The 2021 Completed Games List

Ombres

Welcome to the 2021 Completed Game List thread. I am glad to se that I am not the only one that liked this list, so here the new one for this year and happy gaming!

Previous annual lists:

2008
2009
2010
2011 - Corrupted
2012 - Corrupted
2013 - Corrupted
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020


Unfortunately, as you can see, 2011-13 were corrupted by the previous forum data transfer. The culprit is Pokemon. By using the accent "e" in the official title spelling, this caused all the rest of any post with that alt-coding to become lost.

Onto the real matter at hand! The rules for the list are simple, but very important. All games completed in the calendar year of 2021 can be counted for inclusion. Completed-in-2021 is the sole rule. Whatever you want to count as an individual title is up to you. It is your list. I am merely here to help leave a lasting legacy, in case you ever want to remind yourself when you beat a certain game. Please, use this thread to discuss the games you complete with each other, whether said game is a gem or a turd. If you are for some reason lying about completing a game on an online forum, that's your problem, not mine. I operate under the impression that this is done for fun.

Updates to the list will be made at least weekly.

For personal list customization, please highlight or point out any special notes about a playthrough. For example, you may use brackets or bold/italics to point out game difficulty, play time count, completion percentage, et al. I will be happy to include this on your list, but I can only do so if it is fairly obvious in the post. While I do tend to read most posts thoroughly, a remark on game difficulty buried in the middle of the third paragraph (of seven) will most likely slip through the cracks. If you want to have total game hours tracked, I can also include that statistic next to the number of completed games listed next to the your name--just ask for this service in your first post in this thread, and I will track it from there.

Finally, because I am a dirty, fat liar, there is actually a second rule. You must include the system that the game was concluded on. If not, I will count it as "????", and it will be your responsibility to rectify this, not mine.

Games will be listed in the following order (in chronological order; i.e. NES, SNES, N64, etc.):

Systems:
Nintendo Family
Sega Family
PlayStation Family
Xbox Family
PC
Arcade
Other

Handhelds:
Nintendo Family
Game Gear
PlayStation Family
Mobile Platforms (e.g. iPhone)

For digital store games, please list them on the platform you physically beat the game on, but mention that the game came from a specific digital service. For example, if you use PSN to download Final Fantasy VII and beat it on a PSVita, then please list the game as Final Fantasy VII (PSVita) - via PSN. This is also welcome for Steam and other PC-based digital services. I will by no means stress this; this is just a request from yours truly for the sake of formalities.

Now begins the 2021 list:


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7thCircle - Games Finished: 5

Switch
Child of Light

PS4
Assassin's Creed: Valhalla

PS5
Immortals Fenyx Rising

Xbox One
Gears 5: Hivebusters

PC
Civilization VI

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avensis - Games Finished: 1

PS4
Final Fantasy VII Remake

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ChickenGod - Games Finished: 5

Switch
Monster Hunter Rise

PS4
Super Robot Wars T
Ys IX: Monstrum Nox
Ys: Memories of Celceta

3DS
Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse

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FullyRendered - Games Finished: 1

Switch
Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch

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Krull - Games Finished: 4

Switch
Dragon Quest XI S

PC
Call of the Sea
Donut County
What Remains of Edith Finch

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maryadavies - Games Finished: 1

PC
Mother 3(via mGBA)

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Ombres - Games Finished: 18

Super Nintendo
Alien 3
King Arthur's World
Super adventure island
Top Gear

Switch
Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker
Cosmic Star Heroine
Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Forager
Hotline Miami
Monster Hunter Rise
Super Mario Maker 2
The Ignition Factor (via Super Nintendo Online)

PC
Batman - The Telltale Series
Blasphemous
Figment
Operencia: The Stolen Sun
Portal
River City Girls

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Redwing42 - Games Finished: 1

Switch
What the Golf?

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Ryan McCarthy - Games Finished: 3

PS4
13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim
DuckTales (via The Disney Afternoon Collection)

PC
Signs of the Sojourner

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Sam Wachter - Games Finished: 9

Switch
Atelier Ryza 2: Lost Legends & the Secret Fairy

PS4
Final Fantasy VII Remake
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game

PC
Evoland
House of 1000 Doors: The Palm of Zoroaster
Our Life: Beginnings & Always
Snark Busters: Welcome to the Club
Snark Busters 2: All Revved Up
The Red Strings Club

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Total number of games finished total in 2021: 48
Total number of people participating in 2021: 10
Average games per person in 2021: 4.8

Ombres

Super Mario Maker 2(switch)

well gonna start the year on a good note, I completed the story mode, wow some of the level were very hard, some I was very bad lol

Ombres

Operencia: The Stolen Sun (PC)

well 2 games in 2 days, I know it will not continue that way lol I will give my comment on it to Phil for the RPGXP

Ombres

Cosmic Star Heroine(switch)

I am on fire at the start of this year, great game lot of fun, still some bug in it, but nothing major

Ombres

The Ignition Factor (Switch via Super Nintendo Online)
Top Gear (SNES)

Well, I am with a group that want to finish all games of SNES, but as a group, so I try to help, I did start with these two games, might do some more later this year, but for now I need to continue Dragon Age!

