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2021 was a hard year, not totally surprising that I stuck with the comforatable and familiar. 10. The World Ends With You was so built for the DS that I wasn't sure a sequel for a more conventional platform would work; NEO: The World Ends With You proved me mostly wrong! The team combo handoffs do a decent job of capturing the flavor, and they've preserved the style and music and stomach meter from the first; if it leans too hard on endless chain battles in its turf war minigame that's its own fault. 9. Loop Hero was a neat idea with a great retro aesthetic. Plopping down those tiles feels a lot realer when you have to fight your way through them, and discovering combos in the world is a treat; if it didn't have a grindy metagame that discouraged experimentation it'd be higher on the list, but I don't regret my time with it. The look is so good. 8. Unpacking makes you take stock of your belongings and your living space. And in the game! Barely puzzly but satisfying busywork is a good base for its cute and subtle storytelling. 7. The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles is more Phoenix Wright. I'm not complaining! This time around it's dealing with turn of the century London, Sherlock Holmes, and Japan's place in the world, but the writing and courtroom hijinks are as good as ever. 6. Why be a spider man when you can be a spider? That's Webbed! It's an exploration platformer that gets easier to traverse not because you've gotten more powerful--there are no powerups--but because the webs you've built stick around to be climbed on again. And sometimes there's a fly stuck in 'em for a tasty snack! 5. It's a card game but you can get up from the table. If that was all Inscryption offered it would be plenty; but the card game is good. Being shackled to metafictional nonsense (ugh) means as a card game it's just big enough for you to discover the boundaries, make some totally broken combos, and put it back on the shelf, satisfied. 4. Slipways gives you all the delightful star webs of a 4X in a fraction of the time. Like the best puzzle sims, solving each problem creates a new problem to deal with. 3. A lot of games try to spice up an old formula by adding an implacable foe that chases you around. In Metroid Dread's case it actually works. Super Metroid is a strong formula to build off of, and they wisely confine the death robots to small areas of the map that you have to crisscross before finally defeating them and fully unlocking the area, a nice echo of Metroid II. 2. You know what 2021 needed? A good, comfy JRPG grindfest. Shin Megami Tensei V fits the bill perfectly. It's hard but it helps you out as much as it thinks is fair: one button heals, one button returns to base, and whenever there's something you ought to have learned it puts it right there in the interface. Plus there's a pokedex to fill out! 1. I was starting to think I'd left fighting games behind, that what I liked was the camaraderie, having something to do while hanging out in my dorm room or taking a break at work; attempts at anonymous online fighting had pretty much left me cold. But then Guilty Gear: Strive came along. It plays as good as it looks.
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Dec 31, 2021 20:18
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I only count games I've completed so here are the 9 I completed this year. Next year my list will contain Hitman 2, A link to the past, Sekiro if I manage to finish it (I don't see that happening, final boss is tough and I am not too interested in finishing it), and maybe Life is Strange: True Colors, Hitman 2, Judgment and Super Metroid 1: Zelda: BOTW: I played this over many years and didn't want to complete it, but I did that this year. What an experience. One of the first open world games that I really enjoyed a ton. This made me interested in playing more Zelda too. The sense of exploration is so fantastic. 2: Horizon: Zero Dawn: I made a list of games I'm 1-4 hours from the end of, and was going to play those all week and finish 5+ games. I only played this game, which I was about halfway through at the start of the week, and I finished it and most of the DLC too. You have to play this game. The combat is way better than anything from BOTW and it's SO loving FUN to destroy robot dinosaurs. Now I want a ps5 for the sequel. Edged out by BOTW because BOTW has more atmosphere. 3: Persona 5: I played this a ton on release and got burned out about 8-10 hours before the end (near the end of mementos). I picked it up again last week and finished it. Best Persona game for sure, super stylish, great music, fun battles, interesting plot! Play it! 4: Deathloop: Not as good as Mooncrash! play Mooncrash. That said, I enjoyed this a lot and played it for like 2 months before I finished it (I had a lot going on!). I didn't realise that the ending wasexpecting an input in the cutscene, so my Colt lived happily forever in the D E A T H L O O P 5: Hitman 1 (played inside Hitman 2): Great game, got me hooked, I'll be finishing the trilogy. I played the original hitman 1 back in the day and decided I didn't like hitmans. I was wrong! The new ones are great. 6: Mario Odyssey: I played Mario 2/3 on a friend's snes as a kid and that was it. I had a ZX spectrum and PCs until the ps2. I thought mario was for kids or something. Maybe it is, but it's good! Fun game, finished it but didn't do all of the extras, I'd had enough. 7: Yakuza 2: I liked this a bit better than 1 but after loving the hell out of Y0, it had the same games (hostess/racing) that really gripped me in 0 so it was fun to play but nothing new really. It's more Yakuza. 8: Donut County: Very charming, very short (a big plus for me these days with my limited time), fun plot, I love raccoons, fun gameplay. 9: Streets of Rage 4: I played this on local play remote (I hosted) with my wife sitting next to me, and 2 friends who live together elsewhere. It was a loving poo poo SHOW. I could never get it working properly apart from a single time and even that time it took 20 minutes Always, 2 of us were controlling one character so that sort of sucked but it's probably a steam issue rather than an issue with the game. Anyway, we finished it, it was fun, but if I'd played more games this year it would definitely not be on the list. I remember enjoying other beat 'em ups better back in the olden days. I got more fun out of Dragon's Crown. Dishonorable mention: Resident evil 6 made me feel physically ill, a thing that last happened to me from video games about 15-20 years ago while watching someone play one of the Quakes. I read that it's FOV related but also determined that it's not a good enough game to bother with.
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Dec 31, 2021 20:23
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Aidan_702 posted:That’s an extremely unfair criteria - the PS5 won’t even appear on the Top 10 at all If you'd rather the points go to Elden Ring or split LoU/ER into a 1-2 and drop your #10 game that's fine, just let me know what you wanna do 
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Dec 31, 2021 20:28
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Top 10 Such a weird year in contrast with last year. I had a clear cut #1 last year but this year I feel any of my top ~4 could be in the #1 spot. I've been shuffling them around all week and have finally nailed down my order to get this done by deadline. 1. Hitman 3 This is such an amazing package if you are a fan of the Hitman games. It has some of the best and worst levels in the series but it doesn't matter because you can unlock the entire series within this game, along with all the progression and mastery challenges. If you happen to have PSVR, you can play the new levels in VR as well as all the levels from the first two games in VR. That's what edged out Hitman 3 over the rest of the field for me, it has become this self-contained Hitman experience in a nice little package. I play about 50/50 2D/VR, the VR is clunky and muddy but it adds a lot to the experience and can be a ton of fun. Most immersive VR moment of 2021 goes to physically checking over your shoulder for witnesses before smoking someone and quickly hiding the body. 2. Forza Horizon 5 If this would have been my first Horizon game I'm pretty sure it would be my #1. I got a Series X earlier this year and got into Horizon 4, forcing myself to stop in the fall in anticipation of this. Horizon 5 has a lot of similarities obviously, and it's an extension of a pretty great formula. There is a lot of game here for all sorts of people and racers. It's almost Car Pokemon. It's so vibrant and fun and joyful and everyone is weirdly too happy which also makes me happy. At least until I encounter bugs, or online issues. I would be more mad at that aspect if I had paid any money for this, but thanks to Game Pass I didn't have to and won't have to. It's a great experience and a great asset for Game Pass. Best video game vista of 2021 goes to ascending the mountain and looking over Mexico at sunset. 3. Deathloop A great mash-up of stealth, shooting, puzzling that just oozes style. I initially hoped this would be more of a freeform world like Hitman but I ended up liking the segmentation of the levels and slices of time, it allowed polished experiences and experimentation to set up the perfect day. I actually stumbled on the perfect day before unlocking the prompts for it, which was neat. I wish more people allowed invasions, the multiplayer was a ton of fun if you were able to match into a game. A lot of it devolved into deathmatch but I did have some legit spy vs. spy battles that were some of my highlights of the game. This wins my most immersive of 2021. 4. Returnal This grabbed me from the moment I put on headphones. It had some of my favorite combat and visuals of the year. The difficulty curve was a little odd for me, probably attributed to RNG. I was stuck in the first 1/3 of the game for a long time and then ended up breezing through the last 2/3. I spent so long in the first two areas I thought the midpoint may have actually been the ending, which made that cutscene so much more impactful. Watching your character escape, grow old and die, only to be brought back was a hilarious gut punch. Ascending up to the boss playing the organ is one of my favorite encounters of the year. Best pause menu rain sounds of 2021 in my opinion. 5. Monster Hunter: Rise I had my doubts about how this engine would run on Switch and was pleasantly surprised. I've only dabbled with Monster Hunter in the past, and got fairly invested in World but not enough to copmlete it. I have to say the continued quality of life improvements helped a ton with holding my interest and I spent a ton of time on this. This became my workout game and between-meetings game. Connecting to online sessions and roaming with pubbies was much improved. The only reason this isn't higher is apparently the game wasn't finished at launch and I had moved on by the time it was added. Best looking food of 2021 goes to the dangos. I don't know if they're real but I want them. 6. Resident Evil: Village I'm glad they didn't do a VR version so I didn't have to make excuses about not playing it like I had to with RE7. Another tightly-paced game that kept the action moving along. I really liked how each segment of the game had it's own thematic horror, there was something for everyone. Most unsettling moment of 2021 goes to the baby basement. 7. Ratchet & Clank This was my first Ratchet game and it turned into the visual showpiece I used to show off the PS5. I had no frame of reference or any idea of what I was getting into, and have completely forgotten the story since then. I do remember enjoying the super-polished experience, testing out a wide variety of weapons and playstyles, and being able to skill into styles I found interesting. I don't think I'll ever go back to it but this was one of the definitive next-gen gaming experiences this year for me. Best looking video game intro of 2021. 8. Halo Infinite Another win for Game Pass. I never played past Halo 2 and never had that classic LAN/multiplayer experience, but being able to hop into this for free has been a complete joy. I'm bad at both campaign and multiplayer but there's so much variety in playstyle/strategy it seems to be endlessly refreshing to come back to. I would not have bought this game normally but I'm glad it was served to me on a silver platter because I had a blast with it and will sporadically return to it. Easily the best grappling hook of 2021. 9. Death's Door I was drawn in with the visuals and it kept me hooked with the combat pacing and ratio of puzzles. I often found myself dying a few times to new bosses and challenges but never in a way that tested my patience. It was fun throughout and while it didn't feel like there was artificial fluff to pad out the playtime, I did often have to backtrack to figure out if I was lost or not. Knowing which direction to head would have helped this out. Best boss fights of 2021 goes to Death's Door. 10. Unpacking Such a joy to experience and completely opposite of something I'd normally play. I heard good things on a podcast and there it was on Game Pass. I forced myself to play this over multiple days, quitting after each room so I wouldn't binge through it in a whirlwind of completionism. It didn't overstay it's welcome, while at the same time it told it's story in such an innovative way. I struggled with choosing a few games for this spot but this was so refreshing I had to include it in my list. Best plopping sounds of 2021, easily. Early Access Honorable Mentions I struggle with this every year and this may have been the toughest year to not put an Early Access title in my list. Both of these have missing content and I just can't include them in my top 10 no matter how much fun they are and how many hours I put into them. Valheim - This nailed the survival/resource trickle in a way that kept me coming back from more. I think my favorite two week period in games this year was getting on a server with a group of discord people and putting 100 hours into this game. I did hit the content wall and probably won't touch it again until full release though. Satisfactory - A buddy and I decided to start a server and only play this cooperatively, and for weeks all I could think about was expanding and optimizing our spaghetti factory. Even with early access we put in 100 hours before we hit the end of the content, and then we finished right as the FICSMas update happened which gave us a couple more weeks of content. Great game and I look forward to returning in a year or two. Nextgen Update Backlog Games I've come back to and had a blast with, but can't appear in my top 10: No Man's Sky I didn't mind launch No Man's Sky but got tired of that loop and never actually beat it. With PS5 I decided to finally come back to it and check out the PSVR version as well. PSVR was still a little muddier than I would've liked but a cool experience nonetheless, however the 2D PS5 mode is gorgeous and smooth. I started a new save to experience the revamped story/survival mode, and had fun with the new expeditions as well. It's worth checking out again if you haven't touched this in years and have a new console. State of Decay 2 I checked this out on Game Pass as I had bounced off vanilla on a medium PC years ago. It runs super smooth on Series X and is the experience I was looking for. They've added content, maps, and custom difficulties to make this super replayable.
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Dec 31, 2021 20:33
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redreader posted:Dishonorable mention: Resident evil 6 made me feel physically ill, a thing that last happened to me from video games about 15-20 years ago while watching someone play one of the Quakes. I read that it's FOV related but also determined that it's not a good enough game to bother with. I know what you mean here, I don't know if its the frame rate or the animation or something but its an uncomfortable game to look at
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Dec 31, 2021 20:34
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This year has been full of games where I realized, "I'm not having any fun with this, I should stop." I have a long habit of forcing myself through games I'm not enjoying anymore just to finish them but was able to break that habit and drop several games this year. After narrowing down my list I was surprised by a few that didn't quite make the top 10. Resident Evil Village was a lot of fun but didn't land for me like RE7 and RE2 Remake had in previous years. I thought I'd be replaying it obsessively like those but fizzled out shortly into playthrough 2. Immortals Fenyx Rising was one I played a whole bunch and had a great time with but I couldn't decide what to bump to make room for it on the list. I think it got kind of overlooked or dismissed as a Breath of the Wild clone with a bad name but I think it's distinct and fun enough to stand out on its own. I also really enjoyed The Last of Us 2. I didn't expect to enjoy the stealth gameplay so much in the game, it's a huge huge improvement over Part 1 and ended up being the highlight of the game for me. On to my top 10: 10. The Longing - The Longing is a game where you, as a little guy called 'a shade', are tasked with waiting for 400 days in a cave until its time to wake up a big tree king. The game takes place in real time and the clock continue running while you are away from the game. If you wanted to, you could boot up the game once, exit, then return in 400 days to wake up the king. You're also able to explore the caves and find items that make the shade's living area a bit nicer. The thing about the shade is that he moves really slowly and many of your options in the game take a long time to complete. While exploring you might find an area where a spider is slowly weaving a web to a ledge that is out of reach. If you wait long enough, you can climb that ledge and explore above. It's a neat game where you'll hop in every so often to explore a little, or maybe even just hop in and set the shade traveling to a waypoint very far away to continue later. I can't think of anything else like it. I bought this game in January of this year and got an ending in June with about 15 hours played so that should tell you the 400 days is a bit misleading... 9. Hardspace Shipbreaker - You float around in space and break down big ships into individual panels and parts and frame pieces. It's surprisingly zen for a game with an oxygen timer constantly counting down. I've only played this for 10-15 hours or so but I have enjoyed learning the best techniques for breaking down these early ships so much that I know I'll continue to play this off and on for a long time. 8. Hitman 3 - I've only really dug in to the first stage of Hitman 3 but it's a great one. This makes the list because all 3 have been excellent and I loving love that they pulled off all of the maps in one game from one launcher. It's the thing we thought Destiny was supposed to be but IOI actually pulled it off. Plus the old levels look better than ever on the PS5. Amazing achievement here and I look forward to seeing what IOI do with Bond. 7. Returnal - This one was so hard but so so rewarding when you got through. I loved the setting and the gun variety. loving hell though this one was really tough for me. It's really really cool. 6. Huntdown - 2d sidescrolling 80's throwback action sci-fi shooter. It's loving great. Also props for making a short action packed game with stages instead of a metroidvania here. Don't get me wrong, I like metroidvanias but this game worked so well in bite-size chunks with cheesy one-liner spewing bosses. 5. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice - I mean. Y'all know about Sekiro. It's very very good. At many points I thought I'd hit a boss that was too difficult to overcome, but I'd break down move by move and figure out where I'm taking damage and where I'm missing opportunities to apply pressure to the boss and little by little I'd improve. It felt so good to gradually progress through this game. That mid air lightning parry/attack is one of the coolest things in a game ever. It's right up there with the super charged beam at the end of Super Metroid. 4. Cyber Shadow - 2d platforming action perfected. This game feels juuuuust right. Each new attack you get has a very specific use that makes your character feel that much more effective. Each attack usually also grants some kind of movement benefit as well. The soundtrack is incredible. This game is on game pass and if you like 2d action games it's an absolute must play. I think the title sounds kinda generic and might cause some to overlook this one but do yourself a favor and check it out. This feels like a work of love that has had each attack, jump, movement, and enemy encounter dialed in perfectly. 3. AI: The Somnium Files - What a loving ride! For a lot of this game, I thought there'd be no way to make all of these different story pathways make any kind of logical sense. By god, they pulled it together in the end. In the final few hours of this game I literally got out a piece of paper and was writing names and drawing lines between them and events to see if what I thought was going on was what actually happened. I had my "Pepe Sylvia" moment and was nearly spot on. I can't think of another game that has given me that "Whoa, holy poo poo! holy poo poo!" moment more than this one. 2. Hades - Another one where like, you already know. All of the weapons feel good to use, there are so many cool boon combinations, I wanna know about all of the characters, the hub world between runs has enough to do that it takes the sting out of dying. It's excellent. Just excellent. 1. Prey (2017) - Prey is so cool. The space station has a layout that feels like it would actually function as a business, but the areas still feel like levels. The gloo gun lets you explore the station in interesting ways. The audio logs and emails you find along the way feel authentic in a way that most immersive sims (including previous Arkane titles) just don't quite get right. There's a personality quiz at the start that has several variations on the "trolley problem." Then many hours into the game you are faced with a dilemma where you enter a room and find a live recording from a shuttle that has left the station and is headed for earth. There may be someone or something infected by the aliens onboard. You have five minutes or so to try to scour the room/emails/etc to decide if you should use your ability to remotely destroy the shuttle. You'll kill the passengers on the shuttle, but if any of them are infected you might also save earth from the spread you've seen firsthand on the station. The time ticks down and you make your decision to destroy the shuttle or let it land. I decide the risk is too great to let it reach its destination. Destroying the shuttle is just touching a touch screen. There's no cutscene with an explosion. There's no moment later in the game where you find out that they were or weren't infected (that I know of). The moment is so subdued even though pressing the button feels so impactful. I continue to explore the station and then it hits me "wait.... that was the goddamn trolley problem. They trolley problem'd me again!" Even though I don't think the combat is all that fun, and I didn't like the final final ending. There were enough moments like this one spread throughout the game that stuck with me to make it my game of the year. Highly recommended.
