How I Organize My Gaming Backlog

I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say many of my followers here have a pretty large backlog of games that they’ve yet to complete. Tonight I’m doing a quick post of how I organize my battle against that never-ending pile of games.

Before we start, the software I use to organize my gaming backlog (and the rest of my life, really) is called Trello. It’s a to-do list manager that creates a board and card-style system for you to handle your tasks. Each card can have a due date attached to it, as well as images, descriptions, and more. It’s a simple but powerful system, and you’ll see its full use by the end of this post.

First up – don’t try and start from the very beginning of your backlog! It’s just not gonna happen. All that does is make you feel even worse about all the games you’ve yet to complete, or even start. I tried doing this before, so trust me on this one – just trying to catelogue every game I’ve yet to play made me exhausted.

Instead, take a handful of games that you consider the MOST interesting that you’d want to beat at that moment. That’s how I started this year. Then I made a board called “Backlog.” This will most likely be your most filled board, haha…

After that, I made a card for each game I was interested in playing. I also created labels – one for each console I had, as well as for the PC. I attached a label to each game. This isn’t necessary, but it helps me catalogue in terms of where I may be spending my time the most. I also made labels based on rating, from “Awful” to “Fantastic”.

After this was done, I created four more boards: “Want to Play”, “Currently Playing”, “Finished”, and “Quick and Endless”. “Want to Play” houses my wishlist of games I don’t actually own, but plan on owning. “Currently Playing” is self-explanatory – I try to stick to one PC game, one Console game, and one Handheld game. It lets me cover the most amount of ground. “Finished” is my pride and joy, the stuff I’ve completed.

I put checklists for games that are bundles, like the Kingdom Hearts and Metroid Prime collections.

I also comment on each card when I have a particular thought about a game that I don’t want to forget. This is useful for games I plan on reviewing, or writing about.

The last category, “Quick and Endless”, includes games that I’ll go back to now and then that don’t have an indefinite conclusion, or things I’ve beaten before. Multiplayer games, endless simulators, etc. These are low-priority.

With all that done, I have a left-to-right flow for my games. With Trello I can easily drag a game’s card when I’m ready to move it to another section, letting me stay organized and steadily chip away at my backlog!…Whiiiich will have two games added to it tomorrow, when Majora’s Mask and Monster Hunter 4 come out.

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So! How do you keep your backlog organized? Pen and paper? Mental checklist? Do you even have a backlog you think about? Lemme know in the comments below!

Knowing When to Quit

Recently I finished playing Mario and Luigi: Dream Team. It was relatively enjoyable throughout the entirety of my playthrough, and though it did drag near the end, it wasn’t too bad.

Until, that is, I reached the final boss.

I won’t spoil who or what it is, but I can tell you it was a massive pain in my behind. Note to game developers everywhere – do not give your final boss the ability to regenerate more health than you have time to counter against. At least, don’t do that if you actually want your players to enjoy the final battle without feeling cheated.

In any case, I tried defeating the boss three times, to no avail. After a few minutes of deliberation, I did what many gamers would deem unthinkable:

I set the game to easy mode.

And then I beat the final boss in one hit.

I know what a lot of people may be thinking: didn’t you feel cheated? You had to rig the game to finish it! And the answer is: honestly, not really. I experienced every attack the final boss had thrown at me before I had switched to Easy Mode. At a certain point I was just going through the same motions over and over again, hoping I’d get lucky and win. More importantly, I wasn’t enjoying myself anymore. I play games for fun, not for the competition, or even for the challenge, minus the odd Platinum game here or there. It’s why I avoid Online Shooters, or games like League of Legend or Starcraft.

That being said, I feel that if I’m not enjoying myself, then I shouldn’t be putting myself through the pain of that experience. I have precious little time for gaming, and I’d rather not spend it banging my head against an unbeatable obstacle. If that ends up being the case, I’ll either try and figure out how to bypass it, or leave the game entirely. As I said, there are exceptions to this rule – Bayonetta and Persona Q come to mind – but if the difficulty feels artificial, then I’m not going to waste time on it.

Fun anecdote: Another experience that reminds me of this is when my sister and I were playing Tales of Xillia. We were up against a boss, and simply could not defeat it. So we devised a trick where we let our characters be played by the CPU. Because the CPU was inhumanely fast in terms of reaction time, it easily decimated the boss, knowing exactly when to defend, attack, and heal. That done, we were able to move on and continue playing – though, not for long, because honestly Xillia sucked.

So, readers: when do you realize it’s finally time to quit? This could be within the context of gaming, or outside it. Let me know in the comments below!

Now Playing – Bayonetta 2

Bayonetta 2 is the best game I’ve played all year.

No game I’ve played this year has done as good of a job at hooking its claws into me from the get-go, and not letting go until it was over. And very few games have me dive right back into them after the credits roll.

