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Escobarbarian posted:What the gently caress NORCO sounds amazing and you gave the best possible reference points to ensure I play it as soon as humanly possible Norco owns
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Dec 17, 2022 18:55
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10) Horizon Zero Dawn: Forbidden West - eh it's fine. But i failed at completing it before ER came out and haven't tried again since 9) God of War: Ragnarok - Just started, but it seems like an extension of the previous one, which i enjoyed 8) Samurai Maiden - probably not actually very good, but it's fun so far and the girls are apparently going to kiss each other 7) Final Fantasy VI: Pixel Remaster - Back when this came out as FFIII on the snes a bunch of friends had come over to hang out before we went out for the night. I had just hit the opera house and figured i'd find a save point, quit, and grab a beer. What happened instead was 8 people getting totally sucked into that whole crazy scene; keeping track of the right lines, laughing as i botched the dance sequence and ending with my friend saying "I had no idea that something like that could happen in a video game". Me either. Anyway, it's still great. 6) Portal with RTX - Portal is one of the all time great games and now i can go oooh and aaah at the updated graphics 5) Tunic  - Brilliant presentation, deceptively challenging. I haven’t even actually finished it yet, but nevertheless absolutely deserves a spot on here. The way the manual, story, and gameplay all intertwine alone puts it on my hypothetical list of "oh, you have to check this out, it's crazy" games 4) Stray  - Awesome style, even with some grumbling from me about some things (it doesn’t really feel like you’re playing a cat, it’s like you’re driving a cat-shaped vehicle, most of the time anyway) But whatever, cat was cute, the robots were cool and i enjoyed my time with it a lot. 3) FFXIV Endwalker  - I’m actually taking a break from this right now, i just haven’t had the need to play for a few months due to no particular reason really. But, the thing is, unlike when i stopped playing FFXI (which was like successfully quitting smoking) or WoW (which i left at the end of Wrath with a “well that was fun, but i’m done with it” feeling) i pretty sure i’ll return. I love the world, the storylines, my character, the other characters, the goon FCs, and a ton of other things. It’s a place i want to go back to, to see it again and see where they take the story now. And hell, even if i never actually do go back i've got nothing but fondness for my time spent with it. 2) Cyberpunk 2077  - Back when this was announced my interest was pretty high. Then as time went on it seemed like it was going to be Hey, Remember That Thing You Like?: Cyberpunk Edition and my interest dropped off a cliff, by the time it launched i noticed it was getting savaged and pretty much wrote it off entirely. The surprising hype around the Edgerunner anime made me remember that i was once interested it and it was on sale on Steam and in a fit of boredom i bought it. Had a blast, looks fantastic and it was fun to finally give that new video card a workout. Played through twice and a half and really only stopped because i’d like to play the DLC when it finally comes out and while i definitely enjoy the game, i’m not sure if i really have it in me for an entire new playthrough 1) Elden RIng  - Even though i consider myself a fan of Fromsoft’s games, i haven’t even played them all. I played the everliving poo poo out of DS1, but never touched 2 or 3, haven’t tried DeS either. Barely scraped together enough skill to limp through Sekiro even though i enjoyed it (i’m just terrible at it). But, if you asked me to throw together a list of my top 5 games of all time Bloodborne would probably be number 1 or 2. Until this year. Until Elden Ring. I don’t know if i’ve ever had as much sheer gaming delight as my first time playing it, not recently anyway; you might have to go all the way back to Ocarina of Time to really truly match how much i enjoyed exploring this game, and how much i loved playing it. How much i still love playing it. Even though i’ve stuck my nose into every corner of the world multiple times now, i still find myself loading up my ng++ character to do a random catacomb or whatever, it’s absurd. Every time i got stuck, or frustrated with something i could just…go somewhere else, find some other cool or intimidating place to visit. The ability to respec let me try all sorts of things without worrying too much about it. This was the first of these games that i played at release and it was a ton of fun seeing the forums and the world in general find all the crazy cool stuff in the game. Will it really truly in the long term displace Bloodborne? Well, who knows but good lord i love Elden Ring e: I didn't actually play many games this year, hence having a few that i like, but didn't complete (yet). Too busy playing Elden Ring EZ List 10) Horizon Zero Dawn: Forbidden West 9) God of War: Ragnarok 8) Samurai Maiden 7) Final Fantasy VI: Pixel Remaster 6) Portal with RTX 5) Tunic 4) Stray 3) FFXIV Endwalker 2) Cyberpunk 2077 1) Elden Ring a kitten fucked around with this message at 01:21 on Jan 1, 2023 |
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Dec 17, 2022 19:25
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Escobarbarian posted:What the gently caress NORCO sounds amazing and you gave the best possible reference points to ensure I play it as soon as humanly possible Absolutely try it out! I'm worried that over time, it's liable to be forgotten in the recent wave of fantastic narrative-first games like Disco Elysium, Kentucky Route Zero, Night in the Woods, and Pentiment. However, NORCO does so much unique and emotionally-affecting that you might find it the best game of the entire wave. DMCrimson fucked around with this message at 19:58 on Dec 17, 2022 |
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Dec 17, 2022 19:37
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That and Citizen Sleeper are the two games this year that sounds like exactly my sort of thing but went completely unnoticed by me. Thankfully they’re both on Game Pass 
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Dec 17, 2022 19:39
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Escobarbarian posted:That and Citizen Sleeper are the two games this year that sounds like exactly my sort of thing but went completely unnoticed by me. Thankfully they’re both on Game Pass Xbox keeps winning.
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Dec 17, 2022 19:50
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Got quite a bit of mileage out of Gamepass this year. This year I tried keeping a list of games I thought good enough to end up in my top 10 and then sorting right before I made my list. Honorable Mentions Chrono Ark Incredible fun roguelike deckbuilder and my favourite iteration of it after StS. It even manages to combine it with a good narrative and if it had managed to release a finale this year (and it was good) it would have made second on my list. Leaving it unranked since it’s still EA though. 17. Life is Strange: True Colours I preferred the original since this feels lighter and less raw but it’s still a solid story with a nice indie soundtrack and characters that feel real. #8 on my list of game soundtracks for the year. 16. NORCO Has the same surreal, dying America feel and cutting capitalism criticisms as Kentucky Route Zero, but with the ghost story vibe replaced with cyberpunk. Ending lost me a bit though. 15. Chicory A bit to chill for me and probably for someone more artistically inclined and laid back but being able to colour in anything onscreen was unique gameplay. It had some fun bosses and a nice message about art and self worth too. #6 on my list of game soundtracks for the year. 14. Dungeon Munchies Simple frenetic action-platformer fun with the ability to cook yourself some ridiculous combinations of abilities along with a hilariously insane story. 13. Symphony of War Extremely fun tactical RPG gameplay, with each unit on the map representing a squadron of up to 1-9 individual units with differing capabilities attributes based on their composition and considering you can bring up to 20 squads late game, it really does feel like you’re leading an army. Pity the plot, art and music is mediocre at best. 12. Expeditions: Rome Some fun tactical gameplay with a well realized setting playing as a Roman commander leading your army and conquering in the name of Rome. The random encounters got a bit old by the end though. 11. Ender Lilies Solid metroidvania with a melancholic atmosphere. #9 on my list of game soundtracks for the year. Top 10 10. Imposter Factory i.e. To the Moon 3. ‘Gameplay’ is essentially just walking from one scene to the next but it does tell a touching story about grief, identity and the subjectiveness of reality. #3 on my list of game soundtracks for the year. Consistently emotional throughout the entire game with a great use of motifs which culminates in the ending suite A Reality Somewhere . 