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Hey team. Just wanted to wish you all a happy new year. Thanks for continuing your pledge through to 2017. I suddenly had a nightmare where everyone stopping backing me as soon as I went full time. So I'm glad that didn't happen! Phew!

I had a pretty succesful break. Well, sort of. I was going to play loads of games but I got Persona 4 for Christmas and boy, that is a big, long, and thoroughly addictive game. So I mostly just played that. But hey, I like it a lot.

I don't really play JRPGs so that's something I wanted to rectify. Off to a good start. Any other reccomendations for good'uns welcome. I don't really like the fantasy jibberish of FF and like strong battle systems so keep that in mind please!

I also decided to mix up my Patrons a little. I wanted to reward those who keep up a consistent stream of content, and back some new people, and so I'm now backing Kaptain Kristian, Turbo Button, and Super Butter Buns. 

And finally, I'm getting straight back into the GMTK stuff. I thought this was the first working day of the year but then realised its actually a bank holiday and WHOOPS I've spent all day writing a script. Oh well.

Gimme a bit to get back into the swing of things and then I'll get cracking on cool Patron stuff for the year.

In the mean time, let me know what you played over the break! 

Comments

Anonymous

Happy new year Mark!!! I´ve been playing Minecraft Pocket Edition A LOT!! What about a GMTK edition about Minecraft some day??

Anonymous

Happy new year! I got a N3ds XL for Christmas, and I've been enjoying Pokémon sun a decent amount. Looking forward to jump into Zelda games I never had a chance to play, which includes Majora's Mask. Also getting on to the new Hitman game, after hearing your thoughts on it, and looking at a few other people's videos of and on it. All the best!

Anonymous

Thanks for suggesting Swapper. I picked it up a few days ago and just love it. After playing for an hour, I realized that I had already accepted the creepy death of the "copies". Very like the movie "The Prestige". Any thoughts on games being made this year for people who have limited time? I am a dad with a job and a lot of community activities, but I still love games.

Anonymous

Hey Mark! I've fallen in love with the Darkest Dungeon during holidays. It's amazing, addictive and the art i just right. Additionally I followed your recommendations and started Toki Tori 2 and Doom. Beside that I (and my whole family and close friends) had a blast with Oculus and Touch controllers. SUPER HOT VR is just bonkers! Gonna try other titles soon I hope.

GameMakersToolkit

Gosh, I can't even really fathom Super Hot VR. It just sounds like it would be bonkers. It doesn't seem like it's ever coming to PS VR but... hopefully one day!

GameMakersToolkit

Haven't really looked too much into what's coming up this year, but you can't really go wrong with indie stuff. They have a habit of exploring a clever idea, fully, in a few hours. Mobile is good too, for fitting in gaming around other stuff, but finding worthwhile stuff is hard. I'll try to recommend stuff as I go :)

GameMakersToolkit

Maybe! I like Minecraft a lot. But it's one that has been discussed a lot, would need to figure out a good angle. Also there's the fact that I had to play a *lot* of Pocket Edition for Pocket Gamer and I might be a bit burned out on Minecraft for a while :P

Jonathan

Cheers for the new year! I played a fair number of games over the break including Hitman Go (Vita), Downwell (Vita), and Ni No Kuni. Coincidentally, Ni No Kuni would also be what I would recommend for a JRPG to play next. It's maybe only the second or third JRPG I've ever played but it hooked me big time!

Anonymous

The battle system in Grandia 1+2 is still one of the best I've ever played in an RPG. If you haven't heard of them I'd defo recommend the 2nd one

Anonymous

I've been playing VA-11 Hall-A. I'm not entirely sold on the cocktails system because there's only some points where the game really tests you and the rest of the time it's more of a cumbersome dialog system. Also, not seeing exactly what and how many options I have kinda ticks off my inner completionist. But I don't hate it either and anyway, the story fucking rules. Oh, JRPGs? Have you played TWEWY? It's one thing when developers don't force me to do random encounters, but it's another completely when they make me actually want to do them anyway, purely for the fun of it. TWEWY stands alone in that regard so far.

