Wandersong WitchHand (started Wandersong but wasn’t feeling it, it goes back to the backlog for now)
XCOM 2 (War of the Chosen)
Yoku’s Island Express
Zero Escape: The Nonary Games
Halfway through the list and still some pretty big ones to go. I’m happy about some hidden (or not so hidden) gems so far that I otherwise might not have played!
I forgot to do an update halfway through the year. But now we’re three fourths in, so here’s how this is going: Terribly! Here’s an updated list with links to the full reviews. Bold is finished, standard is ongoing:
F - Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Sword of Light. 7/10
G - Gauntlet. 6/10
H - HiFi Rush. 9/10 || Hollow Knight: Silksong. 7/10
K - Kero Blaster. 8/10
L - Lego Marvel Super Heroes
M - Marvel’s Midnight Suns. 7/10
S - Super Crazy Rhythm Castle
T - Toem. 9/10 || The Alters. 9/10
V - Valkyria Chronicles
W - Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2. 7/10 || We Were Here. 6/10
And what I plan on playing:
I - Ikari Warriors
J - Jet Force Gemini
N - Night in the Woods
O - Outer Wilds
P - Pokémon Legends Z-A
Q - Quake
R - Rayman Legends
U - Undertale Yellow
X - X-Men: Children of the Atom
Y - Ys Origin
Z - The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages / Oracle of Seasons
Some notes:
I wasn’t planning on playing so many D games. I really don’t know what happened but I guess this is my life now
Ikari Warriors was suggested by my girlfriend, but I just realized I forgot to purchase it and haven’t thought of any other I games. Oops.
I took a break from Rusty’s Retirement, and completely forgot everything about it when I came back. We’re back on the original Rayman Legends plan babyyy.
I chose Cobalt Core because I wanted to continuously play one single roguelite throughout the year, which was a bad decision because it kinda sucks and it’s becoming pretty hard to get through the whole thing. I already finished Chibi Robo, but I’m still determined to see this one through to the end.
Super Rhythm Castle has been put on an indefinite hiatus because it’s multiplayer and my friends don’t have time to play despite all of them being unemployed. This is the one game that will make me lose the challenge.
I don’t think think I’ll be finishing the challenge, but I still got to play through a lot of new and interesting games thanks to it. Might have to save the ones I don’t finish and try again next year!
I’m taking Baldur’s Gate off my list because I don’t think we’re actually going to finish it, at least not any time soon. I have a number of other Castlevanias for C, but this has been a real lite year for gaming completions, I suppose.
It was pretty tough to find interesting games for U and Y, but I’ve finally wrapped up this year’s challenge! Citizen Sleeper 2 and Jumping Flash 2 ended up being my favorite of the bunch, and Ufouria my least favorite.
A - Assault Android Cactus (****)
B - Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon (**)
C - Citizen Sleeper 2 (****)
D - Dragonsweeper (**)
E - Elevator Action Returns (*)
F - Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (***)
G - Gunbird (*)
H - Hollow Knight (***)
I - Ikenfell (**)
J - Jumping Flash! 2 (****)
K - Kathy Rain 2: Soothsayer (****)
L - LOK Digital (****)
M - Metaphor: ReFantazio (**)
N - Nuclear Blaze (**)
O - Old Skies (***)
P - Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo (****)
Q - Quartet (*)
R - Redemption Reapers (*)
S - Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (****)
T - Tactical Breach Wizards (**)
U - Ufouria: The Saga (*)
V - Virtual Boy Wario Land (*)
W - Worldless (***)
X - X-Men: Mutant Apocalypse (***)
Y - Yoshi’s Story (**)
Z - Zexion (**)
Edit: Added star ratings for each game! Average rating for all 26 was a 2.5.
It was a slow year for gaming but congratulations to those who completed all the alphabets, as well as good pats for those who took part in it. It was a fun concept to participate in, so I’ll look forward to more of those challenges to motivate new kinds of lists to try out.
A - Assassin’s Creed: Origins
B - Borderlands 3
C - Chuchel
D - Darkarta: A Broken Heart’s Quest Collector’s Edition
I’ve really loved this challenge the past few years, and it’s pushed me towards some really cool titles that I never would’ve played otherwise, but finding games for certain letters this time around was a struggle. Maybe we could do a new challenge for 2026?
An idea I had was to maybe do a “millenium challenge”, where we try to play one game released in each year of the 2000s so far, from 2000 to 2025.
Actually that was the inspiration for the diversity challenge, because @Roach didn’t want to run the same challenge year after year and wanted to mix things up. I only ran the alphabet challenge again because a number of people were really keen on it, enough that it felt like we could get away with running both.
I think that’s a pretty great candidate for a new challenge.
I just thought about extra rule for Millenium challenge - you can exchange 3x a year with a year from before 2000’s. Sometimes I need to play something totally retro.
2064: Read Only Memories
