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FFXIV is the least toxic online gaming experience I’ve had. The rule everyone follows in-game seems to be “if you don’t have anything good to say, don’t say anything at all”.
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Dec 31, 2021 01:44
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BeanpolePeckerwood posted:I'm sure they'll release a complete edition where I can skip the mmo crap one day. I'll wait for that! There is basically no "MMO crap" in the game. You can pretty much solo the entire single player game by yourself. "Dungeons" are really just enemy rushes where you can click buttons and see flashy effects while walking in a straight line for twenty minutes. There are like 5 of them each expansion with the rest of the game just being a regular Final Fantasy game.
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Dec 31, 2021 01:48
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Mostly just comparing to WoW specifically, it's night and day. WoW is notoriously toxic in the specific way that FFXIV's moderation is designed to prevent. That said you can't play right now anyway and who knows when they'll reopen it for new players so we should probably stop evangelizing now, of all times 
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Dec 31, 2021 01:49
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Harrow posted:Mostly just comparing to WoW specifically, it's night and day. WoW is notoriously toxic in the specific way that FFXIV's moderation is designed to prevent. On the contrary no better time to make people want what they can't have. 
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Dec 31, 2021 01:54
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Harrow posted:I stopped paying attention to New World eventually but I'm sure someone could write a pretty great post detailing all of the pretty remarkable ways that game collapsed. For example, sometimes servers would just jump forward in time by 40 days, meaning that players would suddenly be 40 days behind on their in-game property taxes (yeah, there's property tax if you owe a house) and lose their house, and also there was no way to roll back so you just had to live with it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3ZMly9YAPA this is a pretty good video that just covers every single minor issue in order with fairly succint explanations. it is 40 minutes long but thats mostly because so much stupid poo poo has happened in its lifespan.
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Dec 31, 2021 02:00
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my personal favorite is crafted gear scales down to whatever your highest level gear youve equpped is, meaning you cannot progress at all via buying or making gear and thus it is entirely pointless to even exist
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Dec 31, 2021 02:01
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Jerusalem posted:
As someone with similar issues, the anonymity of the the Duty Finder system makes it easy to pretend the other people are just AI's that occasionally type random crap into chat.
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Dec 31, 2021 02:15
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punk rebel ecks posted:"Dungeons" are really just enemy rushes where you can click buttons and see flashy effects while walking in a straight line for twenty minutes. This does not entice me! 
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Dec 31, 2021 02:32
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BeanpolePeckerwood posted:This does not entice me! Yeah it would be cooler if they were more branching and developed but when you've seen them a bunch of times already doing your daily dungeon roulettes it will get old. I guess that's an MMO design constraint downside. They do pump up the spectacle for them at least so at least it looks cool.
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Dec 31, 2021 02:35
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that is also a very reductive description of ff14 dungeons but i also dont know why every thread where someone mentions theyre kinda interested in ff14 but dont really wanna play an mmo turns into a bunch of people giving conflicting and often reductive explanations of why they should play it despite not wanting to. i love ff14 but this behavior is mildly cultish. chill out.
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Dec 31, 2021 02:40
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I played FFXIV right around the advent of ARR. Did most everything there was to do. Got bored. Quit. Last year there was a spike of people interested in FFXIV so I decided to see what all the hubub was about. After going through a monumental amount of effort to get my old account back I dove back in and got about halfway through 2.0 before I got bored and unsubscribed. MMOs just arn't for me anymore. TBH it sorta annoys me that SE saved up all its awesome and dropped it in an MMO while 13 and 15 were so lame comparatively.
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Dec 31, 2021 02:43
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I really liked FF15, even though it was so unfinished at launch when I played it. I've been weighing a replay of the Royal edition but downloading 100+ gigs doesn't sound great.
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Dec 31, 2021 02:46
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I'm going to go ahead and rank all the games I played in 2021. I generally try to play through my game backlog in release date order, so that means I played a lot of games from 2013 this year. However, sometimes I mix it up with Gamepass. Seeing the diversity of gaming in this thread has been really insightful into how my gaming habits differ from others. 39. Need for Speed Rivals (2013) 38. Sacred Citadel (2013) 37. Carrion (2020) 36. Type:Rider (2013) 35. Marlow Briggs and the Mask of Death (2013) 34. The Bridge (2013) 33. Enter the Gungeon (2016) 32. Sine Mora (2012) 31. Observation (2019) 30. Yakuza 0 (2015) 29. Unruly Heroes (2019) 28. Deadfall Adventures (2013) 27. Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy (2003) 26. Gears of War 3 (2011) 25. Strike Vector (2014) 24. Crysis 2 (2011) 23. Ryse: Son of Rome (2013) I can understand why this game has the reputation of looking pretty but not having a lot of substance behind it. 22. Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age (2017) It's been a long time since I've played a JRPG. The large world and exploration are great, but I found most of the characters annoying and the combat wasn't much of a challange. 21. Forza Motorsport 5 (2013) I can't complain about the racing, but I wish the tracks were more exciting. 20. West of Dead (2020) I'm not a huge roguelike guy, but I enjoyed this one more then most. 19. The Wolf Among Us (2013) My first telltale game. I enjoyed it, but I don't think this style of game is really for me. 18. Call of the Sea (2020) A well done FPS puzzle game, but I generally hate having to look up hints online. 17. Haven (2020) Chill game to cruise around and the relationship banter is really well done. 16. Halo: Spartan Assault (2013) Surprising good for a game slapped with the Halo license and converted from mobile. 15. The Touryst (2019) Fun little unpretentious game. 14. Deliver Us the Moon (2019) Nice walking simulator that takes place on the moon. 13. Knack (2013) It might have went on a little too long and felt a little too kid oriented, but still a fun game. 12. Gas Guzzlers Extreme (2013) I nearly always like games that involve racing with guns. 11. Killzone: Shadow Fall (2013) I admire the polish of this game. Looks great, controls great, sounds great, althought it lacks the "it" factor. 10. Shadow Warrior (2013) An old school FPS style game. This was fun to blast through. 9. Super Motherload (2013) I don't know why, but I always like games where you dig into the ground. 8. Halo: Reach (2010) This is one of the early Halo games that I hadn't played yet. It still looks and plays great as part of the MCC collection. 7. Darksiders II (2012) I played the "Death-vinitive" edition. I don't really care about the story, but this is such a fun world to explore. 6. inFamous: Second Son (2014) Infamous are some of my favorite open world games. The personality is lost a little in this one, but it's obviously the best looking. The neon-type graphics are striking. 5. Drake Hollow (2020) Another game that I wasn't really sure what to expect. It's very chill and relaxing to be grinding around, exploring, and clearing off islands. 4. The Last of Us (2013) Worthy of all the praise it gets. The gameplay isn't super innovative, but it's very well done. I don't think I've ever been this invested in a video game character. 3. Totally Accurate Battle Simulator (2019) I didn't really know what this game was when I started to play it. It's a hilarious way of making a tactical wargame. Mixing units from different eras was a blast. 2. Astro Bot Rescue Mission (2018) The first game I played after I got the PS5. I already liked 3D platformers, but this game was just pure fun. The controller gimmicks are innovative and I'm sucker for the playstation brand parts. 1. Thief (2014) I loved all the previous Thief games, and had an awesome time with this one too. I love the levels, the sneaking around, the lore, the settings, and the different gadgets. I know this game wasn't well received when it came out, but it was a great fit for me.
