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[insert flashy, eye-catching banner here that i have no idea how to make] Hey, everyone! Let's be honest; 2017 hasn't been the greatest year for the world at large ... but for the world of videogames, it's been one of the best ever. Several instant classics were released this year, not to mention a brand-new console that (in this goon's opinion) is Nintendo's best outing in a decade. So, given that it's now December, I thought we should have a thread to come together as a forum and look back on the year that was, and what better way to do so than with a good old-fashioned game of the year discussion! No competition or anything, just people talking about what they liked from this year. So, list your top 10 games released this year! I understand that might be a little vague, so to keep things clear, here are some  GROUND RULES 1. Games in consideration for this must have been released from December 2016 to ... well, now (December 6, 2017). I include Dec of last year because games released in late December usually get shafted when it comes to GOTY lists and I like to be inclusive. 2. For a game to be on your list, you must have played it. Not necessarily to completion, but enough so that you got a sense of the game as a whole (I'm still only five hours into Tales of Berseria, and while I'm having a lot of fun with it, that's nowhere near enough time to properly judge a JRPG). 3. For rereleases or ports or games brought to your country this year, you must have played that specific version and it must have come out this year. For instance, my list includes the Zero Escape Steam rerelease that came out this year; it consists of two older games, but I never played them then and only played the Steam version from this year, so that particular rerelease package is eligible. I cannot include 999 or VLR, but I can include Zero Escape: The Nonary Games. If there are any questions about this rule, I will do my best to clarify. 4. Please number your lists. 5. Please number your lists. I intend to use your list order as weights to ultimately decide the final forum-wide top 10. If you do not number your list, I will take them as written with your number 1 game of the year at the top and descending. 6. Not required, but please absolutely feel free to include some thoughts as to why you selected each game. I want this to be a fun discussion thread, not PYF. 7. Tallying will be done sometime later this month, I haven't decided yet. End of the year by the latest. Take your time! That should be everything, I think. Let's talk about the games we love, everyone. ♥
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Dec 6, 2017 18:16
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| # ? May 5, 2024 06:25 |
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Post reserved for the final tallies!
An Actual Princess fucked around with this message at 18:47 on Dec 6, 2017 |
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Dec 6, 2017 18:16
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1. Persona 5 My first Persona game grabbed me like few other games ever have -- just an absurdly solid JRPG that sucked me into its world for eighty hours and refused to let me go. I fell in love with all the characters and the world, and a handful of writing missteps weren't enough to drag this game now from a very easy personal game of the year. 2. Super Mario Odyssey Pure joy in videogame form. I have been looking forward to SMO since it was first revealed, and it didn't let me down whatsoever; hugely varied environments, countless fun distractions, and New Donk City. SMO felt like a love letter to the Mario series as a whole, and I couldn't have been happier with it. 3. Prey A game that came absolutely out of nowhere for me; browsing demos on PSN lead me to this little gem, and it turned out it was the System Shock 3 I always wanted. A compelling setting and hugely varied abilities carried me to a slightly disappointing loading-screen filled last stretch, but the overall experience was extremely solid. 4. Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood The second expansion to the solid MMO, Stormblood was a huge step up from Heavensward, offering the ladies' road trip I never knew I always wanted, several fantastic dungeons and great bosses, and a pair of extremely fun new classes. It helps that the Mongolia-inspired Azim Steppe is probably my favorite zone from any MMO ever. 5. Zero Escape: The Nonary Games I never played 999 or VLR back when they first came out due to not having the appropriate hardware, and since I was a moron and played the final game in the series when it came out last year as my first of the trilogy, I was immensely excited to get to play the first two, and they didn't disappoint. I'm always game for insane twists and turns and neither of these two failed whatsoever in that regard. 6. Sonic Mania Turns out all Sonic Team needed to do was go back to the Genesis era and make another one exactly like that; who knew? It had a few too many zones from the past games and I didn't care for the Sonic CD levels at all, but the overall package was the nostalgic throwback I desperately wanted. 7. Doki Doki Literature Club Everyone has their own personal thoughts on this horror visual novel; it's been exceptionally polarizing, but it caught me by surprise and worked exceptionally well. Poor instances of dialogue and a slightly-too-long first act weren't enough to keep it from my top games of the year in an already packed year. 8. Danganronpa V3 I played the DR trilogy this year one after the other, and if I could include the first two games on my list as well, I totally would; that said, the finale to the trilogy was still nearly perfect, dragged down only by a couple of useless characters and a truly bizarre ending (that still remained markedly compelling). 9. Puyo Puyo Tetris Is there a better puzzle game than this? Find me one. I'll wait. PPT combines two of my favorite franchises into an absurdly well-polished single package, and I've sunk tons of hours into the swap mode. 10. Life is Strange: Before the Storm Considering that I didn't expect anything good to come from this, I was enormously taken by surprise with how good the writing ended up, and I even stopped missing Ashly Burch after a remarkably short while. The third and final episode still has yet to come out, but even if it faceplants hard, the first two episodes were good enough to earn it my tenth and final spot. Honorable Mention to Horizon Zero Dawn, for very nearly being the only open world game I cared about; the characters and plot were ALMOST enough to get me through aimless gameplay.
