New gaming year

Happy New Year, dear fellow gamers! One more gaming year under our belts — and my, what a fruitful and wholesome gaming year that was. Having said that, I'm not going to cover the gaming year as a whole and remind you of what we all know — the Switch et al; instead, I'm going to ramble about my own gaming year, past and to come. Here we go!

This was a very busy year as far as my playing was concerned, with more games and runs cleared than ever before. I've had a lot of free time this year as well as a ferocious drive to play games, i.e. the perfect combo; and since things are shaping up to be the same in the next months, you can expect a lot of posts and playthroughs in 2018 as well. The collecting front, on the other hand, has been a bit on the tepid side, with few games bought and a rather sloppy purchasing drive. I'm quite behind on my To-get-my-paws-on list, even neglecting to secure coveted Vita games despite promising myself to purchase such games day one to avoid missing on them. However, I'm confident my purchasing drive will come back before the Vita and 3DS are through; and since I'm not planning on missing on the ultimate releases for these two anyway, there will be a couple more gaming shopping sprees no matter what.

And talking about the Vita and 3DS ultimate releases... Eeeh, things are not looking too good on that front right now. The 3DS has a couple of appetizing games slated for release in early 2018, but there are no news of any games being planned beyond that; as for the Vita, 90% of the planned 2018 localizations are digital-only releases. Allow me to be totally unexcited about this, both as a collector worried about the future of the PSN and a buyer who wants the best value for money. That being said, I'd lie if I said I'm over-hyped about the 2018 Vita release schedule: apart from the lone RPG such as Rainbow Skies and Omega Labyrinth Z, there's nothing there that makes me jiggle with excitement. But I'll take what I can, and I'll take it gratefully. 2018 may see the end of both the 3DS and Vita, and I want to bid them farewell with as many game purchases as possible. Bring it on!

At that point, it's also safe to say that I will indeed purchase a Switch at some point. There are already a half-dozen games out there I'm coveting and just as many slated for release in 2018, which is more than enough games to justify a purchase — heck, I bought consoles for less games than that back in the days. While I don't think I'll buy the Switch itself in 2018, it's quite possible that I'll start stockpiling games, all the more so if 3DS and Vita releases trickle down to nothing in the second half of 2018. And with that, you have my gaming plans for 2018: lots of playing and blogging, as much collecting as possible and tons of gaming fun overall. I wish you a glorious gaming year, dear fellow gamers; and as usual, thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!