Hello all, we’re back again with the Humble Monthly Bundle Recap for December 2019.

So let’s get started. This month we have three games, Yakuza Kiwami, Soul Calibur VI and My Time at Portia. Honestly this is yet again another solid month with three great games. It’s also the last month, and I’ll touch on that at the end. Let’s quickly talk about each game.

Now as I’ve said multiple times, Yakuza is one of my favorite series. I don’t think this makes me biased, because Yakuza Kiwami is one of the games that cemented this opinion. I just really enjoy this series. Yakuza games are GTA style exploration of a semi-fictitious Japanese neighborhood with a focus on street fighting or brawling.

Yakuza Kiwami translates to Yakuza Extreme. What that means though is it’s an enhanced version of the original game of the series. The only really Extreme parts of Yakuza Kiwami is being put on a whole new engine. If you’re looking at this in 2019, it looks normal, but this is a remake of a 2005 Playstation 2 game, it really stands out.

Technically this is a sequel to Yakuza 0, but really that’s a prequel. The story here was intended as the start of the entire series and can be played as the first entry into the series if players haven’t seen this before. I do recommend this series, and suggest players either play Yakuza 0 which I like a touch more, or Yakuza Kiwami, which is still a great game.

I want to just love on this game but there are a few things here that are annoying, especially the boss fights have some really wonky rules. There’s really nothing horribly broken, but right now on PC, there are Yakuza 0, Yakuza Kiwami and Yakuza Kiwami 2. I think this is the weakest out of the three especially if we talk about the story of the series. Again not broken, but it’s not as strong as the other two which are amazing, but I also will say this is an essential part of those three games which is easily worth full price, and at 12 bucks, it’s a great deal.

Moving on then, let’s talk about Soulcalibur VI… well I kind of hinted I didn’t like Soulcalibur Vi in my preview. I’m back to tell you, I don’t like this game. Now again, this is considering it at a 60 dollar price tag, and at 12, I’m more forgiving of almost every complaint. But it’s still not great.

Tekken, Dragon Ball Z, and Injustice 2 are just three fighting games I’ve played in the last couple of years that are far superior to Soulcalibur VI. It’s not that I hate the battle system in Soulcalibur, though I do prefer Tekken’s system a bit more. Instead the problem is Soulcalibur tried to needlessly complicate it for this version.

In Tekken 7, they added Rage arts, which isn’t the best, but works well. Soulcalibur seemed to add three or four systems like that, the worst being a Rock Paper Scissors decision system, that’s even more complicated than that. It has dodges, ties, and even double ties, and more. Seriously guys?

The single player offerings sound meaty, and they can take you a while, but it’s not going to really entertain you, where the story in DBZ is done a lot better, and Injustice 2 for all it’s problems *microtransactions* has better characters, and again a better story.

Soulcalibur VI is not a bad game though. 12 bucks is a good deal, if you want to play online you’ll get a lot out of it. If you want to beat down friends, good, but it’s not great, which is sad because I loved this series at one time, I really want to again.

Finally, My Time At Portia, and what a time it is. I personally already have 60 hours into this game and probably can put another twenty or thirty into it just to finish the story, and maybe even more past that depending on how you like to play these games.

A lot of this game is just exploring, experiencing an interesting world and meeting with people. There’s a huge town, that great story I mentioned, a lot of friends to make for completionists. Personally, I loved the mining system, a little dungeoning, all the different builds you had to make, and more. There’s a lot that I got into.

I really didn’t get sidetracked much but here are a few more things, decorating your house, hanging out with people, throwing parties, farming, raising animals, these are just things that people like about the game, that I didn’t spend my 60 hours in. There’s so much to do in this game that you’ll probably find something fun.

My Time At Portia is similar to Stardew Valley, but that’s not a negative as it actually does quite a bit better than Stardew Valley. I originally thought I would prefer Stardew in almost every way… now, I actually think I like My Time At Portia more. The story works better and it’s more guided. I don’t think it’s a definitively better game, they’re both fantastic games, but if you like Stardew Valley, or Harvest Moon, or are just curious about what I’m showing here. Pick this one up. There’s a lot to do in My Time at Portia.

