Heya, thanks for the comment! I didn't expect to love Persona 3 as much as I did, but now I kind of want to play everything in the series hah.

How is Chaos:Head btw? I've been thinking of reading through that one eventually.

That's great about Atelier, I'll definitely be checking them out in the coming year. I really liked the atmosphere of what little I played of them too. You're right though about Ys, haha. I actually first saw my other half play Ys 1 a couple of years ago and she really loved it, so I always thought about getting around to it myself. I'm very glad I did!

And thank you! I'm glad to hear it. I'll keep you posted whenever I get started on the Atelier stuff for sure!

Yesss! I'm so happy to hear some more Yunica appreciation, haha. I loved her so much, she totally wasn't what I expected but in the best way. Having that be your first exposure to Ys must have been awesome. I had the opposite traction where my first exposure was actually Ys VIII! So both of us came out of it pretty good lol.

Thank you though, re: the top 10! I definitely had a very varied year. Seeing your Top 10 reminds me how much I'd like to check out the Atelier games too. I played a little of one on the DS but at the time I think I was working a lot, so I kind of just dropped off with it.

Happy holidays to you! I always find it very interesting seeing what you're playing when you update here, so I hope that next year allows you even better games!

Hi there!

Pretty interesting Top 10! Popful Mail is definitely something that I was always looking for, but still forgot to emulate
You also reminded me to play Escha & Logy, which has been on the shelf for a really long time asd.

I wish you an even better 2023!

Cheers to your top 10!

I wish you a fantastic 2023 in gaming and reading alike!

Perhaps a little early, but I don't really think I'll be doing a ton more gaming before the end of the year. Continuing from last year, I didn't play many (any?) NEW games that released this year, so not even going to bother trying to rank 2022 games in a top 10. As for a top 10 from ALL games I played this year, but excluding replays/replay on a different platform:

1. Atelier Sophie 2 (PS4)
2. A Plumber for All Seasons (Super Mario World hack)
3. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (PS4)
4. Super Robot Wars 30 (Steam)
5. Super Robot Wars T (PS4)
6. Atelier Sophie (PS4, Vita)
7. Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines (Steam)
8. Popful Mail (SCD) (technically I played 98% of this a couple years ago but w/e)
9. Langrisser II (Switch)
10. Toree 3D (Switch)

Like last time, not really satisfied this, but oh well. Good enough.

Yeah Path of Radiance is going to be a money sink for sure. And I haven't even begun looking into how expensive 1-6 are but with importing alone it's going to get a little pricey. But that's an issue for future me not current me

Haha thank you! I'm having fun with it though it keeps on kicking my butt lol. It's nice to see the different kinds of pairings and I feel like the OST/environments have really been kicked up a notch from the previous games. And thanks! Ys has been a fantastic time so far, I'm really looking forward to seeing more of Adol's adventures!

I haven't been doing much of the whole gaming thing lately, being doing much more of the reading thing. I'm still going to try to at least finish my NG+ playthrough of Trails of Cold Steel II, but I haven't touched it in a while and I don't feel very motivated.

If you want to see my bad taste in books here's my goodreads: [Link] but my weeb books are quarantined in my MyAnimeList profile in my sidebar

I did just mod my Wii U recently with things like this in mind, it'll be handy to play stuff like WiiWare titles that aren't available anywhere else and still have it be somewhat of an authentic experience. It'll just be a matter of finding the time for it, sadly. I don't have a whole lot of time or energy to sink into longer games at the moment. Hopefully that'll change eventually, but for now I'll have to settle with fiddling around with shorter games in small bursts. I've been on a pretty big 3DS kick recently, which is nice since there's a lot of games that can fit into my spare time comfortably.

Oh yeah, Crystal Chronicles on GameCube was such a comforting childhood game for me. The soundtrack and atmosphere makes for a perfect blend of nostalgia and cosiness. I actually never tried out the other games in the series, though I do own all of them except for the WiiWare ones (unfortunately).

FF9 is in the same boat for me, I remember watching my older brother play it all the time when I was younger. Back then I had a habit of just starting games, playing for about 30 minutes, then starting again over and over. I don't know why I did, but that's why I've got the opening sequences to 9, 10 and 10-2 forever engrained into my mind.

