Samantha Lienhard's Blog, page 77

2021 Writing Goals

Once again, I’m ready to make a new list of writing goals for the upcoming year!

By 2022, I will:

Send out regular batches of queries for my novels in the querying stage.
Finish editing A Prince’s Price based on feedback.
Revise Mage’s Test.
Revise The Sunken Sapphire.
Write at least 1 new pulp fiction story and 3 additional short stories.
Increase traffic to my side websites 500+ visits per month.

That’s right, no book signing goals for this year – things are too uncertain for that to really be in my hands right now.

I hope to make good progress toward those editing goals, though. I started out by ranking my WIPs based on how marketable they seem and how extensive the required revisions will be and then prioritized them accordingly, which is how those three ended up at the top of the list. Ending the year with all three fully revised would be fantastic.

And of course, I’ll write a new novel draft in November for NaNoWriMo, as I do every year!

Do you have any writing goals for 2021? Let me know in the comments!

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Operation Backlog Completion 2021

To no one’s surprise, I did not complete my backlog in 2020, but of course that means it’s time for another round of Operation Backlog Completion!

Last year, I finished a massive 91 games, so this year I’m raising the goal to a terrifying 100 games.

Operation Backlog Completion 2021

That should make a dent in my backlog, even though it’s always offset by bundles, review games, and other situations that increase my backlog even as I work through it.

My goal last year also included 17 specific games I intended to play. I only actually finished three of them, but I have two more currently in progress, two were delayed, and one was removed.

So here is this year’s list, which includes the remaining games from last year’s list and my most-anticipated games of 2021.

Batman: Arkham Knight (followed by Arkham Origins)
The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings (followed by The Witcher 3)
Dragon Quest XI
Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition
Yooka-Laylee
Aurion: Curse of the Kori-Odan
Dies Irae
The Great Gaias
Bug Fables
Tales of Arise
Yakuza 3
Psychonauts 2
Muv-Luv Unlimited: The Day After
God of War sequel
NEO: The World Ends With You

(I also add any new games I crowdfunded that came out in the previous year. However, for 2020 that was only Chuusotsu 1.5, which I played right away, and The Wonderful 101 Remastered, which I backed largely to support it since I played the original.)

I have Bug Fables and Yakuza 3 in progress already, so maybe this will be the year I actually play my prioritized games.

What about you? Do you have any specific video game goals set for 2021?

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Top 5 Most-Anticipated Games of 2021

2021 is here! Let’s hope it’s a good one.

It certainly looks promising for video games, if nothing else. This year is absolutely stacked with games I’m excited about. Yesterday I discussed the best games I played in 2020, and now I’m ready to look ahead at the games I can’t wait to play in 2021.

As always, this only applies to games with a 2021 release date… so I still can’t put Bayonetta 3 on the list no matter how much I want to.

Here they are, my top 5 most-anticipated games of 2021!

5. Muv-Luv Unlimited: The Day After

Last year saw the release of Muv-Luv photonmelodies, the final game from the Muv-Luv localization Kickstarter campaign, but that’s far from the end of new English Muv-Luv titles. In fact, Muv-Luv Unlimited: The Day After Episodes 00-03 are planned to be released on Steam in January!

(The English website actually says “now available,” but they aren’t there yet.)

Meanwhile, Episode 04 has been announced under the title Muv-Luv Resonative. I don’t know a lot about The Day After, but it follows the ending of Muv-Luv Unlimited rather than the Muv-Luv Alternative path. I finished photonmelodies hoping for more Muv-Luv in my future, so it’s exciting to see that this is coming soon.

4. Tales of Arise

Tales of Arise was on my list for last year, and since it was delayed to 2021, it made this year’s list as well. I would probably rank it higher, except we’ve still seen almost nothing from Tales of Arise at all. So many questions fans had when it was first revealed haven’t been answered yet, and we didn’t even get a new trailer.

On one hand, I’m happy that Bandai Namco hasn’t revealed every last detail about the game ahead of launch like they often do for Tales. On the other hand, the absolute lack of anything has me a little worried that it’s not coming out this year after all.

But the Tales anniversary celebration has been extended to 2021, so here’s hoping for lots of good news all around!

3. Psychonauts 2

Arise isn’t the only game that carried over from last year’s most-anticipated list to this one. Psychonauts 2 was also delayed from its intended 2020 launch.