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Dec 31, 2021 20:48
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https://i.imgur.com/7Id2Bjb.mp4 Hi everyone. I gamed very hard this month to prepare and finish this list and I feel good about it. Just as a couple of reminders, my scoring system is based on Gameplay Loop, Variety, Art Direction, Sound Design and UI/UX. 90s is phenomenal, 80s is great, 70s is good, 60s is fair (nothing goes lower on this list). I did not get to/buy these games this year and will just play them in 2022: Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, Ender Lilies, It Takes Two, Shin Megami Tensei V, Eastward, Stonefly, Retro Machina, Overboard, Astalon, Alekon, Beard Blade, Toodee and Topdee, Glyph, Arietta of Spirits, Labyrinth of Touhou 2, Hoa, Gamedec, Severed Steel, F.I.S.T., Evil Tonight, Mail Mole, Conway, Transiruby, Subway Midnight, Okinawa Rush, Super Sami Roll, Wolfstride, Tails of Iron, Mundaun, Returnal, Tales of Arise, Ratchet & Clank: A Rift Apart, Outer Wilds: Echoes of the Eye, Wildermyth, Cruelty Squad, Praey of the Gods, Time Loader, They Always Run, Exo One, Elec Head, Treasures of the Aegean, Pronty, Everhood, Resident Evil 8 One thing did change after I finished my top 50 list.. I kept playing games and wanting to find a space for them. So I came up with an  Last thoughts... - 3D platformer fans feasted this year. 8 different 3D platformers made my list, ranging from OK to.. well, truly something special. And that's without playing It Takes Two! (or Mail Mole, or Super Sami Roll, or Ratchet & Clank, or..) I guess we can definitively say the genre is back, finally. - Recency bias? Almost two-thirds of my list comes from the second half of the year. Granted, the holiday season is always the biggest season for games... although, this summer was also pretty incredible... over a dozen games on the list were released in August alone. My top 5 had actually been unchanged since the summer... until... yesterday lol. Alright, here's the list:   While this takes the bottom spot in my list, it's by no means a bad game, it's just... really out there. Originally featured on the Haunted PS1 Demo Disc, you're a mummy digging through sand to find objects to give to the different characters in each area, who might give an item to you to pass along.. or you might get a tool, or you might grow as a mummy so you're not just dragging along the ground. This is maybe an hour+ long and is super cheap, and maybe even just the demo will be enough for you, but it's worth playing just for the oddity of it, I think.   I just didn't give this game enough time to give it a higher ranking, but also.. I don't know if it necessarily deserves a higher ranking. We've got high concept but low execution with this game. A self-coined "brainpunk" story, the world of Scarlet Nexus is kind of cool to look at but also kind of shallow. Beyond its aesthetic trappings you'll be seeing a lot of the same areas repeatedly and you'll also notice a lot of invisible barriers that reduce the complexity of stages to something out of the PS2 era. The game feels like it wants to be a Platinumgames action title, with stylish animations and lots of chaos. But I will say it's a bit too sluggish and reliant on cooldowns to fit their style. The cooldowns in this case involve asking teammates to lend their assistance, while you do the primary attacking. Depending on who you play as, you either get conventional hack and slashing or more telekinetic fighting and object chucking. The telekinesis combat didn't quite feel weighty enough to pass as a heavy alternate to the standard hack and slash combat, at least for me. But I also had an issue with the skill trees.. this is another game that locks stuff away that should be unlocked from the start. But I do think it's interesting. The world and premise are cool, the action is competent enough, and the bonding events feed well into the gameplay loop by offering rewards but also providing timely breaks to keep things from sinking into tedium. If I had given this game more time I might have come out with a more favorable impression of it, but the repetition sticks out the most to me. I may try again in 2022 with the other character and see if I vibe with it a little more.  If you've ever picked up a highlights magazine at a dentist office and saw a Spot the Difference puzzle, but resented that another kid already circled it... here's a whole game about spotting differences in cute/quaint 3D panoramas. Set the camera spinning at whatever speed feels right, then take a look between the left half of the screen and the right half and find the differences. That's really all there is to it. But honestly this type of puzzle does appeal to me some, kind of like a Hidden Object Game. There's a lot of different panoramas to visit, and I have a feeling that this game (much like Sizeable) will get content updates in the future. Just a hunch.   2022 was not an amazing year for first person shooters, although if you like multiplayer shooters, there's a lot to suit your fancy. For solo campaigns though, your choices are a bit more limited. The most notable indie FPS release this year outside of the retro space was Industria, a nod to Half-Life 2 where you are transported to an alternate universe full of rogue robots and have to manage your ammo carefully as you take them on. This isn't an amazing game, as the gunplay is a bit weak and the runtime is very short and ends on a cliffhanger. But you could do worse. It's got some nice vistas, a couple of decent setpieces like charging up a hill or navigating a greenhouse to reach a lonely old man's apartment. This is definitely one to get for a sale price though, I had gotten it via the Epic $10-off coupon and felt that I could not possibly spend a dollar more for the experience I had here.  Moonglow Bay needs a bit more time in the oven but there's some promise here. Having lost someone dear to you, years have passed and you've decided you're going to get back out there... no not the dating scene, the open waters! Moonglow Bay is a life sim focused around fishing and cooking, where you go out on your boat, catch a bunch of fish, donate new ones to the aquarium, and then head back home to cook all sorts of tasty dishes to sell to the townspeople and fulfill quests. This money then allows you to invest back into the town by renovating buildings which then become new locations to visit, with NPCs that give you tips on fish to find as well as possible new sidequests. The main issues I have involve the look and performance. The game runs like absolute poo poo on Xbox One X (15fps max), and even on a Series it struggles to maintain a stable framerate, despite a relatively plain voxel look that only feels slightly more involved than Minecraft. There are also bugs in general with the menus, and sometimes quest locations will point to places you can't enter. So the game's going to need some patching up in 2022 to get to a place where I can give it a universal recommendation.  Ys IX is a solid ARPG with wide open spaces, a lot to explore and secrets to find, and a solid gameplay loop connecting hack and slash gameplay with tower defense segments. But it's not the Ys that I fell in love with. My first Ys game was Origin, and it was so blazing fast and so fun, and it kept its focus on many varied dungeons and bosses, with rad music and slightly Metroidvania-y upgrades, as well as the gem drops that gave you stackable buffs, incentivizing you to keep mashing. Then I moved on to Oath in Felghana, then the very first 2 games. I just couldn't get enough. But starting with Ys Seven something changed. The game became less about Adol the whirling dervish pinballing through enemies like the tazmanian devil, and more about a group of uninteresting characters next to Adol that you had to constantly switch to in order to deal proper damage to specific enemies. And the action got slower... and slower... and now is just a conventionally paced ARPG with a couple of fast-attacking characters. This game in particular really wants you to care about the ragtag vigilante group Adol is shackled to, which feels like an attempt at a backdoor pilot, and it did not work on me. I do not care about these characters. I don't care about the repetitive tower defense segments just to expand the explorable area. I don't like the bland gray prison town most of the game takes place in, and constantly going back into the prison itself. Most of this stuff will not bother the average person and I put the game in my top list because I guarantee you will like it if you like ARPGs, but as an Ys fan I want better, and hope the next one is a rethinking of the franchise.  After a couple of decent Poirot games, Microids turned the franchise over to Blazing Griffin, the developers of Murder Mystery Machine, and the result is functionally very similar to that but in the Agatha Christie universe. You'll talk to various witnesses, find clues, and then form connections on your mental pinboard to create new conversation topics and conclusions. After first dealing with classism and injustice involving stolen jewelry, you are invited by a person involved in that case to be on hand for what turns out to be a mansion murder mystery. I thought it was alright, but has a similar issue to MMM in that you're kind of railroaded to conclusions, and sometimes it's not obvious which clues you're supposed to connect as there are too many similar nodes. The nodes on the mental pinboard are also arranged in a way that makes sense from a graphic design standpoint, but also kind of gives away where the connections are supposed to be made, as there's convenient equidistant space between clues that bisects a region perfectly. But at least it wasn't a big dropoff from the ABC Murders. I just hope BG can improve on this formula with their next game, if they're going to helm this IP going forward.  So, when I mentioned the year not being amazing, this was definitely one of the games I had in mind. Yes, Halo Infinite is on a lot of top lists, and as far as the multiplayer goes, it seems to be a Halo fan's dream game. And I'm sure there are Halo fans that like the single player campaign as well. As someone who isn't a huge Halo fan (I've played through the first three games and some of ODST), I don't hate Infinite SP. It has maybe the strongest gunfights of any Halo game I can think of, and the grapple hook is a lot of fun to zip around with. But boy is it not perfect!! First of all, I've played hundreds of games in the last several years, but Halo Infinite has to be the first that I actually started skipping the cutscenes for; the storytelling was THAT BAD. I do not care about these space orcs, and I am sick of the Cortana bullshit.. give it a rest already! Someone needs to tell 343 that their games don't have to take themselves that seriously. Everyone loves the Grunt dialog, in fact the Grunt dialog in Infinite is pretty great. If they'd be willing to give Master Chief even one character flaw or at the very least some funny quips, it'd go a long way. I read a review saying that Infinite teaches Doom Eternal "how it's done", but Doomguy is way funnier without saying a single word in the new Dooms than Master Chief is with his robotic responses to everyone. The open world is done relatively well for a game that had to be scrapped and started over... they didn't pepper the world full of pointless bloat, just a few bases to retake and a couple of minor quests to do in each region. Given that the original plan was to go for a Breath of the Wild style game, the ambition on display is significantly lower in the final product, but it's probably more appropriate for this franchise. I don't think I want Halo to be another Witcher world of question marks every 5 feet. I think it works fine. What I don't approve of is the copying and pasting of interior rooms, which comes straight out of the Halo 1 playbook and... if you're given a AAA budget and are crunching your employees to death, you'd think there wouldn't be so much Generation Zero-esque re-use. Another thing to chalk up to dev hell I guess. The difficulties don't seem quite balanced right. Normal feels like Heroic, while Easy remains Easy... so either you're a god or you're too fragile. Obviously long time Halo players play on Legendary and get a billion headshots, but as a normie, I felt adrift. Too many firefights with large groups of enemies where I could dodge OR grapple hook but not both, and both have a cooldown. (Also the dodge isn't added until several hours into the game which is weird.) Maybe they designed the campaign for co-op and didn't tweak the values for a solo player? But co-op isn't even in the game yet. So... I dunno. I actually feel like this game is better suited for M&KB, because having to switch between dodge and grapple hook as opposed to them being bound to specific buttons is BAFFLING to me. They give you tools like a scanner that helps to declock enemies, but you'll never use it because it's buried behind a quick-switch menu and you'll just be using the grapple hook forever. Apparently it's like this in multiplayer too, which I can't fathom, but if people like the multi then all power to them. Given that I did actually finish this one, Infinite is definitely a step above Halos 4 & 5. The action's more intense, it's fun to fly around in a banshee and blast encampments from the sky, the movement is probably the least worst it's ever been. I'm not sure how they intend to make a platform out of this-- obviously the multiplayer can have seasons/battle passes, but the single player world is too basic for a GAAS exploration. But at least it's a step in the right direction, and maybe 343 can make several many more steps before I can give an actual thumbs up.   This is the lowest scoring game that I would even place higher if I didn't have the restraint to understand that my trashy taste still has to respect some level of traditional criticism. Foreclosed's shooting is awful, and the stealth has really dumb AI, and when you overload your implants you have to re-apply them which makes no sense and must be a bug they overlooked. The enemy variety is limited and has stiff wooden animations. There's a segment with drones that was nightmarishly frustrating. But I don't care. This was trashy-rear end fun, with a beautiful neon dystopian comic book aesthetic and fun silly thriller story about people as commodities and getting revenge on The Man. Would play another game from this dev, especially if they learn how to make a good game.  Most people might remember Boyfriend Dungeon for its content warning faux pas that led to a bunch of Tumblr/Twitter teens sending threats to a voice actor over a character they didn't write because... voice actors aren't writers. But what actually was Boyfriend Dungeon? Well, it's a combination of dating sim and dungeon crawler whose game has been unfavorably compared to Hades which does it no favors, as the gameplay is far more basic and less dynamic than Supergiant's masterpiece. Is it fair? I dunno, this is just something you have to deal with when you enter the same space. But if you don't mind a far less dynamic version of procgen dungeon slashing, there's a lot of charm to this game. Each of the weapons you find are a potential romantic (or platonic) partner, except for a pair of brass knuckles that turns into a cat. But you can hang out with the cat and give them pets. You can also date multiple weapons before going too deep, which I did with a graffiti artist and member of an art thief troupe (and a dagger). Each weapon offers a different playstyle, and dating the weapons gets them new passive/active abilities to help you in the dungeons. It's a decent loop, and a charming presentation complete with traditionally-animated magical transformation scenes for each character. Just know that the presentation is carrying a lot of the weight here.   One of the more unassuming and under the radar 3D platformers, I probably would not have played Omno had it not been on Gamepass. There's a few games like that on this list, actually. Some of it just involves leaping around and re-arranging platforms to reach orbs. Some of it is collecting enough energy to power a device. There is no combat in the game; instead each area gives you a new tool/skill to utilize, like teleporting or the aforementioned sand sledding, which then gets utilized in the puzzles of that region. I wouldn't say that my life has changed and the world is more colorful and food tastes better now, but Omno is a competent story platformer where you explore large levels solving puzzles, sand-surfing, and learning about your place in the world and the people before you.  I've actually docked this game in the ranking a bit because it just threw some rape discussion at me in a cutscene without warning and that's a bit... well it's actually expectedly edgy for a retro FPS, but at the same time, kind of out of place?? I'm sure someone's gonna be like "toughen up, snowflake" but look.. it was just weird and out of nowhere. This game is actually fun otherwise. It's a Metroidvania made in gzDoom inspired by the art of Zdzisław Beksiński, the artist Bloober Team stole from for The Medium (hmm you'll notice no one putting that game on their lists this year, hmmmm what a mystery!). So you have the tight shooting of Doom with the platforming and ability upgrades of a Metroidvania.. it's a formula that works pretty well, and with the shorter runtime (around 3 hours), you get a nice breezy game through an open world of varied strange biomes for a pretty cheap price.  I don't have a ton to say on this one... meme-y games don't really inspire me to write much, I guess. Turnip Boy is a little light Zelda experience that won't run you too long and doesn't take itself too seriously. It handles.. fine. And it has a pleasant look and sound to it, complete with theme song in the credits. But I hope for something a bit meatier from this dev in the future.   The Nice Winner of the Year is Haven Park, a casual exploration game about rebuilding your gran's campgrounds. I can't quite quantify why I enjoyed this as much as I did. It's a really simple game involving going around collecting resources, fixing fences and lightposts, and building up campgrounds as visitors start to show up and either have a tip to offer or a sidequest. It could probably fall into the subgenre of "Short Hike" style chill experiences, though this is a bit smaller in ambition and budget. But it's a pleasant little game and I was very addicted to the general loop.  