Sandro Dall'Aglio

Happy New Year Mark! Take a look at I'm Setsuna if you want classic japanese rpg with a solid combat system. It's all about combos and to obtain new one you need to kill the opponents in specific ways that asks you to rethink your strategies. Overall the game is the opposite of FFXV: doing a lot with a little. You can try Helen's Mysterious Castle on steam too. He has a very unique battle system based on weapons attack timings who works very well. As usual xp systems breaks some battles but overall it's one of my favorite battle system with Grandia and Persona.

Anonymous

I bought Fallout 4 in the Steam sale and haven't being able to leave the Wasteland since then. This is the exact opposite of an indie game: Instead of one mechanic fully explored it has tons of them from crafting to leveling to quests to community building to FPS. Anyway, it is quite addicting and I'm enjoying it. I don't know yet if I will be able to finish the main quest because a lot of hours are needed.

Anonymous

Best wishes for you and all the fellow Patrons over here. I've been playing one of the PSN+ games of december, Stories: Path of Destinies That game has a really original setup - with branching stories, but you 'respawn' after each death ... and the protagonist actually remembers/knows he died and such... And I'm planning to return to some of the games I touched but never finished, like The Witcher 3, Mark of the Ninja, The Witness for instance. After that I want to check out Inside and other indie games, for instance Darkest Dungeon.

SpeckObst

Glad you're enjoying Persona 4. The game got me back into JRPGs after I mostly lost interest during the last console generation. I can recommend Trails of Cold Steel. It borrows a few elements from Persona 4 (the setting is a military academy instead of a school) and also has a slow start, but the world building, character development and later plot are truly exceptional. Sadly, it's another 80 hour game so I can understand if you don't have the time for it. I would normally suggest my video on the title but since I doubt you understand any German at all, this quick breakdown has to suffice ;)

OSW Review

Happy New Year Mark! What are your favourite songs on Persona 4 (so far)? Since it was your favourite game of 2015 (and 50% off on Steam) I played Her Story. I thoroughly enjoyed it; even if it was not that long, the premise and gameplay could only be done as a short Indie game. After searching "Murder" I immediately went off script, thinking of keywords for what would end in a spouse's death. I LOVE the 'screw-you' results e.g. typing "twins" got me a "Twins? Are you serious?!" ha ha. I came across the cop to the murder quickly but the story is so twisted and convoluted I was compelled to stick around until I'd much of the tapes watched, and continued on after the credits. It's definitely on the cusp of 'is it or isn't it a game' but it's a really great, engaging experience; far more than any dialogue trees in bigger budget games. So thanks dude!

Anonymous

Hey Mark, my absolute favorite "JRPG" is Golden Sun – many missed it because it was a GBA title. Hope you will find time to check it out, if you haven't already!

Anonymous

I've always been a huge fan of the Suikoden series (1 and 2 are the best). They're relatively light on fantasy elements compared to FF, and focus more on political turmoil, rebel factions, etc. The general idea is that you become the leader of an army and spend the game uniting the '108 Stars of Destiny' to join your cause. Kind of like Pokemon meets Game of Thrones?? One of the things that makes them great is that they're suuuper fast to speed through. You can finish many of the random battles in a matter of seconds which takes a lot of the tedium out of it. Worth a look -- you can pick Suikoden I and II up for a few quid each on PlayStation store in the PS1 section (the original boxed copies go for about £60-70). P.S. Happy New Year! :)

Fabian

Meditated over grinding as a central gameplay mechanic while grinding in Rebel Galaxy and Crashlands. I'm still not sure wether I'd consider it fun or not.

Anonymous

Undertale has a very interesting battle system obviously but so does its smaller sister title LISA. It's got a neat emphasis on wrestling and is very Earthbound-like I've been playing it lately. Also Persona 3 is just as good as 4!!

Anonymous

Been cracking out the late game quests of FFXV. A little bit upset that the game is deigned to be played like a treasure hunting monster slayer, but presented as a rich boy prince trying to get home. However once I made that switch I found it much more enjoyable. Also jumping on come indies like Event [0] (thank you for reminding me that exists, and onto Virginia right now.