Sam Wachter

Our Life: Beginnings & Always (PC)
Snark Busters: Welcome to the Club (PC)
Final Fantasy VII Remake (PS4)

Off to a good gaming start for 2021!

Ombres

Figment (PC)

great little adventure/puzzle game, the story is very interesting

Indeed a great start Sam!

7thCircle

Finished Assassin's Creed: Valhalla (PS4) and didn't enjoy it much. I thought Odyssey was great, but in Valhalla the series mechanics that have been around since the early PS3 days felt either unnecessary or burdensome, and the formula doesn't work well in a massive world that's mostly fields and mountains. The stickiness and weight to AC's parkour has annoyed me for a decade, and out of the 3 recent games I played with optional stealth -- Ghost of Tsushima, Cyberpunk, and this -- stealth was the most useless in Valhalla, but also the battle system once stealth failed was the least fun. I hope Ubisoft considers stripping away even more old mechanics in the next entry, and I recommend Ghost for any old AC fans who want to see what a more fun take on the genre can be.

I did like the varied plot scenarios in each region, though, and would have enjoyed this much more if it spent more time on story and less time on everything else. Like, same story length in a 40 hour game instead of a 100 hour one. A shame that possibly the best storytelling in the series is in one of the rare entries I didn't like.

Krull

Call of the Sea (PC). Really nice first-person adventure game, like Myst - but good. You play a woman with a mysterious sickness, in search of her husband who has travelled to a seemingly cursed Pacific island on an expedition to find her cure. The puzzles are good enough to stop me in my tracks a few times, but never so difficult that I had to look anything up. It’s pretty, the voice actors do a great job, and the story is really good. Has a Lovecraftian tinge, too.

Not sure how long it took me - HLTB says 5hrs, but it probably took me a little bit longer. There are some hidden objects, that I couldn’t stop myself from trying to find. A good 4 out of 5, for me.

Nice to break my duck for the year too! As my main game is DQXI, I’m not going to be very prolific for a while, I suspect.

Ryan McCarthy

Signs of the Sojourner (PC)
13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim (PS4)

Really liked both games and would definitely recommend checking them out if they strike your fancy.

7thCircle

Over the last year I've been replaying some of my favorite recent-ish games, and to that end I played Child of Light (Switch) this week. I had this #5 on my personal RPGs of the decade list for RPGamer's feature last year and it was a very rare 5/5 from me in the GOTY awards the year it came out.

It held up great in a replay. The presentation is outstanding, it's the prettiest 2D-ish game I've played, and I love the music. The short length ends things before the gameplay gets old. Its main drawback for me this time was a couple enemy combinations that could draw out a random encounter to over 5 minutes, maybe even 10, if my luck was bad enough. I still see this as an underrated, overlooked gem that would have been bigger if it were a true indie title, not a low-budget effort by an Ubisoft team.

Krull

Child of Light is near the top of my backlog list for this year. I’m pretty sure I’ll be adding it to this page at some point. Just got to get through DQXI first. But glad to hear again how good CoL is!

Krull

Donut County (PC). No great achievement here - this game is about an hour and a half long. I had a good time, though. Silly and very slight physics-based puzzle game that gets by on buckets of charm, bit like Part-Time UFO (haven’t really played Katamari, but that’s probably a more direct comparison). Hard to rate something like this, but I’d certainly recommend it. 3.5, maybe? It achieves everything it sets out to do, at least. It’s worth it for the story alone, which has some good gags.

7thCircle

Played Gears 5: Hivebusters (Xbox One) co-op with my brother last weekend. A little nugget of Gears fun we finished in under 4 hours. Our couch commentary making fun of the new characters should be a part of everyone's experience.

Ombres

Hotline Miami (switch)

Man this game is not for me, I beat it, but really not my strentgh, my finger reflex are not good enough for it, manage to beat it, because I am a hard head LOL

Ombres

Fire Emblem: Three Houses (switch)

Well that was a great game, even if I think that the academy part was a bit too long for my taste, did the Blue Lion house.

Krull

[b]What Remains of Edith Finch[/b] (PC). Guess I beat this. Was it a game? Well, it was certainly interactive, and the storytelling was strong. Quite liked it, but I’m glad I can access these things through Game Pass. Like Donut County, I’m not really sure how to rate it. Maybe another 3.5. Maybe a 3, as it crashed twice on me. But a good, albeit downbeat, experience.