What a weird little game... very interesting though. Your protag somehow wound up in an extradimensional library, helping the curator fill it with books by summoning ne'er-do-wells and defeating them in turn-based card RPG battles. As you progress you will unlock additional party members to fight alongside you by defeating boss battles based on classic lit (for example, the Little Matchstick Girl). There's a lot of stuff going on (multiple combat dice, book burning to gain cards, using 'pages' to make your stats mimic an enemy you defeated, and more), and the UI manages to keep it organized in a coherent fashion, which is a big deal because it easily could have been confusing and repellant, ESPECIALLY on console. But even though you're thrown in the deep end to start, the tooltips and tutorials get you acclimated pretty comfortably. I don't know if this sort of thing could hold up to 40 hours, but I will come back to this on occasion for sure. One thing I will say, on Xbox the dialogue sounded blown out/distorted. I don't know if that's an issue on PC as well, but hopefully it can be addressed via patch. I know that this game is a spiritual followup to another SCP-inspired game but I don't think you need to have played that game to understand how to play this one. Just know the worldbuilding is there to be observed rather than explained.   I actually almost completely forgot about this game when putting my list together this past week, which I guess says something about the game a little bit. It's actually fun, a Metal Slug like experience where you're a goose wreaking havoc on everyone with guns and mechs... but it DOES get repetitive quickly with little variation on gameplay and not a ton of unique setpieces. Between missions you can buy perks and change your loadout, as well as unlock supporting characters that can fight alongside you or provide certain weapons. The art is more akin to a 16-bit game than the Neo Geo and music is just alright, but you could do a lot worse for an evening's entertainment.   Yeah, see, I reached my "good" designation before even hitting the top 50. And look at the games in the top paragraph that I didn't get to! Who the gently caress is calling this a bad year for games? Give them a swirly. Anyway, If you want your Zelda-likes to lean harder on exploration and discovery, Ocean's Heart is a bit janky but might be up your alley. Your village has been raided by pirates searching for an ancient treasure, and your father has gone off to find answers. After he has not returned in months, you decide to set out on an adventure yourself to find him as well as save the world. In addition to searching for your father, there are lots of side quests that only give you a vague direction of the region the quest is located in, and you'll have to talk to NPCs or search areas to get the clues you need to track your objectives down. The game doesn't hold your hand and is all about letting you explore and find things youself. It's a little bit buggy and the combat is very simple, but it's a promising first game from this developer.  People Can Fly broke out (well, sort of) with the arcade action shooter Bulletstorm, a parody pastiche of AAA shooters with a melee combo/trap system and some very memorable setpieces. They showed that AAA shooters don't have to take themselves seriously to be great and worthy of your time. For some reason, they did the exact opposite with the storytelling in Outsiders, and I don't know if they were trying to make it so bad it's funny, or if they really believe they made something impactful. Now we have an overly serious, bleak post-apocalyptic story that feels like the very thing Bulletstorm made fun of, and it's told completely straight. Even the first RAGE was sillier than Outriders is. But ignoring that, the game is actually relatively solid to play, a Destiny-lite co-op shooter with classes and powers to go along with the shooting, and the 2.0 update has buffed some classes to make each of them viable even for solo play. They really like to throw a shitload of enemies at you, so a lot of encounters are about finding an ideal path through the carnage to stay alive. Complicating things are 'elite' enemies, which have just a bit too much health and do too much damage for my liking, which often forced me to clear out every other enemy just so I could deal with them 1 on 1. This isn't a Marauder in Doom Eternal situation, just damage/HP values needing additional balancing for solo play, IMO. Predictably the story ends in such a way that it can be a game as a service, but the areas aren't really structured like the planets in Destiny so it doesn't really make much sense. Worth a playthrough with friends, as People Can Fly know how to make shooters feel good, and I bet co-op is great. But you can jump off after that.   My two fave AA game directors, SWERY and Uchikoshi, have had some real ups and downs lately. Uchikoshi went from AI the Somnium Files to the pretty mediocre/forgetable World's End Club, while SWERY went from a game as fantastic as The Missing to the complete mess that was Deadly Premonition 2. The Good Life could really have swung either way. But perhaps there's a spot somewhere between where the Good Life sits?? Naomi Hayward has wound up in, in her words, a real hellhole -- called Rainy Woods (a nod to the original title of Deadly Premonition). Upon arrival, several strange things start happening. Naomi discovers the entire town turns into cats and dogs (and soon gains the same ability herself)... and then the face of the town ends up dead with a historic sword in her chest. How the game actually plays though is not as straightforward as unwrapping a mystery though, and this may cause some disappointment or frustration. Naomi is a bit of an rear end in a top hat (which I find endearing), and is mostly looking out for #1, which means getting out from under her immense debt. This means making money via photography that's right it's another photography game, binches!! I've got several in this list so get used to it! Each day you'll see hashtags on the Instagram-esque app on your computer, and you'll go out and take photos of them to rake in the cash. Of course, progressing through the game is the ultimate way to clear the debt, but having that bit of money on you will help a lot in buying from shops. See, the game is also part Life Sim, which means there's some gardening, there's some cooking, there's sidequests to help out the various residents of the town. There's hunger and hygiene meters, and if you don't shower, flies will start to swarm you. If you play with the cats or dogs, you'll become more aligned with Team Cat or Team Dog, which affects the prices of shopkeepers who belong to one or the other. So there's a lot to this game... it's not executed super well, and the amount of fence lengths without an exit is infuriating when you're trying to get to a location and are dealing with a limited time quest or the real-time clock in general. But it's still a lot more polished than the Deadly Premonition series and even a bland-feeling SWERY game is still a SWERY experience, with strange characters and quirky side stories. Plus the photography is fun, so you can always just do that.  JC Bailey makes games specifically only for one person, myself. RPGs that are all about planning a route around an open world and defeating pre-placed enemies to level up and survive in the most efficient order. Deep Rune is a followup to last year's surprise Myth Bearer that tries to add a lot more replayability by having a bunch of classes to play as that offer different benefits, kind of like Desktop Dungeons. There's also a large spellbook to compile over the course of the game by defeating bosses, and use of mana becomes just as tactical as everything else. For those unaware of Myth Bearer... if you were to take the concept of Desktop Dungeons and apply it to a large hand-crafted world instead of a single room, you'd get something close to Myth Bearer, and Deep Rune draws an even closer connection with these additional mechanics. I unfortunately picked what ended up being a pretty tough class to play as, though I was able to finish the game after a few deaths. The game allows for 10 deaths and deaths cause you to respawn with full HP/MP. Since all enemies stay gone after defeating them, this feels like almost too forgiving a compromise, but I suspect that it's just too difficult to balance the world around so many classes without needing that safety net. There's not much like these games, so I will gladly play anything Bailey has to offer.   Having typed up dozens of write-ups the past week, I have no idea if I've said it already or not, but roguelites aren't really my thing, unless they're extraordinary... like Monolith or Hades or games of that level. Dreamscaper may not be on the level of those games, but it's still quite interesting. A narrative roguelite about confronting your personal demons, every night you go to sleep and fight through your nightmares, while during the day you make connections with people around the city which grants boons, as well as engaging in other activities to expand the dreamscape or improve the loot. Meditating allows you to build permanent buffs, your sketchbook adds new weapons and spells to the drop table, daydreaming lets you add new room types to each section, and more. The action is relatively fluid, although it's definitely B tier rather than A tier. But it has a nice visual style, the run lengths are not too long, and there seems to be a lot to the meta progression. It may be one to buy on sale price, but it's definitely one of those sneaky ones that you could wind up losing several hours to without realizing it.  For freaks like me that enjoy fake operating system games, this year's edition is Dum-Dum, a fictitious Windows 3.1 style OS with fairly accurate-to-Win3 games and apps, including turtle programming. Of course, there's an actual game here, in that the worst game on the computer is actually a secret backdoor to a networked connection to some programmers trapped in the company building that need the random chaos of an idiot to outwit the genius CEO keeping them locked up. Dum-Dum pales in comparison to games like Hypnospace Outlaw, but it's perfectly fine for a day's enjoyment.  Virginia was maybe a bit too abstract and random for people, so that developer has put out a more conventional sci-fi mystery story this year in Last Stop. And by story I mean stories, as there are actually three different stories running side by side (which only occasionally overlap, but in interesting ways). There's a comedic freaky friday style story that actually hits its comic beats well and elicited some laughs from me and my roommates. There's a dramatic storyline about a career-first woman cheating on her husband (refreshing to play an rear end in a top hat, actually), and a more Dr Who/Torchwood-esque story about a mysterious traveler that is making all of the people in this teen's life disappear from existence. All three stories are told very well and with sturdy suspense and moment-to-moment delivery. The game culminates in a weird Spielburgy otherworld 'adventure' climax that feels a bit like they couldn't figure out quite how to best find the common tonal ground between all three stories, but otherwise I thought this was a very entertaining Telltale-style game.  How does a dungeon crawler only a few steps removed from solely being presented to you as text become so addictive? Well, it turns out Hiroyuki Ito kind of knows what he's loving doing. The abstract board game presentation and Gumby style sliding around makes for really breezy exploration, and the riddles and secrets are enough to keep the game from tipping over from fun to tedium. And by deconstructing Final Fantasy combat down to basic Phys/Magic attack and defense, it makes for tense but very streamlined fighting. Boy howdy do I wish the composer added some percussion to those music tracks though. Like, just having two guitars cover Flight of the Bumblebee? Why are you intent on me muting the game? Don't do that. The atmospheric sound design outside of battles actually works well, but the music needs to stop.   Given that there were a couple of high profile 3D platformers this year, it makes it a little harder for indie 3D platformers to stand out. Some developers even had a 3D platformer "indie direct" event back in the summer, of which Demon Turf made an appearance in. Of all the projects from that showcase, Demon Turf stood out the most as the least.. er.. overly influenced. As a kid trying to take over Hell, essentially, you're tasked with going into the turfs of a bunch of gangs and defeating their leader. This requires collecting a battery (the Star equivalent) from 7 stages (per world) and then fighting a boss. After which point, night variants are unlocked for each level that have new batteries to collect. In addition, there are 3 cakes (Green Star equivalent) in each level, and the hub has Cartridges to find that unlock bonus levels in the arcade, and a photography minigame, and a golfing minigame... no it's not Dark Cloud 2, but it does have a lot of activities on offer. There are some oddities with this one. The game combines 3D with hand-drawn sprites, but the animations don't quite feel right. I think it's that the line of action is too upright... so the motions feel a bit weak. Also, the game has really atrocious 'combat' where you push enemies into spikes. It feels awful every time and I hope that the dev is willing to keep tweaking it. The level design is mostly fine, the camera is fully within your control, and the game has the ability to place checkpoints anywhere you want, so there's a lot to like here. It just maybe needs a little more fine-tuning.   With the Papers Please dev now deep into deductive game development, there's a space left behind for other games to fill. Granted, it's really easy for a game in that vein to be too much of a knockoff that feels hollow and pointless, the way many PT clones have felt. Where Mind Scanners succeeds is in its systems. The premise is relatively standard for this game type at this point, dystopian government, limited amount of time each day, have to make X amount of money daily, have to make tough decisions. But the particular flavor here is brain therapy. You diagnose the patient by interpreting their visions accurately, then use a bunch of weird doohickeys to cure the particular brain anomalies plaguing them. Each one has its own unique mechanics, like a controller with a bunch of buttons that handles similarly to Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, or a memory game where eyeballs blink symbols at you. This combined with the time limit gives the game a bit of a WarioWare feel. On top of that, each device drains the patient of their personality, which means you need to use additional devices to restore their personality before they become mindless drones parroting government propoganda. And some devices don't work super well, which means failure will cause their stress to spike. And naturally.. there's a device to lower stress too! Like I said, there's a lot of different systems at play here, which adds to the stress but also keeps things interesting. Unfortunately, the game was a bit too difficult for me. I didn't fail it, but I lost multiple patients due to panicking and causing them to stress out. When you're up against the clock it's definitely a lot easier to miss timing windows and cause problems.   The crossover premise of Room to Grow is such an obvious peanut butter and chocolate situation that I'm surprised it hasn't been attempted sooner: take the concept of Snake and place it in a Sokobon style puzzle game. Placed on a grid, you move your snake one tile edge at a time, trying to get the fruit in the hole. Now, bearing in mind that it is always growing and you can't overlap yourself, things get really tricky in a hurry, especially when you add walls to push off of, forks that split your snake into two heads, and other mechanics to juggle. One nice feature of Room to Grow is the ability to skip a puzzle and come back to it later. This will allow you to continue to progress on the world map, which, naturally, is one giant multi-room grid. That's right, you can't escape the game mechanics just because you're not in one of the levels! Anyway, this is one for the Snakebird fans, as it can get very frustrating in a hurry as the amount of things needed to complete a stage grow and grow (like a snake!!!), but it has infinite undo and is fine with you not solving every puzzle either. You might actually be able to finish this one!  The developers of Touhou: Luna Nights went for a somehow even stranger pull for their next Metroidvania: an OVA from 1990 based on D&D fantasy novels. Truth be told, though, you don't really need to have familiarity with the source material to enjoy the game, as the story will be lost on you but it ultimately is just a thin framework for some old fashioned jumping and slashing. Taking some pages from SOTN's playbook, Lodoss War is more weapons oriented and full of gothic environments and ghost-trailing character animations. It also mixes in an Ikaruga mechanic by giving you elemental polarity that reduces damage of the opposing elemental type. Though I prefer Luna Nights to Wonder Labyrinth, I think this is still a fine jumping on point, it looks and feels great, and has that authentic Igavania feel (though it is definitely smaller and more stage-oriented than a true Iga game).  The highest-ranking AAA on my list to come outside of Nintendo lands in the back half of my top 50, which says a lot about how good indie gaming was this year and how uninteresting mainstream gaming has become for me. The unfortunate thing is that Deathloop could definitely have placed higher if it had a better design focus. The actual gameplay itself is pretty fun, as there are all the trademarks of Arkane's renowned map design, with routes of all kinds for stealth play and chaotic action. And unlike Dishonored, you don't feel punished for going in guns blazing. The problem is that, similar to Bowser's Fury, Deathloop is trying to bridge a gap between games in a developer's portfolio, and bringing few of the strengths in doing so. In this case, it's bridging Dishonored with Prey Mooncrash and a sprinkling of Bioshock. And in the process several serious flaws pop up. Notably, the game falls into the same time loop trap as 12 Minutes by requiring you to do a specific set of instructions in a specific order, and having no flexibility whatsoever. It also only has 4 maps, which would not be a problem for, say, a 5-6 hour game, but is a big problem for a 14-15 hour game. You'll hear the same music over and over, run through the same menus over and over, and you just don't have the kind of experimentation that a time loop game truly deserves. Which is weird because it's ARKANE. I would have expected Arkane to have all sorts of creative solutions to not only deal with each Visionary, but also have ways to remove all of them at different times of day.  Though there were some stellar puzzle games this year, I wouldn't say that it was a banner year for the genre, given the genre's sparse placement in my list. Sizeable is one of the simpler but easier to get into puzzlers, and is usually pretty cheap. The game involves rotating panoramas and resizing objects in them in order to power on devices or reveal hidden secrets. And that's pretty much it! It definitely fits in the same genre as games like Klocki, and it's similarly cheap and got multiple post-release content updates.  