👷♂ Work In Progress 🚨
This page is still a work in progress. Will be gradually adding some thoughts to each game I played here, but for now it serves as a list of games I played that I recommend. I’m also by no means not a real game critic, so this will read a bit like fragmented thoughts on games.
2025
Xenoblade Chronicles 1, 3
Kinda have been wanting to play this for a long time but XC2 really put me off (I could not stand the graphics, the UI styling and the system in general. I heard a lot of people swear by it but for some reason I just really could not enjoy this game.) After XCX, I decided to give the other games a try, I actually really like 3 and the remake of 1 is pretty enjoyable as well.
I played the game very out of order, skipped the 2, but XC3, XC1, XC1:FC then XC3:FR. It is weirdly enjoyable playing XC3:FR right after XC1 as it puts Colony 9 right back in the center and you immediately get to know the future of Colony 9.
Xenoblade has a pretty interesting story arc overall, that somehow manages to bridge over the three games (except XCX, I think they’re trying to merge it back to the mainline or at leas tried to but it still feels very out there) while each one of them is very enjoyable within itself. XC3:FR kinda bring the story itself to a satisfying ending / pause (and funnily feels like it tells nothing at all lol).
Not sure if there’s going to be a XC4 or is it going to be a new series at this point, but I really wish they can make games at a slightly faster pace 😅
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Simply wild; Twist after twist, love the emotional ride in this game and that it confronts deeper and darker topics.
Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition
I like the game, up until the ending… Xenoblade games are usually really good at setting up the world, the story and music and this one feels like it has a modern system and graphics. However, It does suffer from my usual XC complaints though: fetch quests and lore are way too spread out in tiny missions with only a few lines of dialogue. It is tiring to play for a long time only to understand the world only a little bit more. (and I understand this might be a draw for some.)
SPOILER AHEAD: Up until the ending ...
The original game ends at Chapter 12, which tells you that the quantum computer you believed that hosts your human mind which drives your robot body is long gone, so … what are you? It literally ends there which is honestly, kinda terrible knowing this game does not gets a continuation for 10 years.
and now 10 years later, we get the Chapter 13, which sadly does not explain anything at all, instead brush it over saying maybe there’s a nexus of consciousness in the universe that we just don’t understand yet. There was no setup for this in the past 12 chapters and all the setup about how weird Mira (the planet) is as it seems to translate everyone’s language and have the convenient Miranium to mine just goes to poof as the planet goes away. I guess it’s good that everyone made it out alive, but … I felt I learned nothing new about the story.
Split Fiction
Honestly was not blew out of water or anything by this game but it’s a pretty fun and enjoyable co-op experience to play with a friend.
Caravan SandWitch
It’s a soothing open-world game with a world to explore and a mystery to solve. Great lightweight game to pick up and enjoy on the road with Steamdeck.
2024
九日 (Nine Sols)
Love the studio. I also love their previous games: Devotion and Detention but they’re much more deeply tied with Taiwanese history and culture and much more of a horror, smaller budget game feel.
I honestly did not know what to expect when I backed the game on a crowdfunding platform, just want to support the studio, but they made a really fun, engaging and originally themed (taopunk) action platformer, way beyond my expectation. It also came with a killer soundtrack and a theme song from one of my favorite indie band. Amazing game.
沉默意志 (Minds Beneath Us)
I can’t say no to a cyberpunk settings, Taiwan-based game. The game has a deeply relatable, cyberpunk (high-tech, low-life) depiction of futuristic Taipei and a lot of dialogue that evokes emotions in a lot of Taiwanese people. (I love that there’s a little snippet of dialogue where your teammate is complaining about how the company parking lot is treating motorcycles differently from scooters, lol too real.) Add in an interesting story about what jobs would be available to people in the future and how megacorps would become, it’s a great indie game to play.