and I’m glad I did. Though I felt it was on the easy side, the utterly wacky world of South Park, recreated to perfection by Ubisoft in both look, feel and humor, is a treat to visit, and there are so many extras and other stuff to do around the place, even with the crazy story that’s presented.

1. TOEM. The years keeps being stressful, so a game like TOEM feels like exactly what the world needs: A stress-free, adorable, gorgeous, relaxing, simple yet effective title. One so fun, I pushed through to 100% it. The journey to TOEM was worth every second. I can’t recommend this one enough.

The 10 goals I had for this year, and whether they were accomplished

10. Do a set of Quick Reviews – Done!

9. Redesign the blog – unfortunately not done, but I’m holding out hope I can do it in 2023!

8. Update the other pages of the blog: I’m not sure I’ve actually fully done it and checked whether each link opened to a separate tab, but I do know that I’ve improved the Index page by adding a link to the main page of every game I’ve played on Steam. Still need to give more love to the other pages, as well.

7. A review of a South Park game – Done!

6. Review the LEGO Harry Potter games – Done!

5. A list of all the video game movies reviewed on the blog so far, ranked worst to best – Done! It was even my first article this year after the previous retrospective.

4. More reviews of Ubisoft games – Done! Between South Park, Just Dance, and the four Raymans, I can say I’ve done that one alright. Hoping 2023 brings more.

3. A full month of Pokémon reviews – Done! Okay, that’s just two pieces of Pokémon media, but still, it counts!

2. To grow the community around Planned All Along: Eeesh… I’m not really sure I’ve managed. That said, I did make some friends to spread the word around a little more1 That counts for something!

1. Make a video for YouTube – Not done… but I’m holding out hope to do it someday.

10 new goals for 2023

10. As promised every year, a redesign of the blog.

9. Also promised previously, an update to the other pages of the blog.

8. Once again, make more attempts to grow the community around Planned All Along.

7. Make a video for YouTube – yeah, my four failed goals for 2022 are back at the bottom of the list this time.

6. Once more, I’d like to cover more games from UPlay. Isn’t it bizarre that I covered more UPlay games than 3DS games this year, and as many UPlay and Wii games? (seeing as my article on Just Dance covers two games…)

5. Cover more Wii games this year. Goes with point 6 to say that I’d like to bring back some of the spotlight on my games in Nintendo consoles, which have been waiting a while by now.

4. Following points 6 and 5… Cover more than one 3DS game this year.

3. A full month of movie reviews. Films are another pile that’s been steadily increasing while I covered Steam games, so I would like to do maybe 2 or 3 films this year. Already thinking of the ones I feel like covering.

2. Once again, I wish to stream more often – I’ve done it a little more this year, especially at the end of the year when I tried to 100% Rayman Legends (I achieved that on December 30th!). Maybe 2023 will be the right time?

1. If my finances are nice enough: Get a Switch! Been wanting one for a long while. It’s purely in the realm of hoping things go the right way for this to happen.

The games I’m removing from my Steam collection this year

Chainsaw Warrior

Gunpoint

Luna’s Wandering Stars

Q.U.B.E. (+Director’s Cut)

Size Matters

Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP

The new list of favorites, with roughly 1/6th of the Steam games reviewed so far

New: Gaming plans for this year

Starting with this year, I’m making a list of games (mostly those reserved for Quick Reviews, but also a number of semi-randomly-selected titles across my entire collection) that I wish to get through and review this year. I might not actually manage to cover all of these, those are just games I hope I can get to. The way I had of doing the list includes a lot of non-Steam games. The picture below: The Left column is the next set of Quick Reviews (unless I expand one into a full review), the second is the year’s hopes. Beneath the picture are the non-Steam games.

Non-Steam:

3DS: Super Mario 3D Land, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D, Pokémon Sun (+UltraSun?);

Wii: NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sand, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Monster Hunter Tri;

UPlay: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Beyond Good and Evil, Assassin’s Creed III.

Well, that’s it for this year. Have a good 2023 – here’s to hoping it will go better than 2022.