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Dec 31, 2021 02:49
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I never usually post in these thingies but I actually felt compelled to this year because of how much I've enjoyed the #1 game on my list. I wish I captured more footage of what I played this year, and I think I'm going to make an effort to do so for the following year in anticipation for the GOTY 2022 thread. i put some clips i recorded into some of the spoiler tags. i dont know how to post Games that me no likey: World of Warcraft: Shadowlands Why the gently caress do I keep coming back to this piece of poo poo game. And why the gently caress do i keep playing priest. I hate priests. I enjoyed raiding with the goons from Cognitive Dissonance (shout outs to rainbow raid!), and finally switched to the much funner rogue right before I and everyone else seemed to quit. I DID enjoy this loving game at times, but the valleys were so so low that I think I only have spite left in me. There’s all sorts of poo poo to talk about this game and Blizzard, and I’m probably not the person to say it. Rest in piss and thank you for driving me to play some otherwise unnamed game, which will rise in piss, shining and glorious. This may be the final nail in the coffin for a game i've played on and off for 15 years Battlefield 2042… trial I really liked BF3 and 4. BF1 and 5 a bit less, but I had huge expectations for 2042. I played the trial for maybe 2 hours at most, then never played again. See ya battlefield. hopefully, it becomes good after a year of patches but uhh, i ain't sheddin no tears if it isn't my top 20 20. Salt and sanctuary It was alright I guess. A 2d souls-like metroidvania-ish kinda thing. I did enjoy swinging a bigass sword but I'm not really sure how to describe why it didn't work for me in the end. I got decently far, then just lost interest. 19. Unrailed A cute little simple co-op game that I enjoyed. You gotta manage gathering resources to keep your train moving along and dealing with all sorts of obstacles. But most of the time while playing it, I was thinking how I wished my friends would just loving play Overcooked with me instead. 18. Dark Souls 1 remastered This game (the original ds1) was loving awful when I first played it. I hated it. I hated the player invasions. I thought it was stuipid. I bounced off it a few times. Then it suddenly stuck and it became the best game ever. Did i just gaslight myself into enjoying a game? Who knows, but I put 200+ hours in to the original and then another 50 into remastered this year. Still fun, and this time played a lot more multiplayer. This was actually the beginning to my journey to run through all of the soulsborne games before Elden Ring came out. A strong start! https://i.imgur.com/C9dZ9In.mp4 https://i.imgur.com/HsI5YS4.mp4 17. Opus magnum Cool game. Hard game if you want to optimize. I have no idea how to describe it succinctly. Uhhh.. alchemy.. rotating.. sliding... whatever. only cared about beating my friends on the leaderboard. 16. Dark Souls 3 I quite liked this as a sequel and capstone to the Dark souls trilogy. I played a shitload and have 365 hours in. The NK boss is where my Soulsborne playthrough petered out and I couldn’t muster the energy to re-play Bloodborne and Sekiro. See you in 2022 miyazaki 15. Dark Souls 2 I really didn’t like this game as a successor to Dark souls 1 at first, but it has grown on me over time. A little over 200 hours in, and I’m still annoyed by a lot of things in the game but the weapon and build variety is great. Took a character all the way to the stupid DLC frozen bullshit horse land then gave up gently caress this piece of poo poo. I beat it completely one time before, but this time I couldn’t bear to do it again. At least I took down Darklurker with relative ease https://i.imgur.com/rDOF85q.mp4 https://i.imgur.com/hUDnkuV.mp4 14. Squad A lot like Hell Let Loose, but somehow not as fun. Perhaps the setting and tone is not as mythologized like WW2 (well duh), and it just wasn’t as fun. A heavy focus on realism for a team fps, but not quite as much as something like Arma. Still held my attention for a while. It's especially fun moving as a squad and doing objectives (lookin at you battlefield you piece of poo poo) 13. Griftlands I like this game. But I don’t like it enough to play it over all the other games. The art is great and the deckbuilding is pretty good (I think?).  12. Resident evil 6 Resident evil 5 co-op was dope in its own crazy way. It wasn’t really what the Resident evil series should’ve been but it was hosed up in a good way. Resident evil 6 is kinda more of the same except now me and my friend are diving around like idiots all the time 11. Red Dead Redemption 2 One of the best games to Do Marijuana for and then just walk around and do poo poo. gently caress the missions and story, I don’t give a poo poo! I just wanna roleplay as a cowboy in some mythologized wild west setting. I don't if the multiplayer is any good but I wish my friends would hope on and try sometime (if you are reading this, please let's just try it). I don't really care to play it in a public setting 10. Heroes of Hammerwatch This game is stupid and is poo poo. I'm almost ashamed for this to be in my top 10. But I guess it still kinda makes my lizard brain tingle in a special way so I still played it for a while. It must be the diablo player in me 9. Subnautica It kinda worked for me until it didn’t. I was enjoying it quite a bit, then reached a point where I was just lacked the motivation to start it back up. The crafting/hunger/thirst stuff was not really my cup of tea but it was fun while it lasted, and great atmosphere. I was really disappointed that playing it in VR didn’t utilize the controllers in a satisfying way. That annoyed the hell out of me. I wonder if someone will correct me with an update on the VR mod. In fact i'm hoping for it! I'm not going to even bother look it up myself! https://i.imgur.com/pG8XYSU.mp4 8. Hades A solid game. I like it. Pretty good. I don’t have much to say about it I guess? The gameplay's good, all the different weapons are good, all the different things you can get are good. I actually was not as drawn in by the VA, story, characters, etc. Just the gameplay really. 7. Hexcells infinite I don’t know why I like playing this game. I just kinda do a few puzzles every now and then. I guess it’s just neat 6. Halo infinite I never really got into Halo in the past because I hate playing fps games on console. Somehow Infinite kinda works for me and with my friends playing it as well, it’s been really fun. I look forward to the co-op sometime next year, and haven’t touched campaign yet as a result. Yeah, there are are some issues with the game so far, but it hasn’t turned me away yet. Just knowing how much more consistently accurate controller players are than m/kb is a little discouraging but there’s no way that I’ll play an fps with a controller … I just can’t do it. https://i.imgur.com/jRzvtID.mp4 --------------------------------------- Brief interlude for honorable mentions just to be annoying Super Smash Bros Melee One of the only esports I ever follow besides a few games from the dota 2 international. I’ve been playing this game on and off since high school as well as all of its successors. How this game has survived competitively to this day is beyond me, and I still love watching it. Playing it well is an impossible dream for me so I’m mostly a spectator at this point. I know this game and its community is mostly looked down upon by goons, but I will never stop loving it. None of the sequels hits the spot for me and likely never will. Melee is the only smash bros i can ever really respect in my heart of hearts and Melee will never die. (sorry rally) https://youtu.be/D3u4-x11q40 - cool video on how weird melee is as a competitive game https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nMYI0QwA60 - cool video on watching melee as a spectator Guilty Gear Strive This is finally the fighting game that I will put time in. That I’ll get good at. That I’ll learn the ins and outs of. Just like I said for SF4, Tekken 6, Soul Calibur 6, Blazblue, Guilty Gear Xrd Rev2, Marvel vs Capcom 3, etc etc. My fight stick is currently collecting dust and I mostly blame myself. Maybe I’ll return to it some day and learn it… after I do hours of research on what character to play. Then play only in training mode for a few hours. Then never play it again... --------------------------------------- Back to the top 5: 5. Outer Wilds: Echoes of the Eye I loving loved outer wilds. Outer wilds and Disco Elysium have been tied for my two favorite games for the past few years. I started up Echoes of the Eye with very slight skepticism that a DLC could re-capture the magic of the base game. Really, my only issue with this game and why it's not higher up is that I was playing some otherwise unnamed game at the time, so I never ended up finishing it. It’s near the top of my list of games to play. Sorry Outer Wilds, you should've been higher but I let you down. oh god i let you down 4. Hell let loose This is one of those games that I can’t possibly recommend to anybody that I know. It’s just such a slog and such an unpleasant experience that no one should be subject to it. But I love crawling across some fields only to die instantly to some unseen stray bullet, listening to some annoying squad commander trying to rally us into position. It really feels more like a war than a game compared to a lot of fpses, which for some reason... I kinda liked. Being in a tank with someone calling out enemy positions, charging an enemy's defenses, patrolling the woods... all hella cool. But most of the time you're being killed from someone you can't even see after having run 5 minutes across fields. Cool! 3. Rocket league This gently caress of a game. It’s hard as gently caress. I've played this loving game for ~1.4k hours and I'm still not good. Sure, I could get better if i really practiced but gently caress that. I’m going to break out of diamond some day (and do so legitimately too) https://i.imgur.com/b2aCN7Z.mp4 2. Valheim Just me and my friends exploring this cool looking world and building cool things (except for the ones who built stupid looking things - not ME). It was saddening to find that it was incomplete, but what we did play was… some magical poo poo. So many stories and adventures that me and my friends have had. Sailing on the ocean, mining expeditions, building outposts, and all that poo poo! We will return to this once a sufficiently large content patch comes out 1. Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker I bounced off this poo poo a few years ago after getting tired of wow. Then I stupidly started playing Wow again in late 2020, classic and then shadowlands good god. Once I got tired of that, I finally got back to FFXIV because I kept hearing about how good the story was. For me, A Realm Reborn and its patch content was tough to burn through but I was able to get through and finally get to the “good stuff”. Heavensward blew me away, Stormblood was also cool, and then Shadowbringers made my eyes bulge out in a comical fashion. I’m still going through Endwalker right now and it’s really hitting the gat drat spot. I think about this game so much and my roommate calls me a pervert for logging in early in the morning to avoid server queues, and staying logged in the entire day before going to sleep. STop screaming at me to log off i will NEVER log off. I can’t believe I got so drawn into this game and boy oh boy I’m rubbing my belly just thinking of what’s to come. I'm going to be honest. I never would've posted in this thread if it weren't for this game. Hot diggity drat. And the weird loving thing is that I'm hesitant to recommend this game unless you're willing to put in the hours to push past A Realm Reborn and into Heavensward. I know, I know, some people say ARR isn't that bad... but it's not great. Anyways, don't be alarmed if you see Whale Story wave, cheer, or bow at you in-game. this game's cool https://i.imgur.com/NOvRaHq.mp4 simple list of top 10 with no description 10. heroes of hammerwatch 9. subnautica 8. hexcells infinite 7. hades 6. halo infinite 5. outer wilds: echoes of the eye 4. hell let loose 3. rocket league 2. valheim 1. ffxiv: endwalker yeah you know it whalestory fucked around with this message at 10:29 on Jan 5, 2022 |
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Dec 31, 2021 03:04
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whalestory posted:simple list of top 10 with no description I genuinely thought I’d be the only person with Hell Let Loose in their top 10 this year. But your description is very accurate - it’s a hard game to recommend to anyone because most people will hate it. I absolutely love it and play multiple times per week still.