So, what do I think about the Humble Monthly Bundle for December 2019… well let me offer you a different view of this month’s bundle than I have. Clearly I like it. But Yakuza Kiwami gave me over 50 hours of play time, 52 to be exact, and that’s the main story with some exploration, there’s more there. I already have over 60 hours in My Time at Portia, and every hour was fun. And Soulcalibur, yeah I’m not a huge fan but I still put in over 15 hours, and fans are going to just dump time into this. You can play this for a few hours yourself, play with friends for even more and tackle online and practice for even more if you really get into this game.

This month I think you’ll find at least a hundred hours of content here across all three games. Last month I dubbed the Humble Monthly Bundle of November, Call of Duty World War 2, Crash, and Spyro, the best month ever. The thing is I don’t like hyperbole. Saying it was the best month ever took a lot for me to decide that. I don’t want to dub this month the best month ever and while it has two strong games, I think it’s slightly weaker. But this is still a very strong offering for Humble Monthly Bundle, and anyone interested in ANY of these games, should pick it up.

So yes, I’ll give this my final

STRONG

recommendation.

And yes, my final. The thing is, this is also a little sad, we’re saying goodbye to the Humble Monthly Bundle. I’ve been in the Humble Monthly Bundle for over three years, and… Monthly has been pretty good to me, both as a gamer and a reviewer.

Officially next month, same day this bundle “unlocks” December 6th, will be seeing the first Humble Choice. A lot of people have said it’s the same thing as the Monthly and hopefully they’re right, but it’s more expensive and all games are seen at once. Theoretically I’d love for this to be a better value, especially for the established Humble Monthly Bundle subscribers, which if you aren’t already, you might want to buy it just for the possibility, getting Humble Choice for 12 bucks instead of 20 which should be a good deal.

On the other hand, Choice might suck. Humble Monthly Bundle had this pull that people had to invest in the early unlocks and so we got bigger titles. I can see a future where we get more twenty dollar titles that people aren’t as excited for. The value proposition might sound better, maybe two hundred dollars worth of goods every month, but for me I like these big AAA games, and I really hope Humble Choice continues that.

Either way, don’t worry, I’ll be back here shortly after Humble Choice releases to let you know what I think of the brand new Humble Choice.

One last side note, it’s almost December and it’s a yearly tradition that Humble Bundle will be having another month long Yogscast Jingle Jam Bundle, this is a charity Bundle run by Yogscast. Now listen, I’m not going to bad mouth charity or charity bundles. That’s not what I’m about, though remember by buying it, THEY are donating to charity, you’re not officially donating, for tax reasons at least.

However, I will warn people that this is not a typical Humble Bundle, or a Humble Monthly, it’s fully run by Yogscast. Yogscast makes the deals and the games are given away for free for the studios. So you’re probably not going to see many AAA games, at least there haven’t been many in the last two years.

As for the bundle, people buy in early and tend not to like the “unlocks” in this 25 days of presents. If you’re interested in the Yogscast Charity Bundle that will probably be put up December 1st according to them, make sure you’re ok with giving them money for what’s available already or just giving the money to charity. If you’re not sure, then hold off until you see something good or really donate to a charity directly if that’s what you want to do, it’s the right time of year which is technically any time of year.

The last two years, there’s hundreds of threads about “This bundle sucks” and hundreds of responses of “Why don’t you like charity?” or how it’s not a normal bundle. These are stupid fights but I thought I’d just throw something in here about it, just to warn people about a slightly different bundle that will appear and to not expect the Jingle Jam to be at the same level as what you might expect from the Humble Bundle.

Alright, with that, I’ll see you next month, sometime after the Humble Choice drops, I’m excited to see what we’ll finally get for this month and next.

Until then I’m Kinglink and thanks for watching.