9. AI: nirvanA Initiative The first thing that comes to mind when it comes to a Uchikoshi game is the central plot twist. The twist here is definitely one that completely dumbfounded me in the moment I realized it and the foreshadowing that I’d missed. I soured on it a bit by the end after considering the contrivances required, as well as the fact that it did end up feeling a bit forced but it was still a powerful thing in the moment. The characters are a fun bunch. Most of the returning characters are a bit removed from the plot but luckily the co-protagonist Mizuki doesn't suffer from that being the gloriously sassy pipe wielding badass she was back in the first game. The Somniums are a lot more fun this time round. With a variety of gameplay such as a quiz show, a horror game, with the standout being being a parody of Pokemon go 8. Immortality The gameplay is definitely a curious one, consisting only of watching a bunch of scenes (mostly movie takes from one of the three ‘movies’) and trying to figure out how everything connects together. Not even in an order you can choose either; you select an object in one scene and it opens another random scene with that object in. It’s entertaining in itself, trying to put together a timeline as well as the plot of those movies, spinning the wheel for the next plot crumb you might find and I feel it’s just pretty impressive how much movie footage there is and how it feels genuinely convincing that they are all actual movies. Beyond that though is what the game is hiding (since I doubt anyone took that at face value) and the WTF moment when you stumble across one of those scenes (probably without any clue what’s going on) will stay with me. I thought the whole thing was alright but not superlative in the end but going back through all the other scenes and looking for what’s hidden beneath the obvious interpretation was thrilling. 7. Opus: Echo of Starsong A heartrending narrative game. Gameplay is an entertaining enough resource management game though it’s not really something you could fail without trying. There’s also some walking + light puzzling sections that provide some pretty environments to walk/float around. The main draw is the story which is a very personal and touching one set in a fascinating sci-fi setting blending Asian influences with a Star Wars-like world. Moved a few places up based purely on the extremely powerful finale. #7 on my list of game soundtracks for the year. 6. Potionomics It’s like Reccetear but updated for modern times; they share the basic elements of time management deadlines, running a shop in a fantasy world and dealing with adventurers. The main difference being instead of the dungeon delving action-rpg gameplay to gain materials, the secondary gameplay here consists of a deck-building game to haggle and sell your potions. The deck-building game strikes a good balance; snappy enough since you may have to do a dozen-odd haggles in a single selling session but enough depth to remain interesting. It means on top of learning their stories (which are surprisingly interesting), it makes a great incentive to level up your relationship with people to see what card you get that might change up your strategy. The potion-making similarly isn't too complex; there’s a fun mini game in making the best of what you have when only have a random mish-mash of ingredients available, but by the end of each week when you’ve usually got good pure ingredients it’s a lot more simple. The 3D sprite animations are ridiculously good. They just have so much personality. A good thing, since there's a bunch of characters and this helps to characterize them far quicker than dialogue could. 5. Blue Reflection: Second Light I’m not quite sure how this got quite so high in my list. The plot isn’t particularly noteworthy and the combat is brainless even if it is at least fast and flashy. Still it’s something I very much enjoyed with the primary factor being the vibes. The game manages to perfectly encapsulate that ideal summer vacation feeling; the boundless blue sky and sea, the relaxed atmosphere, the feeling of being in a sanctuary isolated from the world and that bittersweet feeling as the end inevitably and inexorably draws near. It’s something that really stuck with me. The characters are also surprisingly charming and it’s a lot of fun watching lovable dork Ao go on dates with the cast (and making sure to pick every flirty dialogue option of course). #4 on my list of game soundtracks for the year. Unusually, I actually preferred a lot of the more subdued Heartscape tracks which contribute to their dreamlike ethereal atmosphere. 4. Pentiment Surprise of the year. Just starting off, it has a great medieval style presentation with the art looking much like that from illuminated manuscripts, speech rendered in old-timey fonts with different fonts depending on the person, or at least how Andreas perceives them, complete with typos which are erased and corrected, and different colours when referring to God. Each scene transition being done like pages in a book being flipped also contributes to the aesthetic. The initial pitch is solving a murder mystery in 16th century Bavaria and it of course does feature that. It has a more realistic take on solving mysteries. You go around gathering evidence of motive, means and opportunity but there won’t be enough time for you to perform every evidence gathering activity and you’re not going to know beyond doubt which of the suspects is the culprit is you can only make your best guess. Or you can just accuse whoever you like the least. That’s only one facet of the game though it’s about so much more than simply solving a murder. It’s a story and evolution of a man and a village told in a few snapshots of time. It displays the passing of time as something that can bring joys and sorrows both. By the end it’s also in a way about history. Not just the mere fact that the setting is historical(though it does make use of it so well, it’s unimaginable that this story could have been set somewhen or somewhere else), but also in how history itself can end up warped to suit various narratives, even history as recent as a mere generation ago. Its honestly a fascinating topic to explore. 3. Persona 5 Royal Most stylish game ever. The visual design and UI just feels so stylish and virtually every track of the OST sets the mood incredibly well. One of the parts I liked that I don’t see mentioned too much is the dungeons themselves. Sure they’re a bit too long to do in one session without feeling like a slog which clashes with the time management side encouraging you to do them in a day. However the feel of sneaking around and ambushing shadows, stylish jumping and grappling hooking to secrets along with a well defined and distinct aesthetic for each palace makes them feel memorable and fun to play through. Even the broad concept of the plot is cool even if the execution leaves a bit to be desired; The central concept of the game being rebellion is appealing but it doesn’t really go far enough. There’s also a little too much redundant dialogue and oddly pointless plot elements in general. On the other hand the Royal exclusive third semester was a pretty big improvement in quality with one of the best antagonists I’ve seen in an RPG. Even with some plot issues, its still an enthralling enough experience for me to sink 100 hours into and enjoy every one of them. #1 on my list of game soundtracks for the year. Every vocal song is a complete banger and in particular, the moment I heard the triumphantly arrogant vocal Life Will Change for the first time was magical. And then they managed to recreate the moment with I Believe . 2. Triangle Strategy I’ve always been a bit more partial to SRPGs where each unit is unique and that’s certainly something that can definitely be said here with each unit being being markedly different and having a markedly different niche and there's not really a competently useless character which is a triumph of balance. Every character shines in the right circumstances with the obvious example being the ladder and spring trap builder who will be your MVP in a map with cliffs or chokepoints and a warm body otherwise. The maps are tough enough to justify it too. On hard, each enemy is far tougher than one of of your units and they’re usually slightly more numerous, but using each units unique abilities and the terrain in clever ways to eke out victory never gets old. The plot is a bit of a slow starter but it’s pretty engaging once it gets going, and even if every decision except the final one results in the story merging back to the main branch after a few chapters they’re still interesting decisions and they way that you don't outright make them but persuade your party members who then vote on it (and you can fail) makes them seem a bit like actual people. #5 on my list of game soundtracks for the year. TRIANGLE STRATEGY is a perfectly fine lyrical hook. Also they know just when to start playing Combat-Destiny for those hype moments 1. 13 Sentinels Back in 2020 I thought that this was exactly the sort of game I’d completely love though alas, it was confined to the PS4 which I lacked (though it did tempt me to think about getting one). Come 2022 and now that its on the switch I finally got to play it; and it actually managed to live up to what I thought it would be. The chief focus is the story and it really is a ridiculous one; It manages to tell an absurdly intricate story in a completely anachronic order, with 13 protagonists each getting their turn as the POV character, and crams every sci-fi twist under the sun into it … and somehow it works becoming an emotional and enthralling journey and a sci-fi masterpiece! I lost count of the number of times m assumptions were turned on their head and the miracle is, it all comes together perfectly in the end and also succeeds making me really care about the fate of these kids. The gameplay’s no slouch either. While the story is clearly the main part, the gameplay helps enhance the story. In particular the nail biting final battle where I felt like I was trying to just desperately survive for a bit longer is one of the most memorable in any video game I’ve played and conveyed the battle far better than words could have. #2 on my list of game soundtracks for the year. Edge of Destiny is the best ‘final boss’ music ever. Also the musical dissonance fighting the second boss to Seaside Vacation shouldn't have worked but it just did
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Dec 17, 2022 22:15
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a kitten posted:
This image was precisely my gaming moment of the year. I went STR/INT for the entire game and was starting to think it would never pay off, until it somehow did in the best way imaginable.