Anonymous

I stopped playing Crashlands after some hours and realizing that the game was basically grinding :)

Anonymous

I'd recommend checking out I Am Setsuna. The battle system itself is pretty straightforward, but there's a lot of nuance in how you customize each character's abilities with the Momentum and Flux systems. Kind of obtuse and not well explained in the game, but once you catch on it feels great becoming a total badass and clearing out a battle in one giant attack. That along with a great soundtrack, somber story/setting, and likable characters made it one of my favorite games of the year.

mcwizardry

I'm planning to start Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun soon and am really looking forward to it.

Mathew Dyason

Two JRPs I'd like to recommend: 1. Final Fantasy Tactics. It's more of a turn-based strategy game, similar to X-Com or Shadowrun. The writing is meaningful and I love the class system. 2. Bravely Default. It shakes up THE JRPG battle system by introducing two mechanics: Brave, which allows you to take up to four turns in advanced, and Default, which allows you to store up turns for the future. It adds a lot of depth to the combat system because it becomes a balancing act of your characters. And you can fly through dungeon encounters / grinding by fully braving all your characters and upping the battle animation speed to 16x. The game goes out of its way to make your life easy. The story may be total fluff, but the combat is good and the music is astonishingly good.

Anonymous

Yo, so I finally played The Wolf Among Us. So good! Expertly mixes the themes of Fables together with a murder mystery. That and TBoI, and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. Don't think I'll quite make it through all of my backlog by Feb :P

Anonymous

Happy New Year to you too. (silly enter to post) You're already playing what I thought was one of the best jRPGs of the 2000s so far. The other that wowed me is The World Ends With You on the DS. Oh, and Lost Odyssey is special, but not owning a 360, I only got to play a few hours at a friend's. Over the break I've been playing the 3 games I bought in the Christmas sale. King's Quest (which is a lot better than I thought it would be), Mirror's Edge Catalyst (finished it up, and am planning on making a video about it. I rewatched yours for research), and Dark Souls 3 (which I'll be starting tonight). I also bought Double Dragon Neon for cheap, but sadly it wasn't for me. What's the script you're writing? :D

Anonymous

I've been playing The Evil Within, which is an interesting game with some nice mechanics, but with some flaws that prevent it from being awesome. For JRPG I would recommend checking Chrono Trigger, which even though is a fantasy heavy game, it's a must play classic.

Shade

Happy New Year! I've been playing "Monster Hunter Generations." It's hard, but fun. It seems to be a game that doesn't exactly have an official end, so I'll probably be playing it off and on day from day while I work on my other Christmas Presents.

Anonymous

Hey Mark, glad to hear you're enjoying one of my favorite games. Persona 4 Golden got me really into JRPGs too, although none have really been able to replicate the connection I have to Inaba and people you meet there. I'm actually going to suggest that you hold off on "Persona 3", at least for now. It is a far less charming and far more repetitive experience, and you really don't develop the same attachment to your crew, so if those are major draws for you right now, I'd skip P3 altogether. It does have a more robust combat system than P4, and it is a worthwhile supplemental experience, but "Persona 5" is just around the corner, and playing ~200 hours of one series in a few months will probably burn out even the most hardcore fan. Moreover, I've played about two hours of P5 and came away convinced that it's better than P3, at the very least. At any rate, if you do want to dive in, "Persona 3 Portable" is the best version of the game. Okay, onto the recommendations: 1. "Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door". Plays almost identically to the original Paper Mario, but distinguishes itself with genuinely hilarious writing throughout. Gets great milage out of fleshing out the Mushroom Kingdom and subverting a lot of its unyielding tropes: * Bowser spends the whole game striving to be the main villain, even though it's clearly not his game * Mario becomes a professional wrestler named "The Great Gonzales" * Luigi has his own adventure and eventually pens an autobiography that you can read * The main hub world is run by the local Pinata mob, and so on. It's truly staggering how much writing there is in this game, especially since every NPC has a unique paragraph of backstory that you can pull up. I also really dig the hybrid combat system, which merges real-time and turn-based action in an engaging, skillful way. 2. "Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden". Technically not made in Japan, but JRPG denotes a genre, not a point of origin, after all. I'll just let the official description speak for itself: "The Great B-Ball Purge of 2041, a day so painful to some that it is referred to only as the “B-Ballnacht”. Thousands upon thousands of the world’s greatest ballers were massacred in a swath of violence and sports bigotry as the game was outlawed worldwide. The reason: the Chaos Dunk, a jam so powerful its mere existence threatens the balance of chaos and order. Among the few ballers and fans that survived the basketball genocide was Charles Barkley, the man capable of performing the “Verboten Jam”… Flash forward 12 years to the post-cyberpocalyptic ruins of Neo New York, 2053. A Chaos Dunk rocks the island of Manhattan, killing 15 million. When the finger is put on the aging Charles Barkley, he must evade the capture of the B-Ball Removal Department, led by former friend and baller Michael Jordan, and disappear into the dangerous underground of the post-cyberpocalypse to clear his name and find out the mysterious truth behind the Chaos Dunk. Joined by allies along the way, including his son Hoopz, Barkley must face the dangers of a life he thought he gave up a long time ago and discover the secrets behind the terrorist organization B.L.O.O.D.M.O.S.E.S." It's hilarious, surprisingly in-depth, and completely free. 3. The other Atlus JRPGs Shin Megami Tensei fans will never shut up about how Persona is a mainstream variant on the more hardcore "Megaten" offerings, but they sorta have a point. While I personally prefer the characters and world of the Persona games, as well as the careful balancing act of juggling your normal and paranormal lives, the SMT and Devil Survivor series feature more robust combat systems that are front-and-center to the experience. If you dislike the Social Linking of the Persona series, you'll probably like these games better, period. There's also "Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE", which splits the difference pretty well. It dials up Persona 4's uncompromising joyfullness but also layers on a dynamic, complex combat system that iterates on P4's quite successfully. Anyway, wish you the best and look forward to being a Patron again this year.