Backpacking across America while pickpocketing across America! First revealed at a Tribeca Games Festival of all things, The Big Con is a love letter to the 1990s, from Nickelodeon style character designs, to Mission Hill style color theory, to adoration of fanny packs and squiggly patterns. Your goal is to steal enough money to save your mom's video store, by swiping pockets, putting on disguises, grifting people and making dubious trades. While the gameplay is mostly the same from start to finish, the game has a nice curve of expanding your field with each stage (starting with just a town square, then a shopping mall, eventually reaching an entire downtown area of not-Las Vegas) and having a few sidequests to earn extra scratch. You can eavesdrop on conversations, steal an item from a person and sell it back to them (or to someone else for more money), and also find themed items for an eccentric collector who will pay top dollar for them. The game is a little buggy and could've had more locations, but I thought this was a cool project that mostly lived up to how it was billed at E3.  Noir games definitely appeal a lot to me (see Lacuna later on), but I think Backbone deserves better than the backlash that it got. A mix of furry hard-boiled detective story and science fiction body horror, both genres have plenty in common when it comes to talking politics, and that's basically what you can expect from this game. The main character stumbles into seeing something he shouldn't have seen, that leads him on an investigation to uncovering a city-wide conspiracy. In the process of unveiling the truth, he undergoes a bit of a... change... and finds himself on a new, much bleaker journey. The game has a lot to say about the lower classes and the homeless and how they are seen as disposable and invisible. The third act swerve is absolutely a swerve, but it is in line with the overall themes of the game. I was fully absorbed by this one, and only wish that there was more to do as an actual game than just run from cutscene to cutscene.  What if Pokemon Snap was an actual full game and not just a prototype? I have vivid memories of those Snap kiosks in Blockbusters but I also know that the original game's content was.. pretty thin. New Pokemon Snap is an overcorrection in the best possible way. With over a dozen different areas, most with day/night variants, and all of them changing each time you level them up to feature new events and pokemon, New Snap does not have a content deficiency. It is jampacked with things to do. Each photo trip has at least a dozen different Pokemon to discover and photograph, often interacting with each other in curious ways. You might see Scorbunny hanging out with Pichu, or Pincer jumping out of a pile of dirt. But as environments level up, the Pokemon do more and more interesting things. Scorbunny doing backflips to entertain other pokemon watching, or Torterra getting in a fight with Charizard. You also gain more ways to interact yourself with the Pokemon, from throwing apples for them to eat, or playing a melody for them to dance to. As your pictures are reviewed, they're scored on different criteria, from framing to scale to the uniqueness of the pose. A Pokemon eating might be worth two stars, while a Vespiqueen doing a loop-de-loop in the air might be a four star shot. But even that can be given a bronze/silver/gold rating depending on certain factors. So for score chasers, there's a lot in this department as well. It's funny that despite mostly running at 60fps and looking not horrifically basic, the game's visuals and soundtrack are still kind of.. plain, compared to any other Nintendo franchise. But even with that, there are so many different custom animations for each Pokemon, and the somewhat minimalist environments at least make it a bit easier to pinpoint and focus on the Pocket Monsters. So I guess it works out okay!    The thing that bothered me the most when I first played Ocarina of Time as a pre-teen was the automatic jumping. It just seemed weird to me that Zelda would make it to the third dimension and not have platforming to it. Maybe part of this was Nintendo trying to keep Zelda and Metroid distinct from each other, but in Blue Fire we can finally see what a Zelda game would look like as a 3D platformer. And it's good! This small team indie project offers an interconnected world (think Souls in terms of unlocking shortcuts and navigating through large rooms), and some really solid movement tech, along with Zelda-style hack & slashing and dungeon progression. There's plenty of secrets and upgrades to find, and the game is full of "Void" stages that are a lot like the FLUDD-less levels from Mario Sunshine. In a nod to a later entry on this list, Skyward Sword, there are also Silent Realm style challenges where you have to hunt down orbs that will test your acrobatic skills. Well worth your time.  Somewhere inbetween a choose-your-own-adventure game and a walking simulator, Road 96 charts the story of a nation on the verge of dictatorship as the youth of the country attempt to hitchhike their way to the border and escape before it all goes to poo poo (well, even further to poo poo). Your success is not guaranteed and it will come down to the choices you make. Win a bunch of money from gambling? You might be able to pay a smuggler to get you across... but only if you don't spend it all on lodging, transportation and food before you get there. You could survive all the way to the border and then gently caress up right at the end. Which honestly, is not that unrealistic. One of my runs ended in me flat out getting shot to death by border police. The stories on the road are quite varied, and you'll run across some interesting characters, such as a hitman running a taxi service, a nerdy genius kid backpacking on his lonesome, or a TV reporter partying like there's no tomorrow. And their stories just might connect together..... as you encounter them in different circumstances as different teens. You might have to defuse a situation where a cop has a gun drawn, or be on the lookout for a stalker, or escape from a killer. The events are randomly chosen and sometimes you're forced into situations where survival and self-preservation come first. Sorry, alive guy in the trunk! Politically I think the game could be a bit harder hitting, as it plays a bit of a backseat to the road trip antics you get into, but I'm aware that edges always have to be sanded off for mainstream appeal. The messages mostly come through okay. Ultimately, if you want a 'choices matter' game where those choices could get you killed, you should give this one a look. You have a slightly higher chance of survival in Road 96 than Long Live the Queen.  Root Letter was a kind of interesting mystery VN that I mostly enjoyed because of the use of live actors in the Steam version. Root Film goes back to the hand-drawn style of the original Letter, and places its mysteries in a movie-making setting where a film director keeps stumbling upon murder mysteries that might be linked together. Where the game really shines is the characters, as the banter between the main character and his sarcastic zoomer assistant is always entertaining. The mysteries are mostly fine and hold up logically, though they wouldn't hold a candle to the complex puzzle boxes of Ace Attorney. Given the rotating cast of somewhat bland characters in Letter, I thought Root Film was a significant improvement, and if the dev could actually get a budget (this game is very economical with the portraits, and the backgrounds are all photoshop filtered photos), their next game could be something really special. --- I hit the character limit! gently caress! Guess this will continue in a future post! Seriously I can't even fit in images for each game! I'll be back later with the rest. The 7th Guest fucked around with this message at 20:54 on Dec 31, 2021 |
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Dec 31, 2021 20:50
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Hirsute posted:8. 428: Shibuya Scramble Kochi Nakamura was just a producer on both 428 and the Zero Escape series, he wasn't really "the guy who made them"
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Dec 31, 2021 20:57
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There are so many good lists here so I'm going to give my own one. 8 - Arcanium One trend that you will immediately notice is that this game has a lot of deck builder roguelites/roguelikes. This is my guilty pleasure genre and I played a lot of them this year, including ones in early access. This is the first of the latter category and while I did play other games like it that probably had more sheen, this one stuck out in my memory. This game has seen a lot of changes over this year alone and the core system has been shifted around a lot. At the end of the day, it's a fun, colourful and vibrant roguelite that probably needs some work before it can truly shine. 7 - Ruined King: A League of Legends Story Once upon a time, I played League of Legends. I still watch the pro scene and league content from time to time, but I have held back from the temptation to engage with the toxic hellspiral that is the game. One of the things I like that isn't really as celebrated was the lore of the characters in the game. At least, not until now. This year marked the release of Arcane, which I haven't watched because I don't want to fall into a depression but has pretty much received universal acclaim. This game also came out this year. It's buggy and a bit of a mess, but I can't help but love it. Deeply reminiscent of their previous work, Battlechasers, I would be lying if I said I didn't enjoy seeing characters like Illaoi and Braum interacting with each other and the battle system is fun for what it is. Riot once again proves that everything that it makes that isn't League of Legends is gold. 6 - Wildermyth This roguelike is charming as hell with a grid-based battle system to boot. I've spent countless hours on this game and the way that characters grow older and retire as well as all the things that could happen to them were engaging and adorable. The battle mechanics aren't the most complex in the world and after you've seen nearly all the events in the game, it does lose a bit of its lustre. Before then, however, it was definitely a ride I could recommend. 5 - Gordian Quest This gem of a roguelite takes inspiration from Dungeons & Dragons, using their stat system as well as D20 to determine things such as events and initiative. The amount of gameplay is staggering and each character you can select have wildly different playstyles and have 4 different starter decks that determine what stats they specialise in as well as the way that they play. This is definitely a game that you can sink your teeth into and never find the point where the teeth meet. Even with all this praise, however, it isn't my top roguelike of the year. I'll talk about that one later. 4 - Gnosia This really came out of nowhere, huh? I once enjoyed playing Mafia on this dead, gay forum so the concept of this game immediately stuck out to me. The fact they managed to make a single player Mafia game is amazing and the designs are definitely out of the world. This needs to be on the list for ingenuity alone, let alone the fun gameplay. 3 - .Hack//G.U. Last Recode - Vol 1 - Reminisce So when I was a young lad, I played Vol 3 of this humongous series without ever playing the other two games. The gameplay was fun but I was so confused by the story as it relied on you to have played through the previous games. This game existed in the back of my mind until I saw an advertisement for the switch version of Last Recode, that included all 3 games and a 4th game that served as an epilogue for everything else. Shocked, I then found out that a PC version was released in 2017 and that it was on 80% discount. I quickly jumped on the opportunity to finally play through the full series. I've only completed the first one, but I've had a blast. The story isn't earth-shattering, but the gameplay definitely holds up, especially since they backported the gameplay of Vol 3 to the previous volumes. Increasing exp in the first 2 volumes to let you quickly play through them also contributed to the enjoyment of the game, but did make the game a bit too easy. In the end, I was shocked that this game was able to hold its own with more recent games and encourage others who enjoy JRPG's to pick up this gem of a series. 2 - Chrono Ark Here it is, my top roguelike/roguelite. This unassuming Korean early access deckbuilder has captured my heart and I've invested over 200 hours into this gem. I feel like I'm one of the only people who even know this game exists, but the way it handles the choice of levelling your characters, card draw or max energy alongside the art style and general gameplay have kept me captivated for hours on end. The music in this game is top-notch with music such as this boss theme that is unique to this boss alone staying in my head for days and months. I've beaten this game in expert mode and with every character and the way that the characters interact with each other form another layer of decisions on top of all the other decisions you make. It is in early access and is slated to be going through some big changes in the near future but please play this game. Please please please please play this game. 1 - FFXIV: Endwalker There was no contest really. After a certain infamous streamer got into this game, I decided to get back in too. I had played some of this game back in 2019 before the release of Shadowbringers but my attention spam and fear of using keyboards to play videogames meant that I eventually bounced off it. I'm so glad I came back to it. So many people have said words on it, but I have to say that Endwalker is my favourite expansion. Endwalker made me think about the messages and themes it was putting forward and had me contemplate them for days. Something clicked and then other decisions started falling into place like a puzzle and when a story can do that, it needs to be recognised. One thing that also massively helped was its fantastic controller support. Crossbar is an amazing system that more games need to employ and SE agree as they didn't patent it so that other companies could use it. I rarely, if ever, feel like I'm lagging behind M+K players and some jobs do feel like they were designed around controller in mind (looking at you Ninja mudras). What a fantastic series and a miracle that nearly didn't happen. EDIT: gently caress, I forgot about Gnosia. Making a quick edit to these rankings. jimmydalad fucked around with this message at 21:10 on Dec 31, 2021 |
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Dec 31, 2021 21:06
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Rarity posted:If you'd rather the points go to Elden Ring or split LoU/ER into a 1-2 and drop your #10 game that's fine, just let me know what you wanna do gently caress, if we can give votes to a demo maybe I should put stranger of paradise: final fantasy origin in the main list... no i will abide by my own code
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Dec 31, 2021 21:07
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Alright, resuming my list, sorry about that:  What a weird neat little game. Echo Generation is a shamelessly nostalgia-pandering JRPG with difficult Paper Mario combat and gorgeous voxel art, along with inventory puzzling. I generally do not like a lot of voxel styles in video games because it's often poorly done and just looks strange. But Echo Generation is a game with an actual commitment to their aesthetic and it really pays off visually. With just three party members (one a swappable set of companions) and Paper Mario style level gain decisions, you really need to think carefully about each stat boost. Money is hard to come by early on, and you will probably get your rear end handed to you in the first couple of hours. But once you're over the initial hump, this game really starts to breeze. The most annoying aspect of the game is by far respawning, as you are basically forced to run back to a bed to regain your health and there is no warping to be found here, but hopefully they will address this in a future update.   The Soulsiest game on my list, Grime puts forth a very unique vision, not clinging just to the old standbys of Lovecraft or Giger, but instead doing its own weird thing, a rock-filled world of carved and uncarved, of mishapen stone creatures that are really obsessed with anatomical perfection. You are something inbetween, a Carven crafted out of broken rock with a black hole for a head, and... that's pretty much all you get for a while as you roam an interconnected world and crush your prey. There's some interesting things at play here; a very player-friendly parry system that does major damage to enemies and also grants you perks to acquire when you've absorbed enough of the same enemy type. This can range from simple perks like being able to walk slower, to regaining stamina on successful absorbs, to increasing your stats by significant percentages. Of course there is still the traditional Souls levelling up mechanics, and Grime keeps it simple with 5 stats: Health, Force (stamina), Strength, Dexterity, and Resonance. There are of course weapons that require certain STR and/or DEX levels... there's shards to take to a blacksmith to upgrade your weapons.. I mean it's a Soulslike. The bosses are also a neat treat, as they're just as strange and weird as the world itself, from a fleshy abomination hiding in a statue and using cracked statue pieces to block your attacks, to a pair of mothers with mouths on their chests damaging you with singing. It's far from perfect but I love a game that goes for it and has its own footprint.   Daniel Mullins likes to examine the game<->player relationship with his stories, and Inscryption is another game that examines this relationship, albeit differently from his past titles. No, you will not suddenly be in a 3D platformer and then a fighting game and then an SRPG and then tax software. This game stays primarily a card game from start to finish. I think it's important to spoil that because there's a lot of "DON'T SPOIL YOURSELF GOING IN" and I think that if people assume this is going to be just like The Hex or Pony Island, they'll be disappointed. Each of the three acts of the game are card battling games, that are mostly based on the same rules. The difference is in their presentation and their structure. One act presents itself like a roguelite, while another presents itself like a dungeon crawler, while another presents itself like a gameboy CCG. My personal favorite act is Act 2, as the CCG allows for some major deck customization and is a lot friendlier to failure, giving you more time to really feel out the nuances of the game. But of course most people's favorite act will be the ominous and creepy Act 1, that combines a dread-filled roguelite feel with occasional Escape Room puzzling. No matter what, this is a game that even non-cardheads can get into (and I'm NOT a card game fan in general), and even if you don't like the game's every twist, you can't deny that it's immersive and unique and really going for it.   