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Dec 17, 2022 23:53
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7. The Last of Us: Part 2 I hesitated to put this on the list, because I still believe that the first game doesn't really need a followup, and it’s also hard to say that I enjoyed playing it. But I have to acknowledge that it’s probably the most successful attempt gaming has yet made to move beyond thinly justified power fantasies and really examine in depth the red-in-tooth-and-claw worlds it loves to present as an appealing way to kill a few hours. And that despite claiming not to want or enjoy it I never once felt like I should put it down and walk away. Shortly after finishing it, I posted that it felt like I was playing as the cycle of violence and I don't think I can come up with anything better. I’ll never touch it again but I’m glad I did once. 6. Horizon: Forbidden West  The other Sony AAAA extravaganza of this year was also mostly a home run (I wrote these in reverse order, oops). I had some misgivings about the direction the story went, but the hunting of robot dinos is still a blast and the post-apocalyptic vistas are better than ever. Horizon 1 was surprisingly good for the studio’s first attempt at an open-world RPG; Horizon 2 is proof that it wasn’t a fluke. 5. Chorus  There are so few good arcade space shooters that when a halfway decent one appears it’s already notable; fortunately Chorus is more than halfway decent. Its gameplay is a bizarre fusion of pew-pew lasers and straight-up magic, which lets it short-circuit a lot of the less fun patterns dogfighting games can get stuck in, most notably through the “nothing personal” button that breaks you out of endlessly circling targets. The capital ship battles are thrilling, as you dive around and through superstructures to take out critical systems. While the story is more than a little overwrought, it’s a fun dynamic between hardass Nara, her cynical depressive inner monologue, and the bloodthirsty psychopath spaceship she’s paired with. 4. Signalis  This game came completely out of left field but it’s wholly enthralling from the instant it launches. Only a previously unknown team of two designers with little experience could create this fever dream of a game that feels equally at home in 2022 and 1999. The influences that it wears on its sleeves shine through in the best possible way- you can encounter a printed copy of The King in Yellow- while its warts-and-all throwback ethos sometimes leads it to paint itself into corners it would be better off avoiding. But it’s unique in today’s landscape and not to be missed. Just don’t try to figure out what’s actually going on in its story, because that way lies madness. 3. God of War: Ragnarok  Put simply, God of War: Ragnarok is the God of War 2 to God of War’s God of War. The decision to de-emphasize technological evolution and use roughly the same engine, toolchain, and target platform as its 2018 predecessor let the team deliver a vastly greater scope and depth than before. More realms! More kinds of enemies! More bosses! More characters and story threads! More kinds of gear! More crafting and resource gathering! More match cuts and cinematic flourishes! The wider story in particular robs the game of the perfect two-hander focus that the previous one maintained, the increased importance of gear and crafting is perhaps a little wrongheaded, and more than a few beats fall by the wayside or don’t land as effectively as they could have, but the big moments for the core relationships land and land hard and the action-game foundation is nearly perfect. This is AAAA popcorn gaming done as well as anyone in the business can. 2. Hardspace Shipbreaker  I didn’t put this game here just because it’s a brilliant and focused realization of a simple yet beautiful idea, or because it’s a great portrayal of hard-sci-fi realistic zero-gravity activity. Nor did I put it here because the basic, repetitive process of spaceship scrapping is remarkably relaxing and provides a wonderful feeling of mastery as you advance from fearfully poking at the engines of small scouts to confidently carving reactors and fuel tanks out of bulk carriers and cruisers, although all of these things are why I placed it so highly. I put it here because surrounding those things is a context that feels capital-I Important today. The game’s world is both very bleak and very plausible; you are a wage slave whose rights have been eclipsed and nullified by the system you were sucked into and are now trapped in a dangerous occupation with no recourse. How you live in this reality and how you find and regain the power capital is pretending is theirs is a story that needs to be told in this modern world. 1. Elden Ring  Is it possible to have too much of a good thing? Can one of the best and most polished house styles in the industry ever outstay its welcome? From has somehow made a game so vast that knowing that an overwhelming amount of discoveries remain to be made is its primary attraction for the majority of its astonishingly long runtime. It’s the first game I’ve ever played with anti-nav points- the built-in guidance is warning you that in this direction is something less than totally free exploration. In this respect, it’s a bit lesser than its clear inspiration Breath of the Wild, which places no restrictions on your activity whatsoever. And it also explains why the luster starts to rub off near the end, when you finally start hitting the boundaries of the world and run out of alternatives to tackling the dungeons and bosses (and lose your ability to outlevel them). But it remains such a staggering project that game design and game playing will never be the same in its wake. Honorable mention: Destiny 2: The Witch Queen  Another year of wallowing in this horrible game and loving every minute of it. haveblue fucked around with this message at 21:55 on Dec 21, 2022 |
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Dec 18, 2022 00:37
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Those gifs are amazing 
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Dec 18, 2022 00:42
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drat, your list is so good! Regarding 2LOU, Hardspace, and Elden Ring you really hit the nail on the head.
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Dec 18, 2022 00:55
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People should be crediting the Horizon games as being from the head writer of Fall Out: New Vegas
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Dec 18, 2022 01:38
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Chris Avellone?
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Dec 18, 2022 01:38
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Avellone wasn’t a big part of the base NV game, iirc. He was in charge of 3 of the 4 expansions, though. Dead Money, Old World Blues, and Lonesome Road. Apologies if I’m misremembering any of the above.
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Dec 18, 2022 01:45
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ayaayayayay John Gonzalez really cannot catch a break
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Dec 18, 2022 01:45
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Rinkles posted:Avellone wasn’t a big part of the base NV game, iirc. He was in charge of 3 of the 4 expansions, though. Dead Money, Old World Blues, and Lonesome Road. Apologies if I’m misremembering any of the above. Sorry, I was making a joke after ropekid came in to clarify who led NV, and had a big Twitter thread earlier today. The man is dedicated to provenance.
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Dec 18, 2022 01:47
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Sorry, I’m stupid.
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Dec 18, 2022 01:48
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Subjunctive posted:Sorry, I was making a joke after ropekid came in to clarify who led NV, and had a big Twitter thread earlier today. The man is dedicated to provenance. poo poo that was the joke I was trying to make where nearly every time Pentiment is on a list Sawyer's involvement is brought up (and New Vegas), but nobody ever mentions John Gonzalez or New Vegas when they list an Horizon game Las Vegas is even in the second one
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Dec 18, 2022 01:53
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thank you Josh Gonzalez
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Dec 18, 2022 01:56
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Hwurmp posted:thank you John Gonzalez
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Dec 18, 2022 03:25
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the mixup joke is funny but I will give this man due respect
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Dec 18, 2022 03:27
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I got subtweeted so hard my head is still spinning
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Dec 18, 2022 06:09
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Not currently playing anything that I think will break my current top 10 so I may as well get this posted while I remember. Games of Note not on my Top 10:  56. Inheritance of Crimson Manor (Key fetching simulator) (PC-Steam) This is the worst game I played this year. You walk around and find keys. These keys unlock things that may give you other keys but sometimes you get more things to unlock. Sprint through an empty mansion looking for keys and reading the journal entries of a mad scientist who is a bad dad. Was very disappointed.  50. Pixross (Nonogram Puzzle) (PC-Itch.io) Single note in my GOTY spreadsheet: Strained Wrist playing this game somehow. Yeah, I don't get it either.  