I’ve started to feel like BigNerdHater the past few weeks. My last three review scores have been a 7, a 6, and a 5. I swear I don’t hate games now. I just had a slightly rougher stretch (though I still enjoy that 7/10, and even have respect for the 6/10! I won’t talk about the 5/10).
In reality, I am still absolutely loving video games as usual. I am bouncing around five games right now, but I’m not super close to finishing any of them, so it felt like it was time for a gaming roundup. Here are some thoughts on four games, with two of them being serious contenders to be in my top 10 at year’s end.
Later this week, I’m going to go ahead and drop my way too early Game Awards predictions. They will be horribly wrong, as there is a long way to go this year, but that’s part of the fun of it!
Doom: The Dark Ages
I didn’t write about it on the blog, but this year was actually the start of my journey with the new DOOM games. I played DOOM (2016) and DOOM Eternal in January this year before the release schedule started heating up. This was mostly to prep for DOOM: The Dark Ages, but I really had a blast with both games. DOOM (2016) really blew me away and surprised me with how well it held up in almost every regard. I have a harder time evaluating DOOM Eternal. I think it had a few clever changes, and I didn’t mind the inclusion of platforming, but I did find myself getting a bit burned out by it. Playing those games back to back may have been a bad idea, so I decided to abandon it so that I wouldn’t also ruin The Dark Ages.
And man, I am happy I did, because I am having a blast. I’m about 1/3rd through the game, and I think this might be the best DOOM game of them all.
The big tagline for The Dark Ages was “stand and fight.” The game doesn’t want you running away and jumping around. It wants you to be in the mix at all times, and it does a great job of setting up the systems so that you can fight this way. I spent a lot of time running for my life in DOOM and DOOM Eternal, scavenging for ammo in particular. I never do this in Dark Ages. I’m always fighting.
A big part of this is that the new shield mechanic in the game gives you potent offensive weapons without having to use one bullet. The shield is one of the most versatile and satisfying weapons I have ever used in any FPS. This is because it offers you offensive capabilities, defensive capabilities, and mobility.
Let’s talk about my favorite element of the shield, the shield thrust. The shield thrust might be the most fun weapon or maneuver that I have ever seen in an FPS. You are able to lock on to enemies within range, and then with a press of the trigger, you fly at the enemies and bash them with a shield. This move feels so good every single time. The impact to both the enemies (and the shockwaves that take out smaller enemies nearby) are incredibly satisfying. It also feels great to be able to zip around a big battlefield. Oftentimes, I’m using it offensively, but also as a defensive tactic to get away from enemies that might be behind me or near me.
The Dark Ages also introduces a parry system using this shield. You can block most attacks (your shield temporarily breaks if you block too much), and you can parry special green attacks. The game often creates a very light bullet hell type environment with these, as multiple attacks will get thrown at you, and you need to navigate to the green one to parry it through the chaos. The parry window is definitely pretty large here. I almost never miss an attempted parry (I’m playing on Ultra Violence, which is one step up from the “normal” difficulty). But the challenge is more to navigate to where you can parry and avoid the other chaos happening while you do so. I was actually kind of skeptical on this mechanic because it looked overly easy even in the trailers I saw, but I am really enjoying it. I think it works well within the overall chaos of the battlefield, and it makes me feel like I always have a chance, even when things look bad.
You can also throw the shield at enemies. This can be pretty cool, and I use it in specific circumstances, but it’s by far my least used mechanic. I feel kind of naked and vulnerable without the shield because of how often I parry and use the thrust, so not having it even for a few seconds doesn’t feel good to me. But I do think that this is also well done.
I also like that the game really lets me play the way I want to. I appreciated how DOOM and DOOM Eternal really forced you to use all of your guns because of either ammo constraints or to exploit enemy weaknesses, but it’s nice to just switch my weapons occasionally and use the weapons that I am having the most fun with. The game is pretty generous with ammo, and it’s pretty easy to get more from enemies by melee (though, I have a few issues with the melee Ill discuss later).
Not having to swap weapons as often also considerably improves the general flow of the game. The Dark Ages also does this by almost completely eliminating the glory kills from the past games. When enemies are hurt, you still tap a button to finish them off, but it’s just a quick melee 98% of the time. DOOM and DOOM Eternal could get kind of exhausting with the constant stops for killing animations. These glory kills were cool, but I’d get a bit tired of them after several hours of seeing the same animation over and over. Between less weapon swaps and less glory kills, I feel like I’m actually in the game way more, and I like that.
