In gaming, it is far more of a tradition for me to look back than forward, mainly because I just don't play the newer games. But for once, I think I will take a look forward.  Be forewarned, this article won't necessarily be about games that are coming out in 2019, rather what I intend to play over the next year. 






I should preface this saying that I am not the target audience for this series.  I am not in love with massively long games, I am not a fan of anime tropes at all, and I find the idea of making deals with demons unappealing at best.  And I didn't like the original PSX games. So why would I even care?  Read on.

Around my birthday in 2018 I elected to pick up a PlayStation Vita, a handheld that I've wanted for quite a while now.  Being a person who tends to be rather conservative with his funds, this was a fairly stressful experience for me.  The deal I found seemed amazing (pretty swank looking Vita with a 64GB memory card and Final Fantasy X-X2 HD), but days after ordering I began to have regrets.  The seller didn't post any tracking info, and seemed to disappear right after I received a "shipped" notification.  I remember telling myself that if the Vita arrived in condition contrary to the ebay listing (or not at all), I would return it and save for a Switch (the seeds of doubt planted?).  Fortunately the Vita arrived not only in pristine condition, but with games still on it!  Now, I already had a few games on my own PSN account to install, so while I figured out how to restore the Vita to factory without the original user's password (something that isn't very clear at all), I thought it wouldn't be harmful to check out a few games.  Most didn't appeal to me, but the shiny yellow bubble with words "Persona 4 Golden" trapped inside did.  It was so yellow and shiny, that I figured I should probably just click on it and see what the opening looked like.  As dumb as it sounds, the harmonica and bass-line in the opening is what initially reeled me in, and I must have closed the program and reopened it three or four times before watching the rest.

Upon playing it I found not the typical anime "nonsense" I had expected, but rather very well constructed characters in an engaging story involving a string of small town murders and another dimension that exists within televisions (?), all on the backdrop of high school life.  To say that the game sucked me in with this would be a misnomer; I just had to see what happened next.  I only played the first two hours, but the time was the most engaging time I'd had with in an RPG since Xenoblade Chronicles 3D.  I made it a point to pick up the game, and I did so for a song on Amazon one day.  While I do have serious trepidation about sticking with the title for the advertised one hundred hours, I know that I will enjoy what time I spend playing the game.



If I had done a "Top" list for 2018, I can say without any hesitation that the first Dragon Quest Builders would be firmly a the top.  Despite seeing the amazing graphics offered on the other consoles, I was completely engrossed by the characters and story, so that when I finished I immediately started looking for the sequel, but was of two minds when I saw it would only be on the PlayStation 4 and Switch (with the Switch being the only one announced for North America). 
Did I just buy the wrong console?  There was no question that I would be getting part 2, but how would I play it?  My son offered his Switch, but I don't know how I feel about taking over his game console for a minimum of fifty hours, and pretty much the only way I can play video games these days is on handheld consoles or laptops (being that I can play them without taking over a television, and I can close/sleep them in an instant, then open up and play again pretty much anywhere).

There are a lot of factors to consider.  The Switch is the most portable, but using my Vita (and own the completely awesome and necessary Hori Remote Play Attachment) I can Remote Play from a PS4, though realistically I am confined to my house (which is fine).  As you can see I have a lot of thinking to do, but the one thing I know will be happening is I will be purchasing Dragon Quest Builders 2 in 2019, and even if is nothing more than a basic sequel to the first, it will be an enjoyable game!



While it wasn't the first RPG I played on the PSX (that would likely be Beyond the Beyond), Suikoden was the first memorable one, and really cemented the PSX as the RPG console in my head.  Because of this, I still have no explanation as to why I missed/skipped Suikoden II.  It came out maybe a tiny late in the life of the PSX, but not too bad.  Who knows, I may never remember at this rate.  Regardless of reason, by the time I came back around and wanted to play it, the price of Suikoden II scared me off, and it was pretty expensive even before the rise of Youtubers and ebay grew the collector's market.  Due to the price, I snapped this game up not long after I noticed it upon opening my PSN account after I bartered for a used PS3.  Again, I didn't play it, but this time it was more about RPG burnout which later turned into the death of my PSP. 

But this time things will be different.  I have a nice, barely used Vita with a ton of space on it, a controller attachment that is super comfy and also adds L2/R2 functionality, and a serious jones for some RPGs.  To those that haven't seen the opening of the game, I invite you to do so.  It got me pumped to not only play this game, but maybe even revisit the first Suikoden and play through that too.



I realize that more than likely you haven't heard of this game, and you couldn't be blamed for that.  Eneme Entertainment, the developer of Eitr, has showing updates to the game in spurts for about four years now, wetting the lips of fans of the Diablo-style Action-RPG genre.  The story is a little strange, but you play the Shield Maiden, whose fate is plunged into uncertainty when the Norse god, Loki drips some of the primordial substance of existence (called Eitr) onto the loom of the Shield Maiden's fate.  She must travel the nine realms in search of an answer, as well as to fix the damage done to Yggdrasil by Loki.  The gameplay has a great retro "Diablo" in 1998 look to it, which is excellent.

Eneme Entertainment has recently set a release for summer of this year, which fires me up pretty, though I have to check myself.  Still, I really want to play this game, and have been following it since it appeared on GoG.com in mid 2017.  The art-style, protagonist, and aesthetics really speak to me, and thus will be one of the two new games that I will be purchasing on its release day in 2019 (perhaps on the PS4?). Please look forward to it!



For what felt like a million years I've wanted to get into the Fire Emblem strategy games.  Partially because they remind me of the Shining Force games, but also because I just kind of dig them.  When I first got my 2DS XL I earmarked a few games in the series for purchase, patiently waiting until the day a price drop would put it into the range of my pocketbook.  When that day came, about two or three weeks ago, I actually did, "Squeee!" at the clearance endcap of my local Target.  A Fire Emblem game for $12?  Sign me up!  It took a few days for me to finally open it up and play, but when I did I realized that I had made a mistake.  Not really a bad one, but maybe the kind that highlights my own deficiencies.  In a way it kind of brings me back to my "Budget Wall" days, though unlike those days I managed to end up with an excellent game.

To those that haven't noticed yet, Fire Emblem: Warriors is not a game in the main series of turn-based strategy games, but rather a "Warriors" game, what used to be called (and maybe still is?) a "musou-style" game; a large scale, real-time, slightly strategic, 3D button masher, in this case featuring characters and systems reminiscent of a Fire Emblem game.  Now, I will admit when I started this game I was extremely disappointed (for the reasons previously mentioned), but once I played through the first chapter I realized that this game is actually pretty good.  Really good, as a matter of fact.  So good that I gently closed the game, so that when I get the time this year I can crack it open and play it properly.



RFGen is hosting a community playthrough of the entire NA NES official catalog. Perhaps you have heard of it?  Anyway, things are getting rather crazy, in my opinion, as folk scramble not only to pick up and play their favorite NES games, but also to meet the monthly community and single-player goals (currently one hundred games by the end of January and "Beat 1 game that you've never played before," respectively).  Personally, this is very exciting, and as I round my third game, I have a stack of NES games set up for possible "next" games to play.  If you haven't already jumped in and had a look (or grabbed a game off the stack), you can do so here.

I think the first six or seven months are going to be about knocking down the majority of the games, then the remaining months us banding together, collectively as a community, and bugging the crap out of Crabby until he plays and finishes the Koei strategy games

Thanks for reading!

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