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Dec 31, 2021 03:20
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Thief 4's only game of the year ever given in this thread, a new years miracle
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Dec 31, 2021 03:24
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Help Im Alive posted:They'd need to do XI first This would own but even that game still has tons of players and a queue time lmao.
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Dec 31, 2021 03:25
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Barudak posted:Thief 4's only game of the year ever given in this thread, a new years miracle It's a hell of a lot better than people give it credit for. It's DmC-syndrome. The game is fine on its own merits but the fans of earlier installments hate it because it's not what they expected/wanted.
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Dec 31, 2021 03:36
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Endorph posted:that is also a very reductive description of ff14 dungeons but i also dont know why every thread where someone mentions theyre kinda interested in ff14 but dont really wanna play an mmo turns into a bunch of people giving conflicting and often reductive explanations of why they should play it despite not wanting to. i love ff14 but this behavior is mildly cultish. chill out. When someone says they're kind of interested in something but have reservations, it seems like they might be inviting people to try to sway them, maybe?
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Dec 31, 2021 03:37
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The Coolest Games That I Played This Year.  10. Northern Journey. Sometimes it's rewarding to take a chance on something interesting no matter how low-budget and rough around the edges it may be. The product of a lone Norwegian developer, it was simultaneously very clear that Northern Journey was the work of a single person and also an extremely impressive achievement for a linear game that took 14 hours to finish with no bloat or recycled content. Despite its rocky encounter design, this game's evocative soundtrack, highly varied environments, and charmingly strange personality won me over. A hidden gem of 2021.   9. "Deathloop." This did not change my opinion that Arkane has never made a bad game. Incredible voice acting for some strong writing along with some of the hilarious ways to play you can find if you look for them made this one of the unexpectedly funniest games I've played.   8. Golden Light. This was definitely a game, that I played.   7. Momodora Reverie Under the Moonlight. Short and sweet metroidvania with perfect pacing and a melancholy tone that was extremely evocative despite its low-res presentation.   6. Ender Lilies. Another fantastic metroidvania which nailed its tone thanks to its flawless translation and willingness to be earnestly emotional despite how easily it could have strayed into being edgy, or on the other end of the scale, too saccharine. Very professional art and soundtrack to complement gameplay that was just challenging enough to make secrets feel rewarding but never so much as to be frustrating.   5. Demon's Souls remake. Ever since I toughed through my first souls game this series has been one of my favorites, and this remake was a great way to revisit its bizarre experimental origins. A faithful recreation of the gameplay of this strange dated game but with an absolutely Monumental effort put into rebuilding every animation and art/sound asset from scratch. "Monumental" is a Demon's Souls pun. Thanks for reading.   4. Outer Wilds, specifically the Echoes of the Eye DLC. After they created 2019's GOTY these devs somehow caught lightning in a bottle a second time. I don't know how they managed to perfectly replicate the experience of such a self-contained game while not merely leaving the original product unharmed but actually enhancing it by adding even more emotional weight to its story, but they did it. The nonlinear sense of discovery, the progression driven by new knowledge rather than new abilities, the occasionally infuriating moments that you'll immediately forget about because you just learned something amazing, it's all here again.   3. Returnal. I actually haven't seen this game's whole story yet despite reaching the credits, but it's made such a strong impression in the time I've spent with it that I have to include it. Everything about Returnal's presentation is simply fantastic and its part-roguelite part-metroidvania structure combined with third person bullet hell gameplay mean there's just about nothing else like it. I especially love its unashamedly surreal story filled with references to mythology that I'm entirely too dumb to understand.   2. Nioh 2. This was an unexpected surprise. After my subpar experience playing the original Nioh singleplayer, I wasn't sure whether I'd get along any better with the sequel, but I cautiously got my brother to try playing through it in coop in the hopes that it would feel better in multiplayer. It turns out Nioh 2 as a multiplayer game is completely great. When the stakes are lower and there's less frustration, there is a lot to love about Nioh between its stellar soundtrack, its infinitely high skill ceiling, the way each NG+ cycle introduces new mechanics, and its surprisingly great netcode that manages to keep up with the game's breakneck pace without issue. We went from being unsure whether we would get through the game at all to completing three entire NG+ cycles with plans to complete the fourth. Also, it has Scampuss.   1. Hunt Showdown. This is a niche game for insane people. Luckily, I'm mentally ill. This is simply the best competitive game I have ever played, and it speaks to how powerful its strengths are that people love this thing even though it's pure soul-crushing misery sometimes. There's nothing else like Hunt thanks to its supernatural Gilded Age setting, its high lethality balanced by the fact that the guns are all 19th-century pieces of poo poo that wait a year between shots, its binaural audio and emphasis on sound that makes every move a tradeoff between avoiding detection by other players or getting to the bounty before them, its randomized elements like AI monster locations and sound traps which mean there's never boring downtime, and its meta-layer of Hunt Dollars and equipment which make player behavior unpredictable. Hunt is so utterly uncaring about whether or not you have a good time that it's unreal it not only hasn't failed but instead has doubled its population in the last year, and I think the reason is no more complicated than that it nails the execution of its ideas. Crytek did not give a poo poo about attracting a blockbuster AAA audience and instead just focused on creating a game that a small number of people would love, and if you're part of its narrow target audience, Hunt delivers. What made me realize this is the best competitive game I've ever played is simply the fact that I can clearly remember so many distinct moments going from last weekend all the way back to when I first started playing over a year ago. In a typical game, memories start to blur together after hundreds of hours. Not here. An hour of Hunt is never boring. Hunt's promise is that it might not be pleasant, but it will not bore you, and the sense of triumph in this game when you walk out of a fight in one piece makes all the suffering worth it. Also one time my teammate spotted a player hiding in an outhouse and that was pretty funny.
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Dec 31, 2021 03:44
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Hmm I think I might have a last-minute addition to my list but I'll sit with it for a day and see how I feel about things tomorrowBeanpolePeckerwood posted:I'm sure they'll release a complete edition where I can skip the mmo crap one day. I'll wait for that! CharlieFoxtrot posted:One of the major skepticisms I see leveled at the game is its basis in MMO gameplay, and yet this is something that fits me like a glove. The feeling of etching a class's rotation into muscle memory (you're free to do all the classes on one character), and taking that into the boss fights where you link up with others in ways that sometimes feel like a struggle but sometimes move like music, and each of those battles capturing both the satisfaction of unlocking a puzzle while also being a dazzling spectacle of sight and sound. That works. But even the smaller mundane things, the dailies and the sidequests, the things which are more routine but which never cross the line into exploitative addiction fodder -- even those work, even those matter. CharlieFoxtrot fucked around with this message at 03:47 on Dec 31, 2021 |
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Dec 31, 2021 03:45
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Anyone else love everhood this year?
