Games I Played in December 

I almost think releasing this kind of video a month late is smart. You get some time to think about what you play and have the ability to give your impression of the game after not playing it for a while.

I love the way you end these videos. It has very similar energy to “Good Night Wesley, sleep well. I’ll most likely kill you in the morning.” The suspense gets me every month!

Oneshot is one of the games that I played when I was at my lowest, and it still holds a special place in my heart. It gave me a sense of companionship when I had no one to turn to. I always appreciate how honest your opinions are, positive or not

Raz, with the amount of games you play, have you come up with hypothetical games that’d you want to exist? Like a combination of mechanics that you’re curious to see?

Thanks for finally playing OneShot Raz! I suggested it for quite many months, and it's nice to know that you respect it although it didn't manage to wow you as it did for me. For me, I think the best aspect of the game is it's story and the fact that you, the real life you, is one of the characters in the story. And for me the game really managed to convince me of that. And due to me feeling so part of the world I got quite emotional at the end. But I have to agree on your criticism of the puzzles. They are not the best but for me it really isn't the point. The main point is the story and how personal it can be. But even though you didn't fall in love with it I'm still really glad that you gave it a shot :D

I didn't know that NPC in OneShot was added later because of Undertale, and now that dialog makes way more sense. It's interesting how much the two were compared because the only big similarities between the games are 4th wall breaks.

Big book nerd here and One Shot's addition of the Undertale reference feels very evocative of Wit/Hoid's monologue at the end of The Way of Kings. In it he asks what do men value most and brings up novelty, saying that even if someone makes something or discovers something on their own after someone else or even before but is less widely seen, they won't be remembered for it, or will be seen as a copy of the other.

I would like to recommend In Stars and Time. I'm not sure if it would be your type of game, but I think its storytelling and gameplay integration while not sacrificing any quality of life, as well as it's stellar characterisation through more than just dialogue is great and more people should play it.

I played GTA V in December. I love how I'm always on top of gaming's biggest trends. Love these videos. Definitely keeping in mind these recommendations!

I hope you keep making these videos. For me, they holds two benefits: Either I get to hear your take on games I also played, which I often agree with, but also sometimes am given the chance to view them from a new angle, always insightful and well measured. The second benefit is I get introduced to often worthy games that might have flown under my radar until then. Truly a pleasure, either way.

Always look so forward to these videos every month. A Highland Song and OneShot both look so great, I’ll definitely have to check them out at some point!

Really funny how you talked about Jusant and OneShot in the same video. Because me and some fellow students just started working on a game all about climbing this huge tree. And now in hindsight it would have been really similar to Jusant. So now we are looking at new ways to change it up. But yeah its a familiar story.

I love your channel cos it’s lets me not have fomo always about the latest and greatest games in every Podcast, gaming newscycle. It’s like hearing from a friend who’s just sharing the games they played! Relaxing and gives me games to pick up :)

Almost february Razbuten: december is done!!

I would love to watch a video going in depth about how you choose what games to play. Do you choose what's popular or what's niche? Do you search for new games first on PC or console? Do you choose games that aren't normally your taste to broaden your horizons, or do you tend to gravitate toward what you know you'll enjoy?

Oneshot will always hold a special sort of value to me, and I can't fully articulate why that is, but I just find it special.

I love these videos because almost always I come out of them with one or two games I add to my steam wishlist or even end up buying to check out.

Insightful and enjoyable as always, I'm always so pleased to see these monthly reviews show up on my feed. May there be January! It's great that you played Jusant and A Highland Song, both are excellent. I didn't have a problem with Jusant's less puzzle solving sections, as it always felt like an opportunity to give both my head and hands a break. It was also delightful climbing onto a vine, triggering an echo, and riding the vine all the way up -- it felt like a cathartic reward. (I always kicked myself for triggering a vine and then having to manually climb it.) I was also impressed that you arrived by Beltane in A Highland Song on your first try, as not many players have. There's so much to uncover in the game, and I've enjoyed revisiting it, but it would be nice to have a stronger incentive for more playthroughs. I've definitely noticed additional narration. Apparently there's a changed cutscene if you arrive at the lighthouse after only three days. The insight into Oneshot was fascinating. As I was watching the video, I made the presumption it was released after Undertale, etc, but it was humbling to realize that it was a predecessor to some of the most well-known games in the fourth wall breaking subgenre. I'll definitely have to check it out.

