My favorite games of the past errr, 6 months or so

Keep in mind that these games were not necessarily released in the past 6 months, they are merely games that I started playing in the past 6 months. I am NOT an early adopter of any games and am totally prepared to sit for a year and not play the latest and greatest game while I let all the super-excited people out there work out the kinks for me or, in some cases, find out that the game they got all hyped about f**king sucks and should have never been released in the first place.

The only exception to this rule in the past several years were on Final Fantasy 15 and the Final Fantasy 7 remake.... both of which were massive letdowns and taught me a lesson about how professional reviewers are almost certainly paid to endorse a product and also that Square-Enix has well and truly lost touch with the gaming community.

That's another story that I have told many pieces on before already though... So instead, let's focus on the things that I actually have enjoyed over the past 6 months or so... in no particular order

Hollow Knight

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This game started out as a kickstarter game and I normally don't have a great deal of faith in these sorts of things. However, I am a big fan of metroidvania and also a big fan of platforming when it is done what I consider to be "correctly." I originally stole this game on a torrent and loved it so much that I repurchased it later on the PS4. I have sunk so many hours into this game and even completed some of the objectives that at first glance seemed impossible such as the jumping puzzles in the white palace

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Make no mistake, this game is flippin difficult but a great deal of the really difficult content is totally optional and in my mind, that is a perfect game. You can actually get to one of the endings just by being a casual player but some of the true endgame content is only for the very dedicated and well, I am not one of those people. If for some reason you have managed to not play this gem of a game you gotta get out there and play it.

Dragon Age: Inquisition

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This is a damn-near perfect game for those that enjoy fantasy RPG games. It isn't turn-based per se, but it has elements of that and it can be as real-time as you want it to be, but allows for you to top the action to make some adjustments to your strategy if you find that you are all of a sudden getting your ass handed to you in a battle, or in some cases, to high-tail it out of there.

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Many studios have tried and failed to have combat of this sort, including Bioware, who are the people that made this game. The story is great, there is plenty of side content, there is tons to explore and multiple aspects of the game including playing politics that can seriously impact how the game ends up being for you. Make enemies with the wrong "faction" and certain parts of the game will be significantly more difficult. Treat some team members the wrong way and they will become problematic and even refuse to work with you. You can choose to be ranged or melee or a mixture of both and you can also change control of which member of your team you wish to be commanding, or switch between. It is a beautiful game with only a few moments of hiccups and I am very much looking forward to Dragon Age 4, which doesn't have an official release date, but unfortunately it looks like it is going to be 2022.

I will struggle with my policy of not adopting games at launch when this is released.

Inside

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Have you ever played a game that was so incredible that when it was over you were genuinely disappointed that there was nothing left to explore? How about a game so captivating that you watch hours of videos online about people's theories on what the lore of the game actually is and how they found certain "easter eggs" in the game that only people who analyzed the hell out of the game would have even noticed?

Well I did both with this game and I still think about what actually happened in this game over and over again.

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_{If you've played it, you know}

There are very few games out there that I would consider as much of a work of art as this game. There is literally zero dialogue or words on screen that tell the story through the entire game. You can easily finish this game in one sitting and will have tons of questions at the end. It is absolutely perfect and I have spent quite some time trying to find other games like it but at least for now, this one is at the top of the list of games that as best as it can be described is a "puzzle platformer" even though it is so much more than that.

This game is absolutely astounding and if you can get it for less than $10 you should do so, which is almost certain at this point seeing as how it was originally released nearly 5 years ago.

Those are the games that truly captivated me over the past year and are really the only ones that I have spent a great deal of time on. For me, I have a tendency to not finish most of the games that I buy and since we are always getting new, free games thrown at us I have a tendency to abandon anything other than the best of the best, pretty quickly.

Do you have any favorite games of the past year? I'd like to hear about them especially if they are budget games like the ones I have listed here.