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Dec 31, 2021 03:56
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I usually replay a lot of older games alongside new (for me) stuff but there were so many great games this year that I just wanna shout out twenty of my favorite new experiences. Sorry for being greedy 20. Mario Party Advance 🎵Mystery Quest  I first began playing this on a whim, curious to see what a wholly single-player Mario Party, on the GBA no less, could be. I was not prepared to spend more than half an hour or so on it, much less finish the story mode! You are indeed playing Mario Party alone, on one great big board, and your task is to drive about in your little mushroom car solving problems for the board's many residents. These problems range from the mundate to the delightfully quirky, and you'll find yourself helping a struggling dolphin comedian with his delivery, solving a devious closed-room burglary, and even getting an intimate look at Bowser after hours. While it may be lacking in the "screw your friends over" department, Mario Party Advance brings plenty of charm to the table, and the minigames aren't half-bad either. 19. WarioWare: Get It Together! 🎵Penny's Song  While Gold is certainly a fun game, I was a bit discouraged that the previous WarioWare was just a remix of the series' heyday with comparitively little of the creativity its source materials were known for, so I was thrilled when Get It Together showed they've still got it. Actually controlling your favorite WarioWare characters as they struggle with a new perspective on their own microgames is such a fresh idea I'm surprised it took this long. 18. Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars 🎵Twin Recollections (Field Edit)  This game is exactly what I wanted, when I wanted it: a simple, unambitious turn-based RPG with all the essential trappings of traditional high fantasy, plus a dash of tabletop flair. To reinforce this, a disembodied narrator acts as your Game Master, voicing all the characters, "preparing" the various trials you overcome, and making little comments based on your actions and fortunes. He even falls asleep and starts snoring if you idle too long. The art is beautiful, the party is full of lovable goofballs who make the most of their limited dialogue, and the music makes a perfect soundtrack for your own tabletop sessions. While the game may not go all-in on the card conceit, it does still manage some effective visual tricks, particularly with the final boss. Voice of Cards does not reach for the stars, but it is content with itself, and that's perfectly alright. 17. Minoria 🎵Arbor ~ Snakeroot Garden  A certain other game further down (up?) this list got me in a big metroidvania mood, which led to me playing a certain other other game further up (down?) this list, which led to me playing all of the other games by its developer. Minoria is Bombservice's most recent game and, while it's a bit less polished than its immediate predecessor, it still nails the somber moonlit melancholy I love. The witches must be purged, and you're the only holy sword maiden left alive after a nasty ambush. Unfortunately you're not exactly there out of choice, but fortunately you got your naive, well-meaning assistant to keep you company. Combat is Souls-inspired: you've got estus healing, parrying, poise, a wide variety of limited-use spells, and an all-important dodge roll. Also, defeating any given boss without taking damage (or modifying your health in any way, really) rewards you with a unique drop, usually a powerful spell. While I understand this kind of mechanic can grate on people, I love it here. Every boss can be learned, and perfected. And if you ever decide to just not care for once, it's like taking your training weights off. 16. Dweller's Empty Path 🎵Cool Cat  A short game by Temmie Chang (better known for being the primary artist on Undertale and Deltarune), wherein you're an aloof young uh...well, you're not really sure, but the important thing is that you've been having trouble sleeping and decide to go for a walk. So you do. There are dozens of little events to encounter, some cute, some mellow, some mundane, and one so indulgent it goes from funny, to annoying, and back to funny through sheer audacity and dedication to the bit. This is a very chill walking simulator type of game, and you can choose to end it at more or less any time by returning to bed for another shot at restful slumber, though the events you manage to find determine how that ends up going. Just go for a nice walk and clear your head, and maybe try not to worry the sassy witch who sleeps on your couch, and maybe keep away from that annoying hot demon guy. 15. Sonic Unleashed 🎵Jungle Joyride (Day)  There are a lot of kinda frustrating elements of Sonic Unleashed. Finding medals to unlock new levels is a bummer, the werehog levels are like, fine, but definitely a bit too long, and game developers still thought that deadly QTEs were the hottest thing ever. But at the end of the day, none of that really matters, because the daytime stages are so loving COOL!!!! 14. Return of the Obra Dinn 🎵Soldiers of the Sea  This devlish deduction game was a blast to play through with my partner, and though it took some educated guesses at times, we managed to solve every fate without looking anything up. Although the controls for navigating your notebook never stopped feeling cludgy to me and the final fate felt more like a punctuation mark than a real conclusion, Obra Dinn's premise and presentation, and the construction of each scene's mysteries, are absolutely top notch. 13. Garden Story 🎵The Mists  I came for the cute fruit and frog people, and stayed for the surprisingly mature story about life, death, and mending a broken community. The name refers more to the setting than your actions, however, though you do gain the ability to do some basic gardening a little over halfway through. The general gameplay loop revolves around completing daily tasks for whichever village you're currently residing in and trying to make their lives a bit better, usually by providing materials or combating the irksome Rot. This is your job as a Guardian, of course, but Garden Story is also one of those games where every NPC has a name and unique design, and they're all grateful for any help you're able to provide. And they're all so stinking cute I couldn't bear to let any of them down. 12. Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight 🎵Pardoner's Dance  Basically everything I said about Minoria also applies to Momodora 4, but while the former gives you lots and lots of variety in your offensive abilities, the latter is a bit more limited and so far more refined. Also a witch curses you with the ability to turn into a cat, which functions as your morph ball stand-in. Momodora 4 also has the same "perfect a boss for a sweet item" mechanic, which I still love. Such victories are a bit easier to pull off in this game too, with your powerful infinite-arrow bow supplementing your 11. Mega Man Zero 3 🎵Prismatic  I've played through a lot of Sonic games recently, but that's a story for another rank. I've also played through a whole bunch of Mega Man recently, and the Zero series stands at the top. 1 got things off to a bit of a rocky start with its unforgiving difficulty and seeming inability to recognize how large its own screen was, but 2 and especially 3 improve and ramp up so well. The levels are good, the bosses are good, the music is good, the mechanics are good, even the story is good?? A robot protagonist being forced to consider his identity when his body is no longer his own... Zero, we salute you. to be continued...... Looper fucked around with this message at 04:17 on Dec 31, 2021 |
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Dec 31, 2021 04:00
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Part Two 10. Hamtaro: Ham-Ham Heartbreak 🎵Moonlight  This Special Shoutout: rub-rub rub-rub rub-rub rub-rub rub-rub rub-rub rub-rub 9. Ynglet  Earlier this year, I played through the three Genesis Ecco games. Despite the brutal difficulty of the two not geared toward small children, they were all lovely games with astoundingly good underwater movement. This will be a bit of a theme with a few more of my picks, but movement mechanics that feel good and natural are key to my enjoyment of games, at least the ones where you are actively moving a character around a real-time environment, and it's a real shame that so many games use fluids as obstacles, floaty unpleasant low-gravity zones where everything is just slower. Every game with water should take a look at Ecco.  So along comes Ynglet, the game I should actually be talking about, which nails what I just did talk about. Developed by Nifflas of Knytt and Within a Deep Forest fame, you play as an odd little space dolphin germ whose friends have been scattered by a little space germ meteorite and now you must swim through the abstract spaces between landmarks in Copenhagen to find them all. The visuals are simple yet entrancing, the sound design is beautifully reactive to your motions and different level objects, and the movement is just so so good. I strongly suggest playing the game fullscreen with headphones on. As you hop and dash through space bubbles, you can also choose to create your own checkpoints by pausing for a second in any static bubble, and the different difficulty settings add more of these "safe" bubbles between the many dynamic obstacles you'll navigate. And once you unlock the dash, you'll be grateful for the opportunity to mess around with it wherever you please without losing too much progress. Ynglet isn't a very long game, especially if you skip the extra post-game levels or Negative Mode, but if you like falling into a trance of fluidity then please check it out. Special Shoutout: The requirements for 101% completion. For those who don't have the game, you must physically be in Copenhagen, and more specifically in whichever area a level is based on when you play it. Once you start a file in the city, you have one week to finish that file. I'm told there is at least one speedrun submission for this category lol 8. New Pokemon Snap 🎵Shiver Snowfields (Night)  To be honest I'm still kind of surprised this game exists, but it does and I love it. There are pokemon, many more than the small chunk of Gen1 mons present in the original, and you can take pictures of them. A whole lot of pictures. And THEN, you can put silly stickers on them and upload them to PokeGram. The original had some cute interactions like encouraging a Pikachu to play at surfing or dunking a Charmeleon into a volcano but New Pokemon Snap takes those interactions to the next level and layers tons of them into each of the many different levels, to the point where they feel less like levels and more like the nature walks they were intended to be. I've seen people describe New Snap as more of a puzzle game, and that's certainly true when you're trying to track down a specific 4-Star Diamond shot, but it serves just as well as an chill trip through the woods with your favorite pokemon and was perfect for helping me through my second-vax fugue. Every pokemon present gets to shine here, from mascots Pikachu and Eevee to the otherwise forgettable Ducklett and Liepard. Sure the human characters can be a little annoying, and their requests can get downright devious, but New Pokemon Snap is the game Snap 64 was in my tinted memories.  Special Shoutout: Turns out Bidoof is perhaps the single most photogenic pokemon ever designed.  