Anonymous

I would like to suggest jRPGs more out of the box. - Inazuma Eleven, a football/RPG (Nintendo DS) - Tactics Ogre, a VERY addictive sRPG (PSP) - Radiant Historia, tradicional jRPG (NDS) - Mario&Luigi, Nintendo's funny RPG (any game of the franchise is good) - Fire Emblem: Awakening or Fates, Nintendo's sRPG with couple management I like Persona 4 (I'm also playing it now, around september in the game's date system). But there's something I'm very and very annoyed. It's too open for my taste, I get the sensation that I can do anything and that there's a "right" thing to do each day, and when I don't do that, I'm missing something....it...annoys me beyond comprehension. But I absolutely love everything else about the game.

Anonymous

"I get the sensation that I can do anything and that there's a "right" thing to do each day" That's a common attitude, and one that's tough to shake. To be honest, as long as you spend every opportunity improving your character or social links, you'll have plenty of time to do just about everything, so don't stress it.

Anonymous

Started playing Vampire; The Masquerade: Bloodlines (to see what inspires a community to be releasing patched NINE YEARS on from the original release), Pokemon Sun and maybe a little bit of Overwatch.

Ossian Olausson

Loads of great stuff coming out in January. Saving me money until then. In the meantime i've been playing Limbo and Bloodborne, also Let it Die. And some r6 siege, rocket league too. loads.

Anonymous

Over the break I played through Life Is Strange (fantastic game!) and went through DOOM. I played DOOM earlier on PC when it released, but I also have it for PS4 and it was taking up so much space on my hard drive(75GB!). So, I decided to run through it again before uninstalling it. My backlog is growing faster than I can manage! :/ Oh! I also started playing through Telltale's Batman and I'm really loving it so far after the first episode. Here's to a great 2017! Keep doing what you're doing Mark <3

Anonymous

If you like like strong battle systems and are willing to consider an TRPG/SRPG the disgaea series is always good and the first one is available through steam. It doesn't take itself seriously and while it does have a lot of plot most of it is tongue in check. It is a bit of a time sink though as to see some of the content you've got to go passed where the story ends and make use of the reincarnation system to get your characters to lvl's in the thousands. you wouldn't miss out on too much new stuff if you just went for story completion though.

Anonymous

Hey Mark, I highly recommend the original Xenoblade Chronicles for the Wii if you're interested in a JRPG with interesting battle mechanics and fantastic story. Also I'd like to echo previous users in recommending Bravely Default. Fantastic game all around.