Brought to you by the creator of Dusk (and others) is the Dread X anthology series, which runs under a simple premise: "make the PT of your dreams". Not literally PT, but the PT ideal for whatever concept the develoepr has. The first anthology, for example, includes a cursed Tiger LCD game by the dev of FAITH. Each anthology could be easily compared to the Haunted PS1 Demo Disc collections, but with stories that are fully complete. So the games are short, but finished. This year's anthology is themed around first person shooters, and comes with a framing device that is itself a first person adventure at a remote Antartic base. Finishing the framing device game involves playing through the different games and getting codes to input into a safe. The games themselves are tributes to games like Fatal Frame, hunting games, Realms of the Haunting, and one game where you have to realistically reload every bullet into your gun before you can fire it. Not every game is a success, but they're all INTERESTING, and wildly different, and very creative. I'm definitely a fan of this anthology series and I'm curious to see what the theme will be in 2022.   The original Subnautica ruled and was one of my favorite games of the 2010s. The sequel, offering much of the same, is still entertaining, though it loses some of what made the original special. It's not the newly added on-foot sections, which I actually liked and thought broke things up nicely. It's the path of progression itself, as the world map is nowhere near as well designed as the original and involves a lot of going back and forth and, honestly, nothing particularly flows well together. That said, even with the novelty having faded, it's still Subnautica, with that familiar and addictive gameplay loop of expanding your swim radius, building a base, upgrading your equipment, building vehicles, scanning fish and plants and going deeper and deeper-- even if it's in a less logical fashion.  :format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22787961/Axiom_Verge_2_pc_epic_games_store.jpg) It takes some real guts to completely gut and rebuild an IP in its second game, which is what Axiom Verge 2 does, and it will no doubt polarize fans. Gone are the guns entirely, replaced with a pickaxe and boomerang. An entirely new cast and setting in Antartica and the Mesopotamian world on the other side. Bosses being changed to largely optional ala Breath of the Wild (and also easier than the original's extremely frustrating bosses). But it really does pay off. Although I'm not the biggest fan of the art quality (and the music is a mixed bag-- the real world music great, the chiptune kinda bland), I'm a fan of everything else going on here. A lot of freedom in exploration even for a game with ability gating, a ton of upgrades to collect, and a Metroidvania-within-a-Metroidvania where you play as a robot beetle which has its own ability upgrades like a grapple hook to whip yourself up ledge edges. There are some minor skill trees but you can still find health and weapon upgrades in the world instead. Plenty of lore to find, and at least half of the map is completely optional to search (including an ability that lets you fast travel to any save point). It felt like the first Axiom Verge was mostly coasting on the fun of its guns, but Axiom Verge 2 shows Thomas Happ's growth as a game designer.   I don't know if the time loop craze is partially the result of our feeling trapped in a neverending societal loop of bad vibes and tough news, or if it's a general response to the universal feeling of wanting to break out of a rut... certainly the pandemic has made this genre even more interesting in terms of how we relate to it. But unfortunately, there have actually not been a lot of amazing time loop games to come out of this fad. Most notably the failure of 12 Minutes. Of the time loop games to release in 2021, though, The Forgotten City is by far the most successful -- perhaps having an initial Skyrim mod to build from helped. Navigating a cursed city doomed to extinction, your goal is to break the loop and save as many people as you can (or at least, yourself). There are people working against you though, and getting everyone on your side will involve a lot of personal quests to resolve. This is done through simple exploration and investigation, a little bit of trial and error, and eventually delegating tasks as you try to run the perfect day and pull everything off. Since the city is not too large and the time limit is generous, you can really perfect your routing in a way that is far more satisfying than the frustrating order-of-instructions 12 Minutes makes you follow. Definitely recommended for people who enjoy this trend in game design.   A speedrunner's delight, Unsighted is all about routing and efficiency. Well, it's also a cross between Zelda and Hyper Light Drifter, with interesting dungeon ideas outside the norm (for example, an abandoned highway dungeon with a lot of rail grinding). But you're up against the clock, as the life force keeping all automatons conscious and self-aware is slowly draining, with their energy source walled off by the remaining humans in a war-torn city. If their energy runs out, they become "unsighted", feral robot creatures that do nothing but attack on sight. This means having to make some tough decisions. You will find Meteor Dust in chests, which allow you to extend the life of an automaton by 24 hours, but who do you give them to? Can you find enough to keep everyone alive as you progress through the game, collecting the 5 Meteor Shards necessary to unlock the final dungeon? If not, who do you sacrifice. For those that are not so good at speeding around the world, there's the option to turn the timer off, but there's also an NPC who will sacrifice an NPC and give their time to you. Do that if you're a monster I guess! The NPCs also have a companionship level that rises with the meteor dust you give them, which can result in perks such as discounts, and a reward for maxing their level out. Your fairybot companion will fight alongside you, for example. Or you can gain the ability to equip chips anywhere instead of just at terminals (these chips can enhance your stats, or abilities). How does it actually play, though? It's pretty good! It took an hour to get used to the combat, which is very heavy on parrying enemies and likes to throw several enemies at you at once. You will need to play pretty defensively in the early going until you get powerful enough to really wreck people's poo poo. The Zelda tools you get are fun, like the Spinner which lets you zoom around on a giant top, or the always-necessary hookshot. It'd be inaccurate to call this a Metroidvania as it's definitely more a tool-upgrade Zelda game, but you can definitely 'sequence break' of a sort, as there are alternate ways to get into dungeons, such as getting into one dungeon via a room from a different dungeon. And for those who intend on playing more than once, you'll definitely come up with some ideas on how you can change your route through the game completely.   For those who enjoy games like Machinarium, here's Tohu, a game about a kid that has to restore the engine that powers the many islands and maintains balance, from a shrouded individual running around breaking and stealing things. Being an adventure game, of course, you'll ALSO be breaking and stealing things, but it's fine because you're the protagonist. You also have the ability to transform to a rock elemental that has the strength to pick up and move heavy objects. The game is very charming and despite using cut-out animation is still very lively and fun to look at. Much like Anamita Design games, there's lots to click on just for fun, and each island presents a different puzzle theme and has something new and interesting to offer. Though this game is definitely for a younger set, it should be enjoyable for all ages.   Released in mid-December, Image & Form took what they learned from the Steamworld series and ventures into the third dimension. Though a new IP, The Gunk is not entirely unfamiliar. There's a loop of exploring further, gathering resources, and returning to camp to upgrade. But it's far less about becoming more powerful and more about improving your efficiency. In some ways it reminds me of Journey to the Savage Planet, only this game isn't helmed by a copyright-bootlicking weirdo. There's a nasty goo sucking all the life out of this planet you've landed on, and your glove turns out to have a very powerful vacuum for sucking it up (where the gunk goes, who knows). If you enjoyed cleaning things up in Mario Sunshine, you've got your work cut out here. As Gunk pockets get cleaned up, life and vibrancy is restored to the area, as plant life sprouts and often assists in your platforming. The game is short, as it feels more like a test run at 3D before the Steamworld Dig franchise makes its transition, so you can play it on Gamepass in one evening if you prefer. A solid lateral step for this dev and I bet SD3 will benefit greatly from their experience on this title.   Environmental storytelling: the game?? Over a series of several levels spread across different points in a person's life, you unpack all of their belongings and put everything in its proper place. By the developer of Assault Android Cactus comes something completely different and far more relaxing, a click and drag casual puzzle game with cute pixel backgrounds. But still emotional! This is basically one long showing and not telling, the details of the person's life made clear by where things go, where things can't go (that boyfriend is an rear end in a top hat!), what they keep with them as they get older.   If you're a fan of detective games that hold you to your decision (like Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishment), Lacuna places that in a cyberpunk setting and has you attempting to thwart a possible terrorist plot to incite interplanetary war. There is no savescumming in the game and your decisions will have an impact, as wrong accusations will make it more difficult to get clues that would help you in future deductions. That's no joke either, I had started 4 for 4, and then messing up on deduction 5 started a spiraling effect where my decisions became more and more guesswork, leading me away from the best ending. You'll make your deductions by finding clues, checking email and news archives and doing the logical work yourself. It really got my mental gears going and I often felt pretty strongly about my choices even when I was wrong (this sometimes led to a bit of confusion when I felt my logic was a little stronger than the game's, at least in the last couple of hours). In the absence of a conventional Sherlock Holmes game (Frogwares can gently caress off with their open world combat nonsense), Lacuna is a fine substitute, with plenty of intrigue and noir-tinged narration.   With Etrian Odyssey's fate as a franchise unknown, it's up to other developers to take the baton as the Wizardry successor, and Experience has slowly been building their skills from game to game, starting from Savior of Sapphire Wings, evolving with Stranger of Sword City, doing the unconventional and macabre VN-RPG Death Mark. Undernauts draws on all their, well, experience, up to this point to deliver their best dungeon crawler yet. Mixing fleshy horror with conventional Wizardry battling and roster building, you create a team of spelunkers trapped in the world of Yomi, exploring the mines, castles, and forests that populate it, in search of the relics needed to power the portal that will return you home. The monster designs are delightfully gross and nasty, and the game doesn't pull any punches, promising easy TPKs even on regular encounters if you aren't prepared. The classes offered are fun (though their abilities are a bit limited even after subclassing), and the game is full of amenities to make your dungeon life less of a hassle. Easy return to camp, turbo mode for battling (and I do mean turbo, it's crazy fast), remembering past combat inputs, no-fuss anytime respec of your characters' stat points and ability points (allowing you to modify them for the particular challenges you're facing), and much more. Did I mention you have three free supercharges at the start of every battle that only take a turn to recharge? These let you use abilities without consuming MP, or take less damage, or go first before the enemies do. In short, this is a micromanager's dream, and the difficulty combined with the supercharges makes for really fun strategizing. I do wish there was more enemy variety, as the game kind of feels like a Vita project that just got moved over to the Switch, and I also wish I could draw the map myself, but this is still an excellent JRPG for Etrian/Wizardry fans that like some bite and a little horror.   I have a not-so-secret affinity for hidden object style games... but as time has gone on, the publishers & developers making the HOGs have slowly gotten better and better to the point that it's evolved into a new subgenre of lite adventure game that melds light inventory puzzling with puzzle minigames. I don't really know what to call this subgenre, but if you've played any recent Artifex Mundi or Alawar adventure game, you know what I'm referring to. Behind the Frame stands out as a short, but premiere title in this field. As a young painter, you go about your day, prepping breakfast, putting some music on, and painting your debut work for an art exhibition you're attempting to arrange. Across the street from you is an old man and his cat, and things are just cozy... although not quite right. No, this isn't a secret horror game, but there is a small mystery to unveil. And you'll do it by doing, exactly what I said above; doing some light inventory puzzling and puzzle minigames. The high budget and production values are what really make this shine. The game has gorgeous art that reminds me of French anime productions like Miraculous or Totally Spies, but uh... much more normal. The jazz music is calm and soothing, and the game will only run you about 90 minutes in length, a breezy afternoon game to play on a lazy Sunday.   An astonishing achievement for an Adventure Game Studio project developed by just two people (and free!). Similar in vein to the game adaptation of I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, travelers aboard a mysterious train recollect their final days, and the horrible things they did (under horrible circumstances). The backgrounds are gorgeous for a game being rendered at 320x200, and each story is just a little bit different in their execution, covering a broad range of heavy subjects like homophobia, racism, dementia, and survivor's guilt. It may be a little heavy handed at times (though nowhere near as heavy handed as the actual No Mouth Must Scream adventure game) but it only runs you about 90 minutes of playtime and 0 dollars. It's basically an indie film in pixel form with some light but contextually relevant puzzling.   The past 2 years has seen a resurgence in photography-based games, from Umurangi Generation to Alekon to the return of Pokemon Snap. But standing above all of them is the unassuming monochrome joy that is TOEM. Similar to A Short Hike, it's all about the journey, as you go from town to town, filling out your stampbook by fulfilling people's requests. This is, of course, done with photography, whether it's finding the perfect picture of a hotel to hang up in their lobby, finding a sneaky criminal, or joining a scout troupe. Perhaps you might meet the Loch Ness Monster? There are plenty of different requests to do in each town, far more than the required number needed to advance. This is not a game to bee-line, but to just take your time, explore around, and have fun. It's probably the most chill game I've played all year, and a "wholesome" game that is also just a good-rear end game.   Mario 3D World is one of my favorite 3D Mario games, a send off to Nintendo's obstacle course design theory as the company would transition to open world gaming with the Switch (and though Odyssey is not a fully open-world game, its levels are definitely more open sandboxes than abstract routes in the void). From start to finish, the game is brimming with wonderful ideas and gimmicks, nodding to every game that came before it. The double cherry and cat bell are awesome powerups that deserve to return. But we're not talking about that today. We're talking about the 2021 release Bowser's Fury, which came with Mario 3D World. And it's... odd. It's really odd. Here you have an attempt to bridge the gap between 3D World and Odyssey, by having a singular open world populated by discrete levels, each with 5 shine stars to collect, as well as many other stars to collect from exploring. This is, to me, a strange experiment that yields none of the strengths of either approach. The open world feels a bit empty, and the levels themselves are all too easy and lack the traditional difficulty curve I come to expect from a Mario game. Every level essentially feels like a World 1 level. It's also got the least congruent visual continuity of any 3D Mario game.. nothing quite feels like it belongs in the same world, it's really strange. Why does it place so highly then? Because, besides being paired with one of the best Mario games of all time, it's still an entertaining Mario game. Mario's moveset is still great, it's fun to see the cat powerup back, and I really like the powerup 'bank' introduced in this game. It is always frustrating to get a powerup and then immediately lose it, so to have reserves is extremely helpful. And there are a couple of levels that are downright fascinating. To give one example, while 3D World had a level that mixed real platforms with ghost platforms, Bowser's Fury has a level that is ONLY ghost platforms, requiring careful observation. I do miss the old style of star-based objectives on display here as well, as I've always enjoyed coming back to a level to see a new route or the platforming remixed. Ultimately, though, I'd like to see Nintendo stick to the Odyssey formula and keep refining that. An interesting experiment, but let's put that blueprint back in the drawer. I know I am an outlier opinion on that, but I am hoping for something stronger on the next outing.   