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Dec 6, 2017 18:34
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going to give this a bump for the night crowd; it's totally possible i posted this way too early and if there's no interest after this i'll just let it die
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Dec 7, 2017 01:12
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Not sure I even played 10 new games this year, but here are my winners: 1. Pyre - This had been in the back in my mind for a while prior to release purely on account of good will towards Supergiant games. I don't play or generally like sports or storybook games, but a combination of the two was GOTY for me. Compelling story with well written characters, one of the best soundtracks of all time, and solid NBA Jam-style gameplay with RPG skill elements to tie it all together. It's a bizarre mishmash of seemingly disparate game styles that no other company would have attempted or been able to pull off. 2. Prey - Came out of nowhere for me, and I bought it basically without any knowledge of what it was. Referring to it as "System Shock 3" seems fair, and the strategic inventory management and need for careful gameplay sets it apart from all the generic FPS games I've played in the last few years. It's not without problems by any means (major sound design issues, questionable AI, etc.) but none of that detracted too much from what came together as one of the best games of the year. 3. Mario Odyssey - Not sure what to say about this that hasn't already been said, incredibly solid game from start to finish. Doesn't really do anything too unexpected, but the possession mechanic is a good gimmick to center the game around and I can't see anyone being upset if they've liked past Mario games. I would have said before that the Galaxy games were probably the best 3D Mario games, this probably has them beat. 4. For Honor - This is an incredibly stupid game made by Ubisoft, a terrible company that filled it with microtransaction garbage making all the menus even more hideous than they already would be without it. Connections are terrible, resulting in unacceptable percentages of games dropped even when it's showing everything in the green. Large swaths of the player base were completely unable to play the game on account of this. The developers have no idea how to balance the roster, and each expansion has come with at least one new character who's completely overpowered and makes playing the game miserable. Despite all this, there's a game inside all that which is so good that I would undoubtedly be putting it at the #1 spot if there weren't so many things dragging it down. When you get a game with a good connection in a 1v1 match against someone playing one of the characters that isn't bullshit, it's hard to beat. Still wouldn't recommend that really anyone buy the game at this stage. It's the most bad good game I've ever played in my life. 5. Enter the Gungeon: Supply Drop Update - This is kind of a technicality since EtG was initially released in 2016, but the Supply Drop Update added a bunch of new content to the game and fixed some of the major gripes people had about the game. You're no longer as likely to get screwed over on keys since there's the chance for an enemy to spawn which drops them guaranteed, which was the main complaint. They also threw in a bunch of new weapons and items and a new boss for the third floor, it might be worth checking out again if you were frustrated with it before. 6. Zelda: Breath of the Wild - I wasn't nearly as blown away by this game as most people were, but it was still a good experience. My lack of enthusiasm might just be a sort of "open world fatigue" at this point, there are so many to choose from that the prospect of a wide-open Zelda game wasn't particularly interesting but it's one of the better examples of the format. Never did all the shrines, but I got about ~70 of them along with all the ancient beast dungeons and beat the game. 7. Cuphead - Decent platforming shooter/boss rush game with painstakingly detailed artwork and a great soundtrack. The actual gameplay wasn't anything too special, but the overall presentation gives it a spot on the list.