37. Mind Scanners (Dystopian Future Brain Fixing Simulator) (PC-Steam) Mind Scanners has a really interesting premise and I like the aesthetic. You play a Mind Scanner and your job is to scan people's minds for insanity and then you fix them with some gadgets. Each gadget comes with a mini-game that you have to successfully play to eliminate the insanity. While you're doing this, you also have to juggle your patient's mental state or you might turn them into a vegetable or they might get so angry with you that they refuse future treatment. If you don't fix people then you don't get paid and if you don't get paid then you can't make rent and that's bad. There's some interesting moral quandaries with how you go about your business (whether you're brain frying people or not) and interacting with the rebel group that's trying to overthrow the government that you work for and such. While I liked the premise, some of the mini-games are really annoying to play and the plot is kind of meh.  33. Superhot VR (SUPER HOT) (PC-Steam) SUPER HOT Playing this made me feel like I was in the Matrix. You could dodge bullets or you could cut them out of the air with a sword like a bad rear end. It feels really good. SUPER HOT  28. NORCO (Modern Dystopian Point and Click Adventure) (PC-Steam) I expected a lot more from NORCO because it was kinda trending when it came out and while I liked the dreary setting and atmosphere, it also felt like stuff just sort of happened and then the game was over. Maybe that was the intent? Sometimes life is like that. Stuff just sort of happens and then game over. For a point and click adventure, I never had to look up how to solve any of the puzzles and that always makes me feel good.  22. Wordle & Derivatives (Word Puzzle) (Mobile & PC-Browser) A really simple word game that I think literally everyone played. I ended up writing a program that could successfully solve any puzzle about 96% of the time (which is actually really awful, my approach was very lazy). Eventually moved onto things like Quordle, Octordle, and Redactle (this is the one I most recommend). Then I just stopped playing it, coincidentally around the same time I stopped wearing masks outside. Pretty sure there's no correlation.  18. Lucifer Within Us (Investigation Exorcism Adventure) (PC-Itch.io) Lucifer Within Us allows you to play as a Digital Exorcist as you conduct three investigations. Each investigation takes about an hour each and are laser focused, to the point, getting right to the bottom of what happened (as opposed to something like Ace Attorney, which feels like a Tim Rogers review in comparison). With that said, it probably could have used some Ace Attorney antics during and/or between investigations just to pad things out and expand on the characters and setting. The game ends on a cliff hanger/sequel hook (that I don't think will ever be made) and a twist that made me Laugh Out Loud.  14. Guardians of the Galaxy (Third Person Action-Space-Adventure) (PC-Steam) This was the first game I completed this year and the game that surprised me the most. I feel like its E3 reveal in 2021 (I'm pretty sure that was the event) was so awful that it did more to damage to the game's marketability than not having any advertisements at all. It looked like dogshit. It wasn't until I watched a few people playing through the first couple of hours where I went, "Hold on... is this game actually good?" and the answer is yes. While I personally wrestled with the controls through the entire game, the writing and the voice acting are top-notch all the way through. Every character is good and I want to see more of this universe whether via sequel or a spin-off with another marvel cosmic property. It also has the best dialogue prompt in all of video games: "Ignore the Math." Graphical glitches abound which is weird because the game is otherwise immaculate, graphically and aesthetically (except that Starlord looks like Jake Paul and that was distracting). While it didn't make my top 10, this is the game I'd most recommend to people to give it a chance.  13. Hitman 3 (Puzzle Murder Simulator) (PC-Steam) I had Hitman 2 on my top 10 last year and I made a specific note about how I totally would have played Hitman 3 if only it was on Steam. And then it was on Steam and the ability to upload all of your Hitman 1 and 2 stuff into it was really painless which is a good thing. But that's not even the important bit about why I'm bringing it up. Hitman 3 gets a shout out because it got me through the death of one of my cats early this year. I really wasn't mentally prepared for how suddenly that happened and Hitman 3 let me focus on The Mission to keep my mind off of being horribly depressed. Anyhow, some of the new maps bring along some fun gimmicks. Obviously, I really liked Dartmoor due to the murder mystery aspect and Berlin was also really fun. The final mission wraps up the trilogy in a nice little bow.  11. Encased (Sci-fi post-apocalyptic CRPG) (PC-Steam) This is the love child of the original Fallout games (NOT THAT BETHESDA OPEN WORLD poo poo, I'M TALKING ABOUT THE ORIGINAL TWO GAMES, TRUE MASTERPIECES, I HAVE OPINIONS. FALLOUT TACTICS WAS GREAT TOO) and the STALKER franchise that I always wanted but didn't know that I wanted. The story places you inside of The Dome, which is an indestructible dome that covers about 30,000 square kilometers of desert. Something goes wrong and now you and everyone inside of The Dome are stuck there with no hope of getting assistance from the outside. The writing is decent. The setting is fantastic and very well fleshed out. The character writing is overall good but it's not as deep as I would have liked for companions and major NPC's. Other CRPG's, like Fallout or Wrath of the Righteous, kind of spoiled me on that sort of thing I guess. Bottom Line: If want to play a game cut from the same cloth as the classic Fallout games, this will scratch that itch. My Top 10  10. Vampire Survivors (Action Roguelike You are the Bullet Hell) (PC-Steam) It's simple and it's fun and it makes you feel like a big, strong, powerful vampire survivor. Runs take a predictable amount of time, which I consider one of its best features. There's a ridiculous amount of content and it only costs about as much a cup of coffee and you can't beat that! Also, I cannot believe there's already DLC out and my 100% status disappears yet again. God Damnit.  9. Fate/Grand Order: Lostbelt 5 Atlantis/Olympus - The Day to Bring Down Gods (Gacha, Bad Civilization) (Android) Made the mistake of getting back into FGO after taking about a year off. Tried out a bunch of other mobile games to fill that void in my life and none of them were able to keep me hooked. Getting back into FGO was easy, mostly because there's been a lot of quality of life improvements made to the game since I left and certain updates meant that I came back to a treasure trove of the gacha currency that I've only just recently burned through (drat you, Summer Martha!). Anyways, I've been catching up with the story and I just wasn't feeling Lostbelt 4. Lostbelt 5, however, is everything that I love about FGO and fate in general. Everything feels appropriately epic and things are constantly spiraling out of control as the story progresses. The character writing is also top notch, which is crazy considering how many characters participate in this lostbelt. Everyone gets their moment to shine, including Jason of all people. That guy's a dingus!  8. Triangle Strategy (Tactical JRPG) (Switch) Solid tactics RPG with mechanics that are deep but not overly complex. Every party member brings something interesting to the table and are all fairly viable. Biggest issue I have with the game is that there isn't much enemy variety. With that said, the AI is pretty smart about positioning themselves to take advantage of follow-up attacks so it's not like there isn't challenge. The story is straight up game of thrones stuff. There are three major factions and the player is part of a minor faction that is, of course, stuck in the middle of the three and will determine the fate of the entire realm. There's some goofy story beats (Pretty sure that the main plot could have been prevented if Hughette and Anna were better at their jobs) but overall it's pretty compelling stuff. I appreciate any game that lets me say, "man, that guy's shady as gently caress," and then the characters go, "we obviously can't trust that guy."  7. The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles (Courtroom Drama Visual Novel w/Period Appropriate Racism) (PC-Steam) For better or worse, Great Ace Attorney Chronicles is more Phoenix Wright but set in the late 19th century. The writing in this game is excellent at a high-level... and by that I mean that the overarching plot line with the mystery of The Professor and the major beats of individual cases are great. But sometimes you figure something out in court and the game has you go on a long detour just to circle back to the super obvious thing you figured out 30 minutes ago. It may just be an issue with the genre. Anyways, The Adventure of the Clouded Kokoro was the case that got me hooked and the game's finale between the last two cases is some of the best stuff in the entire series. The visuals and music are quite excellent. The Reaper of the Bailey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQCVHRxVThA The Great Detective of the Foggy Town: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smtc8Sucfm8 Side Note: Van Zieks is impossibly handsome.  6. Pentiment (Historical Bibliophilia Mystery Adventure) (PC-Gamepass) This game is fantastically written and presented extraordinarily well. I'm positive that I would have appreciated it a lot more if I was actually into history. Unfortunately, I'm a philistine and I can only rate it based off of how it functions as a game... which is to say that it's very good. The core mystery is well done. The time crunch in each act pretty much guarantees that you can't pursue and exhaust every lead and you HAVE to accuse someone of each crime when you know that you don't have the complete picture. I would wager a guess that most people ended up looking into whoever irked them the most and then accused them even if they found some evidence that may have exonerated them. Maybe I'm just projecting because that's how my game played out; eat poo poo Guy, you jackass. I also really like the passage of time in media. I don't think that it gets used enough... even though in this game, it was generally associated with child mortality (which I guess is historically accurate but it still makes me sad). That particular element aside, I enjoyed my 25 years in Tassing.  5. Ruined King: A League of Legends Story(tm) (Western JRPG) (PC-Steam) Ruined King makes me laugh because it continues to prove that everything that's associated with League of Legends is great except for League of Legends. Ruined King marries the Runeterra setting to the Battle Chasers RPG engine for a very good turn-based JRPG. Mechanically, it's Battle Chasers but they added a goofy lane mechanic because LOL. It's not very elegant but I think it succeeds at what the game designers were shooting for. Like Battle Chasers, the combat is slow enough that it gets to be a bother towards the end of the game but I didn't run into that issue until the last 3-4 hours so at least it's better paced this time around. The story is pretty good. The Art is great.  