This is also easily my favorite exploration of any of the DOOM games. The map is the easiest to decipher of any of the games, as there’s a lot less verticality than past games since the levels tend to be more open and sprawling. I would get annoyed with constantly checking my map and figuring out what I missed and would inevitability skip out on exploring in past DOOM games. But in The Dark Ages, I’m actually getting to 80%+ of things explored in each level, which is a considerably higher percentage than past games. The exploration also implements the shield a lot, and as I talked about, the shield is a lot of fun to use in any capacity.
I do have a few nitpicks with the game. The Dark Ages introduces new levels built around being in a giant mech, and on flying around on a dragon that almost makes me feel like I’m playing Panzer Dragoon Orta for a split second. I understand how these can be cool from a power fantasy perspective, but they are both really simple in a way that doesn’t appeal to me. It’s tough to go from having all of the neat mechanics on the ground to very simple dodge/counterattack gameplay. I also really hate the melee. It feels so slow, and I pretty much take damage anytime I try and do it on a crowded battlefield. You are supposed to be able to string together combos with the melee, but it feels impossible to pull off unless you are in some very specific situations. This is also the first DOOM game to really try and deliver a cinematic story, and I loved that they wanted to do that, but in practice, it didn’t take me long to completely stop caring about it.
But those are all pretty minor things. I’d have The Dark Ages at a very strong 9.0/10 right now, and I’m open to giving it a 9.5 if I continue to have this much fun. I’d be pretty shocked if I gave it any lower than a 9 at this point. The Dark Ages feels like it has a guaranteed spot on my top 10 list for year-end at this point. I know some DOOM fans don’t like it as much, but I think it’s excellent.
Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time
Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Stole Time can best be described as a cozy action RPG that goes HEAVY on the RPG elements. There are fourteen different “lives” (essentially, jobs) in the game, some related to combat, some not. They can all be leveled up and have their own skill tree. Each town in the game can be leveled up to gain rewards as you continue to accomplish tasks. There is an open world area with leveling up mechanics as well. You also have an Animal Crossing esque village that you can build up as you go along. If you like to see numbers go up, and if you like the more visual appeal from cozy games of seeing a town get built up, Fantasy Life i absolutely has some fun for you.
I’ve logged about 10 hours into the game so far. The game felt like it might be a complete addiction for one day, but I’ve cooled off a bit on it. I’m still eager to jump back in more, though.
The main quest in Fantasy Life i involves getting sucked into the past and uncovering the mysteries associated with this island that you find. This is one of the more involved stories I’ve encountered in a cozy game, but that might not be a good thing. It’s repetitive, a lot more cutscene heavy than I’d expect, and thrives off things like poop humor. I am notoriously not fun, so it’s just not for me. I do think it’s a story my daughter might really enjoy when she is old enough to play a game like this, but I’m out on it.
I’ve also slowly realized that the main quest mostly seems to be there to introduce all of the various elements of the game more so than to actually be the focus. I was surprised when the main story introduced Ginomorsia, which is its giant open world area, but then seemed to completely go away from it. While the main story is there, I think the real point of the game is to make all of your numbers go up, and then use those stats and skills to help find things that will build up your little town.
So, with that, I’m starting to adjust my expectations with the game and focus more on that town. Much like many Animal Crossing-esque cozy games, your goal is to build up a town and decorate it. Admittedly, I haven’t dove super deep into this, but it feels like it has most of the appeals you’d hope for from this genre. I plan on jumping way more into this aspect of the game soon and unlocking the jobs that will help with it, as I still haven’t unlocked a few of them.
One of the coolest elements of the game is the aforementioned Ginomorsia, which is essentially the open world segment of the game. This is quite big and filled with monsters to fight, trees to cut down, fish to catch, etc. There are also quite a few things to find that can make you stronger and help your town out. Surprisingly, the game is pretty hardcore here. Fantasy Life i tells you what treasures are in each zone, but gives you no direction as to how to find them. It’s up to you to explore, and I don’t hate that at all.
My favorite part of Ginormosia is that it actually does the best job at addressing level scaling that I have ever seen. In some open world RPGs, the monsters will level up with you, which can make it feel like you aren’t actually getting any stronger. In other games, monsters don’t level with you, and you get too overpowered for beginning areas to be worth exploring. Fantasy Life i lets you take things at your own pace. As you explore each zone and fight monsters and explore, you will gain points for that area. Once you get a certain amount of points, you can then level up that zone, making the monsters stronger, putting better trees to cut down in that zone, etc. This is a system that I’d love to see more open world games adopt.
