Japan does love their World Trees!

Catherine is an easy game, what're you talking about? It's not like the west got a new very easy mode when it originally came out. It's gonna be a cakewalk. No worries.

Hey wow it's a new decade! Happy 2020, friends!!

You like end-of-year backlog stats? We've got end-of-year backlog stats right here: [Link] Biggest takeaways are that I beat/complete fewer games this year (life got in the way), but also purchased fewer games than last year. It's also the first year in a long time I'm starting with under 100 , so things are looking up!

Putting together a top ten list this year was tough -- I had to exclude stuff like Majora's Mask 3D, Yakuza Kiwami 2, and Detroit: Become Human, all games I loved -- but here's what I settled on.

10. Final Fantasy IX (Steam)
9. Astral Chain (Switch)
8. Return of the Obra Dinn (Steam)
7. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (Switch)
6. ZeroRanger (Steam)
5. Celeste (Switch)
4. Valkyria Chronicles 4 (PS4)

🥉 3. Mother 3 (GBA)
Mother 3 had the biggest emotional effect on me of any game this year, made especially impressive by the fact that it's on the GBA. It's a contender for best RPG on the system, and I prefer it to Earthbound mainly because of its more focused story and more fun battle system.

🥈 2. Red Dead Redemption 2 (PS4)
Oh man, Red Dead 2. While it didn't have quite the same effect on me as playing RDR1 back in the day, I still was fully invested throughout the entire story. It's AAA gaming at its finest and proof that Rockstar hasn't run out of steam yet.

🥇 Game of the Year: Super Mario Maker 2 (Switch)
Picking my top two games of the year was easy, but figuring out which to put in the number-one slot was way harder. In the end I picked Mario Maker 2 because while RDR2 is the most well-made game I played this year, SMM2 is just more fun. It's the epitome of a desert island game, something I can play every single day and have a different experience every time. It ain't perfect -- online multiplayer has some of the worst lag I've seen in any Nintendo game -- but somehow I've put 140 hours into this in six months and have no sign of stopping anytime soon.

🎵 Soundtrack of the Year: A Hat in Time (Steam)

So that's it for 2019! My only major goal for '20 is I'd like to hit under 10% , which is definitely possible if I can avoid buying a lot of new games, which I can totally do! Probably. Maybe.

Thanks! Well, the only difficult part is to resist buying new games. You seem to finish quite a lot of games on average. I’m positive that if you set your mind to it, you can get it done in 4-5 years.

Did you have a good time with A Hat in Time, now that you’ve finished it?

Valkyria Chronicles 4 is a great game. It blends third-person shooter with Turn-based Strategy and I love it. The 4 main characters (Claude, Raz, Leena, and Riley) are great as well. I was invested in what happened to them and any game that makes me do that can't be bad.

Yeah, I've heard people comparing it to Super Mario Odyssey, which is a tad ridiculous in my opinion. But hey, I'm probably in the minority, so I'm sure you'll have a great time with it. Would love to hear your opinion when you're done.

Good to see that you're playing Valkyria Chronicles 4, btw. It's among my favorite games of all time. Raz and Leena are amazing characters. Hope you're enjoying it.

Hey, man. I've managed to complete A Hat in Time yesterday. It's a good game, but it can be quite messy and all over the place. You'll notice that it will try to do too many things at once. It can be quite laggy as well, but I've heard the PC version is a lot better in comparison to the console versions.

Hope I didn't kill your mood to play it. It's definitely a fun game, but it could have been so much better.