4. Outer Wilds (Space Exploration Time Loop Adventure with Horror Elements) (PC-Epic Games Store) Outer Wilds took me way longer to beat than it should have. Like in a, "I played this once and then put it down for two years," kind of way. It had been getting accoladed pretty hard in previous GOTY discussions, so I knew it was good but it just didn't grab me completely at the time. Also, I'd bought it on the Epic Game Store and sometimes I forget that I actually own a lot of games on there. So, with that out of the way, Outer Wilds is a drat good game and it tells its story very well. The physics and the puzzles and how they interact are well thought out. It's very immersive and there's a lot of genuinely scary and creepy moments (even beyond the bramble, which is multiple levels of terrifying). I'll be honest, not a fan of the ending. The journey is what makes this game great.  3. Griftlands (Sci-fi roguelite deckbuilder) (PC-Epic Games Store) It's like Slay the Spire but there's an actual narrative and you can use a diplomacy "combat" system to convince people to do things for you. It takes a little getting used to but it's about as fun as actual combat. The core gameplay is still a rogue-lite deck builder but Griftlands puts its own spin on things. I found that the Diplomacy Cards (green) were generally stronger than Hostility (red). Maybe I drafted my way into that, but I also completed each character's story with diplomacy heavy decks. I find the conceit of wandering around a city and getting into encounters with other denizens of the city (with individual relationship levels that fluctuate based on your actions) to add a lot to the game. Lots of opportunity for emergent story telling. The three characters/classes in the game are well balanced with distinct play styles and they are also all very cool and are my friends.  2. Monster Hunter Rise (Monster Hunting Co-op RPG) (PC-Steam) Game's very good and if you're into Hunting Mons then you should get into it if you haven't already. The New Mechanics in the game primarily revolve around the Wirebug, which lets you do ninja poo poo and seriously increases your overall mobility options. RAJANG CAN EAT A DICK. The story is as nonsensical as any other Monster Hunter game and I don't think anyone cares. Graphically, I was expecting it to look nicer but I guess it was built to work on Switch hardware so /shrug. The new music tracks are real good and I especially like the hub/village songs. Kamura's Song of Purification: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ho620c8mLr4 Brave Hunters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxnrtdbmLRI Haven't picked up Sunbreak yet. I probably will one day... maybe once the steam reviews stop being mixed or negative.  1. Elden Ring (Open World Souls-like) (PC-Steam) I probably don't have much new to add to the discussion about this game. It's really, really good. The first half is amazing and that initial feeling of not knowing how large the game is and watching the map expand just a little bit more as you explored a new area is awesome. It got me every drat time where I thought I had a good grasp of the scale of the world and then it would grow by 20% and I'd be amazed all over again. But the game isn't perfect. The back third of the game doesn't feel as polished as the rest of it. Certain enemies hit too drat hard and Malenia (Blade of Miquella) is the worst. Waterfowl Dance is the most heinous poo poo I've experienced in a Souls game. But that's about all I got for complaints. At the end of the day, Elden Ring is an amazing accomplishment. It's an easy, no question pick for #1 this year. Looking forward to next year, it's looking pretty stacked for new releases and I know that there's games from this year that I didn't get around to (Midnight Suns, Pokemon, Stray, Tactics Ogre, XB3).
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Dec 18, 2022 12:29
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Griftlands representation warming my soul. Klei Clan unite
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Dec 18, 2022 15:07
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Belgian Waffle posted:
Holy poo poo, how big is your list? 
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Dec 18, 2022 18:22
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BeanpolePeckerwood posted:Holy poo poo, how big is your list? Looks like it's 56, BP
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Dec 18, 2022 18:23
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Regy Rusty posted:Looks like it's 56, BP No, I mean the full list.
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Dec 18, 2022 18:29
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i know at least a few people who try to play a ton of indies/smaller releases per year
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Dec 18, 2022 18:30
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My list is 50 + honorable mentions, I might break it up into two posts because last year I think I hit the character limit -_-
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Dec 18, 2022 18:43
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Feels Villeneuve posted:i know at least a few people who try to play a ton of indies/smaller releases per year Yeah there are usually some folks that play like 50 - 60 indie games a year that I have never heard of but always look interesting. That's one of the joys of the thread is seeing what weird and cool crap is out there
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Dec 18, 2022 18:44
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10. Vampire Survivors Perfect Steam Deck game. Wasted many hours. 9. Dusk I felt like playing a shooter, which is a feeling I get every couple of years. This one delivered. 8: Genshin Impact Wouldn't have made this list at all, or even a top 20 list, six months into the year. Sumeru content is just that good. Nahida is bae. 7. Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous I still have never finished this game but I've played it for closing in on 400 hours. Insane restartitis. Can't say it doesn't belong here for pure time devoured though. 6. Fate Grand Order I started playing this in February this year and I'm still playing it. The story is much better than a gacha phone game should be. Really outstanding. Golden. 5. Monster Hunter Sunbreak In any other year, this would rank higher. What an insane year. Another great time wasting game. 4. Crystal Project The only Steam Deck game more perfect for the format than Vampire Survivors. Everyone who likes FF5 and exploring should play this. It's like old school FF Dark Souls. 3. Salt and Sacrifice Most fun PvP I've played in years. Despite being a short game it ended up in my top 5 hours played on PS5 because I just couldn't stop. 2. Tactics Ogre Reborn One of my favorite games from my youth that was really important to me, inspired tons of D&D stories. The remaster is wonderful. Just hearing the awesomely redone music inspires powerful feels for me. Great VA and streamlining too. Only downside is that with a lot of my friends playing this now they're realizing that I wasn't a genius 15 year old DM, I just had better source material~ 1. Elden Ring Not much to say that hasn't been said. Might be the best video game ever made as far as I'm concerned. The second best video game ever made is Bloodborne so From stays winning.
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Dec 18, 2022 19:52
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I have largely fallen off games almost entirely lately. Just haven't felt up for it as of late, except for my two standbys, modded Minecraft and Magic the Gathering: Arena. This post is gonna be largely stream of consciousness rambling I think. Magic the Gathering: Arena  Magic: The Gathering is the first, and still the best, collectible card game on the market, even now. It has occasionally stumbled over the years for sure, but it's still the most incredibly in depth CCG out there. The sorts of decks you can build in the game are varied and glorious to see, and MTG Arena definitely helps a lot of aspects of the game with automatically handling busywork like shuffling, adding counters, creating tokens, counting, calculating damage and lifegain accurately, all the typical tedium that you have to personally deal with with the paper version. MTG:Arena has its flaws. the monetization is certainly predatory in some aspects, but it's also totally reasonable and possible to play the game entirely free with not a ton of effort. I personally put in some cash for each new set that comes out, usually for the bundle that comes with multiple draft/sealed tokens, the battle pass, etc included in it. The store has a variety of packs you can buy with ingame or paid for currency, as well as a plethora of cosmetics, pets, avatars, sleeves, etc.  But you never, ever have to even click the storefront to play the game. Let me repeat that: the store is never necessary. Although it does have a code redemption field as seen in the above screenshot, as there are tons of codes for free packs and cosmetics available, including a promo code for almost every set on arena that will give you 3 free boosters for each set. While some may not be great sets, the free packs will give you wildcards that can be used to craft any cards you want at will. The game constantly evolves with each new set that comes out, and it's fascinating to see the previews of a set versus the reality after release. Cards called filler or duds can often wind up completely overshadowing most other cards in their sets, two recent examples being Ledger Shredder from New Capenna, a seemingly mundane 1/3 flying critter that wound up being way more powerful than anyone expected, and Fable of the Mirror-Breaker, an enchantment that creates a creature, lets you cycle two cards from your hand, and then turns into a creature that can create copies of other creatures. This one was a fairly benign card at first glance, but has quickly gotten to the point where it is in a huge number of top tier decks because it generates so much value for a single card. One of my favorite streamers, Day9, does(or at least did, he's branching out from MTG content these days) lots of arena stuff, including a somewhat frequent series called What The Deck, where he and a friend take submitted decks that are built around some gimmick and futz around with them, leading to some pretty amazingly stupid shenanigans. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKUwEGXxtjU&hd=1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6SxF86A5bQ&hd=1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1P9QAeJlUw&hd=1 I personally am more of an aggro(kill quick with direct damage and fast creatures) or stompy(big fat butt creatures that overwhelm the opponent with sheer strength) player, I dislike control decks because they take forever to do anything and probably killed you 10 turns ago without you realizing it until what they've set up kicks into action. My current decks are thus: FIERY AGGRO  A standard mono-red aggro deck I made. It's very simple, you play cheap critters that either do something upon entering the battlefield, or have haste so they can attack the turn they're played, and you also include multiple direct damage spells like lightning strike to shoot the opponent directly in the face while also punching them with your creatures. DAY9 JUND  a Jund(Black, Red, and Green) deck that Day9 designed and variations of quickly took off soon after, which takes advantage of multiple ways to pull stuff out of your graveyard to get incredible value; whether it be playing more lands per turn than normal to ramp to bigger spells earlier, or pulling stupidly huge creatures like the Titan of Industry out of the graveyard and putting them directly onto the battlefield with spells like Cruelty of Gix, it's a deck designed to overwhelm your opponent with the value you get from playing these specific cards, while also including plenty of ways to kill your opponent's creatures and other permanents. STANDARD GOBLINS  the current deck I've been playing a lot, created by Jim Davis, an MTG world champion and streamer. Goblins haven't been a thing for years in standard, so it's nice to see a deck that can just beat the everliving poo poo out of even the top meta decks of the format right now. Just flooding the board with little shits that create more little shits, and if you KILL those little shits, cards like Rundvelt Hordemaster punish you for it by giving me opportunities to cast more little shits. I went 8 wins 2 losses earlier today with the deck, it's fast, fun, and requires some creative thinking to outmaneuver some of the most powerful decks in the meta. Killing someone on turn 4, the turn right before they would be able to cast their otherwise game-ending spell against me, is a good feeling.    Video by Jim Davis where he shows it off: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nUdKcY2gjI&hd=1 MONOBLACK HISTORIC BRAWL DECK  Arena has a format similar to Commander, the most popular format in magic right now, where it's a singleton(only one of any card in the deck besides basic lands) format with 100 card decks helmed by a Commander card, who can be any Legendary creature. But Historic Brawl also allows Planeswalker cards as commanders, as well as Alchemy cards, which are cards that cannot work in paper mechanically, because they do things impossible in the physical version. In my case, I built a historic brawl deck around a pretty small creature that creates other creatures. It's not an amazing deck, but it's my creation and not something I got from a website that someone else built, so I like it a lot. It doesn't win amazingly often, but it's fun to play, and that's what matters, right? Alchemy, the digital-only cards that WOTC made in the last couple years, is kinda stupid and bad in a lot of cases, but there are definitely cool Alchemy cards. One of my favorite cards in all of MTG is an alchemy card, in fact, and a recent one at that. It's called Oracle of the Alpha, and when it enters the battlefield, it instantly puts the Power 9(Black Lotus, the five Moxes, Timetwister, Time Walk, and Ancestral Recall) into your deck. It's a pretty basic flying durdler outside of that, but it's an absolutely FASCINATING way to incorporate some of the most overpowered cards in magic's history into the modern play field:  The UI in arena is pretty intuitive, and hovering over cards will give you all the information of what the card does as well as a zoomed in shot so you can easily read the text. One of the most fundamental parts of magic that you should take to heart should you try it out: Reading The Card Explains The Card. Cards will, in almost every single circumstance, tell you everything that they are able to do, so it is good to read things thoroughly. Like this one:  Normally, you can only have a maximum of 4 of any card that isn't a basic land, but there are a handful of cards that allow you to have as many as you want in your deck. Rat Colony is a great deck for beginners because it requires very little investment and can easily kill the poo poo out of an unprepared opponent with extremely, ridiculously overpowered rats if too many get on the board. Arena has its fair share of bugs, and it certainly can chug if things get ridiculous(spawning 250 Scute Swarm tokens all at once can really bring it to its knees for example) but the sound design, music, and visual styling fits together perfectly. A lot of cards have fantastic sound design associated with them, and some cards get visual flair, from special effects upon them hitting the field, to outright 3D models swooping in to represent a major character taking to the battlefield. Less so nowadays for most cards, but it was a big thing a couple years ago to have majorly powerful cards have big graphical flair attached. I highly recommend the game, it's good fun both competitively and casually. even if things can get a bit...complicated at times:  [b]Join us in the MTG Arena thread if you give the game a try and have any questions! edit: I'm also gonna use this post as an excuse to link this video on why magic card design is cool, a video about the best worst card of all time, One With Nothing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_ndD-QmPJg&hd=1 Minecraft is Minecraft everyone knows Minecraft. I'm building a lighthouse right now in the middle of the ocean. it's fun Captain Invictus fucked around with this message at 21:11 on Dec 18, 2022 |
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Dec 18, 2022 21:04
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What mods do you use for Minecraft? — Love seeing FGO representation!!
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Dec 18, 2022 21:18
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BeanpolePeckerwood posted:Holy poo poo, how big is your list? I rack and stack everything after completion based on how i felt about it (very unscientific, going to come up with something better next year).
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Dec 18, 2022 21:25
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Sorry about your cat, Belgian  Belgian Waffle posted:eat poo poo Guy, you jackass. 
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Dec 18, 2022 22:51
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that is a very cool bird wizard.
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Dec 18, 2022 23:06
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FlowerRhythmREMIX posted:What mods do you use for Minecraft? my modlist:  biomes o' plenty obviously, basically can't play the game without it anymore. fallingtree is a modern Treecapitator, with a 100-block limit to how big a tree it can cut down, so you can't just bop a single block of redwoods and take down the entire thousand-block tree. Xaero's Minimap and Worldmap are essential imo, the minimap is generally useful and the world map is stupidly useful especially with the waypoint function. Sophisticated Backpacks is incredibly useful too, especially with how much you can upgrade them so that blocks stack up to 1.2k in each slot, buildable auto-furnaces and such, experience storage, all while being reasonable to craft(except for the indestructible upgrade which requires 8 netherite blocks, I just cheat those in because that'd require insane grinding to get). Lava Sponge is just the best mod, a sponge for lava. easy peasy. Corpse leaves a lootable corpse with your items on it that doesn't despawn so you just have to make your way back to it. Farmer's Delight adds a bunch of cooking and farming related items. Potions Master lets you brew wallhack potions, so you can see all the spawns of a given ore type within like 20 blocks of you, very useful for diamond and debris hunting. requires turning the given item into a powder to brew with first, though. Simple Magnets is another QOL addon, just sucks everything within like 10 blocks into you instantly, just ZOOP. Eliminates needless running around picking everything up after doing some clearing out. Just Enough Items and Mouse Tweaks are essential to me, too. I have been trying to keep to a single world for as long as I can, I've been in the same one for like five months now I think. So far, there was some sort of memory leak that resulted in my level.dat file being almost 7 megs in size which would result in the game hanging for like 10 minutes before loading the world, and often just hard crashing before that. A kind goon took the file and excised the cancerous tumor part of it, reducing it back down to like 700kb, and everything runs swimmingly now. Here's some screenshots from my world: The second village I discovered I decided to turn into a walled city to protect it from invasions and nightly raids. It was also a split city, half spawned on the top of a mountain, so the citizens couldn't reach each other. I built an elaborate spiral staircase inside a tower so everyone could go up and down at will.   My current project is a base in the ocean, slightly offshore, as the portal I made in the nether dropped me down in the caves near bedrock in the overworld. So I dug a massive hole from the surface down, first building a nether brick foundation to keep the water out, then started digging. before building and progress of the foundation and hole:     after digging down until I reached the small cave with the portal in it, I began the task of building a staircase back up. not just a boring spiral or whatever, I wanted to be a bit extravagant. plus I built dropdown holes that landed in a single water source block right by the portal for ease of getting down quickly.     as I neared completion of the stairwell, you can see four different floors of it in this first image, the "slots" you can see on each floor are the lined up dropdown holes.  at the surface, once completed, I built a roof with glass in it to allow sunlight way down to almost the bottom of everything.  here's the water source block by the portal visible at the surface, like a hundred blocks above:  and the current project, working on a lighthouse and bridge to surrounding landmasses, I need to work on the top of the lighthouse a bit more:   I'm not sure what to build on the central platform with the stairwell just yet so I've put it off for now. And here's a post of some stuff I did in the nether while making massive highways to interconnect bases there: Captain Invictus posted:post ur builds
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Dec 18, 2022 23:12
