These are my favorite things to write because charts/graphs! I love setting goals and tracking and measuring them, so here goes. My goal for the year was to complete 50 games in 2018. I completed 65 in 2017, but I also played through a ton of classic platformers which don't take too much time to finish, and my play for 2018 was to finish up some games that would take a bit longer, so I set a more reasonable goal. In order to finish up this goal, I needed to finish up ~4.2 games per month, and needed to be at 25 by the end of June. This is a little late, so I'm going to include the game I finished in July here for a total of 27 games! So even at the end of June I was ahead of my needed pace by 1 game, which is a nice buffer as July has seen me playing several very long games. Here is the list of games I've completed thus far in 2018:
Beetle Adventure Racing
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
Commander Keen: Marooned on Mars
Commander Keen: The Earth Explodes
Commander Keen: Keen Must Die!
Commander Keen: Secret of the Oracle
Commander Keen: The Armageddon Maching
Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D
Dr. Mario
Goldeneye 007The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
Lego Harry Potter: Years 5-7
LostMagic
Mass Effect 3
Mega Man and Bass
Mega Man X 4
New Super Mario Bros.
Pokemon Alpha Sapphire
Punch-Out!!
Project X Zone
Star Wars: Rogue Squadron
Super Mario 3D Land
The Final Fantasy Legend
The Legend of Dragoon
Tony Hawk's American Wasteland
Ultimate NES Remix
Vectorman
Home or Handheld?
As you can see, I again completed more home games than handheld, although I definitely spent more time handheld gaming. Fifty hours worth of hell in Project X Zone, as well as a healthy 80 hours worth of Pokemon Alpha Sapphire dragged my completions down here.
Home or Handheld Rating
Home is king here, although that is mostly due to an extremely low rating for the dismal Project X Zone. If you omit that, the rating for handheld games actually goes higher than that of home games. The low sample for handheld also hurts.
Systems Played
In a surprise twist, the PC is the king of home gaming platforms! This is entirely due to my run through of the Commander Keen series, so this probably won't last. I have been thinking about a few playthroughs of some vintage PC games, though, so it may hold through the year if I can play one or two more PC games. The 3DS is king of the handhelds, which definitely holds true to my general patterns of handheld gaming. I didn't play a single new SNES game this year (although I did run through Link to the Past and Super Mario World again), which makes me sad, but I've also completed most of the SNES games I need to play, with a few exceptions. Look for one of Secret of Mana, Mega Man Soccer, Bahamut Lagoon, or Super Punch-Out!! in the coming months. Or maybe all 4.
System Ratings
The NES is my favorite system of the year thus far, with two excellent experiences in Punch-Out!! and Dr. Mario. The only other system with a greater than a 9 is the PS3, riding solely on my enjoyable completion of Mass Effect 3. The stinker of the year is the PS2, with a poor showing from Tony Hawk's American Wasteland.
Genres
Another year, another dominant performance for platformers. I've completed 10 to date, more than double the runner up-RPGs. I've definitely spent more time playing RPGs, though.
Genre Ratings
The genre of the year is Metroidvania, as I've only played the stellar Castlevania: Symphony of the Night so far. I really need to remedy that, as I've grown increasingly fond of the genre recently. 3D platformers, action, FPS, and puzzle games all rank above 9, and all on the strength of one excellent title. The worst genre of the year, by far, is strategy RPGs, literally anchored by Project X Zone, the clear frontrunner for the illustrious reTROview Stinker of the Year award.
Developers
Nintendo is the quantity developer of the year thus far with 6 games, followed closely by id Software/Ideas from the Deep due to the Commander Keen games they split among themsleves. Other than that, the other developer with more than one game is Capcom, with 2 Mega Man games.
Developer Ratings
Technically Konami reigns supreme with a 9.6 rating due to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. But the true developer of the year is unquestionably Nintendo, who managed to maintain a 9.06 rating across 6 titles. Unbelievable. The worst developer is Banpresto/Monolith Soft, thanks to, well, I think you know by now.
Company
Nintendo is, as always, the king. Their 15 games I've played thus far outstrips the 12 combined from PC/Sega/Sony. The distribution is far more democratic than last year, however, where I played an astounding 52 Nintendo games with 13 others spread across the remaining platforms. I'll clear that pretty comfortably this year, with an additional Sony game in the works at present.
Company Rating
Crown Miyamoto-San with many crowns! The Nintendo developed games really buoy up the Nintendo rating to make them king of quality as well as quantity. The worst company of the year goes to Sony, dragged down by two poor titles in Tony Hawk's American Wasteland and Mega Man X 4. But they'll be pulled back up after my next What I'm Playing is completed.
Decade
The 90s again reign supreme in this nostalgia driven gamer's patterns, with 12 games from the 90s. The 80s are in last in quantity, but...
Decade Ratings
First in quality! With a 9.1 rating driven by Punch-Out!!, the 80s were again the best after their top showing last year. The worst decade of the year is the 2000s by a mile.
Game of the (reTROview) Year (so far): Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
This seems a bit low rated (9.6) for a game of the year, but it was truly excellent. Technically it tied with Punch-Out!! but I had to make a judgment call and I think I enjoyed Castlevania more by a hair, plus Little Mac's Odyssey is getting it's own award below. Both were excellent, though!
Stinker of the (reTROview) Year (so far): Project X Zone
This one was particularly onerous as it was not only dreadful but also extremely long.
Median Game of the (reTROview) Year (so far): The Final Fantasy Legend
This was a tie between the classic Squaresoft RPG and New Super Mario Bros. But I just thought the legend more accurately described median.
Newest Game reTROviewed: Ultimate NES Remix (2014)
The newest reviewed game is a compilation of NES themed minigames. How on brand! It technically tied with Pokemon Alpha Sapphire, but this was way more funny.
Oldest Game reTROviewed: Punch-Out!! (1987)
This is definitely going to be a game to which I return regularly. So much fun!
The reTROview 2018 Top 10:
10. Lego Harry Potter: Years 5-7 (8.8)
9. Ultimate NES Remix (8.9)
8. Mass Effect 3 (9)
7. Pokemon Alpha Sapphire (9)
6. The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (9.1)
5. Super Mario 3D Land (9.3)
4. Dr. Mario (9.4)
3. Goldeneye 007 (9.4)
2. Punch-Out!! (9.6)
1. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (9.6)
The reTROview 2018 Bottom 10:
10. Vectorman (8.4)
9. Star Wars: Rogue Squadron (8.2)
8. Commander Keen: Keen Must Die! (8.2)
7. The Legend of Dragoon (8)
6. Mega Man and Bass (8)
5. LostMagic (7.5)
4. Commander Keen: The Armageddon Machine (7.5)
3. Mega Man X4 (7.2)
2. Tony Hawk's American Wasteland (7)
1. Project X Zone (5)
I had excellent taste in games this year! Only the bottom 3 of the Bottom 10 are truly "stay away" games. The rest were all perfectly fine if you like the genre, and had plenty of enjoyable content.
27 down and 23 to go! I need to slog through my planned July games quickly, but I do have a few bunnies on the list I can easily tack on if I'm falling behind. So far everything's on schedule to complete my goal by 11:59, December 31st! Check back soon for a What I'm Playing-I have two games which are very nearly completed on the horizon in the next few days.
-TRO
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