There is much work to be done.
As a joke, I thought about just providing a list of games with no description whatsoever for this post. Although I would find it funny, I don’t think many of my readers would. Luckily for you, I decided against doing this and will provide some of my thoughts on each game. Or unluckily for you, I guess, if you don’t like reading my posts. In which case, why are you here reading this one? Go do something else with your time. Life is short! Anyways, back to the list.
Those of you who have read the “About” section of my website will know that I started this blog because I have a bad habit of starting games and then not finishing them. I thought that writing about games would motivate me to finish what I started. It has worked somewhat because I have finished more games on a regular basis than before I began working on this little project of mine but I am not where I need to be at yet. I’m hoping this list will motivate me for the rest of the year especially now that its end is fast approaching.
A Plague Tale: Requiem
A Plague Tale: Requiem will be the easiest to finish out of all the games on this list. Not because I booted it up, hated it, and then turned it off immediately afterwards. It’s because it is not a very long game and it is mostly linear (except for a few areas I just got to in the story). I think I’m over halfway through the game as of this writing and I’m excited to see where the story goes.
Requiem stars Hugo and Amicia yet again as they try to find a cure for Hugo. It carries on the story from A Plague Tale: Innocence (another good game if you haven’t played it yet). The brother and sister pair must forge their way through hostile soldiers and literal hordes of rats. It makes for a tense atmosphere. I’m serious. I don’t think I’ve ever been as tense playing a video game as I have been with Requiem. It’s probably not good for my health but good on Asobo Studio for making such an experience.
The gameplay is very similar to the first game although with a few changes and additions. You’ll be solving environmental puzzles of varying difficulty along with sneaking and engaging with some light fighting if you choose to play the game. I find the combat to be a little clunky if I’m being honest especially when you’re trying to use the slingshot and there’s multiple targets in front of you. The game has trouble deciding which one you want to hit. That’s really my only gripe with the game so far. I’ve really been enjoying it otherwise.
Final Fantasy VII Remake
You may be saying to yourself, “Now, wait a minute. Didn’t he already finish and review Final Fantasy VII Remake?” Very astute of you, dear reader! I did in fact do just that! However, I want to finish the DLC, called Episode INTERmission, before the year is out because the second part of the Remake trilogy is on its way and hopefully is closer than I think. I want to be ready for it just in case, you know what I’m saying?
The episode stars Yuffie as she comes to the city of Midgar looking for materia. It features the same combat style as the base game but Yuffie has her own moves and abilities. It also has a new minigame called Fort Condor which I may or may not have spent too much time on already. Look, I’m trying to become the Fort Condor master and the only way you can do that is by playing it, ok! Anyways, I hope to have it done by January is all I’m saying.
Resident Evil Village
Again, you could be forgiven for thinking I have finished and reviewed this game…and I have! As with Final Fantasy VII Remake, I want to play through the DLC before the year comes to a close. The DLC stars Rose, Ethan’s daughter, and I’m curious to see what she has been up to since the end of Village. From what I’ve heard about it so far, it shouldn’t take too long to complete so I’m excited to give it a go. It came out last week so I should be getting to it relatively soon.
And that’s not all I want to do with Resident Evil Village. I actually want to play through the whole game again because I made the mistake of downloading and trying out the third person mode demo. It made me want to play the game again and that’s what I’m going to do, damnit! Also, I have a PS5 and I have to say that the graphics look incredible on that machine so that’s even more of an incentive to play Village.
Just as an aside, I have become quite the Resident Evil fan since I finished and reviewed Village. Since then, I have played through Resident Evil 2, 7, most of 3, and about half of 4 (in anticipation of the remake of that game coming out March of next year). I should really finish those last two games. I think I’m in trouble in Resident Evil 3 though because I’m low on ammo and am at a spot where a bunch of difficult enemies come at me and I can’t seem to beat them. I have no excuse for not finishing Resident Evil 4 so I may just have to do that before the year is out as well. Anyways, that’s enough about Resident Evil!