Love these videos. Hope you keep makin' em!

Just wanted to say your recommendation of Prodigal a couple months ago was so good. I recently played through it and absolutely love it!

Oooh I'm so glad you enjoyed A Highland Song! I unfortunately ran into a ton of bugs that made playing it pretty much impossible. It seems I'm one of very few people who had this issue, though. Such a fun concept!

Really nice vid, Raz!

I'm glad you enjoyed A Highland Song; it seems like Inkle have improved. You may have heard or even played their previous title, I am forgetful, that was setting-wise and part of gameplay brilliant but at other times extremely grating: Heaven's Vault. If you have not I would have suggested playing it, but after hearing plenty of praise for Chants of Sennaar I'm not so sure anymore as I'v heard the mechanics of translating unknown languages are extremely well done in that game. Still I enjoyed the universe it brought me in, and the two novels are a good retelling of the story, if the game's too much of a drag. Looking forward to next month: I enjoy hearing these so much I have become doing my own though I keep them private for obvious reasons. I think archiving thoughts helps deepen the appreciation and refine one's taste. Thank you.

Wow, I connected to Niko and the world of One Shot so, so deeply. I thought any given person probably would, but i guess not everyone

totally feel you in regards to Jusants abilities and the lack of ingenuity in engaging with them :) for me though it channeled the freedom of the piton rather than spreading it across the entire game. This really focused the gameplay for me and made it a perfect little "Podcast game" :)

A highland song was a great end of year surprise for me, it clearly has so much heart, and as someone who has always kept the Highlands as a home away from home it's exploration of the land and gaelic culture spoke to me in a way few games can, so I am really glad a lot of people also enjoyed it. Excellent video, it really helps me discover new games to play that might've been drowned out by the blockbuster competition

I really needed this 😭

I really like this video series, because you and I have similar tastes, and it helps me at discovering new games I'll probably like

I dig these monthly recap videos, so I do hope you continue them.

Thank you raz for being so consistent. I know you have your family and your life. But you've meant a lot over the years. I had a very close friend who I've known for many years playing videogames pass recently. And your vibe reminds me so much of him. Keep being you dude, you are the man. I appreciate all you do, no matter how small you think it is.

Another month of gaming! Can't wait to watch this video later - I just saw Jusant on the thumbnail and I absolutely loved that game. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on it!

So glad to see Jusant here! I really connected with the game. The visuals were mind-blowing and that last level was something 😊. Not to forget the soundtrack which I still listen to daily 🎶

OneShot is truly one of the most remarkable games I've played and is also criminally underappreciated. It's baffling to me that more people haven't played it, especially with how short it is.

Seeing you talk about A Highland Song, it reminds me of Forgotton Anne. A really neat game that flew under the radar sadly. It has an upcoming follow up, Forgotlings. I do like these backlog updates as someone who is also going through their backlog. I get a sense of solidarity watching these. Looking forward to the January update unless you decide to stop doing these.

I first heard of "A Highland Song" in October while watching the Nintendo Direct, but I was unsure that it was worth buying. Raz has convinced me.