7. Anodyne 2 🎵Pastel Horizon  If there's an award for most improved sequel, Anodyne 2 runs away with it. I am not at all a fan of the first game, to the point where it is the only title I've straight up deleted off my Switch. An awkward and childish attempt at baby's first meta fiction that supposedly has a good part buried under too many overly large empty maps. So I wasn't terribly interested in a sequel and only checked it out thanks to some very heavy campaigning from its fans. Anodyne 2 is a haunting, beautiful game overflowing with sincerity and an earnest endearing confidence in every pixel and polygon. You play as Nova, a newborn Nano Cleaner charged with entering the hearts of troubled individuals and cleaning out all the Dust clouding them. As normal-sized Nova, you wander around large 3D spaces with the aesthetic of a forgotten PS1 game, and nano-sized Nova explores 2D top-down spaces in the same style as Anodyne 1 (though with far more approachable design). Gameplay in 3D is mostly exploration and light platforming, with the nifty ability to transform into a car to do sick jumps, whereas in 2D you're mostly solving Zelda-esque puzzles. You alternate between the two as you learn more about the setting, your peers, and yourself, living your life and making mistakes. Driving along surreal colorscapes, listening to ambient and wistful music, this game at times feels like a nostalgic dream. One of the nicest things about indie games and similarly small-scale projects is their capacity to channel the authors' unfiltered expression, and Anodyne 2 embodies that ideal. While I wish the actual gameplay were a bit more engaging, and the beginning is a bit slow (I wasn't fully onboard until leaving the City), the writing and mood are genuinely touching, and I don't say that lightly. Special Shoutout: Some of the most uniquely implemented developer commentary I've ever seen. 6. Touhou Luna Nights 🎵Voile, the Magic Library  Here we go, another metroidvania! I know very little about Touhou as a franchise, I tried one out years and years ago but it was extremely difficult and I don't think I have the patience to practice shmups. But I'd heard nothing but good things about Team Ladybug's games, it was on sale, and it just happened to feature characters from the one mainline Touhou I did play. And, Touhou Luna Nights rules??? You play as Sakuya, human(?) maid to a powerful vampire lord. Said lord happens to be an easily bored child, so you find yourself trapped in a parallel construct of the Scarlet Devil Manor and tasked with simply providing entertainment for your master. The main wrinkle to this metroidvania is that Sakuya possesses powerful time magic that can be used to both slow and stop time for brief windows, as needed. A couple years ago I played and loved a similarly time-themed metroidvania, Timespinner, but that game doesn't really utilize its time mechanics all that often. Touhou Luna Nights is pretty combat-heavy and expects you to make the most of your abilities in order to survive; you probably won't make it past the first boss without plenty of slow-mo. This game also features a wonderful translation of what I understand to be a classic shmup mechanic: grazing, which rewards you for getting right up close to enemies and attacks for hefty health and mana refills. Effective use of grazing can render you more or less invulnerable even to powerful late-game bosses, but you gotta get up in there! Add in some incredible spritework and music (though the latter unfortunately peaks halfway through the game), and you've got me impressed. I'm very much looking forward to checking out Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth soon, despite having a similar level of familiarty with Record of Lodoss War. Special Shoutout: Master Spark  5. The Pathless 🎵Nimue  Sometimes you play a game and just feel like it was made for you. Abzu, one of those games with amazing underwater movement, was one of my favorites last year and so I was very keen on checking out the newest joint by Giant Squid Studios. The Pathless in contrast takes place on land (mostly), but I'm very pleased to say it also demonstrates a remarkable grasp of movement that just feels good to experience. You play as a nameless Hunter, who has traveled to a sacred island in hopes of figuring out what's going on with your missing animal gods. You are soon joined by a faithful falcon, and together the two of you dance across vast plans and forests. Littered across the landscape are various talismans that, when shot with your bow, provide you a satisfying surge of speed and refill your stamina gauge. This surge also applies in the air, and good archery means you can constantly flow with the wind to your destination. The world design is pretty clearly inspired by Breath of the Wild, and I mean that in a good way; there are no fast travel points but simply moving and exploring is such a pleasure I never found myself wishing otherwise. Boss fights are impressively cinematic, with a level of bombast and flair that eclipses much larger projects, and defeating bosses populates regions with friendly wild animals you can run alongside. Many of the ruined buildings you come across are unique and have recognizable purposes which, combined with your ability to hear the final thoughts of the dead, helps the island setting feel grounded. The color palette of every region is right up my alley, and I'm bummed the game isn't more popular because I love the Hunter's design and wish more fanart were out there. I'm just kinda rambling now but, the game is good! If you play it then don't be like me and not figure out how to do skill shots until the end.  Special Shoutout: The first boss fight, when the hunted becomes the Hunter and I realized what I was in for. 4. Metroid Dread 🎵E.M.M.I. (Patrol)  I'm frankly still in awe that Metroid Dread is real (even more surprised than I am about New Snap), and not only that, but it's incredibly good. Samus has never controlled better, and the action responds in kind with some of the best boss fights in any Metroid game. This is an incredibly influential series, but Dread emerged from the hyperbolic time chamber to prove just why Samus is the king. I still can't like, there's a game after Fusion now?? Finally?? There's good writing and dialogue?? Shinesparking is more versatile than ever?? I was so pleased with this game that it got me to play a whole bunch of other metroidvania, several of which ended up on this list! All I can say is, welcome back. Special Shoutout: Samus' dialogue. 3. Chicory: A Colorful Tale 🎵Gulp Swamp  From the developer of Wandersong comes a delightful and emotional story about imposter syndrome and the weight of an aging legacy. You play as the daydreaming janitor of Chicory, the latest Wielder of the Brush, a magical artifact that serves as the only source of color in an otherwise black-and-white world. You soon find yourself unexpectedly gifted the Brush, and all the responsibilities it brings. So you set out across the coloring book world of Picnic Province, both to bring color to its people but also maybe to figure out who you want to be. Does the answer scare you? Do you worry about telling your parents, about what they might think? As much as the people laud you simply for being the Wielder, are you really good enough for such a mantle? Chicory (the game) does not shy away from these questions, nor does it wallow in them. It presents itself honestly, and hands you a brush. I'm finding it hard to overstate how cathartic being able to scribble everywhere is. Chicory (the game) provides a similar kind of energy as Katamari or Luigi's Mansion in that sense, where you can just make a big mess. Your brush carries four different (very pleasing) colors at a time, changing based on the region you're in, and you can mix things up further with a bunch of silly patterns and stencils. The music is, I think, easily Lena Raine's (of Celeste fame) best work, with lots of gentle pastoral instrumentation that still knows how to shred when the chips are down, as the boss fights hold nothing back. Co-op mode can be toggled at will, generating a second brush for you and a partner to scribble that much more. Also, if you happen to be colorblind, note that while coloring things in is a major game mechanic, using or distinguishing between specific colors is never necessary. Even if you don't find the story incredibly, aggressively relatable, there is plenty of charm and whimsy to be found in the clever drawing puzzles and silly food names and dressing up like a clown. Special Shoutout: Drawing my very first "cool s" only to realize I drew it in a river, and watching it slowly wash away... 2. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice 🎵Fountainhead Palace  The pinnacle. I am no stranger to FromSoftware, and Sekiro is the pinnacle of their combat and world design. The swordplay? Incredible. The posture system? Incredible. The grappling hook? Incredible. The skill and perseverance this game expects of you? Incredible. There are no bad bosses, there are no bad environments, Sekiro is just sublime from start to finish. The sheer triumph I felt from defeating the final boss is not something I'll forget soon. After accidentally triggering the bad ending without any backup saves and having to blitz through most of the game again, the breathtaking view from the entrance of the Fountainhead Palace was a sight to behold. And no battle felt so initially insurmountable as the well-hidden rematch against Owl, but I kept trying and trying and eventually, I defeated him in one of the cleanest fights I'd had, only taking a single hit myself. These are the highest of highlights, but Sekiro is full of moments like them, of persevering and overcoming. Special Shoutout: DO IT   1. Sonic Mania Plus (feat. Amy Rose) 🎵Wildstyle Pistolero  In most other years, Sekiro would've taken the top spot, but this entry is a bit special to me. About two years ago, or approximately when the release date for the Sonic the Hedgehog movie was revealed to be nothing less than Valentine's Day, my partner agreed to go see it on opening night with me. Not only that, she, saint that she is, agreed to watch me play through the games I'd grown up with to hopefully better understand why this weird blue hedgehog boy is so popular, as her only real prior experience with Sonic was a very awkward convention panel full of angry nerds. I had loved Sonic as a kid, and later distanced myself from the series as games started coming out on consoles I didn't have, and I considered myself too grown up for him at that point anyway. As an adult, I was kind of embarrassed to admit how big a fan I used to be. Anyway, neither of us expected the movie to be any good, just an excuse for a funny date night, but it turned out to be fun! And along the way through the old games, my partner thought Classic Sonic was really cute and I was reminded that yeah actually these games are wonderful. It was 2020, and I had both free time and The Technology, so while this Sonic Quest was originally intended to encompass only Sonic 1, 2, 3K, Adventure, and Adventure 2, it then grew to include Heroes, and the Advance games, and Shadow, and oops now I'm snowballing into playing the entire series (at least when getting a game working wasn't a huge pain). Over these past two years, I have played 65 different Sonic games, finishing almost all of them, and in the process reconnected with an element of my childhood I used to be ashamed of and maybe even learned to be a little more honest with myself. After working through the Sonic 4s, Lost Worlds, and Booms, I honestly felt a bit emotional booting up Sonic Mania and just looking at the title screen. Not only is it an incredibly good game following up some of the least regarded, but it's an incredibly good game made by fans of the series, and their love and passion for a sassy hog infuses every bit and byte. Sonic has had his highs, and he's had his lows, and he's still here running. Perhaps it's a bit silly to project such sentiment onto a famous and profitable mascot, but I can't help admiring how Sonic has persevered over the years, buoyed by an extremely active fanbase that produces many fantastic mods allowing me to play the good poo poo as my favorite character and fosters so much creative drive for other endeavors. My point is, Sonic is not cringe, nor is he fail. Sonic is based. Special Shoutout: hanging in there 
Looper fucked around with this message at 04:16 on Dec 31, 2021 |
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Dec 31, 2021 04:02
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I love all the goty posting but my favorite are the ones where people talk about how a game intertwines with their life. Nice job Looper and godmode bless us, every one
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Dec 31, 2021 04:22
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BeanpolePeckerwood posted:This does not entice me! Each expansion has at least 50 hours of main story quest gameplay. You'll only be dungeoning for maybe 1 out of those hours.
