50 Completed Games
Wow. Ni no Kuni is my 50th completed game since joining Grouvee. I joined in 2021 and my first game completion tracked was Night of 100 Frights for the Gamecube, completed on July 25, 2021, meaning I'm just a bit short of 1000 days of games here at 982. That really doesn't seem like a lot, but I've only ever tracked 'full' runs or 'sizeable' games, so something like a mobile game, multiplayer game with no continuity, or an old arcade game just wasn't interesting for me to track. I wanted to challenge myself as I got older since I'd had a really bad track record of not completing games. I also wanted something of a 'history' that I could look back on in years, maybe even with my future children, and even now I can look through my 'Date Finished: Descending' and remember things much more vividly.
My parents caught Covid while I was on Attack of the Twonkies, I played Final Fantasy II on the plane to Vegas, I beat Beach Bandits right before I moved into my first house, there are people I haven't seen or heard from since I beat Raft, I played through Tail Concerto with Covid myself, and was rushing from a Wedding across the country to finish up Bug Fables. These games feel a bit like the bread crumbs of my life.
I wanted to take a minute to commemorate 50 games and this delightful little community of wise ass avatars and mascot platformer enthusiasts. 50 is the page limit, so this will be the last time I can look at just one screen and see this whole bite of my life summarized. After this it'll be even harder to rate games! As for rating, I try to give my Star ratings on 'build quality', basically whether something would be made well in general, attention to art design, responsive controls, good gameplay loop, and sensible characterization. With rankings, I've always stuck with 'How much does it mean to me, in what order am I coming back to these games, which ones get stuck on the island with me?' This lead me to my one grand observation, so, if anyone's listening, here's my well seasoned, oven toasted take...
A game is only as good as it's ending.
An outsider would think that was lukewarm, but if you're someone who likes to crushingly analyze this blubbery hobby, you realize that's actually against the grain. And I'm talking about the real ending, not just when the credits roll first, but when you've finished everything on your plate the Dev's thought reasonable to feed you.
I just can't stand a game with no follow through or that can't tell you when to stop, betraying meddling producers and a lack of a central vision. If a game could be judged by it's one golden moment, nearly every game would be great and arguably equally great. A real certified G, though, doesn't need you to think for it, doesn't have several different shoving off points for different audiences or procedural dodginess. The best games are, just like every other great artform, specifically hand crafted with a sense of 'why' they are that cuts through the consumer haze that soaks you to the bone. That's why a little whizzy racer like Horizon Chase is better than SoTN and it's why Bug Fables is one of the best games ever and Ni No Kuni, despite having every advantage and tool it needs, can't bring itself to be.
Thanks, as always, for reading. Here's to the next full Played page and thank you specifically to Peter for getting it just right.