This is because Bayonetta 2 has two things going for it in that regard: Perfect gameplay mechanics, and the incentive to get higher scores.

I am not exaggerating when I say that Bayonetta 2 has perfect gameplay mechanics, either — the game feels flawless in terms of control. It’s easy to move the titular witch around the battlefield, attacking enemies with strings of combos that can be dodge-canceled with a press of a button. There’s no delay, nary a hint of input-lag — controlling the game feels like a dream. And the crux of the combat — Witch-Time, a move that slows down time to dish out combos after a perfectly-timed dodge — is the most satisfying feeling I’ve had playing a game in a long time.

Then you can couple that with the fact that the game has an extensive system that keeps track of your stats — including combos, how fast you defeat foes, and how much damage you take and avoid — then provides a medal based on your performance — from lack of one (because you suck that hard), to the coveted PURE PLATINUM! Even before I had completed the story for the first time, I was going back to previous stages trying to perfect my score. Normally, I’m not even the type to indulge in that sort of thing. But Bayonetta 2 is so garsh-darn fun to play that playing the same stages repeatedly never got stale.

Another sweet aspect of B2 that I couldn’t help but appreciate throughout the entirety of the game was its color-coded nature. Where Bayonetta 1 is bathed in hues of crimson red, the entirety of Bayonetta 2 is submerged in a sapphire blue. Everything from Bayonetta’s new outfit, to the Venice-inspired local the game takes place in, all the way to the heroine’s quadruple pistols, carry this motif. This attention to detail that can be found in every aspect of the game is something I’ve come to appreciate from Platinum Games. The subtle call-backs to other games, the unique play-styles that come from unlockable characters, the easter eggs, the costumes — if I could describe Bayonetta 2 in one word, it would be polished.

This probably seems like flat-out gushing, and that’s because it is. There’s very little I can find to complain about Bayonetta 2. Sure, the last boss was a little more anti-climactic than the previous game’s. But the cranked-up-to-11 feel, the toned-down sex appeal, the solid, much clearer story in comparison to the first game, and all the content available even after you beat the game’s story, blend together to make a Character-Based Action-Game that rekindled my love for videogames once again. The Wii U has a hit on its hands here, and I hope it sells dramatically so that I may get my Green-tinted Bayonetta 3.

Seriously. Pick this game up. You won’t be disappointed.

Shovel Knight and What Makes a Good “Retro Game”

I got Shovel Knight! It’s awesome, even when it gets slam-my-head-into-my-desk difficult. Really good stuff by Yacht Club Games, a company with former WayForward developers, that have worked on…well, lots of stuff.

What I think Shovel Knight does best, though, and that many games of its ilk fail at, is that it is a “Retro Game” that is true to the name.

“Retro games” are all the rage these days. Go look at Kickstarter right now. There are a few things the site is obsessed with, currently: wallets,  documentaries, making some nondescript food item and getting a bunch of money for jumping on that bandwagon, and retro games.

My interest in this topic does not stem from the sudden surge of love for retro games. There are numerous other posts on the subject that you can peruse through. What I am interested in is what separates the good retro games from the bad ones.

Make no mistake, Shovel Knight is a damn good game, retro or not. But it has a few great qualities that separate it from other retro games.

Shovel Knight is tied to the design mechanics of the NES and other retro consoles. But it is not chained to those mechanics. It does not feel the need to be so faithful to the source material that it draws from that it gets hurt from a game-design perspective in the process.

There are no limited lives in this game, for example. You can die over and over again, with the only penalty being the loss of some of the treasure you collected. Plus, with skill, you can regain that money, as it floats in the air near the area of your death, waiting to be picked up again.

Then there is the fact that Shovel Knight allows you to choose your own difficulty, in a sense. When you pass a checkpoint, you can also destroy it, allowing you to obtain a bunch of treasure that adds to your score. On the flipside, this means that if you die, you’ll be brought closer to the beginning of the stage, losing time and progress. This allows you to customize your difficulty and progress as you see fit. I don’t have time to retry stages over and over again, so I can keep my checkpoints in place. But players who are more daring/adventurous than I can destroy them as they see fit. This is the sort of modern addition to a “retro” game that keeps it fresh and easily playable in today’s gaming landscape.

Even with these new modern bells and whistles, Shovel Knight plays like it were an NES game – one that I believe would be very popular were it released in that era. This gameplay extends itself in small and major forms, from things like jumping “in front of” the HUD, to the pogo-sticking of the old Ducktails game, to the fantastic NES-like soundtrack provided by the wonderful Jake Kaufman. The game also takes the Mega Man 2 and Castlevania approach to gameplay. It provides you a basic skill-set that can be adapted into any situation within the game, then sprinkles extra items that can be used to provide experimentation and different strategies. In short, Shovel Knight keeps all of the aspects that are enjoyable about Retro NES games, and removes the aspects that should be left in the dust.