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I can't believe I've never done this before. Let's do this! Honorable Mentions Baldur's Gate 3 Holy heck the demo/EA version is really good! And it's supposed to be 1/3 or so of the actual content of the full version of the game! If, and that's a huge if given the history of RPGs, the full game keeps up this level of quality this should quite easily make my list for next year! Whether it does or not we shall see. I really enjoyed the 20 hours or so I got out of the early demo. No Man's Sky I'm so happy this is still going. I honestly didn't get around to actually playing it much this year or I might have actually ranked it, but I wanted to give it some love for still trucking this many years out! Northgard The little RTS that could. This game has been out for awhile but manages to keep putting out new content in terms of playable clans and game modes. It's got that Warcraft 3 type gameplay where resource management and unit micro are rewarded in a pretty cool setting. Every other month or so I get the urge to play a few matches, and the DLC is really sensibly priced and everything goes on sale pretty frequently and usually introduces a fresh enough play-style to be worth it. The List 10. Golden Axe III Every once in awhile I want to play a side scroller where I'm a barbarian that rides dinosaurs. Why improve on what works? 9. Not For Broadcast A really fun and inventive game where you play as someone censoring (or not censoring) television broadcasts in a highly politically charged environment. It feels a bit like a Papers, Please type of setup just done with a much bigger budget and more relatable material. For some reason I have a hard time putting my finger on it doesn't quite have the staying power it would need for me to rate it higher, and is habitually on my list of games that I need to get around to playing more of but never do. 8. Marvel Snap This is the game I've played the most on a mobile device since Snake on a Nokia in the early 2000s. The gameplay is innovative enough to stay fresh, the location system makes every game different enough that you have that 'react to the unexpected' element you don't get with the more formulaic card games, and the monetization is so bad that it loops around to being good because none of the whale-bait it is remotely tempting for a sane person to purchase so you can safely free to play in your spare time and not feel like you're missing out. If you care about grinding ladder ranks the snap mechanic makes that a much more interesting and rewarding process than gaining ranks in any other DCG type game has ever been for me. My itch for a digital card game is thoroughly scratched with this and I am very happy it exists. 7. Paradise Killer What an impressively weird little gem of a mystery/story game. This game gave me Myst vibes in the best way. It has an absurdly deep and unique setting that it simply refuses to spoon-feed you in the expositiony manner that most media would. This results in an experience that is equally wondrous and disorienting as you work your way to determining the truth of the divine mystery you find yourself pulled from exile to deal with. It's hard to say more without spoilers both of the plot itself and the world you can explore along the way, so I will leave it that. Really inventive stuff. I enjoyed every minute of it! 6. Guild Wars 2 There was an expansion that came out this year but this is mostly on here due to to content that's been around forever, so whether you count this as "Guild Wars 2" or "Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons" is all the same to me! Guild Wars 2 is the perfect MMO for people who don't have time to play the traditional MMO "grind-forever so you can grind-forever" model. I have been dipping in and out of this game sometimes for years at a time since 2012 and this is one of the years that has been more on than off. The studio was reinvigorated with the expansion and player population is apparently at five year highs, and it definitely feels that way in the open world. The fact that a lot of the newer story content is very LGBT inclusive has the dual effect of improving the story and also deeply triggering the type of people that plague other MMOs at what seems to be a much higher rate, and greatly lowering your chances of having to encounter one in Tyria. Knowing that no matter what I can always dip in and derp around in WvW, do big scale world events with a crowd of strangers, or just play dressup with the hundreds and hundreds of awesome skins I've unlocked over the years makes this a great 'turn your brain off and decompress after work' type of game and the reason I'll probably never play another MMO, and it definitely deserves a place on my list. 5. Scarlet Hollow This game is being released in episodic format and currently 4 out of 7 expected chapters are out. I can't imagine this doesn't make my list next year, probably higher. But I think it deserves to be this high even in the unfinished state because what is released is incredible. If you're into visual novels or horror at all, I highly, highly, recommend you pick this up. Every choice you make is remembered and comes up, even the seemingly little ones. Characters have different traits that dramatically impact the options you have, some of which get the point of almost being an entirely different experience, all of which will have their moment to shine. Each chapter has a "major" decision that is going to go badly for something, and you typically choose who or what, and the continuing stories are starting to become very divergent. Each chapter is therefore adding exponentially more to the gameplay experience and while over half have been released numerically I wouldn't be surprised if we have far less than half of the total content that will be in the full game. When this is fully released it may very well be in contention for best story game of all time. As is, it's still very, very, good and fully deserving of it's high spot on my list. 4. Control 2022 was the year I finally finished this, due to no fault of the game. I really loved it. The amount of customization of loadouts and the weirdness of the plot and setting was really cool, and the final 'take control' moment was really satisfying after hours and hours of being screwed with by the whole setup and wondering what the heck was really going on. Some of the puzzles were a bit more frustrating than fun, and while the side content in the main game was really good the DLC felt more tacked on and less balanced than the core content and I felt it was mostly skippable, but the core game was a blast and an easy one to get lost in. 3. Elden Ring I don't know what I could possibly say about this that someone else won't say better. Honestly if I liked the genre and aesthetics more it might be higher on my list and it's completely fair to discuss it as one of the best video games ever made. What Elden Ring did so well for me was that it made it feel incredible to finally overcome all of the huge challenges that the game puts in front of you. Making a game frustratingly difficult is not exactly new or impressive, making it both difficult and really truly thrilling to triumph over is something Elden Ring does as well as any game ever made, maybe better. 2. Immortality There are a small handful of games that I will point to if I ever find myself discussing whether video games can truly be fine art and this is the latest and possibly greatest of them. I really can't say much more without massively spoilering things. I don't know if a game has made me think this much in a very long time. The quality of production is outstanding, they basically made three full length movies and filmed casting, rehearsal, publicity, and the final cuts of many of the scenes in them, all of which blend into layers and layers of nuance and meaning. This is not a game to play in a few minutes here and there like many others on my list, it's the exact opposite. You need hours of uninterrupted calm to really appreciate this masterpiece. It's very much worth it. There are flaws, most notably that you'll get a "game over" type reveal when you've discovered about 20% of the game which can be really confusing, and that the mechanics of how to play the game are unnecessarily obtuse, but if you can get past that one of the most impactful gaming experiences I've ever had awaits you. 1. Crusader Kings III  With the hours I've put into it I really can't justify putting anything else as my #1 game. Why is this so addictive to me? The emergent story telling and generation of characters is really like nothing else. I could sit here and tell you dozens of stories about crazy things that have happened in my games. From unexpected bastard children founding their own dynasties and taking over half a continent, Crusader states that started their own heresies, albino norse witch queens that survived the whole world hating them long enough to dominate it, building a tolerant feminist caliphate dedicated to saving the traditions of the few pagans left in the world, a gentle and compassionate king falling for his court jester and then losing his mind when his vengeful spiteful wife that his religion prevented him from divorcing murdered her out of anger, swearing fealty to a foreign emperor just to undermine them from within to avenge their petty wars, or literally starting what felt like a world war that destabilized my entire realm just to hunt down a single count after he executed my character's daughter. These sorts of things are commonplace. If you let yourself role-play no game is ever the same as the one before and going in with no plans that you aren't willing to toss away in response to a random event pop up can be wonderfully chaotic joy. With a very robust custom religion system and cultural reformation I also find this to be much more of a society builder than most games advertised as such. I've spent many playthroughs struggling to create welcoming and inclusive utopias out of the hell of the crazily bigoted medieval world. I find succeeding in this very satisfying. Yes, you have to deliberately play sub-optimally to really enjoy most of these things, and yes the support for the game has been rather anemic since launch, and yes it requires a very specific crossover of interests to truly love. None of that prevents it from being my favorite game in the year 2022! Simple List 10. Golden Axe III 9. Not For Broadcast 8. Marvel Snap 7. Paradise Killer 6. Guild Wars 2 5. Scarlet Hollow 4. Control 3. Elden Ring 2. Immortality 1. Crusader Kings III SlothBear fucked around with this message at 02:40 on Dec 28, 2022 |
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Morphogenic96 posted:6. Potionomics Potionomics was a game I expected would be a sure fire indie hit after seeing a trailer months ago, but this is the first time I'm reminded of its existence since.