Oneshot had me cryin

I think I'd like to use this space to also talk about some of the games I played in December, and I think everyone else should too. a little community get together! i ended up playing and not enjoying or sticking with a lot of games in December but if I had to pick a few I did like they would be Valfaris, The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante, Project Warlock and Ghostrunner. Valfaris is a very cool and stylistic action platformer like the old Contra's based on Native American mythology. Its tough as nails but beautiful (and metal). Sir Brante is so hard to describe because it does so much. Its a visual novel but also a societal/religous/revolutionary thriller with elements of customizability in how you build your protagonist and their stats and what route you choose to explore. hands down the most interesting, complex and engaging VN I've ever played (as someone who loves VA11-Hall A to death) Project Warlock is a "boomer shooter" like DOOM or Quake but blends magic and a ton of variety into its arsenal of weapons. pistol, machine gun, dynamite, shotgun, longsword, axe, flamethrower, throwing dagger.....and theres even more variants and upgrades. tons of secrets in the levels, lots of enemies to shoot. real fun time. Ghostrunner is an slasher/ platformer where you play the titular Runner, a cyborg/android rebelling against the Keymaster Mara, to overly simplify the plot. an excellent platformer with excellent customizability in how you build your Runner and their upgrades/which abilities you use. also tough as nails, frustrating at times but ultra satisfying when you finally put all the pieces together and hit the next checkpoint/level or defeat a boss. that's all I have! feel free to add on to this comment with your games of december too

Jusant is such a beautiful game! It really feels like a nice long hike, with a really nice ending

Beyond excited to see you'll be playing Lunacid in April.

Put that highlands game on my wishlist, seems right uo my alley!

I played Jusant last weekend and I feel very similarly to you. I thought the multitudes of collectables, especially the text logs, really slowed down the pacing. When I started ignoring them it made the game much faster and I had a lot more fun. It would have been interesting to see how the game would have turned out if it was a textless game similar to Abzu where you pay attention to the world around you to figure out the story, rather than read text logs.

I definitely agree with Oneshot being a "You'll millage may wary" kind of game. Like if you're the type of person that can easily get attached and emotional to certain type of characters and protagonists with a story that feels personal to you,Then it'll definitely hit you in the feels But if you feel like you're not interested or don't care about what's going on or couldn't get yourself to relate with anything then,I am afraid Oneshot would be a miss :( I personally enjoyed it, In fact i found the game to be far more Emotional, Personal and Important to me than Undertale purely because of how it makes YOU an actual important entity in game rather than treating you like another third wheel like most video games while it's the side characters that gets all the attention (and i hate when games do it) and also Niko because of how much he constantly tries to have a connection with you without coming off obnoxious and how he actually grows out of his comfort zone cus of your guidance and not cus of some story circumstances which was my problem with Undertale,A game that was effectively carried by its side characters and the hidden lore and i do appreciate Deltarune addresses some of those problems.

These monthly videos basically just add to my own backlog of games lol

Great video again! Jusant was one of those games that had me hooked to my screen for the whole run. Not necessarily because it was challenging or tense, becausse it was kind of not. But just the atmosphere and the soundtrack were what really sucked me in.

A highland song was a game, that I saw being advertised at an earlier NintendoDirect, and I fell in love with it for the music alone. I'm a sucker for games and music that scratches this bittersweet itch, and I am very glad they nailed it. I also think having been in scotland for vacation also was a factor in my enjoyment, but that's actually ok.

I met the developers of OneShot 4-5 years ago at a convention, they were really cool people and its crazy to think that it all started as a group of friends in college who wanted to make a game!

I really like Oneshot, but I prefer the original free version, despite it lacking content compared to the paid version on steam for one simple reason. As the name of that version of the game implies, you only have one shot at finishing the game. If you were to die or finish the game it will lock itself and you'll be unable to play it again (unless you install it on another computer or do some editing deep in the files.) This makes the choices have so much more weight compared to the paid version on steam, were you can replay as many times as you want. I understand why the dev did this with the paid version. But as a piece of art I much prefer the original free version.

ahh man im sad you felt that way about oneshot, i loved it. it was a really nice journey

Alright. All of them I want to play now😀

I'm impressed by the climbing mechanics of Jussant, looks pretty true to how climbing actually works without being too realistic and taking the fun out of it