Admittedly I did only play a few hours of Ryza before I got distracted by something else and put it down, but I'm like many others who hadn't ever played the Atelier series and decided to try jumping in with Ryza. It did seem quite good from what I played, though I don't really have any idea how it compares to the other games in the franchise, since from what I know it changes the gameplay formula a bit. I'd love to get back to it and delve a little more into the Atelier series some day. Rorona has been sitting on my shelf unplayed since about 2011 or so.

Hello! I've seen you pop up on some mutual friend's profile pages and noticed similar interests before, I'm surprised it took me this long to add you. Nice to finally get in touch!

Now seems like a great time to play CC again with the Radical Dreamers edition. I'm only a few hours in but it's amazing so far, oh how I miss oldschool PSOne RPG's. I'm sad I never owned this game growing up, my friend had it and told me about it but I should of borrowed it from him back then. Especially after the impact Chrono Trigger had on me at a young age.

Not stressing over the first ending is something that took me quite a while to learn. But it definitely comes in handy when you're trying things for the first time.

I've been staring longingly at Sophie 2 for a while now. Currently, I have ~4 other Atelier games I *could* finish, and I think I want to try those first and pray Sophie 2 gets a PS5 upgrade eventually. If it doesn't, oh well. I can live with the ps4-spec presentation if need be.

Anything else you're looking forward to this year?

Oh dude, do it. It's very simple to do, and there are multiple ways to do it depending on a few different variables.

I've played a bit of the translation of Marie&Elie on PS2. It's definitely worth checking out if older Atelier games catch your interest. Also never say never. The comment about Judie almost makes it sound like a challenge Either way, did you wind up getting your copy of Sophie 2 eventually? I hope so!

I know the feeling re: your ever-extending break. I'm feeling it a bit with Raiou 1 right now since I keep running into issues with streaming recently. Hoping to get back to it tonight.

I absolutely adored Sophie. It is only my second experience after finishing Rorona last year. Since then, I have picked up Ryza 1 and 2. I almost picked up Annie, but I thought the price was too steep ($120), so I slept on it and decided I wanted it. Went back to the store the next day and it wasn’t there anymore. Now it’s like $200 on eBay in box hahaha. Thank goodness I have an R4, or else I probably wouldn’t be able to try it for a long while.

In the meantime, I did pick up Sophie 2, and I can’t wait to play it. I’m kinda hoping that leaving it on the back burner for a bit will give KT some time to synthesize some proper PS5 support since going from 60 in Sophie to 30 in Sophie 2 is jarring to say the least.

Also dude, Raidou 1 is like MY GAME. Megaten, Taisho period, incredible ost, pre-rendered backgrounds…it’s just everything I love in a JRPG all rolled into one. I’ve heard 2 gets even better so I am INCREDIBLY stoked to try it out.

I don't normally do this sort of thing, but happy new year! (It's still the 31st here though lol)
I guess I can try to do a top 10 games I finished this year. No way I could do a list for 2021 games since it'd be a whopping three games long, and only one of them I've finished.

1. The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky the 3rd
2. The LEgend of Heroes: Ao no Kiseki
3. Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of DANA
4. Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne
5. Super Robot Wars X

6. Ys IX: Monstrum Nox
7. Astral Chain
8. Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates
9. Yakuza 4
10. Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth

Whew... I'm bad at ranking things like this. I realized there were a lot of games I finished this year that I didn't have any particularly strong feelings about, or that I didn't like. Let's see what 2022 brings!

Haha yeah, that is precisely why I said that a thing like that cannot be locked behind a NG+ exclusive quest! It was such a mindblowing moment when I got there in CS2... (and no, replaying is definitely not worth it, I only did that because I read that somewhere before I started the game, so I looked for an NG+ save file)

Let me know your impressions on CS3! I'm still not in the mood to play that... or anything other than Deep Rock Galactic with my mate lately lol

Thanks! Same to you. How is Astral Chain? I've heard great things and I'm a big fan of Platinum games. Nice page you have!

It's easily my GotY. Shocker, I know. I'm waiting to get out of the honeymoon phase to decide whether or not it's my new favorite mainline game, but it's definitely up there either way. Feels like they took a lot of inspiration from DQ11 and Xenoblade Chronicles, which is a win in my book.