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Dec 7, 2017 01:58
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1. Nier Automata Pretty fun gameplay, but what made the game for me was the story, with a lot of neat setpieces and moments that kept you interested, it's nice to see that Taro was finally able to produce a more mainstream title that many people can enjoy. 2. Trails in the Sky the 3rd This didn't come out this year technically, but the translation by XSeed did. It easily matches the quality of the first two games and maybe tops it, with a lot of great character moments spread throughout the cast and side stories that tie things up or bring up new questions. Probably a toss-up whether this or Automata should get the top spot, really. 3. Hollow Knight Quite possibly the best Metroidvania on Steam. A huge map, tons of fun yet ball-busting bosses, and scores of secrets. Better yet, it's only fifteen dollars and still being added to, so how can you go wrong? 4. Cuphead I kept up with this game casually for a while, thinking it looked neat but not wanting to be too hype until I heard it wasn't just a gimmick. Luckily it certainly wasn't, with a lot of really cool, inventive bosses that have enough personality and consistently piss you off enough to keep you playing the game until you wipe that poo poo-eating grin off their face. Then you run into the brick wall that is the next one. 5. Prey I only actually got around to playing this game when it was half off and had that demo come out, since I wasn't sure if my rig could run it. Wish I'd gotten it sooner, as this certainly takes the formula of the System Shock games and takes it even further, giving you a ton of options for every situation and more importantly, different ways the game will react to what you do. The ending in particular is great. 6. Sonic Mania Not as huge into Sonic as other people are, but I can tell when one is good, and this certainly had a lot of effort put into it by people that understood why people like the series. Not without some annoyances, such as the bonus stages being a bitch to find at the best of times, but overall a very enjoyable platformer. Shame it ties into a game that's kinda mediocre. 7. X-Morph: Defense A very high quality Tower Defense where you play as an alien withstanding attack by puny humans as it tries to terramorph Earth and absorb its resources. It's by the Zombie Driver HD people, so there's a lot of over the top destruction and chaos as you wreak havoc across the globe. 8. Grim Dawn: Ashes of Malmouth This is a little low because it's only an expansion, so it may not count on its own, and because the difficulty of the expansion content can be a little ridiculous at times, to the point I feel bad for people who do Hardcore characters. Still, all of the new options it adds for builds and the two new classes certainly make it worth the twenty dollars I paid for it. Just be prepared to die more.
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Dec 7, 2017 02:32
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1. Assassin's Creed: Origins People keep saying Breath of the Wild perfected the open world game, but for me, it's AC:O 2. Persona 5 Despite it's flaws, engrossing and fun 3. Horizon: Zero Dawn Has already started to feel a little aged, but still an amazing game 4. Nier: Automata Bonkers 5. Super Mario Odyssey Should be better than it is. Should be perfect. So very close. 6. Breath of the Wild Amazing in scope. Less so in detail. 7. Divinity 2 Pretty much the perfect western PC RPG. 8. Mario + Rabbids  10a. Splatoon 2 10b. Destiny 2 These two games were great for a month or two after release, and then meh. For that grace period after launch, however, they were fantastic, and that's still an incredible amount of fun.
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Dec 7, 2017 08:11
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1) Divinity: Original Sin 2 When I played the original D:OS in 2014 my big takeaway from the game was 'if this game had better writing and more interesting companions, this could be a G.O.A.T. contender. Then D:OS 2 came out, and it had better writing and more interesting companions and it is not only my GotY but a candidate for G.O.A.T. That having been said the game does have some flaws you can't handwave. A bunch of minor grievances, most of them technical, a few incredibly bad combats and a feeling that the game is somewhat frontloaded and goes a little downhill after Chapter 1. But despite all this, still an amazing, amazing game. 2) Persona 5 I have loved the Persona series since I bought the "Revelations" version back in the 90's (you know, the version with all the whitewashed characters. And Persona 5 is the greatest (and most stylish of them all). Thought to be a mortal lock for GotY until D:OS 2, it's position at 2 isn't a failure but rather a testament to the amazing success of D:OS 2. P5 has its own problems, most notably dungeons that outstay their welcome, some problematic narrative elements and an undertone that undermines its central narrative, despite this P5 is the best old-school turn-based RPG I've played in...I don't even remember how long. 3)Super Robot Wars V An overseas import. I've tried to get into the Super Robot Wars series multiple times with varying success. Alpha Gaiden was very good for a long time but it eventually worse me down, the GBA SRWs weren't interesting enough to maintain my attention, SRW OG had a bad translation and despite not having familiarity with the licensed games, I found the absence of the licensed properties to be a liability. SRW V however hit all the right spots. Great difficulty (ie easy. I'm playing this as a power fantasy), good pacing, an interesting story and I loved learning about the individual IPs represented in the game. 4) NieR: Automata I came for the ride and stayed for the I didn't stay. I threw my save info into the void to help others because once the story was over that was it for me. 5) Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Probably the most fun I've ever had with a Zelda game since A Link to the Past. I loved the departure, loved the open world. I'd hesitate to call it The Ur-game or anything like that though. 