Have you played Evoland? I have, and I hated it. It spends too much time trying to point at itself and say, “Look at me, I’m a game that tailors to your nostalgia!”, that it forget to spend time on being a good game.

Shovel Knight does not have that flaw. It focuses on being a good game first, and tailors to those more nostalgic aspects as icing on the cake. This, I think, is what separates Shovel Knight from other recent Retro Indie Games, and takes it beyond a something that’s attempting to cash in on a recent craze. I look forward to Yacht Club Game’s next effort – retro or not, Shovel Knight proves that they have what it takes to make games that are enjoyable.

Mario Kart 8 – Last Second Win

If you blink, you’ll miss it!

Everyone Is Crazy Except For Me: Earthbound Impressions

Earthbound was released on the Wii U’s virtual console this month. It was a victory for Earthbound fans: the game they loved, that had inspired a cult following, was finally getting the recognition it deserved. Nintendo was promoting this game, acknowledging its existence, and allowing gamers both old and new to try their hand at Earthbound.

I must here make a confession: though I have played Earthbound multiple times, I have never completed it. Hell, I can’t even say that I’ve gotten to getting Poo as a party member, if I’m thinking correctly. But now, I, along with a few of my peers at Pixels or Death, are vowing to finally finish this game, that is loved by so many.

And after playing this past week, I believe I’ve gotten to understand both why I never finished Earthbound, and why so many people love it.

When I first played Earthbound, I was about 13 years old. I was in a phase of rediscovery: Whereas I had been able to grow up playing games of the Nintendo 64, Gameboy Color, and Playstation era, I hadn’t even been born when the Super Nintendo was out. I had decided to go back and try the games that are now considered classics – to understand where my roots came from, so to speak. Chrono Trigger, A Link to the Past, Super Metroid, Final Fantasy VI – I was finally experience and understanding why these games were held to such high standards, and why they held up so well, even years after they were released.

Eventually, I came to learn of the cult-status that surrounded Earthbound. On the outset, it seemed interesting enough: A group of kids team up to save the world, but in a Modern Day setting, where swords and guns were replaced by baseball bats and yo-yos. Good enough for me! I sat down, booted the game up, and got to playing. I ended up being being sorely disappointed.

“What the heck?” 13 year old me said in disbelief. This is what people were so happy to play? I couldn’t believe it. At the time, I could only consider Earthbound to be a Dragon’s Quest clone. And the humor made absolutely no sense to me, either. I couldn’t understand where the hype for this game was coming from. Why was this game held to the same level of adoration and devotion as Mega Man X? The combat was okay, the inventory system was cumbersome, and the humor was too strange to be funny to me.

With a sigh, I shelved Earthbound, passing it off as a game that I just didn’t understand.

You and me both, dude.

Well, 13 year old me turned out to be right about that part, at least. I didn’t understand why Earthbound was so loved. Now that I’m playing it again, I think I’m beginning to get where the charm lies. As I entered Twoson, and began to investigate the disappearance of a missing girl, a very clear thought struck me:

Earthbound is a game about seeing the world through a child’s eyes.

As I realized this point, I began to see it everywhere, from game design to plot. Whereas younger me found the fact that money was always short in this game to be a nuisance, older me recognized that a 13 year old was going to have a hard time scrounging up cash while saving the world (even though Ness’s dad seems to have an endless supply of money that he’s intent on not sharing in one go). I hated the fact that there were so few slots in my inventory, but realistically, how much could I really put in that yellow backpack of mine.

Beyond that, the dialogue in Earthbound further demonstrates that child-like view taken throughout the game. A Police Officer scolds Ness about this and that. Eventually, the text that scrolls down is simply “blah blah blah…” The droning, boring voice putting a kid who just wants to get on his way to sleep.

The adults are generally idiots, too. Police officers that don’t know what they’re doing (or aren’t doing anything at all), hippies that bum about in the streets, annoying old party men – more than any other game, Earthbound emphasizes why a boy is needed to save the world. An adult isn’t fit to do the job. Or any job, really, as I thought in disbelief while speaking to two parents who seemed oblivious to the fact that their daughter had been kidnapped. Hell, even Ness’s mom seems to have forgotten about the basics of child-rearing, which include not letting your child go on a crazy adventure to fight aliens!

This thing is only just getting started.

In both gameplay and story, Earthbound is a game about what it was like to be a kid. The joy of exploring your own backyard, and using only your imagination and what you have at your disposal to have an adventure. And though I’m not old enough to fully understand the nostalgia that wraps up the older gamers who play it, I think that, with each playthrough of Earthbound, as I get older and older, it will come to mean more to me.