Hey there Raz! I'm not sure if you've tried it yet, but I think it might be worth one shot to play the original OneShot version, too. As someone who has started off with that version, then anxiously awaited the Steam version, and now is waiting for their Switch version... I feel like it just hits differently? Partially because you truly only get one shot in this version (if you know, you know), and partially because it's just a little bit different still. It might, of course, also do nothing for you - but to me, the close bond I felt with Niko was partially due to how great the stakes felt... and the fact that I had to literally dig through a lot of files just to see them again in-game (unlike now, when you can easily replay the game) just added to it. Idk, I just love OneShot a lot *hides my Niko plush and the OneShot guide I wrote... and have yet to finish updating*

Have you ever played I Am Alive? The climbing is more or less automated but it has a tight stamina managment system that means you actually have to plan ahead. You can also deplete your max stamina to do a final push to reach a ledge, use stamina restoring items mid climb and use limited pitins that you can find to create rest spots

Jusant reminds me of Gone Home from the last decade, there you climbed a big plant that would grow the further you reach.

Yoo i just finished oneshot yesterday great game

I also recommend Brigador. It's a really underappreciated hidden gem of a game. It's a semi-strategic isometric roguelike with an amazing OST and an extremely rich lore. Overall worth a try!

I don’t like how One Shot gets all meta but also allows you to permanently and irreversibly delete your save file in 2 clicks when it’s being obtuse.

Just here to drop a like before I go to watch it on nebula. :)

I love jusant, I do get why the game is so easy and I wouldn’t change that. But I would also really like a post story game mode with some really challenging problems that would take full advantage of the climbing system

I tried playing One Shot a couple years ago, but lost interest before finishing it, I liked what I played though, and I played Jusant all the way through last month, really liked that game for what it is :)

Hey Raz! Love these diary entries/mini reviews. I’m wondering if you’ve seen/played Season: A Letter To The Future? That one seems it’d be right up your alley. Have a good one!

A Highland song'trailers did not at all sell me the game, though i love inkle but your short minutes about the exploration changed my mind !

Nice! I'm a huge, huge fan of OneShot. Even though it didn't connect with me emotionally as much as Undertale or other indies in that style, I find myself _thinking_ about it a lot more. Out of curiosity, did you go through the True Ending route or did you stop the playthrough after the "final" choice?

Love how every episode ends with mildly depressing portent

I got completely lost in A Highland Song and felt like I wasted way too much time to win. I love the idea but it can be difficult to tell which layers you can go to and which you can't.

I really want to play the second game! I think I would like it, from the way you described it, it sounds similar to the stanley parable. I have 2 questions, do you rock climb? since during the first game it sounded like you did, and 2, how do you restart oneshot? since I started playing then stopped and I don't remember what's happening.

aww December :( gone too soon.

List: Jusant A Highland Song OneShot

Sad to see that OneShot was not portrayed in a great light here but I want to mention that its one of my favourite games of all time, like, top 5 probably, and I've played a ton of games. If you liked games like Undertale for example you'd probably love this. Its one of the few games that I still think about a long time after playing.

please don't decide to stop making these videos

when u finish doing these can u upload a short video saying, "yup thats all folks"

amazing video! at 4:50 you misspelled oneshot and wrote Onot... just a quick comment!

While Jusant does try to stop you from just spamming L1/R1, I really wish it did a bit more. I absolutely 100% get that this was just the developer's intention, it's meant to be a chill exploration game more than anything, but the stamina in Jusant is really never a problem as you can sprint up walls once you get into a rythm. The only times where stamina was an issue was when it was the game's 'fault', like the game telegraphing the wind direction as a strong updraft but then not aligning the hitbox to the visuals. These were minor, but felt like they punished me for following the game's instructions. Other than that one minor issue, I really wish it was.. harder? Like maybe only being able to regen stamina using the checkpoints the game gives you or you set, rather than being able to tap a button at any time to reset the (partial) bar. Also just fewer safeguards, like being able to freeclimb or jump off a cliff if you wanted to. It would make the game more tense and rewarding, without really changing the difficulty. Free climbing would be a nice dopamine hit when you do it successfully and punish you for falling because you'd actually die, and maybe just giving one extra piton instead of the checkpoints you automatically connect to would make you have to think about your placement as not using them would be much riskier.