You do spend a lot of time fighting in that open world as well. I’d say the combat in the game is serviceable. It’s not deep, but it’s responsive and feels pretty good. I wish it was easier to switch between the combat “lives” on the fly so that I could mix things up in a way that flows better, but it does the job well enough for something in the cozy genre.
I’ve had fun with Fantasy Life i, and now that I think I understand what the game is truly about, I’m hopeful that I will start to enjoy it even more. I’d probably put the game at a 7.5 right now, but I could see it going up to an 8.5. I can’t see it going any lower than a 7. This is definitely a very cool concept, and I’d love to see more cozy games go crazy with the RPG elements like this one does.
Monster Train 2
Monster Train was my #5 game of 2020, and there’s a lot of years it would be even higher than that. It was below Cyberpunk 2077, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Last of Us 2, and Hades. I had it above Ghost of Tshushima and some other games. That year was pretty stacked, but Monster Train stood tall amongst some greats.
It managed to do that with a very cool concept and excellent execution. Monster Train was essentially a mix of roguelike deckbuilders and tower defense games. Your enemy is trying to climb up your train one room at a time to attack the “pyre heart.” You play various monster cards and spells in order to stop them. If you don’t kill monsters on a turn, they move up to the next floor, and they also attack back. So you need to keep your monsters alive and also do a lot of damage fast. Things like where your units are placed and the attack order are also absolutely vital for how each encounter plays out. Simply, there was a lot of depth here, and that is what made the game so fantastic,
While the formula is mostly the same, there are some nice additions to Monster Train 2. There are now equipment and room cards that enhance the strategy and encourage you to defend all three floors in the game. In the original, the general consensus was to put all of your energy into one floor. That isn’t the case here. There is also a deployment phase now where you can play monsters before the round officially begins. This eliminates some of the RNG and makes me feel like I can almost always execute on a strategy if I develop one.
There are plenty of other little things out there, as you also have new clans and cards and such. But the game still has that same basic formula. It isn’t the easiest roguelike deckbuilder to pick up and play, as there are a lot of different passives and mechanics to sift through. You really have to be on top of inspecting enemies, as they can have abilities that will destroy you if you aren’t paying attention. There are multiple times early on where I played spell cards on a floor, and then realized that playing spells was actually hurting me because my enemy had the ability to sap my power when I did. Its easy to fall into situations like that.
But once you get acclimated to everything, it still cooks. Once again, I love how much there is to think about on each run. Where your units are placed, where the enemies are. There are so many passives and skills to play with that it’s really easy to develop some effective builds that can “break the game.” There are multiple decisions to make on upgrades in between each round, and there is a lot of flexibility and cool decision making there, too. My first run was won with a build that I actually wasn’t particularly proud of. I didn’t have as much cohesion with all my units and spells as I would like. But I found a few upgrades that worked perfectly with one unit, and that carried me to victory. I love that there are so many ways to win runs. I also rarely find myself using the same builds over and over because the game gives you so many options, and almost all of those options feel viable.
The game kind of feels like a Monster Train 1.75 in some regards, but that’s not a bad thing. It has been four and a half years since I played the original, and I haven’t played anything quite like it since, so it still feels fresh despite being very familiar as well. I’d probably give Monster Train 2 an 8.5 right now, but a 9 is also possible. If you liked the first one, this is a no-brainer. If you like roguelike deckbuilders and don’t mind getting through a slightly higher learning curve than Slay the Spire, I’d also say it is a must play.
Drop Duchy
Drop Duchy has one of the most creative and interesting concepts that I have ever seen. This is essentially a deckbuilding roguelite that has a mix of Tetris, Catan, and the citybuilding genre. It’s wild, but it works really well.
The game takes place on a Tetris type of board, and you place traditional Tetris blocks. All of those blocks are different terrains or different buildings that interact with those terrains in various ways. When you fill up a line, that line doesn’t disappear like in normal Tetris. Instead, it stays but gives you resources that you can use in several ways in between rounds.
