Well folks, 2024 happened. I am so glad to be in a new year, and games are looking to be good in 2025. I was unemployed for a large amount of the year, so I didn’t get to play anywhere near as many games as I would’ve liked. In fact, these are pretty much all of the 2024 games I played in total! I also played Zenless Zone Zero for a few weeks, but I don’t have anything to really say about it here.
I don’t know what Gamesline is in 2025. I want to be optimistic, but we’ve been doing this for over a decade, and we’re all very different people. I would love more than anything to continue to do this forever, but we’ll see. I don’t mean to be foreboding here, I just genuinely want to hear what we could do to keep y’all interested, I suppose! I’m going to be 31 years old this year, and it sucks to have to think about balancing my career with this, like I gotta figure out bills!! I have things to do at a job! It’s weird. I will do my best to find this balance. I’m going to post this, then chat with the crew and find out what we want out of 2025. Thanks for reading.
5. Momodora: Moonlit Farewell
Momodora’s a consistent franchise, and the finale was a solid Metroidvania that wrapped everything up nicely. I wouldn’t call it a boat-rocker, and I wouldn’t call it a bore either. Moonlit Farewell met expectations perfectly, with stunning visuals and charming gameplay. A lovely capstone on a niche franchise, I can only hope more folks check these games out since the series is wrapped, and I also hope the developer continues to create these well-polished experiences. I don’t have a ton to say about it because it’s a simple game, but I do hope Metroidvania fans go back and give this one a go if they skipped it last year.
4. Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore
This could have been so many things. Obnoxious, boring, rote. Instead, Arzette is a loving homage to something that many would never think deserved one. A celebration of an extremely stupid moment in gaming that has been transformed into new art time and time again. It then transcends that homage by being not only a fun game, but by being as goofy as the Zelda CD-i games that inspired it, standing right next to it in iconography. I know we’ve only had Arzette for a year, but I’d say Frich the Frog’s “FINE DINING” line is up there in the YouTube Poop (YTP) pantheon already. Arzette could only be made by people who not only loved YTP, but Wand of Gamelon and Faces of Evil, the original games, as well. That’s what sets Arzette apart from most parodies, a pure, unbridled love for something that many people would consider garbage. They even made a CD-i style controller to use with the game, how could you not at least love the effort put into Arzette?
3. Metaphor: ReFantazio
They made another Persona but this one has better politics and doesn’t have a gay panic scene. That’s already a plus in my book.
Okay but for real, Metaphor’s got one of the best casts in an Atlus game. Pretty sure I said the same about the Persona 5 crew, but this one’s just as good, if not better at times! Not having to worry about romance options allows for stories to feel more natural, since you’re not having to stop near the end of Hulkenberg’s route to turn her down and slam the brakes on her characterization. Studio Zero did a fantastic job breathing life into the world of Euchronia, as well as all of its citizens. Battle was fast and fluid, I loved the aspects of press turn that got integrated into the standard Persona style combat. I loved that the bosses are based on Hieronymus Bosch paintings, fitting the hellish might of the game’s antagonist. Louis is iconic, a villain who has understandable motivations but unacceptable methods. It made the political aspects of the game more realistic, with desperate people siding with his ideals in a hope that they’ll be spared from getting crushed in the machine. As we’re currently seeing in the US, buddy, we’re all gonna get crushed in the machine.
This hit all the marks for me, but there were two other RPGs I still enjoyed a bit more. But Sega released them both so I don’t think they’re gonna complain.
2. Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth
The Like A Dragon cast continues to be the actual best cast in gaming. As much as I love Strohl and Eupha, they’re not Ichiban Kasuga. Nobody is. When this game was announced, I wanted to be fully done with Kiryu’s entire plot, as the seventh game felt like the perfect hand-off to the next generation of old man criminals. I ended up happy to be wrong, as Kiryu’s return in Infinite Wealth was a heartbreaking, incredible walk down memory lane with one of the greatest video game characters of all time. Kiryu’s bucket list could have easily been a bunch of nostalgia-bait, and it kinda is, but Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio did a fantastic job showing Kiryu’s turn from a man awaiting death to a man who wants to use what time he has left for himself and his loved ones.
The Ichiban story, in which he searches for his mother in Hawaii, is a bit weaker, but there’s still some lovely moments throughout. The RPG aspects have been polished, and I did appreciate that the party getting split up lets them get more time to shine in combat. Like A Dragon as a series is always welcome, and I ate this up, alongside The Man Who Erased His Name, the prelude to Infinite Wealth. I’d count TMWEHN alongside Infinite Wealth, as they go hand-in-hand story-wise and the prequel makes everything that happens with Kiryu in Infinite Wealth far more tragic. Like A Dragon continues to be a salve in these harrowing times, a glimpse into a world where bad people get their asses kicked and good people are sometimes involved in organized crime.
1. Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance
Ooooough Shin Megami Tensei….The brainrot….It’s real. I loved my entire playthrough of Vengeance, and it’s almost purely a gameplay thing for me. There’s a hypnotic quality to the flow of combat once you start building strong enough party members, and I had a ball blasting through everything that stood in my way. I drafted out fusion chains, I calculated stats, I did the WORK to make my team as balanced and powerful as possible, and by the end of the game I was crushing my enemies under my high heeled boot. I’ve been appreciating games that allow me to fall into a relaxed state these days, probably because if I introduce more stress into my body my heart will explode. Finding that chill grind in Vengeance helped me latch onto it quickly, and I was glued to it for months.
Aesthetically, Vengeance is visually passable but audibly excellent. Please go listen to the Qadistu Battle Theme at least, please. There’s only a few new songs added to this update’s OST, but all of them are bangers with zero caveats. The new additions are sprinkled through the entire release, and while it doesn’t feel like a completely new game compared to the original, it’s the only way I’d recommend trying the game out, since a ton of the little frustrations got ironed out. It sucks a ton that the original version of the game is practically garbage now, with a full-priced release required to get the actual definitive version of SMTV. But….It’s worth it!!!! And it’s on sale all the time, so if you’ve never played SMTV, you really gotta hop on this one.