6) Super Mario Odyssey The first platformer I've spent any significant amount of time for a long time. Totally worth it. I love how silly and upbeat it is and how its tone is just the light that shines down upon Sonic Forces and shows it how much of a fool it is. (I rooted for Sonic Forces, I really did. But when you open your cute and fuzzy animal platformer with 'And Sonic was Tortured for months and killed' I'm going to laugh at you. Take an effing hint from Mania Sega cripes) 7) Horizon: Zero Dawn I'm not too far in this right now and in some regards it is a bog-standard AAA open world RPG. But the gameplay has been an utter delight and a breath of fresh air after NieR's mediocrity (in that regard). I'm far more invested in the setting than I thought I'd be and Aloy is a fantastic protagonist. 8) Middle Earth: Shadow of War I bought Shadow of Mordor a while ago on sale and just played it for the first time a few months ago. My takeaway was 'this is good, but I kind of want a much better of this.' Then I bought the much-better version. 9) West of Loathing The Kingdom of Loathing people made a real video game. And it was really funny and clever. 10) Fire Emblem Echoes I played the Famicom version and thinking 'this is both intensely fascinating and utter garbage by today's standards.' Then they remade it. I was expecting them to rebalance the combat to more closely resemble other FE's. I was a little let down by that. But then I played and somehow all the stupid jank just worked. Well most of it. ChrisBTY fucked around with this message at 01:26 on Dec 11, 2017 |
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Dec 7, 2017 09:34
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1: Tales of Berseria One of the best RPGs released in the past ten years, and since they only invented good RPGs in 2004 thats saying something 2: Nier Automata: Combat's kinda musou esque and gets somewhat repetitive, and some of the gimmicks dont work, but the atmosphere, story, and music is insanely good and more than makes up for it. 3: Yakuza 0: the chicken scene alone makes it top 3 of the year 4: Trails in the Sky the 3rd: Combat is still kind of sluggish, but it's insanely well written and fun, and ries is the best 5: Guilty Gear Xrd Rev 2: A good fighting game continues to be a good fighting game. Also, it looks gorgeous as ever. 6: Super Mario Oddysey: The first inventive Mario game since Galaxy. 7: Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: The first inventive Zelda game since Majora's Mask. Okay Link Between Worlds had some good stuff. Anyway, good game. 8: Fire Emblem Echoes: Held back by a refusal to fix its ancient map designs, but it's still an excellent update to an interesting game. Also features an amazing English dub and great music. 9: Sonic Mania: Sure, it's a good Genesis-style Sonic Game. 10: Super Robot Wars V: The most progressive take on homosexuality in the past year. Endorph fucked around with this message at 10:28 on Dec 7, 2017 |
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Dec 7, 2017 10:24
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| # ? May 5, 2024 06:25 |
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2017 has been one of the best years in a long time for games, I've got to say. 1: Doki Doki Literature Club!: Debateably not a game, but I'm still trying to come to terms with the fact I would even consider it. 2: Ruiner: Kill You. Kill You. Kill You. I loved Hotline Miami, and Ruiner is a lot like that. It's not nearly as absorbing as HLM, but it's still good. 3: Vanquish: Vanquish is my second favorite Platinum game after Metal Gear Rising, and being able to play it on PC is nice. 4: Dead Cells. It's not a full release yet, but wow, the game just FEELS so good to play. It's graphics are also pretty great. It doesn't have the same atmosphere as Dark Souls, being more of a roguelite, but it's probably the best feeling sidescrolling game I've played. 5: LISA: The Hopeful: I'm probably one of like, four people here who has even heard of it, let alone played it, but it's pretty impressive how good it is for a fan game of a semi-obscure RPG. 7: Fire Emblem Echoes: I was genuinely awestruck by how well this turned out, with how tepid I was towards Fates and the previous FE remakes. The map design was ancient, but pretty much everything else was excellent, even if they're not things I'd want to see in every game going forward (one item slot!) but some things (like weapon skills!) were pretty cool. 8: LET IT DIE: The core gameplay is solid, it's stylish and the music is amazing. But once you hit the last stretch it becomes super grindy and punishing, and the post-game stuff is pretty boring. 9: Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga + Bowser's Minions: The new content is boring and lame, but Mario and Luigi Superstar saga is one of my favorite RPGs ever. 10: PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS: One of the most entertaining games to play online with friends I have ever played. Honorable mention: Nier Automata. I didn't like it nearly as much as a lot of people. I didn't really care too much about the main characters or what happened to them. The gameplay also is pretty mediocre. But nevertheless, it's a distinctly memorable game. I haven't gotten to playing much of Tales of Berseria, Nioh, Persona 5, or Mario Odyssey, but mentions to them too. It's been a good year for games!
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Dec 10, 2017 23:42
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