The first thing anyone will mention about Kena is that it is more difficult than it appears at first glance, with combat being punishing and requiring the full use of your toolkit to survive. The second thing is the gorgeous art. What surprised me, though, was the game's atrocious input lag on PS4, which felt like it was around 250ms. This ultimately gave the game a bad first impression as my jumps were very delayed. If you can get used to it (it feels like you're streaming the game over a cloud service, honestly), there's a very cool game here. Some have compared the game's mix of platforming and melee combat to Kya: Dark Lineage, but I'd say the game also shares some things in common with the 3D Prince of Persia series: Tricky combat, large landscapes to traverse, and a lot of wall climbing and ledge hanging. The game's equivalent of Stars are the Rot, a bunch of little shrub minions that are hidden around the world and help you move large objects as well as amplify your attacks. When I mentioned the full toolkit earlier, I meant it, as several bosses are very difficult to defeat without unlocking and using Rot Attacks. These bosses feel very Souls inspired with large damage punishment to the player for mistakes, multiple phases, and limited healing. Would I say the whole game is like that? No. In fact, I think the general combat can sometimes get a bit too repetitive, but luckily there's enough other activities in the game that it keeps from being tedious. Plus, as I mentioned with The Gunk, I'm always a fan of ruined areas becoming restored and colorful again. Let's do it some more in 2022, game devs!   The worst non-CDi Zelda EVER.... says the internet. Well, either the Switch version completely redesigned the game, or the truth is somewhere inbetween the Zelda fan ranting and the critical praise of the game. Where I land on it? Dang this is a good game! The thing I had to understand going in was that this isn't an Exploration Zelda. This is a Dungeon Zelda. So much so that even the areas below the clouds are dungeons in and of themselves. It's a game full of everything I enjoy about Zelda EXCEPT the surprise of discovery -- which is, of course, addressed by Breath of the Wild, but not in a satisfying way for myself. If you shed that expectation, there's a lot to love about Skyward Sword. First, the elephant in the room. Skyward Sword moves the clumsy sword swinging from inaccurate wiggling of the Wiimote to the much more precise right analog stick, and, having not played the original, I got into the groove really quickly beyond the opening hour. Simply flick in a direction to swing, or go from one side to another for a stronger attack. Unlike other Zelda games, enemies have extremely short i-frames, which means you can swing as fast as you want and they will go down quickly. In a year where Ys forgot the fun of wailing super fast on enemies, at least one game let me rapid fire doofuses with a sword. In design and aesthetic, Skyward Sword feels like if Zelda was a PS2 franchise. Again, nothing wrong with that, it's just another instance of a Zelda game trying something different. But the world size is definitely smaller than Wind Waker, and Skyworld feels at times redundant or could have been a bit more populated. It stands somewhat at odds with the rest of the game's tightened focus. The loop is just flat out different from any other Zelda game. This is one where you're coming back to the hub town of Skyloft repeatedly to brew potions, upgrade your gear and wallet, and seek out Goddess Chests, Skyworld chests that you activate on the surface world. What overcomes these oddities (and, to be honest, Skyloft was perfectly fine, I just wish Skyworld itself had more going on), is that the dungeon design and surface world are as good as 3D Zelda dungeons get. THERE'S A WATER DUNGEON THAT DOESN'T SUCK!!! A volcanic temple where you roll around on boulders. A time-traveling desert and sandsea where you infiltrate a pirate ship. The Wii era really was near the apex of Nintendo's linear design brilliance (I mean the Galaxy games, c'mon). It's not that this deserved the very high scores every critic gave it (there is repetition in going back to the four regions three times, although you either go to new areas/dungeons or the areas are remixed), it's just that Zelda fans need to chill with the hyperbole. Skyward Sword's not only perfectly fine, I think it's imperfectly GOOD.   This is definitely the most obscure game I've got in my list, and it's also very short, and very cheap. But it's cool! Modelled after the old 80s arcade 'collect-em-all' style of game, Binky has you traversing 10 very different and very unique open maps, grabbing trash from every bin before returning to the entrance. One stage might be a swanky hotel, another is a recreation of Windows 3.1 with mouse cursors that click and drag your character around. Your moveset is very spritely and acrobatic, and it's just really fun to jump and bounce around stages as you go from floor to floor and find each bin. But that's it, that's all you get. It's all you need, really. It's short, it's fun, it throws a lot of fun visual concepts at you, it's just a good time.   Of all the publishers in 2021, Humble Games has by far had the best year. They released 8 games, several of which have been highly acclaimed. Unsighted, The Wild at Heart, Unpacking, even Project Wingman if you count Dec 2020. There are games I didn't even get to that people speak highly of, like the in-progress Prodeus. Flynn lives up to that high standard, as a beautiful 16-bit action platformer with a powerful dog friend, uptempo combat and great level design. Like taking Super Mario World and adding a lot of melee to it, whether it's tried and true sword slicing, slow and powerful axe swings, or fast and furious claw swiping. Add elemental attacks, limited healing, a skill tree, and SMW-style keys that you can unlock secret exits with, and there's a lot to enjoy here. The game could definitely be more punishing, which deflates some of the strategy of the healing, but I highly enjoyed this one.   Last year I put Moon on my list because it was a 2020 release on Switch even though it was actually a PS1 game originally (and never localized in the west). Foregone came out of Epic Jail this year, and if I'm being honest, I'm not sure anyone even noticed. Neither that it debuted on Epic, or that it launched on Steam and exists at all. Which is a shame because I think this game is really fuckin' fun! A group of scientists did a bit of 'what has science done' to try and turn the tides of a war, creating a bunch of experimental monsters that ended up destroying their kingdom, woops! You're one of those scientists sent in to put an end to it, and you have a personal connection as well (the final boss cutscene voice acting is... it's incredible in a bad way, I loved it). This means slicing, dicing, and shooting your way through a bunch of dungeon labyrinths. The game's art style is slick, and renders 3D characters at low resolutions to make them look like very fluid sprites (a similar technique used in Dead Cells and Ghost Trick). But unlike Dead Cells, this is a completely linear and hand-crafted game, so you can dropkick that comparison off the bridge. While I wasn't a fan of the loot quality (8% more damage and +12% status effect duration wow who cares), the general loop of going back to the hub and upgrading your skills and buffing gear works very well to break up the gameplay, and there are side challenges you can take by activating beacons around the world. The action itself is smooth and peppy, with different weapons having different weights and strengths. One fun weapon is the gunchucks, which fires shotgun blasts in addition to bopping enemies. Combine Overdrive with the daggers and Haste and you're basically an unstoppable tornado of destruction, as gems fly everywher--- waaaait a minute. Is this a stealth Ys game?? No, no it's not, the gems are just money and skill points, but it can be very fast if you want it to. And the bosses are giant and fun encounters, reminding me of the bosses from Iga's GBA Castlevania games, making full use of the arena space and forcing you to keep on the move.   This year has been full of surprises, and none were a bigger surprise for me than Recompile, a Metroidvania 3D platformer set inside a computer where you are a rogue bit of code infiltrating an AI originally designed to protect humanity, in order to repair and reboot it, and possibly save the human race (or doom it). What delighted me the most about Recompile was its unflinchingly challenging platforming, something that turned a lot of people off, but really played to my tastes. There are a lot of tricky jumps in this, even as you acquire more movement abilities. This culiminates in an absolutely enormous platforming challenge to acquire the flight ability, and when you get it, boy howdy do you feel like you earned it. The game also mixes in some melee and ranged combat, and although it's not great, it varies things up enough to keep things interesting. The guns are adequately punchy, and switching between platforming and shooting is seamless. Despite the minimalist aesthetic, each biome manages to evoke moody and oppressive atmospheres, and there are data logs to find that reveal the last days of the people who once worked in the facility that houses the computer you're in, and what its purpose was. ---- I can't believe this but I ran out of characters AGAIN lmao. Alright, my top 10 will close it out. I'm going to get groceries and then I'll finish this off! The 7th Guest fucked around with this message at 21:34 on Dec 31, 2021 |
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Dec 31, 2021 21:22
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While reviewing what I played in 2021, I noticed two trends emerge. The first was a return to playing games with friends. Prior to this year, I had abandoned multiplayer games after disliking the person I became when playing competitive games. However, after the year one of the pandemic, my mental health was reaching a low point, especially with the political landscape leading up to the end of 2020. Thankfully, my interest in Destiny 2 and some friendships with goons allowed us to begin scheduling weekly sessions of playing multiplayer games, starting with Destiny 2, but quickly expanding to numerous other games. I would have never predicted a scenario that saw me spending approx. 200 hours playing fighting games in 2021. The second trend I identified in what I spent time playing was an opportunity to escape. The single player experiences listed had immersive worlds that allowed me to feel like I was living in a different place. While many are still narrative heavy, it’s obvious that the games I chose were devoted to having a world that could distract me from 2021. The games I played this year Bloodborne, Death Stranding Director's Cut, Deathloop, Deep Rock Galactic, Destiny 2: Beyond Light, Doom Eternal, Fate/Grand Order, Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker, Forza Horizon 5, Guilty Gear Strive, Hades, Hitman III, Lost Judgment, Marvel vs Capcom 2, Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Melty Blood Type Lumina, Monster Hunter Rise, NBA 2k21, Quake, Red Dead Redemption 2, Satisfactory, Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike, Street Fighter V, Super Metroid, Superliminal, Tekken 7, Umurangi Generation, Valheim, Wolfenstein: The New Order, Yakuza 3, Yakuza Kiwami 2, Yakuza: Like A Dragon Honorable Mentions (because I can't count and had 12 write-ups Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales This was the first game I played on the PlayStation 5. It looked absolutely gorgeous, and it was the right length for a game that mostly emulates the first one. While the first game is one of the few games I’ve gotten a Platinum trophy for, I uninstalled this one the moment I finished. I don’t think the game is bad at all, but it also made me recognize (along with the speed in which I dropped Assassin’s Creed Valhalla) that I may be losing interest in most 3rd person action-adventure games. Deathloop Arkane Studios really doesn’t miss, even if upon reflection of Deathloop, I don’t find it as strong as I did while I was playing it. The sense of mystery and the slow drip of better understanding what’s going on were elevated by the voice acting of the primary characters. It made restarting a run a lot of fun, hoping to hear a little more banter between Clint and Julia. Unfortunately, they give you very little reason to go back into the world once you’ve finished the game. Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition, LANCER, Blades in the Dark TTRPGs are cool, and I'm very glad I get to do it twice a week. It has been a long journey over two years as I've recognized the confidence I've gained in playing and on some level becoming a character I've created. I genuinely care for my primary Blades in the Dark character I think? My son, Yanny Fate/Grand Order Yo, Gacha's are bad, wholesale, but this one is a good Gacha. My top ten games of the year 10 - Deep Rock Galactic I don’t know if I’ve played a game with a better cooperative experience. The aesthetics and world building were a blast to discover. The different scenarios kept each run fresh, and the different classes synergize well with each other. While there are numerous progression trees to juggle, none of it feels like it’s constructed to keep us playing so much, as fun new things to discover. Dropping in with a full crew is a lot of fun, and was the perfect opportunity for me to help relearn how to effectively communicate towards a single goal. I hope to play more of this in 2022. 9 - Bloodborne I had started, but abandoned this game when I first attempted it on release. It’s a spooky game, which I don’t normally love. However, I started playing this at the beginning of 2021 at the same time as another goon, and it was a lot of fun to discuss our progress, and have discussions about what exactly is going on in the world. The interconnected world captured everything that I loved about Dark Souls, and the world building seemed easier to understand. I still think Sekiro is the best game FROM has released, but this is probably second. 8 - Lost Judgment I never want to leave the Japan that Ryo Ga Gotoku has built. Walking around Yokohama evokes the idealized memories I have of walking around the city I live in, Chicago. I love the background noise of a busy city, the casual walking between destinations, and discovering the various weird denizens. The city feels lived in and real, and I feel blessed for being able to revisit it every year. Lost Judgment also introduces the school setting, which pushes me even further into an idealized world. The high school drama, relatively low stakes, and the constant tension of being a teenager while you’re trying to figure out who you might become is really engaging for me (and LJ does a great job of making teenagers the actual worst). 7 - Forza Horizon 5 Here is a fun fact about me, I love driving on long car trips. Forza Horizon 5 allows me to go on a nice, long car trip, but very fast. Playground Games version of Mexico is an absolute thrill to cruise around, and the various activities are pretty fun too. Forza Horizon 5 delicately balances between arcade and sim racing game, and the vibe is right. I will play this game for six hours and just burn through a podcast and it will feel like I’ve been playing for an hour.  6 - Satisfactory This is one of my most played games of all time. I really like the factory builders because they use a similar part of my brain that my day job uses, but without the added anxiety. I adore how enabled the developers have allowed the community to get creative, and while I’ll never have a jaw dropping factory build, it’s a lot of fun to think about these problems in a three dimensional space. Similar to Forza Horizon 5, this game will suck hours out of my life, and allows me to listen to podcasts in a way that I cannot normally. 5 - Hitman III The revived Hitman games are just fun. The density of each level has found me spending 2-3 hours on one assassination attempt, just seeing what I can discover. The narrative bread crumbs are a great way for understanding what’s happening in a level, and the added challenges are so satisfying to attempt. Going for some of the harder challenges creates a thrilling tension, and every run gives me the opportunity to learn something. I am glad the developers had the chance to continue producing this series. 4 - Death Stranding Director’s Cut This was one of my top games of 2019, and I had an even better experience with it in 2020. The story is weaved together and becomes relatable in a very unexpected way, but there isn’t a better game out there that is as considerate about how the mechanics of the game integrate into the story. This game is one of the most unique experiences someone can have, and I hope everyone has a chance to play it.  3 - Monster Hunter Rise Just capturing monsters with my friends. I got to give my palamute one eye and name him Majima. He’s a good pup. My palico looks like Sonic. I am terrible at this game, but my pals always kept me encouraged to keep playing and made sure I knew it wasn’t a big deal when I was carted. I am looking forward to double dipping on this for PC and seeing how beautiful this game can look.  2 - Endwalker The King. This game should be #1 on this list, but it isn't for reasons I’ll try to explain for the next game. The places the story goes overwhelmed me in a way similar to Outer Wilds did, but more importantly, the game never makes me feel rushed to finish content. Entering Eorzea is always a pleasant experience because I never feel like I’m missing out. I can choose to level another job, go fishing, unlock some trial or raid I haven’t done, or just hang out and chat for a bit.  1- Guilty Gear Strive This game is my number one game of 2021 because of the friends I made along the way. It represents the plethora of fighting games we jumped into over 2021, and the regular time we spent playing together. It represents the challenge and learning of something new I got to experience. I love chasing that feeling, and Strive allowed me to feel this, and gave me an opportunity to improve at a steady pace. It gave me the language to jump into the classics of the genre, understand them, and have a blast playing them. It was a lot of fun seeing progress, gaining edges against each other, watching salt get thrown, laughing at each other, and supporting each other as we dug into the characters we were interested in. I think it is safe to say that we have all experienced difficulties adapting over the last two years, despite our various levels of regular social encounters, but the consistent sessions we spent fighting each other in Strive, Tekken, Street Fighter, Fightcade, and more helped me get through this year . I’ve gotten a lot more guarded with others over the past 5-6 years, and it’s been really great to find something and find people that I can relax with. Hope we get to do more in 2022. 
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Dec 31, 2021 21:24
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Waffleman_ posted:Kochi Nakamura was just a producer on both 428 and the Zero Escape series, he wasn't really "the guy who made them" Ah my mistake! I will fix that
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Dec 31, 2021 21:32
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Yeah, 428 is still an extremely good VN, but I didn't want people to get the wrong idea about it by thinking it's an Uchikoshi joint.