There are three types of encounters in the game. First, there are peaceful regions where you can just play your blocks in an attempt to get as many resources as possible. In these boards, you’ll also want to use special buildings that can improve the amount of resources you get as you play. For example, the “plains” block gives a certain resource whenever it is in a completed line. However, one of the first buildings you can get is a “farm,” which turns nearby plains into farmland areas, and those give you more resources. You can upgrade these buildings and do some other things with resources, so it’s important to accumulate as much as possible.
You’ll spend most of your time in “hostile” regions. These work mostly the same way, but you also will have enemy buildings to deal with. These buildings give your enemy a certain number of troops, and potentially more depending on where you place them. In return, you also have military buildings that you can place on the board, and that will drastically change in power depending on what other terrain or other buildings are in range of it when you place it. After all the blocks are placed, there’s another little game of deciding the order in which the different buildings will attack each other. There is a rock-paper-scissors element to this part, so there’s an extra bit of strategy in deciding what order the attacks will take place in.
Finally, there are boss fights. Each run has three of these. These work roughly the same way as hostile regions, but the board changes in some dramatic ways. For example, in the last one, if you place any building piece on a marked area (which changes every round), then your enemy gets stronger.
The game is really inventive. The Tetris formula is always addictive, and all of the clever additions to it here make this something really unique and fun. Obviously, Tetris is a pretty simple puzzle game overall, but there are quite a few strategic considerations you have to account for in every battle, particularly during the fights. As you would imagine, you want to keep your board as clean as possible, as you can still earn resources, even during fights, and those are important. So, you are trying to complete lines with the shapes that you are given. But you also have to be extremely careful with where you place the buildings in particular. You want your buildings surrounded by terrains and other buildings that will make your fighting units stronger, and then you want enemy buildings placed in spots that will limit their power. But you only know what the next 3 blocks are, so you have to also prepare in a way to circumvent the natural RNG of the game as much as possible.
The game also gives you one “reserve” spot where you can place any block that you don’t want to use. It’s not overly complicated, but there is just enough pick up and play appeal combined with depth to make the core gameplay pretty compelling.
Aditionally, the aesthetic is top notch, with gorgeous art direction, sound design, and music. It’s a very polished indie game both in concept and execution, especially for a smaller indie title.
After about five hours, I do think that the game could use a bit more depth outside of the fights, though. In between each encounter, the game gives you some decisions to make in classic roguelite fashion. You can decide on new cards to add to your deck, you can decide on what bonus resources you want, and if you want to go into hostile or peaceful regions from each encounter.
I often didn’t find the decision-making on what new cards to add to my deck to be that great. I feel like the game doesn’t have tons of options to create really compelling builds. I finally unlocked passive cards after about three hours with the game, which has helped, but outside of a few minor examples, I’m not able to put together a cohesive build the way I can with the aforementioned Monster Train 2. The few times that I have built some nice combinations into my deck, the game kind of screws up those builds in different ways. First off, after each act, you have to get rid of one of the terrain types, as it gets replaced with a new one. So, you really want to have cards that play off of all three terrain types that you come across in each act, but then you have to essentially throw away some of that strategy after each act. The second and third bosses also have some serious restrictions on how you can play your blocks, which can lead to some really tough decision-making. I usually enjoy tough decision-making in games like this, but the way bosses are constructed can completely destroy a build combination you have worked hard on. I had a really cool combination of cards in one run that made it so that one building card was getting super strong as I earned gold during a round. The final boss suddenly made that card completely useless, as I was pretty much unable to complete any lines and earn gold because if I did so, I would have made the boss significantly stronger.
The game also throws a lot of “production” cards at you. But it also kind of actively dissuades you from using them. They are useful in peaceful regions, but anytime you decide to go to a peaceful region instead of a hostile one, the game makes the boss in that act a little stronger. Considering that you can still build up resources in hostile regions, I tend to do these once early in a run and never in later acts where the bosses are pretty tough anyway.
All of this means that while I really enjoy Drop Duchy, I’ll probably stop playing it after I beat a run or two with each of the three factions (I’ve won 2 runs through 5 hours and something like 7 attempts so far). I don’t believe it has the staying power or depth to be compelling for dozens and dozens of hours, but I think it’s a really cute and fun roguelite that I’m going to enjoy for 15 or so. There’s nothing wrong with that at all. There was a whole lot to balance with such a unique formula. I’m having fun with Drop Duchy, but I also think there’s a lot of untapped potential for whenever they hopefully make a sequel down the road. I’d give Drop Duchy an 8/10 so far. I can’t see it going any lower than a 7.5, but I also can’t see it going much higher than the current 8 for me.
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