According to the latest update, however, Psychonauts 2 is coming along quite well and is currently playable from start to finish. A 2021 release sounds pretty much guaranteed, and I just hope it brings me the same delight that the original did.

2. God of War sequel

You know, I thought this game was called God of War: Ragnarok, but apparently it’s officially still untitled God of War sequel, which doesn’t fill me with confidence that it’s actually coming out in 2021.

But I enjoyed God of War on the PS4 so much that this sequel is one of the few games that could compel me to get a PS5 as soon as it’s available. We’ve seen almost nothing about it, but I’m really looking forward to it and finding out where the story will go from here. I’ve got theories, I’ve got hopes, and if it’s anywhere near as good as the previous game, it could be one of the best games of the year.

(In the meantime, I suppose I could finally play Ascension.)

Now, God of War was my most-anticipated game of 2021 until a certain announcement pushed everything else out of the way, because the one game I’m looking forward to next year above all others is…

1. NEO: The World Ends With You

We’re getting a The World Ends With You sequel!

Part of me still can’t believe it. After all this time, a sequel to The World Ends With You is finally being made and it’s scheduled for this year!

The World Ends With You is one of my favorite JRPGs. I absolutely loved the original release on the DS and poured a ridiculous amount of time into it. I bought the Switch remix at launch (partly for the new epilogue, partly just to support it), although I haven’t played it yet. It’s the sort of game that I always wanted a sequel to… and so now I’m anxiously hoping it will have a story even half as good as the original’s.

Conclusion

Muv-Luv Unlimited: The Day After, Tales of Arise, Psychonauts 2, the new God of War, and NEO: The World Ends With You are my top 5 most-anticipated games of 2021, but there are so many more exciting games lined up beyond just these! The year is looking especially good for JRPG fans.

What 2021 games are you looking forward to the most? Let me know in the comments!

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Top 5 Games I Played in 2020

There’s a lot you can say about 2020… some good and a lot bad.

One of the positives for me has to be all the incredible games I played this year! Choosing my top 5 was difficult, because I kept looking back and seeing all these great games I finished in 2020!

And while I skipped one of my most-anticipated games of 2020 entirely after seeing the reviews and two others were delayed, the others came through!

So now I’m ready to talk about the best games I played in 2020.

Honorable Mentions

Once again, we have three honorable mentions this year: Bug Fables, 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, and Bloodborne.

These are all games that I feel could be strong contenders for this list… except I haven’t finished them yet. I thought there was a chance I might close out the year by completing them, but it looks like those three will be early 2021 games for me instead. But hey, at least that will get 2021 off to a good start!

Moving on to the list itself, here are my top 5 games I finished this year.

5. Hades

When Hades was announced, I thought it looked neat, but I wasn’t too interested because it was a roguelike. The roguelike genre never really appealed to me, so I intended to skip it. Then Hades left Early Access, and I kept seeing people say that even though they disliked other roguelikes, they loved this one.

So I decided to give it a try.

95 hours later, I can confidently say I’m in that camp. Roguelikes never appealed to me because I don’t like the thought of needing to start over and over, but it doesn’t feel like that in Hades at all.

Deaths and multiple runs are built right into the game’s story, so every time you die, it still feels like you’re making story progress. Everyone at the starting area has new dialogue after you die, sometimes to advance the story, sometimes to progress smaller character arcs, and even sometimes to acknowledge specific things that happened on that run. With everything happening in the context of the overall story, I never felt like I was “starting over.”

But we’ll talk about that more in the actual review. I’m technically still playing Hades, but since I’ve long since passed the end credits, it counts as complete for the purpose of this list.

4. Yakuza Kiwami 2

It feels like a lifetime ago that I played Yakuza Kiwami 2, but yes, that was this year.

I have absolutely fallen in love with the Yakuza series, and Kiwami 2 proved to be another epic ride. I disliked some aspects of the ending, and it didn’t quite reach the highs of Yakuza 0 and Judgment for me, but I loved so much about it that I had to put it on this list.

The story was fantastic, the side content was hilarious, and the only regret I have is that I haven’t played more Yakuza games yet!

(I started Yakuza 3, but I put it on hold for Bloodborne, which is on hold for 13 Sentinels.)