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Dec 31, 2021 21:38
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Alright, finally, my top 10:  My favorite puzzle game this year comes from the creator of Push Pipe Paradise and is thematically the antithesis to my backlog coverage: just letting your excess go. You've come to the mountains to burn all of your things (and presumably the epilogue will have you live with Bill Watterson somewhere in the woods, drawing and burning comics that no one will ever read). The control scheme is a bit awkward but is part of the puzzle. You walk around the open world, then enter a level, where you have to get your box of stuff to the pyre. You can rotate in place and that's what you'll have to get used to, as you pick up the box (or other objects), and try to get it to point B. You'll find the most efficient/successful movement involves backing up with the box, because it very much gets in the way (part of the puzzle design). As you solve puzzles, crates will appear in the open world allowing you to progress further in the world, as well as reach hidden areas with bonus puzzles. As you may have recalled with my Monster's Expedition blurb in my previous post, exploring a world full of puzzles is my jam, and the quality of puzzles on offer here is very good, slowly ramping up in difficulty and introducing more mechanics, some of which aren't even new mechanics so much as teaching you movement tricks you most likely weren't aware of by presenting you a new type of challenge and letting you figure it out yourself. Kind of like the game Catherine in that respect. If you've enjoyed Draknek's games in the past, this is right up there with their very best.    What's a grape to do when his entire community is broken apart and isolated, as a rot threatens to drain the life out of the entire world? Well, they're to build those bridges back up, of course. Garden Story is a lite-ARPG take on the life sim, where your goal is to rebuild a fractured community by doing daily tasks, fixing infrastructure, helping villagers with their problems, and going into dungeons to fight off the Rot. Each village is based on a different season, and has its own unique problems-- one beach-side town has its town split in two, while a winter village's leader has gone missing in the forest. You'll collect various tools over time for farming, fishing, fighting, and puzzle solving. And of course, there's a little bit of collecting and crafting too. The gameplay loop was extremely addictive for me. Most games with day/night cycles rub me the wrong way, but this game's format kept making me play one more day, as everything you do feeds into other systems. The different categories of tasks can be levelled up, which upgrades the community in different ways, such as offering better tools in shops, or perhaps characters asking for favors. The dungeons are short and don't overstay their welcome, as you progress through them in a lite-procgen fashion until you fight a boss... but even doing that doesn't end your time in that town. You can make any of the towns your hometown whenever you want, and keep building their community levels up if you don't want to progress the story right away. Despite the cute art, there's a bit of despondence to the story, as things never stay fixed, and the rot continues to devastate the world. I thought this game was an exceptional effort for one person (though as you'll soon see, it's not the only solo effort on the list!), and unfortunately it has gotten a bit overlooked after an initially successful demo period in the Steam demo festival (and an appearance at E3). I hope Garden Story will eventually get the visibility it deserves-- and I also hope the dev continues to update the game with more task types, more shops, and more events.    Nifflas has been a figure in indie gaming for a long time, dating all the way back to Within a Deep Forest. Released somewhat unceremoniously on to Steam with a very humble price tag, Ynglet may be his best work since Knytt Stories. Featuring a soothing and reactive soundtrack and hypnotic pattern visuals, the game is billed as an "anti-platformer", where you don't do any traditional jumping, but instead launch from bubble to bubble, aiming your arcs, bouncing off of pads, and riding the occasional train. The game almost takes on a topographical feel as you enter levels named after things like shopping malls and arenas, and surf through the air like you're doing some sort of cosmic ballet. It's maybe the least like any other Nifflas game, but it's still undeniably a Nifflas game. It won't ding your wallet much and it only runs just past an hour, but it's absolutely a worthwhile experience if you enjoy platformers and m o o d.   I love a good sports RPG, whether it's Mario Tennis GBC, or Golf Story on the Switch. Dodgeball Academia takes a fun-as-hell uptempo dodgeball combat system and places it into a Pokemon-style world brimming with Saturday morning cartoon energy and Cartoon Network-style character designs. Your character maybe sort of snuck into the academy and will try to make it to the top with the power of friendship and pluckiness, as you assemble a party of real goofballs, each with their own special abilities. This is a sports RPG, so there is experience, there's gear, there's getting stopped in your path by a Of all the games on this list, I think Dodgeball Academia is the most pure fun title and I'm really happy I played it.   While I would have loved to have gotten to Great Ace Attorney this year (being a huge AA fan), there's actually a much more culturally significant VN to praise this year, and it comes from the Nintendo vault. Having never been released in America in 30+ years, Famicom Detective Club was not only invaluable to the adventure gaming genre in its time, but it's still a fascinating mystery series today. And what a remake! MAGES Ltd is known more for the Adventure Science series (Steins;gate, etc), but here they were given a blank check to produce their most visually outstanding novel to date, with flowing beautiful Live2D animations for every character, well painted backgrounds (this isn't always a given; see Root Film) and sometimes even some full character animation incorporated in-engine, while still preserving that authentic ICOM-style menu interface that gives the series its old-school charm. I fully understand that the game is frustrating to progress at times, in the same way Ace Attorney's investigative phases are-- sometimes you can't progress until you've talked to a specific character in a specific location about a specific topic, possibly even more than once-- but there's just something undeniably charming about unraveling these mysteries, whether it's the identity of the protagonist, the urban legends at the school, or the tricks involved in the murders.   The afterlife apparently is not safe from capitalism (and neither is space at this point, so Tim Curry has nowhere to go!!), and your little crow character is caught up in the middle of it, having to collect some overdue souls for the afterlife... factory, when another crow steals your kill and now has you under his thumb. Being honest, Death's Door made the wait for Tunic so much more bearable that I honestly almost took Tunic off my wishlist. I know that game is not out yet, but it hasn't even made it to the cafeteria yet and Death's Door has already eaten its lunch. This is premiere isometric hack and slash action, with cool dungeon ideas, winding and interconnected maps, beautiful art direction and fun combat. And crows just edge out foxes on the cute list. It's also aware of its budget and scale, so there aren't a million systems going on, and your upgrade paths are simplified into strength, speed, magic and evasion. It's the perfect length to invite a lot of secondary exploration without making you feel like you're wasting your time. If you're not a fan of the kind of Zeldas that Nintendo puts out lately, but you also don't want a panderingly accurate clone (like, say, Blossom Tales), Death's Door evokes the feeling and flavor of the classic experience while also having its own unique identity.   By far the latest addition to this list, arriving at my house on the 30th, Samus is back and she's in the top 5. Yes, I did play this long enough to come to this conclusion, and no, it's not extreme recency bias (there are other games I played in the past couple of days that are all over the place in terms of where they ranked). What makes Dread so successful is its commitment to the bit: this is Metroid plus survival horror. Unlike Fusion, which only occasionally pitted you against an unstoppable enemy, Dread is full of relentless predators to sneak around until you find the ability to destroy each one, one at a time. But beyond that, enemies do a fair bit of damage to you and they're everywhere. You really feel like this is a situation where Samus has gotten in way over her head. But unlike the other plated hero mascot game I touched on near the bottom of the list, Dread actually does hit the power fantasy right. Interactive boss cutscenes where you get to wail on enemies and not just watch a QTE play out, a plethora of upgrades all throughout the world, a satisfying parry counter that helps you take down even the most obnoxious and damaging enemies. You are also not completely stripped of upgrades this time, as you start with missiles and can hang on ledges and walljump right away. But once you start finding the upgrades, they come fast and furious. I've only played for a few hours and I've already got multiple beams, the varia suit, the morph ball, and the spider magnet. Graphically the game is full of rich detail, each room with background details that weren't necessary but deepen the depth of each area. Discarded supplies and belongings, craggy caverns where beasts run through, abandoned dig sites. I don't know how they pulled it off, but Dread's soundtrack feels like a modernization of the Super Metroid music style, with those same blurred low horns and synths, only recreated with today's tech. It's really something else. It pulls you right into the atmosphere, as do the seamless transitions between gameplay and cutscene, as EMMI bots notice your arrival, or something lurks around the corner when you enter a room. If I had only one complaint, it's that the controls are not remappable. Which you can do at a system level, but it just seems weird that Nintendo is still the furthest behind on accessibility compared to their competitors when they claim to be casting a wider audience net.    If it isn't obvious enough from having read through my list, I never get tired of a good platformer. It's a maligned genre that gets a lot of hate for being so ubiquitous, but a well designed platformer can still be great fun. Even more-so when it draws inspiration from Donkey Kong Country. Compared to the DKC Returns series, Kaze opts for something closer to the SNES trilogy, and does so masterfully. It has a beautiful 32-bit look remniscient of PS1 platformers like the original Rayman. Its unique gimmick involves different masks that change your ability set, from a mask that gives you flight, to a mask that lets you swim underwater, to a mask that turns the game into an auto-runner. Like any good platformer (and especially the Countries), every level either focuses on a new mechanic/trick, or remixes various previous level gimmicks to challenge you. And, perhaps being too on the nose, there are letter collectables, secret bonus areas, and jewels to earn by getting all the gems in a level. Mostly, it gets this high because it just plays great and looks great and stays great throughout, ducking out before the game runs out of gas.    I've been a fan of rhythm games for over two decades, since playing the demo of Parappa the Rappa on a PSX Jampack disc. While I wasn't importing every Pop'N'Music, I was one of the ten people who bought beatmania PS2 -and- the controller.. like an idiot, haha. It didn't work with anything else in the US, why did I do that?? Getting back on track, I've always been a fan of character-based music games. It's easier for me to get into a music game if there's a world it takes place in... if I'm playing as a dog rapper or a loser kid who turns into a guitar superhero. Unbeatable is an attempt to bridge the gap between the character-based music game and the more traditional chart-based games, and it is not only fantastic, it's free. Released as a sort of 'shareware' to hype up a fuller sequel down the line, Unbeatable is basically a full playable album in rhythm game form. The controls are simple-- attack high or attack low as notes come towards you, and switch between left and right sides as necessary. There are of course held notes, and the occasional triplet, and rapid attack notes as well. The character aspect comes in the framing device, as you play the lead for a punk band who tells you the story behind each song before each performance and then adds a coda at the end ala Rhythm Heaven if you play well. The aesthetic is what the kids call, 'fire', and the music rocks. The sounds on hit notes are nice and crunchy and the screen is full of all the good screenshakes, bells and whistles that make 'playing' the songs all the more engaging. There are a couple of serious earworm anthems here, and it's a VIBE, like if The Pillows were commissioned to make a power pop album, that real summer vibe, y'know. Freeware gaming has had a long rich history in the indie gaming scene, and while free usually means gacha games today, sometimes you still get a game where you're just like, "how the hell is this free?" The developers are still giving updates to this release as well, adding remixes, while simultaneously working on the full story game to come in 2022-2023. If you at all like music games and millenial vibes you have to give this a go.   When Doublefine had announced a sequel to the game that put them on the map, my feelings were mixed. I actually liked Broken Age more than others did, but there's no doubt that the company's track record has been extremely mixed. Whether it's the genre bait-and-switch of Brutal Legend, or the dump-and-run nadir that was Spacebase, it'd take a while for the studio to rebuild their goodwill (personally, I enjoyed Hack & Slash and Headlander). This was different, though. Psychonauts was one of the most creative games of the PS2 era, a fusion of 3D platformer and point n click adventure that had a little bit of everything, from conquering regions on a giant board game, to sabotaging a play, to climbing the world's most insane circus tent (sorry for the memories!). And Doublefine was a studio that had, well, significantly limited their ambitions in the decades since. Implausibly, Psychonauts 2 was better than my wildest expectations. It blew me away. From the fluid movement, to the wonderful platforming playgrounds, to the sheer variety of worlds and activities, Doublefine took every dollar of Microsoft's acquisition and made it count. Each new level is something strange, something unique, something that changes things up considerably. And I loved every minute of it. Honestly, I could spend hours in the campgrounds area, with all the treetops and signs to climb, a working funicular, the family tent, the massive reverse waterfall, there's just so much to play around on and get on top of. From the personal life of Rasputin and his family and the complicated dynamics therein, to the goofball classmates, to the sequel's significantly improved sensitivity towards mental health issues, the game's story soars like some of the best Pixar films. I enjoyed not just the overriding story but also the story arcs that play out inside of every character's mind as you get to the root of their problems, and Raz realizes how powerful and dangerous his abilities truly are. If this is the end for Psychonauts (and given the 20 year gap, it's certainly possible), it couldn't have gone out on a higher note.
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Dec 31, 2021 21:46
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I didn't play that many different games this year, but what I played, I generally played a lot of. 7. Final Fantasy XII I played this because of XIV and Bozja!!!! I liked the Bozja story and Ivalice raid series in XIV a lot, so I decided to give FFT and FF12 a shot because of it. I bounced hard off of FFT immediately, but 12 was a lot of fun. I actually watched the cutscenes for 12 twice (in the background while working) before I played the game at all, but I still enjoyed the gently caress out of it. The story owns! 6. Unpacking Short and sweet, and a really interesting way to tell a story just through environment. 5. The Forgotten City What interesting character stories and mechanics, and surprisingly smooth and intuitive mysteries from loop to loop. I actually played this before Hades, and then picked up Hades because I liked the mythology aspect. They were a fun combo to play back to back. 4. Hades Fun! I still pop this on sometimes to do a run, because it's a pleasant distraction. I'm not very good at this kind of game, so godmode was a godsend. 3. Dragon Quest XI (definitive edition) I played DQ11 fully when it first released, and replayed the definitive edition this year. The additional character stories between Act 1/Act 2 were a great addition, and I was really grateful for the speedier battle system. I forgot just how much was in this story! It's just a great game! 2. Geoguessr (the newest update, with battle royale and duels) I know a lot of people kinda bounced of geoguessr when it turned into a paid subscription game, but I think the additions they made to the paid model were really worth it! Distance battle royale is my jam, I gold star'd every available country in explorer mode, and can now accurately tell you where any country in the world is. And this game as a whole really opened my eyes to just how beautiful and interesting the world is. That might seem kinda obvious or simplistic, but as a person who isn't very good at traveling, at a time when traveling isn't really an option, it's kinda nice to have options for learning about the world and all that's in it. I played a LOT of geoguessr this year, almost as much as I played XIV. This is probably the only game where I can definitively say "I am good at this", as cheesy as that sounds. 1. Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker I can't really say anything new that everyone else already said, but I spent a lot of time this year on this game. Just an absolute joy the whole way thru the expansion story, and I'm still enjoying making goals for myself and doing them. It's been a real treat!