You should try BallisticNG if you like fast paced racing games with a lot of skill needed to play

Did you play through One Shot once or twice for the full story? I also think it does the 4th wall stuff better than Undertale. I think of Undertale more for its pacifism gameplay than its 4th wall breaks. Then there is Daniel Mullins Games with an entire catalogue of "What if Sonic.exe was good" games.

Wait im confused, did you do a Solstice run in Oneshot?

You still should try to complete tunjc. It's closest to outer wilds game there is.

Have you tried "Ori and the blind forest" and its sequel Ori and the will of the wisp"?

If you haven’t already, you’ve gotta play Inscryption!!

When I spray diarrhea on a stump I prefer it to be dogwood over oak.

Shout out to all of those who were the one that got played in december😔😔😔

This comment contains spoilers for the game oneshot so watch out! The game experience was good, i still sometimes listen to the music the characters were cute the mechanics were as you said not that thought provoking but the writing was very special, I felt like breaking of the 4th wall was done very carefully and in a uniqe way compared to the later games like ddlc, undertale, it was more believable in a way, in ddlc the thought that the developer written all that dialogue shattered the illusion without any ingame explanation ( at least before the ddlc plus lore and stuff ) , in comparison the solstice run explaines it to the level where i was satisfied and it made me emotionally connect to the characters, another thing is the advertising, ONEshot, everywhere you hear that you only have one shot, even if there is almost no major choices having any say in the outcome the decision at the end adds pressure because you believe there will be no second chance to have a better end, then the solstice run happens, when i realised that there was more after the ending i was really surprised and up until that point it was just a ok game that is important for indie history, after playing everything the game has to offer Niko is now on my desktop wallpaper 💜💜💜 PS: (i hope you know about the solstice run???? Ff not for my interest in the games ost and the fact that when i searched for it oneshot solstice ost kept appearing i wouldnt know so im just checking) Very good video!

Kind of a wired question but is it ok if i make a video about games i played this month too? I'll give full credit btw (i will make other content too, and it wont be the same style of video as yours if thats ok)

It's a shame you didn't love OneShot. For me I connected with it more than Undertale despite playing it long before OneShot. I understand kind of being tired of meta games, they've certainly taken the world by storm but even after playing them all OneShot still reigns supreme for me. A few games use 'you' as a player typically as shock value ,something like DDL where they say "...or should I say [your computer name]" but no game has pulled me in and made me feel more like a character in the world. I think that's why it resonated with me (and many MANY others) so much. The moment in the game where you decide to save the world instead of Niko, Niko berates you for choosing poorly for quite a while. This is after I spent 20 straight minutes staring at that decision screen. I mean it when I say that is the hardest decision I've ever had to make in a video game in my life. But then there's a moment where Niko has a realization of what you did, and how you chose an option that was selfless and for the greater good. He apologized to ME, and I mean ME directly and said how hard of a decision that must have been as flashbacks of me sitting in front of my monitor hovering over the button. And I just broke down crying instantly. Tears left my face before I even realized it. It's a shame you didn't like it, but I get it, if it doesn't hit than it doesn't hit. I have to imagine the reason it's not as colossal as Undertale is because it's more focused. It's laser precision. For those that hit it hits HARD, but that also means there's more misses. Sorry for the novel.

Damn he said his patreons suck at suggesting games 😂

please play astlibra

I clicked so fast.

I wonder if he ever beat Baldur’s Gate 3… 🤔

Ola! 💙🌼

o/

Raz please post nfl opinions on this channel 🙏