I love the series so much that I wouldn’t be surprised if Yakuza lands another entry on next year’s list… but let’s not get ahead of ourselves just yet.

3. Deadly Premonition Origins

Speaking of games that are both epic and flawed, how did I go so many years without ever trying Deadly Premonition? I finally took that leap this year with Deadly Premonition Origins (aka the Switch port) and found a bizarre experience I didn’t want to leave.

As I mentioned in my review, I don’t think it’s at all fair to call Deadly Premonition “so bad it’s good.”

It is a legitimately good game that blends supernatural horror combat with relaxed life sim investigation sections, creating a weird blend that turned out to be exactly what I was looking for. It’s the sort of game where you really need to relax and take your time to get the most out of it, especially when it comes to its wacky humor.

Things I’ve read about Deadly Premonition 2 have me a little worried… but I won’t be able to hold out forever. I need to play the sequel to see how it holds up to the surprisingly excellent first game.

2. Final Fantasy VII Remake

You probably saw this one coming, because not only was the Final Fantasy VII Remake one of my most-anticipated games of the year, but it lived up to those expectations and blew me away.

It took a small section that I didn’t enjoy a lot in the original and expanded it into a full-length game that I loved. They did a great job with the characters, both keeping the main cast true to their personalities and fleshing out the side characters, and I found the combat to be a lot of fun once I got used to it.

Yes, the ending is controversial. Yes, I still have mixed feelings about it.

But man, I’m excited to see where this remake is going with its sequel.

And so for the one game I played in 2020 that I liked more than any of these, more than the surreal strangeness of Deadly Premonition or the thrilling remake of Final Fantasy VII…

1. Persona 4 Golden

A lot of people probably played Persona 4 Golden for the first time this year because of its surprise PC port, but I played it on the Vita with no idea that a port was coming.

(In fact, I finished it so close to the PC announcement that my review actually came out after it.)

Persona 5 is an amazing game, but to me, Persona 4 Golden is even better. The story, the characters, the addictive gameplay loop – everything stood out to me so much that I had to name it the best game I played this year. Whenever I started it up, I knew I wouldn’t be putting it down until hours later.

It’s an absolute gem of a JRPG that is available to even more people now thanks to the PC port, and I couldn’t be happier for that.

Conclusion

There you have it, my five favorite games I played this year. What about you? What are the best games you played in 2020?

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2020 Writing Goal Progress

2020 is coming to a close, and I set certain writing goals for myself at the start of the year.

So how did it go, in this crazy year? Let’s take a look back at those goals…

Send out regular batches of queries for the novels I have in the querying stage.
Complete my current pulp fiction story and write at least one more pulp fiction story.

I met these two goals without a problem. I spent a lot of time querying agents about Penteract of Blood and The Nightbringer in particular. No success this year, but I did get one full request, even if it ultimately ended in rejection.

Meanwhile, I finished the pulp fiction story I had in progress at the start of the year and then wrote another one. I hope to share news about both of those stories in 2021!

Revise On An Island of Oaks and send it to a beta reader.
Edit The Sunken Sapphire.

On the other hand, I dropped the ball when it came to these goals, mainly because I underestimated how much work On An Island of Oaks needed. Instead of revising it and sending it to a beta reader, I nearly completely rewrote it twice, which left little time to work on revising any other novels.

I’m pleased with its current state now. It still needs more revisions, but not to the point of becoming next year’s major project again.

Write at least 3 more short stories.
Update my two side websites on at least a monthly basis.

These next two goals are in a gray area. If you count the previously-mentioned pulp fiction stories, I definitely wrote three short stories this year. If you don’t (and I can’t remember what I had in mind when I made the list), then I only wrote one new short story, but made some solid revisions to a few others.

(I also made notes for several new story ideas.)

As for the websites, I stayed fairly consistent with regular updates at Lovecraft Video Games, but my KH Theories updates were much more sporadic.

And that brings us to our final unfortunate goal…

Participate in an additional book signing/event.

Obviously this didn’t happen, because large in-person gatherings were not a thing this year. Here’s hoping for a better 2021.

Did you set any writing goals at the start of the year? How did you do? Let me know in the comments!

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Christmas Special Review: Cthulhu Saves Christmas

Merry Christmas!

