The following are games I completed for the first time in the year 2018, and did so without using any emulation trickery that I couldn't do on real hardware. I set a goal for 50 games to be completed this year, and ended up finishing 54, so I crushed my goal by nearly 10%.
Beetle Adventure Racing
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
Commander Keen: Keen Must Die!
Commander Keen: Marooned on Mars
Commander Keen: Secret of the Oracle
Commander Keen: The Armageddon Machine
Commander Keen: The Earth Explodes
Donkey Kong
Donkey Kong Jr.
Dr. Mario
Final Fantasy Explorers
Final Fantasy IV Interlude
Final Fantasy IV: The After Years
God of War (PS2)
Goldeneye 007
Gunbird 2
Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee 2
Kirby's Adventure
Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham
Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4
Lego Harry Potter: Years 5-7
Lego Marvel's Avengers
LostMagic
Madden '17
Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story
Mass Effect 3
Mega Man X4
New Super Luigi U
New Super Mario Bros.
New Super Mario Bros. U
Ninja Gaiden (NES)
Pokemon Alpha Sapphire
Project X Zone
Punch-Out!!
Skylanders: Swap Force
Star Wars: Rogue Squadron
Super Mario 3D Land
Super Mario Odyssey
Super Smash Bros. for Wii U
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Tekken Tag Tournament 2
Terra Battle
The Final Fantasy Legend
The Legend of Dragoon
The Legend of Zelda; Breath of the Wild
The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
The Little Mermaid
Tony Hawk's American Wasteland
Ultimate NES Remix
Vectorman
Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds Tag Force 5
Averaging that out over the entire year means I completed a new game every 6.76 days, but the length obviously varied heavily by title. I beat LostMagic in one day, since I was just clearing out a game that I'd already gotten near the end, but I played Pokemon Alpha Sapphire, The Legend of Dragoon, and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild for well over a month each.
Below are some visualizations displaying how I spent my gaming time in the past year:
Figure 1: Games by Genre
As was the case with last year's list, platformers were again the plurality of games I played. However, last year over half of the games I played were platformers, and this year only a third were, so I significantly diversified! I was also able to clear out platformers quickly, meaning that my 8 RPGs almost certainly took 5 times as long to finish as my 16 platformers.
Figure 2: Rating by Genre
The top genre of the year for me was 3D platformers, as I enjoyed both Super Mario Odyssey and Super Mario 3D Land a tremendous amount. The biggest losers were card games and strategy RPGs. The strategy RPGs were dragged down by the abysmal Project X Zone.
Figure 3: Games by System
This graph, by the way, refers to the system on which a game was originally released, unless it was significantly modified for the console. So, for example, I classified Gunbird 2 as an arcade game, despite playing it on my Switch. On the other hand, I classified the NES versions of Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. as NES games, due to the large differences between the versions.
I had really wanted to clear out a significant amount of old games I'd never really played before from my backlog, and my acquisition of the NES Classic gave me a great excuse to tackle several of them. I did, however, play several games on the NES hardware this year, including Punch-Out!! and The Little Mermaid. It really, really saddened me that I hadn't cleared out a single SNES game in 2018, largely due to the fact that I'd beaten almost all of the ones I wanted to, so I started off the new year beating one just to make myself feel better. In fairness, I did run through The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Super Mario World again last year, as I typically do, so I did spend some time with my favorite console despite not clearing out any new games on it.
Figure 4: Game Rating by System
The Switch was the unquestioned king of quality in 2018, and that's not statistical fluke. I played two perfect ten games on my Switch this year, and it occupied a huge amount of my gaming time after acquiring one in September. Honorable mention definitely goes to the NES, however, which maintained an average rating above 9.0 despite 7 new completions! The worst console of the year, by far, was the PSP. I played only one game above a 7.0 on the console this year, and it also had the worst game of the year to grace it's tiny screen.
Figure 5: Games by Developer
Zoom in, boys and girls. I completed games from 27 developers this year, compared to a paltry 18 last year, so my experience was far more diverse. Nintendo was the number one developer by a mile, having more games on the list than the next 4 developers combined. I played a bunch of Mario games this year, accounting for the large number.
Figure 6: Game Rating by Developer
Technically, the champ is Hal Laboratory, riding their exemplary champion, Kirby's Adventure, to the gold. The real champion, however, is Nintendo, managing to attain an average rating of over 9.0 over the span of 14 different titles. Rare, Santa Monica Studios, Bioware, Game Freak, and Mistwalker also had average scores of 9.0 or better, but each only had one game reviewed for the year. The worst developer of the year was Banpresto/Monolith Soft, whose epic stinker Project X Zone narrowly edged out the accumulation of garbage I played from Square Enix.