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Dec 31, 2021 04:46
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Whether or not it's fine to respond with "I don't want MMO bullshit" with "but this game has less mmo bullshit than its main direct competitor", it would be nicer if this thread wasn't page after page of it, and focused on the lists
cheetah7071 fucked around with this message at 06:55 on Dec 31, 2021 |
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Dec 31, 2021 04:56
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  10) Tower Unite - This has apparently been around for years and existed even earlier as Gmod, but nobody ever told me about it because I got toally hooked. At first playing games in a weird social chat environment with friends was fun, but really I became addicted to making new models for the game that you or anyone else can use as a skin. I made over a dozen pretty quickly, lot of goofy goblins and freaky videogame variants. Then I got banned at one point for a hotdog centaur I made, so I then made 13 new Hotdog Centaurs of various types as some sort of revenge/excuse to commit to a bunch of models, so now I got all those. If you type in goblin or hotdog in steam workshop search in-game, you'll see a bunch of my crap lol.  9) Metroid Dread - This is a fun game that felt like playing Super Super Metroid. Very smooth experience and I beat in 10-20 hours which is something of a sweet spot for games these days for me. This game made me feel like I was better and faster at Metroid than I really am. It was also nice to realize Yuzu had caught up enough I can play Switch games on my PC now rather my Switch.   8) Jackbox Party Pack 7/8 - Fun party games that actually work really well over discord! It's only as fun as the people you play with, but BYOB games night became something I looked forward to throughout the week and these days it's pretty much some people around ready to play any ol night. Drawing games are the rarest and highest effort/risk but always my favourite. Wish there was one hub to swap between all the games but whatever, they're fun.  7) Cyberpunk 2077 - I went into this game expecting to refund it immediately and be as underwhelmed as I expected from the way so many folks had spent a year hyping themselves into a frenzy over a game that could never meet expectations. Fallout 4 sucked but they only advertised it for a couple weeks so people didn't expect more than they could expect and it sucked on it's own merits rather than expectation. Anyway, long way to say I went in expecting the worst and had a really fun zipping around the world as a one-punch woman solving problems with either serious one or two punches to knock out anything, or hack shenanigans to do it all while walking around. Some great characters and stories in here. Far from perfect but a fun first try at making a big city game, hope there are more later that build upon this city. You can crawl all over it and see there's room to do a Yakuza treatment of sorts, adding new locations and features and things each version while revisiting similar world geometry. Best explorable city with verticality in a videogame, now they just need to better fill that world with truly compelling content which is a tall feat nobody achieves lol.  6) Outer Wilds DLC Echoes of the Eye Everyone knows the base game is one of the best games of all time period, a nearly perfect game. Recommend the base game, it's more perfect than the DLC. The DLC is really good, and a great chaser for a dragon you can ultimately never huff again. It basically takes the rules of the original game, recontextualizes them and uses mechanics not explicitly in the original and plays with them. I beat the whole game the wrong way without realizing, but that also had me avoid the one part of the game most people seemed to be negative about. Also a beautiful mini-world I always love to see in games.  5) Forgotten City - A tight little adventure, essentially a really good single questline and concept played out Elders-Scroll style with most to all of the extraneous poo poo removed. Could use more roleplaying depth and agency, some of the writing and conclusions needed another pass and some more depth and nuance, but I had a fun little 10 hours exploring this city and helping it's folks out or not, and the ending is cheesy in some ways but as a stargate and fantasy/scifi/mythology/ancient civ fan I love the confluence of stuff at the end even if the end results are predictible. They end up being satisfying which seems more important. I also just love me a good groundhog's day.  4) Death Loop - Wasn't sure what to expect here, I loved their previous games but not for the violence in them and this was a game that leaned heavily into dumb gun violence... but I loved it. I've played all the "Immersive sim" classics from System Shock 2 to Prey, but this is the first one that has ever had me actually explore alternate routes besides "crawl around slowly and safely eliminate all threats and hoover up all xp." This game forced me out of my crabwalk and into a building-hopping, blink-spamming, action ninja like I was making a trailer or speedrun. This game also has multiplayer shooting, something I generally loathe, but here it actually adds significantly to the single-player experience, while being a fun diversion and mixer between colt gameplay sessions. The story leaves a lot unanswered and focuses mostly on the emotional core between two characters, but like, this is a one-of-a-kind game so I have to cast off my Prey expectations. This is more Mooncrash with a twist and twistier. I'll likely never ever play it again, but it was a fun 20-30 hours I'll not forget!  3) Inscryption - When I described this game to my buddy he was like "oh they made a game for you" and this definitely hits a lot of my buttons. I like card games but hate collectible bullshit, I love unique aesthetic approaches in games, I love when games are about videogames or about anything on purpose, I like when I'm totally surprised and delighted and I'm really forgiving when anyone in games tries to do anything "art-school." Maybe that spoils too much, I went in basically blind unspoiled besides thinking something that's in trailers and screenshots anyway I'm pretty sure, and man I liked the game at first but then I liked it again later, too.  2) Valheim - Wild this came out this year? Feels so much longer ago. The most fun I've ever had gaming with my best friend, just a stellar co-op experience and a fun take and package on some familiar gameplay tropes. 3D Viking Terraria with Friends. This game must never be played alone. It is far from finished, but the launch version of the game was a solid 100 hours whose biggest problem is you want more of it. Can't wait to put this on my list again in a few years when we play again.  1) Psychonauts 2 - This felt like playing through a beloved Saturday morning cartoon. I loved the original and was pretty skeptical about the sequel but almost immediately was blown away, genuine laughs, genuine delight at the level design and aesthetics, the voice acting and characters and humour, instant classic, better than the original. More heart, more mature and progressive lessons about empathy, healing, mental health. Just a lovingly crafted game that shores up common complaints of the original and I only had two moments of mild frustration with collectionitis... and one was something somebody literally wrote a melodramatic article that pops up which was actually a relief and tension breaker in the moment. The other was literally in front of my face in an easy area when you warp in and walk forward, it's a miracle I didn't get it by accident on my first play or when hunting for it. Anyway, everything else wasa joy and I came close to 100%ing many levels on my first run-through. The levels never reach the absolute peaks of the Milkman Conspiracy in the original, but that's a magic trick they only really get to do once. However, they took principles from it and other creative parts of the original and created a baseline of level design more interesting across the board than usual. The first run through levels go so smooth even with mild treasure hunting, you could tell they took a lot of care to play-test the hell out of these levels and make everything as smooth and intuitive as possible. I also watched them watch the original game speedrun and the sequels and their attitude and joy of making these games is so evident in watching, if it weren't already so through the gameplay and story. Visually the game is some peak videogame graphicing, the sensorium level is the most obvious O.O visual in the game, a playable psychedelic visual language trip and simultaneously being an emotional story and psyche examination. The opening level inside the mind of a twisted dentist is fleshy and full of teeth and pulls it off in a way that's freaky but charming and cohesive. There are several just stunning and beautiful vignettes and scenes you play through and things transition so smoothly you might not even notice them happening. Beautiful fun good heartwarming joyous goofy classic videogame
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Dec 31, 2021 05:40
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It was a nice thread we had once
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Dec 31, 2021 05:41
