Hey there! I have made a couple of updates on what I am planning to drop or keep playing, but from now on, I think it’s better if I review dropped games more quickly – I didn’t finish them and dropped them shortly after starting them, so it’s almost impossible to write a full-fledged review of them.
This does not mean I will never be playing them again – just that I am dropping them for the time being.
Sonic Frontiers
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This is the one I’m saddest to drop. I actually do still want to play this, but my PC kept freezing while playing it. I have a fairly old GPU, a GTX 1650, which works fine for most games, but it is starting to show its age. Technically, it meets the minimum requirements, but for whatever reason, the game kept stuttering when I played it. I’m not in the position to replace my GPU now, especially for a single game, but it’s definitely something I’d like to revisit in the future.
That said, from what I played (about 1-2 hours), the gameplay felt very dry. It feels like an empty green pasture with nothing very interesting to do, with reused levels from previous games to boot. Still, Ian Flynn wrote it, and I’m a fan of the work he has done for the IDW comics, so I’m willing to push through it for that.
Hyper Light Drifter
This game is gorgeous – exactly what I like to see in pixel art. Its world map reminded me a lot of A Link to the Past (which, funnily enough, I’m not a fan of). But I found the combat too punishing without being very engaging, and I got tired of running around without finding my way because everything about the setting was so ambiguous (funnily enough, not the first time I’ve criticized a game for its ambiguity. Probably a me thing). That’s not to say it’s a bad game. It’s just not for me, or at least I’m not in the right mindset to play it right now.
Ready or Not
This game wasn’t what I expected. I thought it would be a campaign-based tactical shooter where I’d lead a squad through story-driven missions. And in a way, you can play it like that – there’s a mode where you go through missions in order with AI companions, but the controls for issuing commands feel clunky.
The real strength of the game is in its multiplayer mode, which is actually how the missions were originally designed. They are tense, and every decision matters, making it a great experience if you have a group of friends to play it with.
I don’t, so I’m probably not sticking with it.
Faster than Light
I mean, this one is a roguelike, right? I like roguelikes, don’t I?
But alas, sometimes a game doesn’t click with me. I actually can’t explain this – some games seem to randomly hook me in after just a bit of time, and some games just turn me off by looking at them. FTL: Faster than Light is the latter case – I tried to do the tutorial, but I just couldn’t connect with the UI, and every time I thought about playing it, I felt unmotivated.
I don’t have any real criticisms – I just wasn’t feeling it, so I’m moving on.
Final Thoughts
The point of my backlog project is not to force me into playing every game there into completion – it’s about giving them a fair shot. Sometimes a game just doesn’t vibe with me, sometimes I can’t run them, sometimes it’s not what I expected… and that’s fine.
Finding games that “click” is, in my experience, rolling the dice enough times until I land on the ones I’ll cherish.
So even though I dropped these games quickly, I have nothing negative to say about them. If you did like them, please let me know down below!
P.S. Remember that you can see my backlog progress here.