2020 Retrospective

I assume we’re all thinking the same thing: “Fuck this year.” And I agree, this year was awful. Well, it wasn’t entirely bad… but the vast majority of it was. The atmosphere was grim all year due to Covid-19, and it led to a whole bunch of problems we did not anticipate from a pandemic. People violently resisting the measures put in place, conspiracy theories abounding about the pandemic, not to mention politics making a huge mess of the whole thing… Oh yeah, the United States dropped the ball on that one, but Canada won’t be doing too well either considering the extreme and ridiculous amounts of money our government spent to deal with the pandemic, which will likely leave the entirety of Canada in debt for at least a decade…

The post-pandemic won’t be great either, but we can at least hope for the situation to improve in 2021. The cultural scene was a mess as well, with theaters closed for most of the year… It still feels weird to me that the last movie I saw in theaters in 2020 was Sonic the Hedgehog, way back in February. Music? Bands couldn’t tour, so they either turned to virtual concerts or found other ways to occupy themselves with their art. Video games? Now this was interesting, as we got some new consoles and a lot of notable titles as well. And hey, video games were one of the best ways to spend time at home this year, waiting in confinement or quarantine or forced vacation or however you may call it.

Yeah, the year sucked. I think I came out lucky, however; I didn’t catch Covid-19 (and I hope I won’t in 2021), had stable employment through the whole year (several people didn’t), and I did not suffer too much from any of the other problems the peculiar situation this year caused. The year sucked for me in most of the ways it sucked for everyone; having to live in the new reality of a pandemic, having to learn to live with wearing masks and having to follow strict rules when going out shopping… Those rules aren’t pleasant, but I do see them as necessary. I am looking forward to the days where I’m no longer treated as a potential vector of disease first and a person second. I hate it, but I get why it’s done.

In spite of a handful of short hiatuses, I’m also quite happy with what I achieved this year on the blog. I wished I could do away with hiatuses, but it’s been difficult to keep a schedule where I post something every week. It’s time to look back on the year.

Retrospective 2019

I couldn't post this on the 1st, but I can post it today!

It's time to look back on 2019. As we're to do at the start of a new year, like a tradition. See what worked, see what didn't... the usual. On top of all this, we also have a chance to look back at the entire decade, since we're now officially in 2020! Let's hope those twenties won't be roaring too much. I also could start by looking back at the entire decade, since I began this blog in 2013... But Heck no, I've done so much, I wouldn't know where to start.

You know what they say: "Thank God it's over". I hear this every year, and I can always see the point; even if it's been a good year on a personal standpoint for some (as it hasn't been for everyone), on the regional and international scene it may not have been too great. It's been a year of huge changes, huge social outbursts. Thing is, we say Thank God it's over, but unless we all work towards making 2020 better, we'll be saying the same about 2020 in 12 months. It's a massive collective effort; not gonna lie, it also takes a lot of courage. So, let's all work towards making 2020 a better year. If possible, not only for ourselves, but for everyone.

Blog-wise, although I was halted by severe hiatuses this year (most of which were caused by my job), I still managed to review a decent number of games. A lot of them in Steam Packs, of course - so this year, I feel I did way more quick reviews than ever before. It's no secret that between my hobby and the job that pays me, unfortunately the job has to come first... However, I've still managed to squeeze in a review here and there, so I'm pretty happy about that. Without further ado, my yearly tradition: The lists!

My Top 10 favorite reviews of the year

10. Hidden Folks. As part of an early Steam Pack this year, this is a game I received as a gift, and I was quite happy to play through it. I enjoyed the resulting review...
9. Scanner Sombre. Another quick review, and one that ended the very last Steam Pack for this blog. I've figured it would be much simpler, from now on, to split the quick reviews into separate articles. Thankfully, I ended this with one of the best games, one that legitimately made me go wow as I was playing.
8. Frederic: Resurrection of Music. Hands-down one of the games I most enjoyed playing this year. I think one can actually feel how happy I am with it throughout my review.
7. Animal Kingdom: Wildlife Expedition. My first game review of the year was for a game that had no indication it would ever be good, being generic bargain bin stuff - and yet, I liked it a lot. Once again, I believe that interest could be felt in my article. I started the year very strongly.

6. The Angry Birds Movie. I had to cut down on pretty much all long reviews this year. This one has just about the right length I should aim for: Two parts for a movie review. On top of it all, the film gave me a lot of material to work with.
5. Indie Pogo. Officially the review that got me the most positive feedback this year, and I'm happy it did. I certainly think it turned out quite well, in part because the game is fairly simple.

4. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. With the bad rep video game movies have had for decades, I think it's great that we're finally seeing more and more good movies based around video games as a core plot element. This sequel to the 1995 Jumanji movie was much welcome, and although it didn't go quite as far as I would have wished, it nonetheless impressed me. I love the review that came out of it.