Ombres

King Arthur's World(Super Nintendo)

Well this game is slow, is it more like a puzzle, but you unit walk so slowly, that might be why I never finish it before!

ChickenGod

Ys IX: Monstrum Nox (PS4) - Falcom has basically become my favorite developer, so I have a lot of thoughts on this one. The number one most striking thought about Ys 9 for me was whether it would live up to or surpass Ys 8, which I feel is a massively underrated game due controversies that weren't its fault. The answer to that question for me is a pretty firm "No", for a multitude of reasons.

One of the things that defines Ys, in my mind, is exploring large, neatly designed areas while cutting down foes and collecting hidden items along the way to a rocking sound track. Make no mistake, the game is certainly "large" with the way Balduq is designed. But the main issue here is there are not very many sprawling areas to run around and go wild in during exploration. The few instances you get access to these areas are often the highlight of the chapter, but the game seemed more keen on designing the main city with a bunch of smaller hidden dungeons to make up for it. This is a good a segue into another issue I have with the game, in that that its overall aesthetic does not fully capture the sort of Gothic feel it seems to be going for. The town itself and the dungeons you explore are often filled with drab colors, downtrodden ruins, or otherwise ugly places. Places like the iconic Prison just didn't have the overwhelming sense of oppression, power, intrigue, or brooding darkness behind them that works like this can have. The graphics in general are not very good for a game being released on the PS4 at this stage, especially if you compare them to the newer Cold Steel titles that absolutely put Ys 9 to shame. I even went back and watched some videos of Ys 8, and I think it just looks much better with its vibrant areas and superior atmosphere even though there is not that much of a difference in graphics.

One area that Ys 9 does excel in is the boss fights. I thought these were really good for the most part, with many chapter bosses asking you to perform a variety of different things in battle while still offering high paced combat with the very satisfying mechanics of Flash Guard and high octane slashing the series is known for. I know there are some people, especially those who are fans of the older Ys games, that value this aspect above all others in a Ys game, as often thats the biggest highlight the games could offer at the time, and those people should be relatively pleased here, at least if you can resist the urge to abuse nigh infinite healing items given to the player.

Another thing I liked about Ys 9 was the characters, though not all of them were what they seemed based on their character art. For example, one might think someone like the "Raging Bull" would be a fiery, muscle headed fighter, and lets just say they aren't that. The way characters like Doll were handled was really interesting and I was genuinely curious how each of the Monstrums were going to be as you're introduced to them. 9 for me has the more well rounded set of main characters as a whole. Even though Dana is by far the best, there's no one near as bad as Hummel in 9. The NPCs in 8 felt more interesting, but I still appreciate how they brought over the handling of them from Ys 8, it really gives these characters a spot in the story and a meaning behind interacting with them beyond just using them as a shop keeper. Continuing along the previous train of thought though, I can't help but wonder if the game would have been more interesting had all the Monstrums been given a more serious role as anti-heroes in achieving the tone that they seemed to be going for.

As far as the story goes, it was pretty decent, but it just pales in comparison to Ys 8 in my opinion. There are a lot of reasons for this, chief amongst them in my opinion being that very little actually occurs in the narrative up until the big climax, where most of the plot happens. One of the major differences between 8 and 9 is between the central characters, Dana and Aprilis. Dana is given a wealth of backstory and events are often told from her point of view, where as Aprilis is a character that starts the game admitting to knowing more than the other characters, which isn't very interesting for the player. You also don't get the same things with Aprilis that you do with Dana either. One cool thing about the story though is the quirky nature that it approaches Adol with. I like that he as a character is becoming more established with his feats being reacted to in interesting ways by other characters and he himself being given a sort of overarching persona.

Although the post might seem a litte critical, I really enjoyed Ys 9 a lot and its a solid game in the Ys series, even though its not my favorite game in it. Its the first title I've beaten in a few months so that should definitely say something. I'm mostly just leaving my thoughts on it as I think Trails and Ys have huge potential and are amazing RPGs. These are some of the few games I look to in a year thinking they could be some of my all time favorites, whether it ultimately does or doesn't.

Ryan McCarthy

DuckTales (PS4 via The Disney Afternoon Collection) -- Technically finished this twice with the help of the rewind and save functions included in the compilation. Had a fun enough time with it and might try to play it "legitimately" in the future.

Ombres

Alien 3 (Super Nintendo)

This one was harder than I remember, but still was lot of fun!

thanks for the review ChickenGod, that was interesting!

Sam Wachter

Snark Busters 2: All Revved Up (PC)
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game (PS4)
House of 1000 Doors: The Palm of Zoroaster (PC)
Evoland (PC)
The Red Strings Club (PC)
Atelier Ryza 2: Lost Legends & the Secret Fairy (Switch)

redwing42

What the Golf? (Switch) - 100% 'd this one. A fun puzzle game, only tangentially related to golf. Only really got stuck on a couple of puzzles, one where I had to switch from button control to touch control to "shoot" faster and one that the restrictions were maybe too strict. Lots of good jokes and references to other games. I had fun with it.

