Well, 2018 is properly upon us, and I felt it would be a good idea to end the first month of this new year by introducing a new feature on Extra Life. It can be tricky to keep up with everyone’s posts, so I hope these summaries help make the task a bit easier. I will list all of the games I reviewed the previous month as well as talk about things I may have been up to. Let’s get started, shall we?

All in all, I feel that I managed to get off to a good start. I began the year by finishing the remaining parts of my 100^th review special wherein I ranked the first 100 games I reviewed from worst to best.

The first game I reviewed in 2018 was Justice for All, the second installment in the Ace Attorney series. As December 28, 2016 is a significant date in the original |(to be specific, it’s the day the statute of limitations for the DL-6 Incident is slated to expire)|, I wanted to review that game on that day as a celebration of sorts. I then proceeded to not talk about the series for the entirety of 2017. To be honest, I’m kind of glad in hindsight I put it off this long because now I’ve gotten a bit more of a feel for reviewing story-heavy games since then.

Either way, I followed that up by reviewing the Zelda Oracle games: Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages. Longtime readers may have noticed that in 2017, I would follow up a Final Fantasy review with a Zelda review. Because I’ve reviewed all of the Final Fantasy games I’ve played, I decided to replace them with reviews of the Ace Attorney series. Therefore, near the beginning of the month from now on, you can expect an Ace Attorney review to be followed up with a Zelda review. As for the Oracle reviews, I was not expecting them to go on as long as they did. Originally, I intended to review them in one article, but I reconsidered once I realized that it would be better to differentiate them, as they do provide distinct experiences despite having similar designs.

JAKE SMASH!!!

After that, in a move that likely had many of my readers wonder what the hell I was thinking, I ended up playing through and reviewing Ride to Hell: Retribution. As I said in my review, I don’t think I’ve played another game that had this many problems. It isn’t to say it’s the worst game I’ve ever played – NES Dragon’s Lair, which technically has a lower number of problems, is the worse game by far. Nonetheless, its reputation as one of the worst games of the 2010s is well deserved, and even out of morbid curiosity, it’s not worth looking into. With its utterly puerile writing, I still can’t believe this game was conceived by people over the age of fifteen – even keeping in mind the dubious standards of AAA culture at the time. Writing the review proved much more arduous than I anticipated, as I find it difficult to be that unduly negative for that length of time – even if it’s directed at something utterly irredeemable. Personally, I feel the most shocking part of the experience isn’t anything that actually occurred in the game – it’s the fact that I ended up selling it for $7 on eBay.

Proving that I did not learn my lesson from the above misadventure, I followed that up two days later by reviewing the infamous PlayStation 2/Wii game Ninjabread Man, which I actually bought in the same transaction as the above game. Between it and Ride to Hell: Retribution, it was the worse game, but it was paradoxically less aggravating to get through, as I completed the entire game in about two hours. Reviewing it proved to be simple as well; in fact, it’s the first review in a long time that did not exceed 2,000 words. Then again, it’s not terribly surprising given what little the game gave me to work with.

I wasn’t the only one who was busy creating content, and I am going to highlight some of my favorite posts right now.

First up is The Shameful Narcissist, who wrote a spectacular review of Ori and the Blind Forest, a game I’ve heard almost nothing but good things about, yet haven’t played myself.

Then there’s also Scott of the Wizard Dojo, who in an annual tradition, highlighted the best games of 2017 – no mean feat considering how incredible it was for the medium. How can I tell it was good? Sonic the Hedgehog was cool in it.

Next was Matt of Nintendobound, who in his monthly feature on his site, highlighted four classic albums, including Horses by Patti Smith, which stands to this day as one of the greatest debuts of all time, and Armed Forces, one of Elvis Costello’s classics.

Last, but certainly not least is my friend Aether, who got the year off to a great start by writing a fantastic piece on OneShot, a unique indie title from 2016 that was most certainly a labor of love (be wary of spoilers, however).

As for stuff outside of games, I’m proud to announce that I’ve seen every single movie currently nominated for an Academy Award. This means that for the ninth year in a row (and by extension, every year in this decade so far), I will have seen every film that would go on to win before the actual ceremony took place.

What do I have planned next? I myself have been working on a review of OneShot; I intend to post it on Saturday. After that, I will fall back into the Ace Attorney/Zelda pattern by reviewing Trials and Tribulation and Wind Waker.

So, what have you been up to?