3. Top 12 reasons to play a game. Without claiming I did a lot of research for it, I can say this is one of the better lists I've made for the blog in its 6.5-year history. I like the points I bring up, and the examples are pretty telling as well.

2. Tattletail. This late-year review is one of those articles where I say "screw it, let's have fun", and the result is usually much better than the average bare-bones discussion of a game's features (looking at you, review of Smash 3DS). It was definitely great to write it as a false advertisement for the company that makes the Tattletail toy, always keeping that Holiday whimsy all while keeping that sense of dread that belongs to horror.

1. Octodad: Dadliest Catch. Oh wow, I went all-out in that one. I re-read it and I was laughing my ass off the whole time. Unique idea for the review, which leads to an interesting discussion of the game, its plot and features, and it ends with the perfect joke.

The 10 worst games reviewed on the blog in 2019:
10. Yomi. It's a well-made game, no points there. It's #10 on the list mostly because of my own issues with the card game, which I feel relies a bit too much on luck, and the system that makes you pay to add half the available roster, and pay more for any additional card packs you might like.
9. Uncanny Valley. As a horror game, it does an alright job at setting up an atmosphere, and some of the scenes are certainly quite interesting, but the gameplay itself turned me off entirely to it. The consequences system could have led to something fine, but I didn't really notice a difference.
8. Turbo Pug. Funny for a moment, but the procedurally-generated world means that you've got to be an absolute master at controlling the little pug if you want to get anywhere far within this game. Self-imposed challenge? Knock yourself out. For everything else, I'll pass.
7. Greyfox RPG. I can say this RPG Maker game at least attempted to do something different - whether or not it succeeded is up to each person. I do think the concept is novel, but the set-up is somewhat poor and, though it leads to interesting moments, I don't think its flaws save it.
6. Rolling Sun. Talk about tech demo! More like "A game we made to test the tech". It ebgs the question why the game was then sold. It sure looks nice, which is the point of the engine used for it... but there isn't much else there...
5. House of Caravan. Two words: "A matchbox." While there are good puzzles here and there, much of the exploration is boring and annoying, especially since there's very little you can do unless you can find matches, one at a time, and light lamps, one at a time...
4. Bomb Defense. I always feel bad bashing someone's first game (or what seems like it). This game fails to deliver on every promise; it's not Tower Defense, and its mechanics are annoying, especially in how precise you must be in everything to have even the slightest chance of beating a level.
3. Nuked Knight. 2D platforming at its worst - you can never be sure where to land. It wouldn't make the list if it was merely hard, as I can respect a hard game (even if it can make me swear). But the poor programming behind it certainly put the game into unfair territory.
2. Rising Islands. An unresponsive, buggy camera; 3D platforming that requires tmost precision in both movement and timing; these two items put together are already troublesome enough, but couple it to a handful of annoying elements of game design and you get, hands down, an insanely hard game that isn't worth the effort. The less said about glitches the better...
1. Only If. So incomprehensible, so inexplicable, that I couldn't even bring myself to play much of it. There's no rhyme or reason to the changes of scenes, and whatever was playable wasn't exactly good either. Sorry if this was someone's first experiments in game design... this is why experiments usually remain buried inside one's computer.