There was no blog post yesterday because of the holiday, so here’s a special post today to discuss a game made for the season, Cthulhu Saves Christmas.

Set as a prequel to Cthulhu Saves the World, a parody RPG I found very funny, Cthulhu Saves Christmas once again puts Cthulhu himself in an unexpectedly heroic role when his powers are stolen and he’s told he can get them back if he rescues Santa Claus from the League of Christmas Evil.

While the original was all about playing around with Lovecraft tropes, this one draws on Christmas themes instead.

I felt the humor tried a little too hard compared to the first game, with a few too many things handwaved as “it’s this way because JRPGs, haha” but there were still a lot of funny lines and situations throughout.

It once again features turn-based combat, this time with an “insanity” feature that means four of your abilities are randomly drawn from the ones you don’t have set as fixed commands. This level of randomness makes things interesting, and overall the combat feels snappy and fun, although battles in later parts of the game end up feeling tedious and drawn out.

Now, the rest of the game doesn’t play like a traditional RPG. You won’t be exploring dungeons and visiting towns this time around.

Instead it features a life sim system where you choose an activity each day to build “R’lyehtionships” with other characters or work part-time jobs. You do this until your party learns the location of the next villain, and then you go through the dungeon.

This is a fun inclusion, but the structure ends up feeling very straightforward. Go through dungeon, fight boss, watch a R’lyehtionship scene each day until it’s time for the next dungeon.

The early parts of the game go by much faster than the later parts, but not because there’s more to do – just because dungeons are bigger and battles take longer. Overall, Cthulhu Saves Christmas just felt a little less magical than Cthulhu Saves the World.

But it was still a fun Christmas parody and a good choice to play on Christmas. What are your favorite Christmas-themed video games?

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Shantae & the Seven Sirens is a Welcome Return to Form

After Half-Genie Hero dropped the interconnected world of the previous Shantae games in favor of a level-based structure with no overarching plot, I was thrilled to learn the next game would return to the old style.

Indeed, Shantae and the Seven Sirens features a large world with Metroidvania-style progression, towns and dungeons, and a new plot as Shantae’s tropical vacation for the Half-Genie Festival is interrupted when the other half-genies are kidnapped!

Transformations have been streamlined a bit this time around, since instead of dancing to turn into a new form, you can transform instantly.

That does take away a little bit of the magic, but on the other hand, it makes everything feel so much faster and snappier. Meanwhile, you learn additional dance-based powers separate from the transformations.

Seven Sirens also introduces Monster Cards, a special type of collectible you get by fighting monsters that can be equipped for passive bonuses. This feature is pretty neat, and between that, the usual magic attacks, and the new powers, it feels like you have more options in Seven Sirens than ever.

At the same time, though, it also seemed easier than previous games to me… in the sense that I could eat damage while spamming attacks and then just heal because healing was so plentiful.

But I don’t play a Shantae game for some sort of hardcore combat; I want to explore dungeons and unlock new areas. As I played through Seven Sirens, I was delighted as I worked my way through the interconnected world and spotted areas I knew I’d need to return to later once I had more powers, and everything felt so good that I considered it might be the best Shantae game yet.

However, now that I’ve finished, I would still rank Pirate’s Curse ahead of this one. Seven Sirens has a big world to explore, and that’s great – but it makes backtracking for Heart Squids and other items tedious since there’s no way to track them.

By the time I had all my powers, I remembered areas I wanted to return to, but I’d opened up so many locations on the map that I couldn’t remember where they were without slowly backtracking through each area to see if I’d missed anything. Pirate’s Curse and Half-Genie Hero both indicated how many collectibles remained in a given area, so I wish they’d done something similar here.

And while I was happy to see an overarching story return, and there are some great character interactions, it could have done more (especially when it comes to the half-genies, who barely play a role as characters) to really stand out.

But hey, being my second-favorite Shantae game isn’t bad by any means! Shantae and the Seven Sirens is a really fun game and a wonderful return to form despite some frustrations, and I hope the next game they make will be even better!

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Tales Anniversary Localization Hopes

As I mentioned before, the Tales anniversary live stream came and went without any announcements, only the promise that next year will be more exciting.

However, the celebration has made some of us hope against hope that we might get remasters of older Tales games… or even localizations of one that were never released outside of Japan.

