Humble Choice: February 2021

Last month I had a bit of a grump. Shortly after that post I had another good look at what bundles have brought us of late, and yeah- there have been some disappointing months without a doubt. But you don’t have to go back too far to find stuff I was pretty happy about. November 2020 was a great month. So was October right before.

There were a few relatively ‘dry’ months in between, by my reckoning, but I’m rather thankful for February’s 2021 top picks. I don’t think this bundle is going to go blowing anyone’s sock’s off, but my top pick (Outward) is one I’ve been interested in since near the beginning of this blog! And it will come with the expansion, too. More on this shortly.

For now- let’s jump into it. Yes, yet again the ‘limited’ offer of classic and premium subscribers getting everything on offer is in play, so if you’re on one of those plans no ‘choice’ is necessary beyond whether or not to pause for the month. If you’re on a lower plan then I’ll be listing the choice bundle in order of descending preference, pretending for the purposes of this list that I don’t own anything on it even if I do.

My Picks for February 2021’s Humble Choice

Outward! Outward plus ‘The Soroboreans’ expansion is included this month. The base game, as noted in the intro, I’ve been interested in since before it came out. Enough so that I was sure I was going to buy it at launch and play the living bejeebus out of it.

Welp… That didn’t happen. The launch price (>$60 NZD) certainly was a contributing factor. But more than that, I’ve actually purchased the game during a sale before but ended up being incredibly put off by the animation quality before even finishing the tutorial and ended up refunding.

Graphics, while something I certainly appreciate, aren’t normally a deal breaker to this extent for me. Trying to put my finger on why it did here, I think it is because of the importance of animations when it comes to the combat style on offer here. The action, dodge, roll, parry style combat just didn’t feel very good… Or even right.

So why so interested now? Well- frankly? I wasn’t willing to put up with those issues for the asking price, even on sale (as it was still >$40 NZD if I recall rightly). But I’ve still always viewed this as a bit of a shame as the ideas of being (at least at the start of the game) as a bit of a nobody-special villager, with less handholding, with more player agency and meaningful player decision making are ones I was onboard with.

So here we are — a humble choice bundle gives me this opportunity to try it again without the insane asking price. And? If it ends up grabbing me, there is a second expansion now out which I can purchase at the normal price to show my support. Good timing all around.

In any case, there are other games in this bundle too. So let’s get to the table. ;)

As much as I went on about Outward above, Valkyria Chronicles 4 could easily jump into that top spot, it’s that close. I fell in love with the Valkyria Chronicles only around the 3rd entry when it had a re-release on PC. Funnily enough, not too long before 4 came out.

I couldn’t tell you why I didn’t pick up 4 for myself, I just… Haven’t. It was probably for no other reason than I already had so much on the backlog and for once I showed a modicum of restraint in not purchasing it.

The other callouts here are Boomerang Fu and Moving Out — they’re both local/couch co-op only. At least in terms of what’s supported in the games themselves. This might be something you can work around with remote play, but just worth noting this out of the box.

Overall — a bundle to turn last month’s frown back upside down. More like this please, Humble!