GotX: Learning Old Lessons for January 2025

As the chime of the church bells starts to fade and 2025 takes its first breath, a new month starts, and that means new Games Of The Month.

What is GotX?

Arguably at the heart of the RH Discord is the Game Of the X (GotX) section. Currently, GotX consists of 3 categories — Game of the Week, Game of the Month, and RPG of the Quarter. Completing any of the selected GotX games will earn a player RH points, which can be exchanged for RH merch, including the fabled RH Bag.

GotX is run by Rapid99, who viewers of the RH Podcast will recognize from the New Year’s stream.

I have been part of GotX since May 2022, with my current “streak” of completing GotM games approaching 3 years. I genuinely consider it one of the best corners of the internet and as the calendar starts anew, there is arguably no better time for new gamers to join in. The community is welcoming to new members, although only people who are active on the RH Discord can nominate and vote for GotM games.

GotM – Game of The Month

The most active part of the GotX community is the GotM (Game of the Month).

Each month, a theme is selected by players who have previously completed a GOTM game. Members of the RH Discord then nominate games that match the theme that can be played on Retro Handhelds. Usually, 3 games are selected through voting, one for each of the 3 time periods:

• Games released before 31st December 1996
• Games released between 1997 and 1999
• Games released in 2000 or later.

January’s Theme is “Learning Old Lessons”

In a break with Tradition, the theme selected for January 2025 is “Learning of Lessons.” Instead of selecting 3 new games, as we have done for every previous month, during January gamers can play up to 3 previous winners, from any era. The only limitations are that it cannot select a game which they previously earned points for, and the selected game can’t be one of the games that were announced as the 2025 Games of the Year on the RH New Year’s podcast.

The 2024 Game of The Year Award Winners are:

Where Can You Find Previous Winners?

The List of previous winners can be found in the “GOTM Winners Circle” on the RH Discord.  Previous winners of the RPG of the Quarter are also eligible to be played through for a single point.

The GotX Randomizer

Many members of the community know exactly which previous winner they will play for January – for example, I immediately knew that my choice would be Pirates Gold! on the Genesis. Others however were stuck by Analysis Paralysis.

For these players, one option is the GOTX Randomizer. The GOTX Randomizer will show the details of a random game from its database of all previous GOTX winners and nominees. The settings menu on the top right of the screen can filter the category of the games, and also only select games with set estimated completion times. All completion information is taken from How Long To Beat.

In order to select an eligible game, all options in the settings menu need to be deselected other than “GotM Winners” and “RPGotQ Winners”

The “Reroll” button can be used as many times as wanted to cycle through random game selections.

GotX Randomizer

Recommended Games

While any previous winner can be played to earn RH Points, three games keep being mentioned in the GotX community as potential playthroughs, and these may be good selections if you want to be part of an active discussion on the RH Discord (each game will have its own thread). Coincidentally each of the 3 games came from the first 3 months of GotM’s existence.

Chrono Trigger

• Console: SNES, PS1, DS
• Release: 1995
• Genre: Top-Down, Turn-Based, Role-Playing
• HLTB: 23 Hours

Chrono Trigger was the first ever GotM game, way back in August 2020, well before many of the regular GotX community had joined. It is widely considered not only one of the best SNES games ever but one of the best RPGs ever.

Chrono Trigger is a story of time travel, which initially starts as a simple mission to save a princess accidentally flung into the past, but which, through the butterfly effect, ends up being a fight to save the whole planet from extinction. Chrono Trigger is a very memorable game for the story and the pixel art, both of which are arguably the panicle of the 16-bit era

Parasite Eve

• Console: PS1
• Release: 1998
• Genre: Role-playing
• HLTB: 9.5 Hours

Parasite Eve is easily the best game that I’ve been introduced to through GotX. While it was first selected as part of “Spooky Theme” in October 2020, there have since been 2 unofficial group playthroughs. The first was organized in Spring 2022 when a few of the RH discord administrators decided to beat it together, and the second was a year later in Spring 2023 when a separate group of community members (including me) wanted to complete it in preparation for PE2 becoming GotM in May 2023.