Ombres

Batman - The Telltale Series(PC)

Interesting story of Batman

7thCircle

Picked up the Gathering Storm expansion on sale and played a game of Civilization VI (PC). The new diplomatic victory seemed a bit odd and too easy to get -- I was 1 point away when the rest of the world teamed up and blocked me, but if I understood it better I could have gotten this way earlier than the science victory that I ended up with. Everything else was a nice addition that impacted how the game played, especially the end game, which is much longer and more fun.

One cool thing was the way the terrain changes from climate events and their safeguards. Rivers flooding, building dams to stop it, building flood barriers from sea levels rising -- they're all large on the map and felt more graphically impactful than Civ improvements usually are. Most those mechanics were fun, but maybe it was too easy to cause climate change. I had only 2 coal plants later converted to oil plants, and that alone caused me to single-handedly mess up the global climate before converting them to nuclear plants and pumping out carbon recapture programs, which only slowed things down rather than stopping it from getting worse. I did have to declare war on a neighbor to get access to uranium, and ultimately killed him because he was a jerk about making peace, so my need to help fight climate change caused me to invade and kill the leader of another country. That's... a good moral lesson?

Ombres

Portal (PC)

Well that was a game that I started like 3 years ago and I was on stage 16 or 17, the is 19 stages total! Glad I did get around and finish it, lot of fun!

ChickenGod

Super Robot Wars T (PS4) - For all intents and purposes I finished 99% of this game a long time ago. Just lost motivation to finish the last 2 stages.

Ive been in the mood for a Super Robot Wars game for the past couple weeks, but unfortunately there's no news of a new entry in the series yet. So I decided to fire up T and finish it up. Besides being distracted by other games, the main reason I didn't finish it however long ago thats been is because the game was just way too easy, even on Expert. By the time I got to the end it just felt like a chore to tear through hordes of harmless enemies. To be honest, I also had a hard time getting around the whole corporate and job centered gimmick this game implemented into the story. There were some pretty funny segments though which is a nice touch to balance over the top dramatic moments. I know a lot of people loved this, but it just didn't click for me. What I loved about the T was the introduction of Rayearth and Expelled From Paradise. I loved using these units, and even though the Rayearth crew was weak starting out, they grew to be phenomenal supporters with Hikaru being one of my Top 2 Aces alongside Angela. Seeing G Gundam again was also quite a treat, and Domon + Master Asia were up there with my top 5 strongest units. Its probably my least favorite of the modern PS4 SRWs, but I still think its a very good game and I remember it being tons of fun when I played it. Really looking forward to the next big game in the series now!

Ombres

Super Adventure Island(SNES)

Well it is hard to play a snes game like it always been, before the emulator and save state, but I did it, after 4 game over, I did know the game enough to do it quite easily!

Blasphemous (PC)

a fun game with a lot of secret, I think I got the bad ending! Can be hard at time, but you just have to learn the pattern a bit!

maryadavies

First one of the year; Mother 3(PC via mGBA)

I'd tried playing this one before and got stuck. This time, since I do love the Mother/Earthbound series, I had to do it. Makes me wish I had a ROM cart since I'd rather play on the real hardware, or a hacked PSP since this one was a GBA game. (Wished more than once that I could do this one portable, like it was meant to be and not on my pc.)

Sad ending, worth hunting up, and I'd say let's hope Ninty finally relents one day and does a remake for us poor English folks..And talks to Tomato about his translation. It's a CRIME you can't play this one legally without knowing JP and being able to import it.

Before anyone asks, have beaten the other two via emulation, I'd give ANYTHING within reason (since I didn't own the systems you can do this on) to get Mother/Earthbound Beginnings and Earthbound legal and play them, even if it's e-shop.

Ombres

Forager (Switch)

there is no ending per say, but I did complete everything and did have fun doing so

7thCircle

I really, really wish I had enjoyed Immortals Fenyx Rising (PS5) more. I wanted to. I was rooting for it. I liked the smaller open world, the goofy narration, the overall Pixar/Disney vibe, the draw distance -- just standing at the game's hub the 1st time and realizing I could see the entire world and landmarks for each region was amazing.

But the bland puzzles weren't fun or mind-bending like BotW's were, they took too long to complete, and they often relied on the game's fuzzy platforming and physics. They were a chore that got longer and more frustrating as the game went on. Combat was somewhat ruined by aerial foes being standard in every fight, and didn't grow in challenge as Fenyx powered up. For all the optional distractions I indulged in, I don't think any of them were fun, and they all dragged out simple tasks.