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Dec 31, 2021 21:50
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This entire list consists of me going back through my screenshots and thinking "wow, did I really play this this year? Huh, I guess I did" Honorable mentions: Unsighted  Only here because I saw someone say that it's a metroidvania that respects your time and it absolutely doesn't. Did you miss a jump? Time to go back three screens to do it all over again, knowing that every second your friends are closer to death. Which is a shame because I really liked where it was going. Witcher 3  I started playing this because of Cyberpunk 2077 and how everyone said W3 was better. It wasn't, at least not for me. I just didn't care enough about Geralt and his girlfriends and his story to keep playing. Tales of Arise  Here because while I dropped it after the fifth area, it did make me play for 30-40 hours which is a probably a record for me and jrpgs. Very pretty game, especially after modding it to remove the weird pop-in issues. Atelier Ayesha  I loved this game and it would have rated much higher if I hadn't realized that in the end I don't like the alchemy system. Everything else about the game is great, the characters are very fun, the stakes and the story are perfect, the time limit is not a problem. It's just that I don't want to bother looking for ingredients and crafting stuff, which is an issue when it's like 90% of the gameplay. Mass Effect LE  I think I had played the trilogy too recently to really enjoy the Legendary Edition, so it's here mostly because it brought me memories of that month before the release of ME: Andromeda where I marathoned the trilogy for the first time. --- 6. Synth Riders (Quest 2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW_CqECERIA Compared to its competitors, it has better music than most (especially Beat Saber), its gameplay is closer to actual dancing and custom songs are dropped in a folder and they just work. I have played Synth Riders more frequently than every other game in this list, the only reason it's not higher is that still is just a rhythm game that I play five minutes at a time. 5. Rimworld Consumed my life for 300+ hours until I ran out of mod content. 4. Persona 5 Royal  I never replay games. Once I've seen the end of the story or played enough to "get it" (for roguelikes or similar) it's over for me, the magic is gone. However, I had to play Royal and I don't regret it at all. It really is the perfected version of the original game. The gameplay is more fluid, the added trimester has a great villain and ends up being a better ending for the og game. It almost makes me want to wait for the inevitable "Royal" Persona 6 before playing it, whenever it launches. 3. Night in the Woods  This game made me misty-eyed multiple times, which is not unusual since I'm a crybaby. The weird part is that, weeks later I saw some fanart and I found myself crying, the entirety of the game hitting me like a hammer. I've read that the game is too immersed in the Rust Belt to be enjoyed by everyone, and I'm sure it hits harder (or maybe too hard) if you have direct experience with that, but I repeatedly found myself feeling seen by the game even though I couldn't be farther away from that experience. 2. Life is Strange: True Colors  Made me play the original LiS which is the highest compliment I can give to a game. I'm actually glad I played it before the other LiS games since that way I couldn't compare it to them and as a standalone it's a great game. Good story, fun characters, an absolutely gorgeous game and probably the first time I can read someone's lips in an in-game cutscene. The only gripe I have about the game is that it feels truncated. Every chapter would have benefited from being longer, with more dialogue, more gameplay and more story. 1. Life is Strange  Considering its place in my list, I should have a lot to say about it but I don't. Or rather, I don't have anything to say that hasn't already been written a couple dozen times by more intelligent people. You either liked it or you didn't. It is fun how people are still fighting over the ending though. lunar detritus fucked around with this message at 03:35 on Jan 1, 2022 |
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Dec 31, 2021 21:51
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The 7th Guest posted:
 
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Dec 31, 2021 21:54
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Alright so this hasn't been as big a year for gaming for me like last year was but I've got a little list put together and I must say it's been a good year for games! Edit: Honorable mention: Jackbox Partypacks 1-8 I cannot impress upon you how much jackbox meant to me this year. Being without a job in the middle of this fuckfest at the start of this year had me feeling like an empty husk. Goontube and their Jackbox community were the only social life I had for the first half of this year. Thursday night jacking every week has been the highlight of a transformative and stressful year for me. I have never felt so sociable and open to people than I have with this group. There may be better games on this list but no game has had a greater impact on my life than these 8 party packs. If anyone from the group manages to stumble across this, Thank you. I cherish each and every one of you. #12 Mother 3 Only got a couple of chapters into this one, so I can't give a full review. That said after hearing Mother fans scream about this game for years I felt a bit overhyped going in. Perhaps that's why I bounced off of this one. The charm is definitely there it just hasn't hooked me like Earthbound did. Maybe I'll give this another go next year. #11: Pokemon: Brilliant Diamond This will be a controversial pick for some, and honestly gently caress'em. Brilliant Diamond is the first time I've been engrossed with a Pokemon game since HeartGold. It's obviously not the best title in the series but it's the greasy comfort food that I didn't know I needed. #10 Guilty Gear Strive Fighting game nerds have been hiding some quality poo poo from us. GGS is GORGEOUS and fun as hell to play as well. The online is still engaging even months later. If you've ever felt put off by fighting games before give GGS a shot. This game feels tailor made for newbies wanting to join the fighting game community. With quality training and online modes, GGS will give you hours and hours of fun. #9: Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania I finally picked up Banana Blitz HD early this year after desiring to try the series for years. Banana Blitz is mediocre title but I could see why people love the series, so when Banana Mania was announced I was intrigued to say the least. Let me just say WOW! I am amazed that Sega let this series languish for so long. I was absolutely addicted to this game for weeks. It's tough but fair, and I never felt like the controls were at fault for my failures like in Banana Blitz, plus I can play as the guy from Jet Set Radio so that's nice. An excellent title worth every penny. #8 Metroid Dread What else can be said about this game, a bold blend of Super and Fusion that immerses you in the role of an absolute badass. Like a few other titles on this list Dread has been something I've been waiting for years to play. It was a tight list this year from #8 to #1 so I wouldn't take this as a knock on the game. Dread deserves every title given to it and I cannot wait to see what Mercury steam does next. #7 Animal Crossing: New Leaf AC was pretty much dead to me this year, at least until November. The fall update brought so much new life to the game it's ridiculous. No more waiting fingers crossed for your needed vendor to stop by the town square, just head over to harveys. The Happy Home Expansion is great as well. Being connected to the main game gives HH a reason to actually play the title unlike the 3DS title it's a sequel to. I've had so much fun designing homes for my villagers. HH is almost like a campaign mode for AC giving a real goal or purpose to the title, finally fixing the problems which led to my burnout with Animal crossing time and time again. #6 Crusin' Blast I never thought that I'd ever find a game that made me feel the same way I did when I was a kid. The halcyon days of N64 and Ps2 felt long past. This year I had four. Crusin' Blast is a full on revival of the acrady local multiplayer racers of my youth. Blast does not feel out of place sitting next to my copies of Beetles adventure racing and ATV Offroad Racing. Some truly stupid silly fun that will make you feel young again. #5 New Pokemon Snap Continuing my nostalgia trip is New Pokemon Snap, a sequel that both embodies the spirit of the original title whilst improving on it in every single aspect. From the graphics to the controls, everything about this game just feels right. I strongly recommend finding a wheely office chair and turning on gyro controls.The ability to level up courses (which changes the layout of the course and adds additional Pokemon to take pictures of) gives new pokemon snap a high replay value that the original didn't. The free DLC also adds a few new courses which were also great. An excellent sunday afternoon title. #4 Sakuna: of Rice and Ruin I might have had this on my list last year but what the hell, why not? Sakuna is the most cult classic hidden gem of a game I've played in years. Mixing a farming sim with a 2d action games sounds like a disaster waiting to happen, though Sakuna pulls it off masterfully. I will admit that I really struggled with the rice farming aspect of the game, at least at first. Sakuna is a game where having some guides handy is a must. That said I cannot reccomend this title enough, a sure-fire good time for anyone who picks it up. #3 Metroid Zero Mission Picked this up on a whim from SA mart earlier this year and man why did I ever wait to play this. Holy poo poo is this just the perfect metroidvania. Short and sweet and to the point. My only real knock on the game is the obscene amount of impossible shinespark puzzles (something that Dread handled much better). Nintendo please put this on the switch already I'm begging you. This classic needs to be avalible to all. #2 Mario: Bowsers Fury A sort of proof of concept for the future of mario, Bowsers fury nearly manages to be the best 3d mario game and it's only an add-on to a wiiu port. Giving mario his full classic power-up set with a true 3d setting is so good it should be criminal. It's only true hindrance is that it shares 3d worlds movement system which, although being great in it's own right, pales in comparison to Mario Odysseys fantastic movement system. Bowsers Fury is worth 60 bux on it's own. Pick it up when you have the chance. #1 Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart My personal GOTY just from the graphics alone. On a 4k tv this game will melt your eyes with it's jaw dropping beauty. The plot isn't half bad either although it does retread ground covered by previous titles. R&C's combat is a great as ever, refined to a diamond perfection. In three years when PS5's are finally available to all pick this game up. An absolute must have for any Ps5 library. My Ps5 sadly sat fairly dormant this year but I'm so glad I have one for Ratchet alone. A 10/10 masterpiece and a statement that next gen is here. Geo Fixer fucked around with this message at 22:10 on Dec 31, 2021 |
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Dec 31, 2021 21:55
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God this thread is so good and people out in so much work while I slapped together mine at the last second. Good poo poo everyone.
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Dec 31, 2021 21:55
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Guess I'll contribute too. Only 5 things on my list because I didn't play many games and I'm only including the good ones 5. Dragon Quest XI S Technically list padding. I'd say DQXI S was my 2020 game of the year, as I mostly played it at the start of the pandemic when I had a whole month of vacation time. I did pick it up for a bit this year though, so I can use it. Yay for padding. But if you haven't picked up DQ XI S yet, it's brimming full of content and exploration for a jrpg, and has a simple but fun battle system. 4. Yoshi's Crafted World Not too much to say about this one. It's just a cozy game that I would pick up once in a while, play a couple of levels to soak in the hand crafted environments of each one, and come back to later. 3. Inscryption I think a large part of whether or not you'll enjoy Inscryption is if you are a fan of various tabletop card games. This is one of those games that works better going in blind, so I won't say much, but it was a pretty unique experience for a videogame. 2. Metroid Dread A very solid action platformer that is easily the best 2d metroid since Super metroid, and in some ways is better than it. Hits a sweet balance of being challenging but without being bullshit. I do wish there was more environmental diversity, but that's probably my biggest gripe with it. 1. Omori Video Games are a unique medium for storytelling, and I think there is still so much potential to tap into to provide really unique experiences that you can't get through any other medium such as books, film, art, and music alone. There's a lot of surface level stuff to enjoy here, from the art and visuals, to the music and emotion-based combat system, and on its own that stuff would make it a top tier right maker game. But the real appeal of Omori is the story and themes it tackles, which really resonated with me. I won't spoil it for anyone here, but it's definitely a game I'm going to be thinking about fie a long time. Julias fucked around with this message at 02:38 on Jan 1, 2022 |
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Dec 31, 2021 21:56
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The goatees are coming and they are coming fast.
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Dec 31, 2021 22:10
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The 7th Guest posted:
First off your list is loving legendary with all the graphics and formatting. Seriously the level of effort is off the charts. Anyways I'm incredibly jazzed to see someone else have a leveled take on Skyward Sword. It's one of my favorites in the series and it's always irritated me how much it got unfairly lambasted by fans. It absolutely has a lot of flaws but it's such a joy to play anyways.
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Dec 31, 2021 22:10
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Skyward Sword HD
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Kerrzhe posted:i'm a couple pages late but did yall know that FFXIV has an entire dungeon full of Einhander references Einhander also has Einhander, but with no MMO! CharlieFoxtrot posted:gently caress, if we can give votes to a demo maybe I should put stranger of paradise: final fantasy origin in the main list... Do it, I already did.
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Dec 31, 2021 22:13
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CharlieFoxtrot posted:gently caress, if we can give votes to a demo maybe I should put stranger of paradise: final fantasy origin in the main list... I'm looking forward to next year when I will have the full game in my top 10 list 
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Dec 31, 2021 22:15
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Julias posted:Guess I'll contribute too. DANG IT I forgot that I played Omori this year. I'm not going to edit my top 5 since I want to keep that to games that came out in 2021, but Omori is really good and one of the only games I've played recently where I immediately jumped in for a second playthrough after finishing the first.
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Dec 31, 2021 22:15
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Felt the need to make a list so here it is along with my mindless babbling under each one 10) Resident EVIl Village Started out rough but once it got into its groove it became fantastic. Ethan Winters is very funny and people that would rather play as Chris are out of their mind. 9) Nioh 2 Couldn’t get into Nioh 1 but 2 added a character creator and let’s me use a cool anime scythe and I became hooked. I’ve learned to mostly ignore the terrible loot system and just focus on the fantastic action and fun bosses. Not too sure what the story is but I cut up this giant snake real good and that’s all that matters 8) Hitman 3 Wrapped up the whole trilogy in a nice little package, they could make these forever and I’ll keep buying them. Liked when they tried different things with the formula like playing detective or Berlin 7) WarioWare Get it Together It’s Warioware. Lack of toys and extras kinda hurts but I still pick it up regularly and always have a great time. 6) Psychonauts 2 3D platformers have made a slight resurgence lately but Psychonauts 2 still manages to stand out with the help of its charm and imaginative visuals. The story ended somewhat messily but the Journey made up for it. 5) 13 Sentinels Finally was able to buy some sort of PlayStation 4+ this year and was finally able play this game. Can’t say much that hasn’t been said better before. Masterful reveals and fun characters not much else you’d want in a story focused game. The combat was fun in a way I didn’t expect, missle rain  4) Nier Replicant √1.5 Amazing how a semi remake of a 2010 game turned out so well. Brother Nier is great and Father Nier simply can’t compare. Love the new performances and Liam O'Brien is always a joy. Combat is serviceable and better than the clunky original. Overall a fantastic upgrade to a fantastic game 3) The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles  I had fallen off this series around the launch of the first 3DS game, something about dual destinies just kept me from getting into it. Turns out I was just tired of Phoenix Wright and company because I fell in love again with this entry. Great cast, great cases, nothing to complain about except that it ended. 2) Metroid Dread  When Dread was announced I was doubtful that the developers of Samus Returns could make a brand new Metroid that could stand with the rest of the series, I was thrilled to be proven wrong. Movement feels great, the bosses are great, and the map is fantastic and full of shortcuts and sequence breaks. It’s everything I could ask for in a new Metroid though the music was a bit more subdued than I would like but the atmosphere didn’t suffer. Great, terrific, love that Samus 1) Shin Megami Tensei V  Been waiting a while for this one and the wait was definitely worth it. The open world I was worried about being a detriment was executed beautifully and is more like a big long dungeon. Some of the battle system changes are strange like how leveling and damage works but it feels as good to dismantle a boss as ever as you create a counter team and clown on them. Story is brief and stays out of the way most of the time which is great after how much SMTIVA liked to throw dialog at you. Overall a very good entry in one of my favorite series. hatty fucked around with this message at 22:28 on Dec 31, 2021 |
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Dec 31, 2021 22:24
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jimmydalad posted:God this thread is so good and people out in so much work while I slapped together mine at the last second. Good poo poo everyone.
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Dec 31, 2021 22:27
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no matter how much work you put into your list, the important thing is that you gamed
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Dec 31, 2021 22:55
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It was actually really fun to write about the games I liked and I got kind of carried away with it. But! I'm going to put Okami HD, SMTV, Neo TWEWY, and Metroid Dread on my should-probably-try list.
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Dec 31, 2021 23:09
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Smtv thought it could get on my list and still sneak that bullshit wind puzzle stretch of the tower in there and it was wrong with prejudice
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Dec 31, 2021 23:09
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Real hurthling! posted:Smtv thought it could get on my list and still sneak that bullshit wind puzzle stretch of the tower in there and it was wrong with prejudice it shouldve been more difficult, and twice as long.
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Dec 31, 2021 23:11
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I wasn't expecting TWEWY Neo to be on so many lists because I don't remember hearing much back when it came out but I'll grab it before the holiday sale ends and play it in January probably
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Dec 31, 2021 23:12
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Stux posted:it shouldve been more difficult, and twice as long. And metroid should have had literally no options menu at all
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Dec 31, 2021 23:14
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also it should kill you in real life
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Dec 31, 2021 23:17
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Stux posted:it shouldve been more difficult, and twice as long. 
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Dec 31, 2021 23:17
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the castle was perfect, but the final dungeon should have been like the castle, but longer and harder
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Dec 31, 2021 23:19
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God I can't wait for Hitman 3 to come out on Steam. Incredible list, The 7th Guest, and great choice for number 1 
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Dec 31, 2021 23:29
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Real hurthling! posted:Smtv thought it could get on my list and still sneak that bullshit wind puzzle stretch of the tower in there and it was wrong with prejudice laughs in strange journey
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Dec 31, 2021 23:32
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| # ? May 24, 2024 17:41 |
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This game has the single greatest tagline of all time: “A game where music is illegal and you do crimes”. If you don’t want to play that I don’t know what to tell you.
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Dec 31, 2021 23:33
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