What I Played in December 2024

Posted on 2025.01.31

It’s time for another month-in-review! I don’t really have an intro for this one. The college semester ended so I had a bit more time to play games, I guess? Oh, and let’s give it up for the last month of the year! Here are the games I played in December 2024, in no particular order.

Tetris Effect: Connected

I always play this game every now and then, so nothing special here. Oh, except that I got a sub-1 minute sprint! I had already achieved one in tetr.io but I did it in this game this time.

Tetris 99

This month saw the arrival of two new themes! The first one is based on NES Tetris and it’s really cool. I love the sounds and I like the order in which they placed the three music themes. Unfortunately since it doesn’t use the guideline colors it’s a bit hard for me to play with, so I probs won’t be using it much despite really wanting to :(. One more thing to mention is that I like that they used the level 8/18 color palette, love me those bright deep reds! The second theme they added this month was the Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom one, and I love it!! The colors are pleasing to the eyes, the sounds are satisfying and I like the music! And not to get superstitious or anything, but I think this theme makes me play better. While using this theme, I got an insane streak of games where 9 out of 10 games in a row I placed in TOP FOUR! And four of those 10 games were FIRST PLACE!! I have never played that consistently good before, and I wonder if the theme has anything to do with it (maybe because the music is not that anxiety inducing or something?? idk, it’s weird).

Clone Hero

MY GLORIOUS RETURN!! I had my drum set away from home (where my Clone Hero game and all the songs are) for months, and this month I finally got the chance to set it up again and play! I missed it so much, I must’ve played for like three or four hours straight on that day. I love drumming and I love this rhythm game. Also I downloaded a heck-ton of Paramore drum charts :3.

Murder by Numbers

I’ve had my eye on this game for a while, and after playing a bunch of picross I finally decided to pick it up (the Steam winter sale may or may not have helped influence this decision). It’s pretty cool! I was engaged with the story, and the puzzles are interesting enough to keep me engaged despite their easy difficulty. Did I finish the game? Unfortunately no, you see I would have continued to play till the end but when I finished chapter 3 I noticed I didn’t get an S rank. This confused me as I was sure I did all the puzzles, and after some googling I found out I had missed a missable puzzle! What the heck? The game didn’t have points of no return until now, my bad for being too engaged with the story to scour every scene before clicking some dialogue. Idk why but that really miffed me. I didn’t wanna replay the whole hours-long chapter, and instead of continuing onto the last chapter without caring about a single puzzle like a normal person, my brain decided to not click the play button again. My brain is weird. I’ll return to finish it someday. Before moving on, one actual comment I have about the game is that I wish there were larger puzzles. I was still having fun with these 15x15 puzzles, but they’re still pretty easy for me. I really would love to see some 20x20s (and maybe larger) soon. The second-to-last chapter didn’t have anything larger than 15x15 so idk how wild the game will go for the last chapter. Maybe this is just a me problem as someone who’s proficient at picross :P.

puzzle-nonograms.com

I did the stupid monthly 50x50 puzzle again. I don’t know why I did that. It was even worse than last time, it took me 11 days total (which idk how many actual hours of work that translates to). It was so difficult and tedious and headache inducing. But I told myself I wouldn’t play Murder by Numbers until I finished this puzzle. I promise this is the last time I tackle one of these beasts (until the day I forget about the pain again).

Splatoon 3

There was a golden Salmon Run rotation right on the bridge between November and December, and I played a grand total of six (6) shifts. I won 5 in a row then lost the 6th, and granted I was already having a really rough time scraping by (Spawning Grounds moment) I decided that was enough for me. Luckily, two weeks later a Big Run happened! I had more fun with that event, even if it was still rough out there (freelance moment). I played over 20 shifts and thought I wouldn’t get enough for a gold trophy due to getting unlucky with teammates, but during the last few minutes of the event I managed to complete a shift with 141 eggs! Talk about a buzzer beater!

Super Mario Galaxy

After replaying (and beating) this game back in October, I picked it back up to go for the remaining stars. Proud to say that I’ve gotten all 120 stars! My first time “100%’ing” this game (I put quotes because I know there’s more if you beat the game again with Luigi), and it was a joy to not only rediscover all the fun of this game, but to experience all the levels I never got to before! I played Toy Time Galaxy for the first time, loved the aesthetics (probs my favorite in that department). I also got to the Garden for the first time, and wow, the pure silence of that dome caught me off guard the first time and every time I returned from a level. This was also my first time experiencing the Purple Comets… and I’m quite mixed on them. I already rambled about this on Bluesky but the gist of it was that only half of the purple coin missions were fun and provided a good challenge while the other half provided a pointless challenge (and were thus pointlessly stressful).

Balatro

Played some more of this game. I beat the blue stake for the first time! I love flushmaxxing with the checkered deck.

Super Mario Bros. 3

I played the first world years ago (I’m talking Wii U days), and this time I wanted to play it from the start all the way till the end, going for 100% along the way… And then I got to World 2 and dropped it for no reason. Whoops! Sometimes history repeats itself.

Animal Crossing: New Leaf

So, quick story. I had a spare New 3DS laying around; it was the one I had before I got a special edition system and transferred my data to it. Turns out I never got rid of that older one. I’ve been pondering modding the system for a while, and this month I finally got the push to do it! The memes weren’t lying, it was indeed surprisingly easy to mod a 3DS. The thing that pushed me to do so was wanting to replay New Leaf on a new save file. I had my cartridge but I didn’t want to erase my old town (even though I hadn’t touched it for years. I hate deleting old stuff! I like preserving memories!). Thanks to homebrew features, I was able to start a new save file while keeping the old one safe :). So this is the start of a new adventure… I’ve been itching to replay this game after hearing so many people talk about how good it was (both on its own and in comparison with New Horizons). I barely remember anything about this game so it would be basically a fresh experience. I started on December 30th so not much I did this month, but we’ll see how it goes next month! (oh wait, I’m making this post at the end of January, I already experienced the next month. Guess you’ll have to wait until my next month-in-review post to see what I did in this game ;))