Parasite Eve takes place over a 6-day period in New York City, as the police force deal with a supernatural threat. It is one of the few games of the era that contain horror aspects other than blood and gore, which still stand up today. The game was never released in Europe and the reasonably extreme content of the opening scene, where the audience of an Opera at Carnegie Hall suffers a gruesome fate, may be partly responsible for that decision.

Policenauts

• Console: PS1, Saturn
• Release: 1995
• Genre: First-Person, Adventure
• HLTB: 12 Hours

Policenauts was selected as part of the second-ever month of GotM, back in September 2020. Policenauts is an early game by Hideo Kojima (of Metal Gear Solid fame), While initially released in 1995, it was only available in Japanese until fan translations of the PS1 and Sega Saturn ports were created in 2009 & 2016 respectively. The 2009 translation was one of the driving forces behind me hacking my original PSP back in the day to play eboot files.

Policenauts is a visual novel with light gun-style interludes. You play as a member of the Space Police who has been in cryogenic suspension for 24 years, awakening to find that the world, including his wife and his old partner, have all moved on. While set in space,  Policenaughts is a homage to buddy-cop dramas like Lethal Weapon.

My favorite part of Policenautsis the opening 10 minutes, while your character sits in his office and contemplates what his life has become. I maintain that very few games have managed to communicate characterization, emotion, and motivations as well or as quickly as those 10 minutes of gameplay.

RPG of the Quarter

For gamers who prefer longer games to those who are selected for GotM, there is also RPG of the Quarter (RPGotQ). RPGotQ games can be completed over a 3-month period. Completing an RPGotQ game early gives the player 1 RH point (the same as GotM) but gamers who link their device to RetroAchivements and gain a 100% completion score will earn an additional 2 points — making 3 in total.

The current RPGofQ is Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber for the N64. It’s not a game I’ve played before myself – like Parasite Eve, it’s a game which didn’t get released in Europe where I live – although it was later made available on the Wii Virtual Console.

Despite starting from a point of unfamiliarity with any Ogre Battle releases, I still know this is well well-reviewed series. Ogre Battle 64 is set in a world where angels have turned their back on humanity, due to their barbaric ways, and is set in a country in the effect of a war, where a new overlord has set a new class system in place, forcible driving apart nobility and the working people.

I expected this to be a game where combat was resolved on isometric battlefields, but instead Ogre Battle uses an auto-battle system. The player instead is in charge of troop movement, ensuring that suitable resources are put both into defeating the enemy and defending your own base against more and more advanced enemy attacks.

Ogre Battle 64 can be found on multiple lists of “Hidden Gems” or “Best N64 Games”, and I expect it to be a memorable experience when I play through it as part of GotX

Game of the Week — RetroBits

In addition to the longer game selected by the community for GotM and RPGotQ, a short game is selected each week for Game of the Week (GotW) – also known as RetroBits. Games are mostly selected at random by the GotX admin Rapid (although for certain times of the year – like Halloween or Christmas – a thematically relevant game will be selected instead).

To be eligible for GotW consideration, the game must have a time on the How Long To Beat website of 2 hours or less. Completion of each GotW game will earn the player 0.5 RH points. New games are announced every Saturday at 8 pm EST. Details of the current GotW game can always be found on the RH Discord under the “gotw_games” section

Get Involved

If all this talk has piqued your interest, then there’s never been a better time to get involved. Join the RH Discord, and find the GotX section. The GotX Announcements thread is almost certainly worth a follow in order to keep up to date with themes, voting, and new games.

What did you think of this article? Let us know in the comments below, and chat with us in our Discord!

This page may contain affiliate links, by purchasing something through a link, Retro Handhelds may earn a small commission on the sale at no additional cost to you.