From December 15 through December 19, the official Tales Twitter account celebrated its history. They started with Tales of Phantasia, the first game in the series, and continued on in order, looking at one game per day.

For each game, they tweeted a trailer and details about some of the major characters.

This first got fans’ attentions because each trailer begins with a PEGI 12 rating, even for games that were never released in Europe. However, it’s possible they simply wanted to rate the trailer content itself.

But then on the fourth day, we reached one of the unlocalized Tales games, Tales of Destiny 2.

(The game released in English under that title was actually Tales of Eternia.)

They didn’t treat Tales of Destiny 2 any differently. The English Twitter account tweeted about it with an English trailer and invited fans to “appreciate” this game we’ve never had a chance to play, and Bandai Namco US retweeted it (although Bandai Namco EU did not).

New day, new book from our library.

Reviving My Review of Detention

After all of the chaos surrounding Devotion this week, someone brought it to my attention that my review of the developers’ first game, Detention, is another one lost to time.

So just like my 25th Ward review, I’d like to revive my review of the horror game Detention!

Detention takes place in 1960s Taiwan, during the period of martial law known as the White Terror. There are notes throughout the game that provide context for the situation if you aren’t familiar with it.

You play a student who becomes trapped in the school building after everyone else evacuates due to a typhoon warning. But the storm isn’t all you need to fear, because the school has been twisted into a nightmare mirror of itself, haunted by deadly enemies.

There is no combat, so you’ll use stealth to get past enemies, including a feature where you need to hold your breath if an enemy comes close. Those sections can be pretty tense, but it’s really the disturbing imagery, unsettling atmosphere, and dark story that build up its sense of horror.

Although Detention has a 2D perspective, the rest of the core gameplay feels like a traditional survival horror game. You’ll need to explore the school to find key items and use those items to solve puzzles and open the way to new areas. The strange puzzles, surreal (and symbolic) environments that get progressively stranger as the game goes on, and the way the story gradually unfolds reminded me a lot of Silent Hill – which is part of why I enjoyed it so much.

The story is pretty interesting, too. It kept me guessing as the pieces started to come together, and I was invested in learning exactly what had happened there.

Detention is a short game, but it’s a great horror experience that fans of the genre should definitely check out.

And I hope we get to play Devotion someday.

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Eternal Radiance is Out Now! (And Other News)

After launching in Early Access earlier this year, our action RPG Eternal Radiance is now finished and officially available!

Eternal Radiance is inspired by JRPGs, and it follows a young would-be knight named Celeste who goes on a journey to reclaim a stolen artifact after failing her initiation into the Ashen Order.

I wrote the story and dialogue for Eternal Radiance, and I’d love to revisit its world and characters someday. For now, I’m excited that all of you will have a chance to experience it!

It’s come a long way from its initial Early Access release, because in addition to completing the game’s content, we were also able to improve the combat and polish things up. Once again, Eternal Radiance is out now on Steam, with console ports planned for next year!

In other game news, the last couple of days have been a little crazy, so here’s a rapid-fire account of the highlights:

The Tales anniversary live stream had no news, but since 2020 was the way it was, the 25th anniversary has been extended for another year, with exciting announcements promised. Tales of Arise is also reportedly in the final stages of development.
Nintendo held another Indie World Showcase, which included the announcement that Finding Paradise is coming to Switch. It’s the sequel to To the Moon, and it’s really good.
Kojima Productions announced an anniversary announcement for midnight Eastern Time. At midnight, they announced the announcement would be in an hour. An hour later they revealed a wallpaper, eventually followed by some merchandise and the news that they’d won an award. It probably would have gone over better without the announcement of the announcement of the announcement.
Details on the next Trails game surfaced from Famitsu, as translated here. Combat details are still a little murky, since it’s a real-time action system that doesn’t require input skill, and you can switch to command-based combat. Hopefully they’ll show it on the 20th. Nayuta no Kiseki is also being remastered.
And this morning, the horror game Devotion was announced to be returning… only for GOG to reverse the decision mere hours later due to “many messages from gamers,” an explanation absolutely no one believes.

I was hoping we’d be celebrating a big Tales announcement today, I have mixed feelings about the possibility that Trails is switching to action combat, and I was planning to buy Devotion the moment it went live… but at least we have some good news to celebrate in there, too!

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