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Okay I've been too sick to do a proper writeup so you'll have to make do with a short 'n' sweet set of entries I'm afraid  Hon Mentions: Cities Skylines - Build big pretty cities. What more can you ask for. Severed Steel - Pretty loving banging action game with short, punchy levels and an immense feeling of joy when you do cool flips and kills and flip-kills and poo poo. Jupiter Hell - RIP AND TEAR! Overboard! - Get away with murder and also SOME TALK OF ALEXANDERRRR, AND SOME OF HERCULEEEESS Warsim: The Realm of Aslona - Manage a kingdom. Love income, love knights, 'ate beggars. Simple as. Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic - A city builder that is actually doing some very interesting and innovative things in the genre. Growing Up - I'm not big into Visual Novels but I gave this one a shot despite that and was very glad I did. There's a bunch of enjoyable characters to befriend/romance, a nice element of resource management to make sure you don't gently caress up your SATs, a cute soundtrack and aesthetic, just a chill time. Legend of Legaia. I replayed this after like 23 years this year and what do you know, I wasn't just nostalgia poisoned, it's actually a highly enjoyable PS1 JRPG that gripped and engaged me thoroughly! The combat system remains very cool and it's hugely enjoyable to string combos and moves together efficiently. Also I renamed people after friends like I was 13 again and it ruled lol. 10: Halo: Infinite. I was hoping this game would be fun and enjoyable but I was not expecting it'd make my Top 10 of the year or make me really, really eager for more. 343 Studios really came into their own here, honing the base gameplay to a high degree of polish and making additions that range from pleasant - the open-world isn't huge but it offers a nice range of diversions - to very significant - swinging around like Spidey with the grappleshot. 9: Resident Evil Village. The big lady step on me. Also a compelling, tense romp that does some excellent work switching up gameplay and scaring me fuckless in House Beneviento. 8: Earth Defense Force 5. EDF! EDF! You shoot bugs, robots, and aliens that look JUST LIKE US! with several classes and an ever-more-absurd number of ever-more-powerful weapons. Pure gameplay wrapped up in the cheesiest B-movie nonsense imaginable. 7: Fights in Tight Spaces. Love a good card game. Love a good small-scale tactical game. LOVE this game. Not as addictive as Slay the Spire but I didn't play that this year. Only real downside is no modding but maybe that'll change. 6: Streets of Rage 4 Mr. X Nightmare. Fuuuuck yes THIS is how you do expansion/DLC content. Adds three new characters that slap and also adds an insanely addictive survival mode AND a light sprinking of customization because you can earn different moves for your characters and build around those. Played like 60 hours of it straight when it dropped lmao. 5: Project Zomboid. I played too much of this this year. It's still infamous as one of the most troubled developments in recent history but despite that it's still ground along and just dropped a MASSIVE update a few days before Christmas, but even before that I spent weeks playing little else. Just the best actual zombie apoc game out there. 4: Dyson Sphere Program. I am what is medically termed a 'slut' for factory games and oh boy does this one get my little trans serotonin receptions aglow. You can build factories on MULTIPLE PLANETS and build a GIANT DYSON SPHERE and it's GORGEOUS and the sketty will drown me. 3: Resident Evil 4. After playing Village I replayed 4 on a lark and oh right it's loving incredible. Even now after almost two decades it holds up superbly, great one-liners, great villains, great action, Leon S. Kennedy might be the only fucker who can suplex as well as Sabin, bonus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YL2-HQ9I6_w 2: Yakuza: Like a Dragon. I'm not terribly far into this yet because I only got it for Christmas but holy poo poo this game absolutely loving owns. I like Ichiban even more than Kazuma, making the game a JRPG sounds loving insane yet works brilliiantly, I love all these middle aged men being dorks and collecting cans, just incredible. 1: Stellaris. Sorry, ya girl has been playing an insane amount of it this year just like every year. Despite all its flaws and shortcomings and how many mods I rely on it's just a game Paradox designed specifically by scanning my brain and discovering the maximal addiction factor. Ms Adequate fucked around with this message at 00:48 on Jan 1, 2022 |
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Dec 31, 2021 05:52
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Real hurthling! posted:Anyone else love everhood this year? i did! it was even my goty for a while before twewy neo, psychonauts, endwalker, etc...
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Dec 31, 2021 06:13
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Great list but I'm very sorry Khanstant you simply must go to jail for those images 
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Dec 31, 2021 06:19
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Look, the blue 4 eyed Kirby is my friend. It would make a great av.
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Dec 31, 2021 06:36
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Jerusalem posted:Great list but I'm very sorry Khanstant you simply must go to jail for those images Next year I'm instituting a no weird pics in your votes rule 
Rarity fucked around with this message at 06:57 on Dec 31, 2021 |
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Dec 31, 2021 06:51
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Rarity posted:Next year I'm instituting a no weird pics in your votes rule Please no, I was planning to add drawings to mine next year
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Dec 31, 2021 06:59
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whalestory posted:Please no, I was planning to add drawings to mine next year Khanstant see what you've done 
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Dec 31, 2021 07:00
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I'm sorry Khanstant your post is simply too strong
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Dec 31, 2021 07:01
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going to commission Khanstant for my post next year
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Dec 31, 2021 07:16
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link NSFW poo poo separately instead of just spoiling it because the browser still loads it behind spoiler tags
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Dec 31, 2021 07:27
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| # ? May 23, 2024 13:40 |
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Alright, time to stop putting of my Game of the Year list, admit that I'm not going to finish some of the games that I might otherwise have included (sorry, Chicory!  ) and get to posting.I usually limit myself arbitrarily to games released in the year, simply because there's so many drat games releasing all the time that I want to use my time to shout out stuff that came out here and now, and also because otherwise Secret of Monkey Island would be my #1 every year and I like variety. First, an Honorable Mention to the Best Game I Played This Year Not Released This Year which is Kentucky Route Zero. I wrote a big post in the Best Games Ever thread after I'd finished it. The game still sits with me, I find myself thinking about moments in it that I'm likely going to continue to remember for the rest of my life. Some time to satisfy myself I'm going to see if I can work out what my all time top ten games are. Kentucky Route Zero will be on there. Alright, on to this year. It's interesting, when I started looking at games I played this year I was wondering if I'd have enough to fill a top ten, and then by the time I went through and listed everything I was up to around 15/16 games. Here we go. #10: Inscryption (Daniel Mullins Games) Trapped in a cabin with a menacing entity shrouded in darkness, you are forced to play a card game. The rules seem to shift and change at the whims of the shadowy figure holding you captive, and the consequences for failure are implied to be severe. The beginning of Inscryption is an absolute masterpiece of atmosphere. The mechanics of the card game itself (blood sacrificing your creatures in order to summon stronger cards), the environment of this dilapidated cabin that you're trapped in, and the excellent sound design all combine to create an atmosphere of creeping dread that still manages to be fun and spooky rather than outright horror. The same sort of feeling that you'd get on a good ghost train ride! And what a ride Inscryption turns in to. I'll put the rest of my comments in spoilers; none of my comments will go into any sort of specifics but I know that there'll be a number of people who want to go in completely blind. As much as I love the opening of Inscryption, it never returns to the heights of its opening act. The second act has a mechanical shift that I loved, but a shift in narrative and presentation that I think is weaker than what came before it. This is exacerbated in the third act, where I was left a little cold by both the mechanical and narrative shifts. So given my comments, why is it still on my list? Simply put, the opening of it is just that good. A mod for the game allows revisiting it as a sort of roguelike deckbuilder, and I absolutely look forward to doing so even if I'm left cold by the rest of it. #9: Psychonauts 2 (Doublefine Productions) Psychonauts 2 was an absolute breath of fresh air for me. It had been a long, long time since I played a 3D platformer and I was utterly delighted at having something so fun, bright and colourful, and simple and self contained to lose myself in. My absolute favourite area in the game was the Questionable Area, there was something so satisfying about seeing that big, expansive space open up before you stuffed full of collectables to hunt down and traversing and exploring it was probably one of the high points of the game for me, in a way that the other overworld hub areas don't quite match. As far as individual levels go, PSI-King's Sensorium is a gorgeous and fun visual feast of a level, and Bob's Bottles is a beautiful, touching level. While the other levels are fun, they don't feel like they quite hit the high mark that those two set. The plot is fine until the end where it falls apart trying to blend a kid's psychic spy adventure story with the real world consequences of brainwashing and mass murder and just fails to deal with it in any meaningful way. #8: Metroid Dread (Nintendo) Although I'd played a few Metroid games here and there, I hadn't finished any until this year where I blitzed through Zero Mission, Samus Returns, Fusion and Dread. (I'm most of the way through Super but I'm struggling to finish it. It's so clunky. Don't @ me.) Of the older games, Fusion was my favourite, and Metroid Dread very much feels like Fusion 2 in some ways. I can understand why some folks have bounced off it - the game is far less open than many previous games, closing off large portions of the world to you and shepherding you pretty closely onwards. I think the way that it does this is well executed however, and with the amount of puzzles scattered around to ferret out power ups and enhancements I never felt like I wasn't exploring as I progressed through the game. I enjoyed the EMMI sections and found them great at replicating the tense chase moments of the SA-X in Fusion, though far less effective from a horror perspective given that they're so clearly telegraphed as to where and when you will encounter them. Samus' basic movement is absolutely perfect, there's a real fluidity that you can get going with her once you've got the controls down (it's 