The Witcher III: The Wild Hunt
This has to be one of my greatest gaming shames. I, the Pretend Gamer, have not finished The Witcher III. The Witcher series is one of my favorites of all time (the books are great too by the way) and it pains me to say that I haven’t seen how CD Projekt Red’s epic wraps up. I won’t say why I haven’t beat the game here because I’m saving that for a potential future review. All I will say is that I have played through the first half of this game maybe half a dozen times now and it never gets old.
On a whim, I decided to boot up the game and load up my latest save instead of starting over yet again and I was like, “Yeah, I need to finish this thing. It’s just too good not to.” And that, folks, is why it’s here on this list. This sucker is going into my list of beaten games for good. Of course, once I do that, I have to play the two expansions afterwards. A Witcher’s work is never done!
Persona 5 Royal
I shouldn’t even be playing this game again (yes, I’ve beaten this game before). I told myself that as I booted it up for the first time on my Xbox last weekend. I will probably tell myself that many more times but that voice will always be overridden by how damn good this game is. Look, whenever this game comes out on a new platform, I must play it. That’s how I’ve chosen to live my life. Yes, that’s right, Persona 5 Royal was recently freed from its prison on the PS4 and is now on Xbox, PC, PS5, and the Switch as well. And it’s also on Game Pass, by the way. There are no excuses for people who haven’t played it yet. It’s literally everywhere now.
Not only am I replaying it because it’s great but also because I discovered something about it that I should have known about ages ago. You see, with the Xbox version (and I assume the other versions but I can’t say for sure) you get all the DLC with it. I never bought the DLC on PS4 because it mostly looked like just extra outfits which I refuse to pay money for. It’s a long standing policy here on The Pretend Gamer.
Anyways, as I was saying, I thought it was just the outfits but it turns out that, when you put the outfits from past games in the series onto the main character, the battle music from those games plays whenever you’re fighting enemies. It even plays the victory screen music for those games too. A big old smile swept over my face when I realized what was happening the first time I put on the Gekkoukan High school uniform and “Mass Destruction” started playing. I couldn’t believe it. It basically turns Persona 5 Royal into Persona 3. Ok, not really, but you get my point. Royal’s default music is also really good too but I’ve already heard that a million times so it was nice to hear Persona 3’s tunes. Persona 4’s music is in the game too by the way.
I mean, why wasn’t I told about this? You would think I would have at least received a letter in the mail (that’s right, a damn letter!) from Atlus. They should know by now that I, and everyone else, loves the Persona series’ music so much and would like to hear it in Royal. Alright, I may have gotten off track a little here. The point is that listening to Persona 3’s music in Persona 5 Royal is just one more reason why I have to play through Royal a second time.
Yakuza 6: A Song of Life
This game has the distinction of being the most requested review from strangers on the internet from yours truly. Seriously, it’s not even close. My Yakuza reviews are my most popular videos and posts by far and the people really want me to review Yakuza 6. The truth is I finished this game a long time ago and have sat down to write a review of it many, many times but the words have never flown out right.
I recently plopped myself down in front of the computer to try yet again to adequately express my feelings about the game but I failed. The reason I failed was because I was fully prepared to write a largely negative review about the game. However, before I started writing, I decided to look over the notes I had written about Yakuza 6 from several years ago. What I read in those notes is not what I remember from my time with the game. It seems my past self had more fun with the game than I can recall. As such, I decided that I would replay the game (or most of it) to see if I could square my memories with what was written down on those pages. It should make for an interesting experiment and I hope to have that all wrapped up by the end of the year. Fingers crossed.
Pentiment
This one’s a little weird because the game isn’t out and, as a consequence, I haven’t played it so I don’t know if it’s worth my time yet. I’m excited about Pentiment because it is being developed by the fine folks over at Obsidian Entertainment and I’m always down for an Obsidian game. It’s a narrative adventure game and I don’t think I’ve ever played an Obsidian game and thought, “Man, this writing is terrible.” Hence why I’m looking forward to Pentiment. I hope it’s good but I guess we’ll see soon enough, won’t we? The game comes out on November 15th and I’m on vacation that week so it should be perfect. No calls, please. I’m going to be busy.
And that’s all of the games on my to-do list for this year. Which games are you all looking forward to or are simply wanting to finish before the year is out. Let me know down below! I’m always on the lookout for new games to play so I’m interested in what you all have to say!
The Pretend Gamer 