Figure 7: Handheld or Home?
I played far more games at home than on handheld this year, despite spending far more time playing on handheld than on home. It's easier to manage longer RPGs when you can just put it in sleep mode than playing at home with a bunch of kids around. The split was exactly two to one, with 36 games completed at home and 18 completed on handhelds.
Figure 8: Handheld vs. Home Game Ratings
Home consoles dominated handhelds in quality this year, primarily due to the presence of some all-time bombs on handhelds, as well as some all-time classics on home consoles. If you exclude the three extremely poor handheld titles (Final Fantasy IV: The After Years, Final Fantasy IV Interlude, and Project X Zone), the averages are very similar.
Figure 9: Games by Company
This chart displays the console home that the game originally appeared on (Gunbird 2 was classified as a Sega game due to its original appearance on the Dreamcast following its arcade days, but it was the most slippery choice of all the games). Nintendo, again, reigns supreme, largely due to the large number of Nintendo handhelds and NES games I played. I guess Android isn't a company, but I'll allow it.
Figure 10: Game Rating by Company
Android technically reigns supreme thanks to the excellent Terra Battle, but Nintendo is the real king, with a rating near 9 across 29 games. Sony would have done much better without the two Final Fantasy IV spin-off games polluting their ratings.
Figure 11: Games by Decade
The 90s get dethroned this year by a strong showing by the 2010s. Not having a ton of SNES games to clear helped this time around, but the largest part of my backlog that I really want to play at this point is newer games, so my guess is that this trend will continue into 2019.
Figure 12: Game Rating by Decade
The 80s are the clear winner here, supported by several very strong NES games. The 2000s are the worst decade for gaming, as they were last year as well.
And now, for the best part of the show, the awards!
Game of the (reTROview) Year: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Technically, Super Mario Odyssey tied with this gem, as both scored perfect 10s. The ironic thing is that I think that Super Mario Odyssey will be more fondly remembered as time goes on, while the flaws in the champ will be more defined and scrutinized as the years pass. But for now, Zelda completely blew me away and leapt forward into the future, so I have to say it's the champ.
Stinker of the (reTROview) Year: Final Fantasy IV: The After Years
There are precious few games that I will never play again, and this is absolutely one of them. Never play this.
Median Game of the (reTROview) Year: Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4
It's median for my list, but my list is top heavy with really good games. This one is really fun!
Newest Game reTROviewed: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
This is the only 2018 game I reviewed and played for this year, and also came out in December of 2018, so it's about as new as it can get.
Oldest Game reTROviewed:
This is (checks mental backlog nervously) probably the oldest game I will ever be interested in playing/reviewing for this blog.
The reTROview 2018 Top 10:
10. Super Mario 3D Land (9.3)
9. New Super Mario Bros. U (9.4)
8. Goldeneye 007 (9.4)
7. Dr. Mario (9.4)
6. Kirby's Adventure (9.5)
5. Donkey Kong (9.5)
4. Punch-Out!! (9.6)
3. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (9.6)
2. Super Mario Odyssey (10)
1. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (10)
I'd probably bump Donkey Kong out of here, and put in God of War, but the reviews stand forever, even as they horrify me sometimes in reTROspect.
The reTROview 2018 Bottom 10:
10. Commander Keen: The Armageddon Machine (7.5)
9. LostMagic (7.5)
8. Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham (7.5)
7. Mega Man X4 (7.2)
6. Tony Hawk's American Wasteland (7)
5. Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds Tag Force 5 (7)
4. Lego Marvel's Avengers (7)
3. Final Fantasy IV Interlude (5)
2. Project X Zone (5)
1. Final Fantasy IV: The After Years (3)
To be clear, Final Fantasy IV: The After Years is almost certainly the worst game I've ever beaten.
And that's the year in review! I completed my game completion goal, and want to have a more relaxed gaming environment for this year, meaning a far more modest completion goal. Below are my gaming resolutions for 2019:
1. Clear out 25 unbeaten games
2. Clear out more unbeaten games than I buy new games for my collection-not including Humble Bundles
3. Spend more time revisiting some old favorites just because I'm feeling like it (potential candidates include Donkey Kong Country 1-3, Super Mario RPG, and Punch-Out!!)
4. One of the 25 unbeaten games must include Bahamut Lagoon, and another must be Secret of Mana
5. Play more new (defined as being played on a system capable of outputting in HD without modifications) games
6. Spend some time playing Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn-whether I beat the main campaign or not
7. Feel free to dump egregiously bad games and review them without finishing them if I feel like it