2021 Nintendo - there is no loving excuse to not have remappable controls), which is necessary for the intense boss battles. One battle (the Chozo guard) is overused far too much and feels like padding, but otherwise they're all satisfying challenges and the final boss battle feels suitably epic. The difficulty is, I think, consistently hard but fair - I'm hard pressed to think of any bullshit moments and the boss patterns are all observable and - eventually - predictable. The only thing that felt like a letdown for me was the foreground environmental art. The background art was absolutely gorgeous, but the foreground felt mostly identical regardless of where on ZDR you were - I never felt a sense of place there the way I did in previous Metroid games. #7: The Forgotten City(Modern Storyteller) I didn't get to Deathloop (never quite got around to it) or the Outer Wilds DLC (read initial impressions from some folks and was put off) this year, and Twelve Minutes was a disgusting piece of trash that was far and away the worse thing I played all year. Thankfully, the Forgotten City is fantastic so I still get to put my a requisite 2021 Timeloop Game entry into my list. Formerly a Skyrim mod, remade into a standalone game, the Forgotten City sees you arrive at an underground city at the height of the Roman Empire, labouring under a simple but terrifying curse - if any one resident commits a sin, everyone will be turned to gold statues. What's a sin? How far can you bend that definition? Outside of a small (and I believe optional - the game certainly flags it as such, though I wasn't able to personally work out how to progress without doing it) action section, the vast majority of gameplay in the Forgotten City is walking around, talking to people, piecing together the stories of these residents and their relationships with each other, and solving a number of mysteries as you go. Like other recent deductive games like Return of the Obra Dinn and Outer Wilds, there's a great satisfaction to be had in putting together information and coming up with solutions piece by piece, and this is where The Forgotten City is at its strongest. The action section introduces some very, VERY creepy horror but is otherwise a bit formulaic and perfunctory, and is where the game feels most like a Skyrim mod. Ultimately, the a number of smaller mysteries you've been charged with investigating intertwine and the larger mystery - the nature of the curse - is revealed. The ending seems to have been a bit divisive, it certainly takes a very sharp turn - I personally enjoyed it quite a lot, even if it does seem to strain some credibility in order to have everything tie up in a neat little package. #6: Unpacking (Witch Beam) I tried Unpacking on a whim because it was on Game Pass. I didn't even know it was an Australian-developed game, though that was certainly a pleasant discovery as I always enjoy seeing cool indie games come out of here given the general lack of anything approaching government support for the industry. I was expecting a cute little puzzle game that I would idly play through maybe for an evening and then uninstall. Instead, I found myself utterly engrossed in not just the mechanical puzzle of unpacking a person's belongings and trying to find room for them in their home, but some utterly amazing indirect and environmental storytelling. Unpacking tells it story entirely through belongings. Where and how certain things are packed, or placed. The items that survive between moves, the items that are left behind. The clothing that changes over time as your unseen character grows and changes tastes. The treasured childhood mug that becomes a trust toothbrush holder. The photo of a relationship that didn't work, that can't be displayed and needs to be placed in a drawer or out of sight. The true to life experience of having a pair of shoes be in completely different boxes on opposite sides of the house. The telling placement of the belongings of the other people you live with, and the spaces that they've left - or not - for you to move into. It's a short, sweet and focused game that doesn't outstay its welcome and I'd encourage anyone who enjoys spatial puzzles or organising things in general to give it a shot. #5: Wildermyth (Worldwaker Games LLC) Wildermyth is an amazing narrative magic trick that captures the feeling of playing a GM'd roleplaying campaign bolted on to some serviceable tactical combat. Controlling a group of heroes, you adventure across the land confronting a great evil. The real meat of the game are in choose-an-option narrative segments that can have lasting repercussions on not just your characters, but their relationships to each other, and potentially the legacy they leave behind. The fairly simplistic tactical combat definitely isn't the main focus here, but works well enough for what the game is trying to accomplish and again reinforces that Dungeons-and-Dragons-esque feel of miniatures on a gridded map combat. Although there are only three character classes, decisions that you make in the story segments can impact the tactical layer of the game, granting characters extra abilities. My tanky warrior visited the shrine of a spirit in the wild and awoke something in her blood, transforming into a wolf-headed beast -- and gaining a close range bite attack in the process. Similarly, sometimes actions in the tactical layer will have ramifications back into the story. My wolf headed warrior gave her life in a last stand that allowed the rest of the group to press on through overwhelming odds. One of the most quietly poignant moments after the big bad had been defeated was them visiting her grave. With five written campaigns there's plenty of content to dig in to here, and the game also has procedurally generated campaigns that can be run; though they definitely suffer in comparison to the written narrative ones. What I'm excited for is the potential for modders to use the toolset that's been built here to generate their own stories and campaigns, and I hope the community grows enough to the point where that becomes viable. #4: Overboard! (Inkle) My delightful surprise of the year, Inkle dropping a new game out of nowhere. I've loved their past output, particularly 80 Days, so this was right up my alley. The premise of Overboard! is very simple. You've just murdered your husband by pushing him overboard on a cruise ship at night. It's now morning. Get away with it, preferably with his life insurance money, and a new suitor in tow might not be a bad thing either. The writing is great, the sense of humour is sharp, and there's a certain delight in puzzling together the chain of actions you'll need to take in order to get away with it. The game keeps the inherent potential frustration in repeating the same series of events over and over by having a fast forward feature and a very amusing hint system where you talk to God in the ship's chapel. I think one of the things that I've come to realise about my gaming tastes this year is that by and large I really like games that are trying to do a single thing and do that thing really well rather than having an everything-and-the-kitchen-sink approach to game design. #3: Streets of Rage 4: Mr. X's Nightmare DLC (Dotemu / Lizardcube / Guard Crush Games) Streets of Rage 4 is one of the best beat 'em up games ever made. The genre doesn't get a lot of love, has arguably been superseded in the modern era by the character action game, and is generally full of shovelware crap. So when something like SoR4 comes along, it definitely stands out. To take a game that was already absolutely fantastic and then add in not only three DLC characters who bring new, distinct playstyles to the game but then to also add a completely new set of special moves for every character and also a roguelike survival mode? I don't know that I could have asked for much more. I sunk hours into this game, I'll probably sink hours more, and I suspect it will be a long time until we see a beat 'em up this good again. #2: Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker (Square Enix) I'll keep this brief as I'm going to guess numerous folks have said a bunch about FFXIV already. This is my favourite Final Fantasy game. I deeply appreciate being able to mostly engage with it as a single player RPG, and having the freedom to play for the story or for bursts where I have time and then otherwise unsubscribe for long periods and not feel like I'm "missing out". I love these characters, I love this story, I love this world. I was not expecting Urianger, of all characters, to get such great character moments and his scene with Moenbryda's parents made me cry. I thought the expansion had some pacing issues and taken in itself didn't quite hit the highs of Shadowbringers, but as a conclusion to everything from A Realm Reborn until now, it was fantastic and I was incredibly happy. Also realising how some plot reveals completely recontextualised the lyrics for Answers was a very cool  moment.#1: Before Your Eyes (GoodbyeWorld Games) Before Your Eyes starts at your death. As your soul journeys in to the afterlife, you meet a Ferryman who will help you to pass on. In order to do so however, he needs to know your life's story - and sends you back into your memories to relive key moments from your life. This is where Before Your Eyes' unique feature comes into play - it's controlled via a webcam that tracks your blinking. (You can play without a webcam. Don't. Seriously. Play with a webcam). Scenes from your life play out before your eyes - blink, and your life will jump forward to the next memory. There'll be moments you wish you could linger in that you simply can't stay in, as you're forced to blink. There'll be frustration as an interesting line from another character is cut short as you inadvertently blink. There'll be uncomfortable and sad moments that you'll want to blink straight through. It's such a simple, simple concept for an interaction mechanic for a game and it's perfectly meshed with the story that Before Your Eyes is telling. The narrative is, perhaps, fairly well trodden territory - it hits a number of common indie game narrative emotional beats. But the material is elevated and reinforced through the blinking mechanic, with some wonderful twists on that mechanic as the game progresses and ultimately, as the story of your character's life is revealed. It's a beautiful, touching, wonderful narrative game and the best thing I've seen done with the medium of video games this year. It's less then  on Steam. Please play it.
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Dec 31, 2021 07:28
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