The 10 best games reviewed on the blog in 2019:
10. Hidden Folks. Another simple puzzle game that can be played by anyone... as long as you can fiund your way around gigantic, enormous, immense maps in which you need to find often small characters or items. A great challenge.
9. Monster Loves You!. A narrative with branching paths that takes you through the life of a monster, all the way to either an unremarkable death or the transformation of the entire world for the better or for the worse. It's worth playing just to see what you can end up with.
8. Tattletail. The concept of combining a virtual pet to a horror game still feels fresh. Though the game has a few flaws, it's a fun ride as long as you don't mind getting spooked here or there. I've grown attached to the Tattletail, what can I say?
7. The First Tree. Breathtaking visuals combined with a discussion on human life. Almost free exploration all throughout. I loved to play through this so much, I completed it in one sitting.
6. Frederic: Resurrection of Music. While playing the piano keyboard took me some time to adapt, I eventually got the hang of it... mostly. From then on I enjoyed level after level of completely crazy retooling of a Chopin track in any possible genre. I have a thing for music games, even if my talent at them is limited.
5. A Normal Lost Phone. This one has a great story, one that becomes increasingly relevant as time goes. It's aided by the gameplay, simple but effective, in which you hunt for clues and find your way around a phone to uncover the secrets of its previous owner. All while remaining fun and even somewhat cute.
4. Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS. Of course I would rank a Smash game pretty high on the list. I had a LOT of critiques for the game itself, but it packed so much content that I was willing to forgive some of them. It's not like most of those critiques were relatively minor stuff after all...
3. Scanner Sombre. It's barely horror, but the true interest here is to create your own path as you progress, using the Scanner in order to find the platforms and roads to take, as well as any minor interactions to be had with the environment. It's a reflective experience more than a horror one, with one of the most unique gameplay elements I've ever seen. How many games go "There's nothing but darkness for 99.999% of the game, now you go make some light in there"?
2. Indie Pogo. As a young mascot fighting game, it still has room to grow and improve - but if it keeps the same quality standards as it had when I reviewed it, we'll have a fantastic game deserving of being played at fighting game tournaments. I bet anything that this is already in the plans.
1. Octodad: Dadliest Catch. I think I made such a great review for this one precisely because I love it so much, but also because it's the perfect blend of comedy and gameplay - while I wouldn't call it perfect, it's definitely the game I reviewed this year that I loved above any other.

The 10 wishes I had for the blog in 2019, and what I managed to achieve or failed to achieve:
10. A great anniversary review - failed in spectacular fashion, as I literally did not post a single thing during the month of July.
9. A Sonic Month. Once again, failed... but I have a hunch that it's coming for 2020.
8. More Steam Packs. Half-achieved, until I realized midway into the year that splitting the Packs by having one game per article was simpler.
7. A redesign of the site. Nope, failed.
6. Update everything on the blog. Didn't quite get to do that. Hell, I didn't even take some time during the year to update the ARCHIVE!
5. A proper Halloween special. Does Tattletail count? No, it was a month later. Welp, nope I guess.
4. More streaming. I've experimented with Twitch and Discord, but overall I didn't stream all that much. I probably could do more.
3. Create title cards for old reviews. ...Nope!
2. Less long reviews. I guess, with the long hiatus I had to take, I succeeded... though I had a few long reviews, most were fairly short.
1. Create a stronger community. I may not have succeeded yet, but the Discord server still exists - although I've yet to find people to join it...

The 10 wishes I have for 2020:

10. A review of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past for the blog's anniversary in 2020. I'll try to squeeze in some time to write that.
9. Once again hoping I can write a Sonic Month in there. Already planning to cover Sonic CD, Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity, and Sonic and the Black Knight for it.
8. The big review of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, which I am in the process of writing. Snark about Bethesda's current situation might or might not be in there, depending on how mean I feel on any day.
7. Once again, I hope to edit the extra pages of the blog - an update on the Archive is particularly needed. In fact, I might be doing that as soon as this article is published!
6. Less hiatuses. I can't promise no hiatuses, but I can try to have less of them. Or shorter ones...
5. More quick reviews. In order to prevent myself from going a long time without a hiatus, I can definitely go with short reviews. I still have a whole bunch of quick games I could review at any moment.
4. More reviews of Nintendo games. I don't know if I can do it, but I will try! Ironic that this goes into a wishes list, considering in the early years games on Nintendo consoles made up 100% of the games I reviewed...
3. Two or three VGFlicks movie reviews. I'm not running out of material anytime soon, as there are old video game movies I haven't looked at yet, and a lot of movies from the past 5 years that would be available.
2. A redesign of the site. I swear I'll try to get this done!
1. I will attempt to once again create a stronger community for the site. Hopefully, this time, it'll work.

Last but not least: The "Reviewed games" folder on Steam currently contains 75 games, as I tend to delete the games I review negatively - no point in keeping them around, right? Anyhow, I think it's time to do a bit of cleanup, and at the same time I might also make a new list of favorites.

Taking out 4 games:
Auditorium
The Howler
Nuked Knight
Yomi

New list of favorites:

3D Ultra Adventures Minigolf Deluxe
Bastion
Castle of Illusions
Cuphead
DuckTales Remastered
The First Tree
GemCraft - Chasing Shadows
Goat Simulator
Indie Pogo
Octodad: Dadliest Catch
Grand Theft Auto V
Quiplash
Rayman Origins
Shantae: Risky's Revenge
Surgeon Simulator
Tattletail
Undertale
Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist

Expect a new retrospective in 2021!

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 1^st 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.