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Dec 19, 2022 01:13
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========================== The Dishonourable Mentions ========================== I've played some games that weren't all that great this year. Why did I play them? Who can say? Intelligent Qube (PS1) This one was a PS1 Classic that was re-released this year on PS+++. I'd never heard of it, and it seemed like a weird enough, quirky little puzzle game, so I figured I'd give it a shot. At lower levels, the game is simple enough--you basically have to plan moves in advance to blow up cubes of a certain type, and your goal is to remove them all in as few moves as possible. Now, let me just say, I am not great at these types of puzzles. I can do the "remove them all" bit, for the most part, but "in as few moves as possible" is where it starts to fall apart for me. It's not my strong suit, and I don't find it interesting to try, so I mostly didn't engage with that bit of it--except at higher stages, it's basically required in order to actually get through the round. Plus I believe you get a trophy if you clear one round perfectly for each stage, and I'd done most of them at a certain point, so it seemed like a shame not to get the rest. If they hadn't built save states and rewinds into the PS1 classics, I never would have finished it. But to be fair, I also would not have made it anywhere near the final stage to begin with. All in all, it's an okay game for what it is, but I would have hated it if I had played it back when it first came out, and I was thrilled when I finally completed it. Crash 4 (PS5) Let me start by saying this: Toys for Bob put a ton of work into this game. That much is evident. And for someone who was looking for the type of game that they made, I bet it landed really well. I imagine this is kind of how a lot of people ended up feeling about Yooka-Laylee, in that they got exactly what they asked for, only what they asked for wasn't what they wanted. (Though to be clear, I was not one of those people. I liked Yooka-Laylee 1 a lot, even if the levels were too large). Crash 1-3 were some of my favourite games growing up and still to this day. Last year I 100%ed (or higher, depending on the game) all of them in the N-Sane Trilogy, and the actual core gameplay of Crash 4 is solid. My main issues with it are thus: Levels are too large, there are too many collectibles, and to actually complete the game would require some DK64 levels of playing each level multiple times with different characters. For some perspective, the first level of Crash 1 has 48 boxes in it. The first level of Crash 2 has 62 boxes. The first level of Crash 3 has 42 boxes. The first level of Crash 4 has 104. When a level had triple digits in the original trilogy, you knew that it was a marathon, but such levels were few and far between. I'm not sure if any level in Crash 4 has fewer than 100, but I don't think it's many if there are, and the highest box count is a whopping 502. Each level in the original trilogy generally had one gem for getting all the boxes, and occasionally a second gem for some other special task like beating it without dying or using a hidden path. Every level in Crash 4 has 6 gems in the normal version as well as 6 gems in the mirror version of the level, for things like collecting enough wumpa fruit, not dying over a certain number of times, finding the hidden one, and of course smashing all the boxes. In true Crash fashion, you can't get all the boxes a lot of the time, your first go through the level, so you'll have to come back later, adding to the number of times you have to play them. At a certain point, after maybe the second or third hub, I just stopped caring about collectibles altogether and just played through the levels to beat them. And even then, the game went on SO long. If you're looking for a modern, expanded Crash formula, there's a ton of game here, but for me it just wasn't the same compact design that made the first three games so enjoyable. (And yes, those first three games did have their own bullshit--looking at you, Future Frenzy--but it feels like every level of Crash 4 is like that). --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ======================= The Honourable Mentions ======================= 15. Pokémon Legends: Arceus (Switch) Starting things out this year at number 15, we have probably the best new injection of change into the Pokémon formula since its inception (I haven't played Scarlet/Violet yet, just to be clear). There was a lot to like about this game: crafting Pokéballs, throwing them in the overworld, sneaking up on wild Pokémon, higher catch rates making it less of a frustrating experience. I also really tend to like the whole "this game explores the lore/history of this other game" type games, so even though I hadn't played Diamond/Pearl before when I started Arceus, it was a neat setting to come into, and it made me appreciate BDSP more when I finally went through it. The story was interesting enough, though I think the problem for me is that, like most Pokémon games, things go on too long. I played through to the initial credits, but the main story is never really resolved. Why was the player character transported back through time in the first place, and do they ever get back? Maybe those questions are answered if you complete the entire research guide, but I don't really have the patience for that and I never have (I've never filled out a Pokédex). Additionally, while the research guide in general does give you a reason to keep catching/battling Pokémon, it does start to feel tedious after a while, with the myriad of different conditions you might need to meet to advance research levels. The battle system itself was 50/50 for me. The whole strong/speed attack thing was interesting, though I rarely used it in practice, and in general, for whatever reason, it just didn't feel as good as a regular Pokémon game. I think they balanced it so that lower level Pokémon could still stand a chance against higher ones, but it just ended up feeling kinda unsatisfying. What I did absolutely love and that I hope they continue with going forward is that you can choose your four moves from whatever moves your Pokémon have learned at any time instead of having to go to a Move Tutor or something similar. There are a number of moves in the regular series that I would not give the time of day because it would be a pain to change things back if I ended up not liking them, so this gets rid of that issue entirely. As I said, I haven't played the newest ones yet but I really hope that's a mechanic they included there. In the end, I think Arceus added a lot of great ideas to the series and just stumbled a bit with the execution. Highlights Finding places you can use your Pokémounts to access areas you're not supposed to get to yet Plenty of cosmetic items to play with Crafting 14. Pokémon: Brilliant Diamond (Switch) I know I said Arceus added a lot of fresh and important ideas, but honestly Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl just felt like the better game. I like the old formula of working out type coverage and taking down gym leaders/the Elite Four with a combination of strategy and preparation, and none of that really felt necessary in Arceus; battling wasn't the main idea there. And that's a cool take on the series, but ultimately not quite what I'm looking for as a whole package in a Pokémon game. After Hop from Sword/Shield, the rival in this game felt way more tolerable this time around, and the plot was appropriately ridiculous. I will forever remember the time that Team Galactic blew up a lake and murdered a bunch of Magikarp to find a legendary Pokémon.. As with Arceus, it feels like there's almost too much by half. I never got into the Battle Tower in the post game, and there's some park down south that I can't get into either--never figured out what that was for. I'm sure it's good content for those who want to grind out catching them all, but it's just never been my bag. Highlights Beating that loving Garchomp by having enough max potions to have my Blissey tank earthquakes until it ran out of PP Seriously they just up and killed all those Magikarp like what. That ecosystem is altered. 13. Deliver Us the Moon (PS5) I didn't really know anything about this game going in, other than I'd heard some people say nice things about it, and it was free. It slotted in nicely during the summer when pretty much nothing new came out, so I was open to trying a lot of different things on PS++. One thing that they really nailed, I thought, was the atmosphere. Desolate Earth, creepy abandoned moon base, holographic logs to tell you what happened before you got there, all good. It also never overstayed its welcome--I beat it in a day. The game compounds the isolation by using music very minimally--or at least that's my recollection--so there's little to comfort you as you trek on mostly alone, trying to figure out just what the gently caress happened here. Personally, I didn't think the drone turret sections really added much to the game, but they were mercifully short, for the most part. The narrative kept my attention for the entire game--I never once felt bored of it. Deliver Us Mars apparently comes out in 2023 and I'll be looking forward to that one for sure. Highlights That whole sequence near the beginning where the giant tower blows up 12. Chicory: A Colorful Tale (PS5) Chicory is an adorable little game about painting and friendship that also deals heavily with depression, self-worth, jealousy, and impostor syndrome. So basically it's the perfect Millennial game. Following in the footsteps of other paint-to-play games such as Mario Paint and Okami, painting the landscape is the primary way to interact with things in Chicory. This does get a bit clunky on a controller, as your options are basically either to paint using the analog sticks or to use the touchpad, neither of which really gives you the level of precision that you might want, but it does well enough to accomplish what you need, for the most part. Honestly, I was impressed by both the depth to this game and the number of ways they kept finding to make paint-based powers. The characters were easy to care about, like Pepper and Beans' child care and love story, and Macaroon you beautiful chaotic tough bisexual, and the game really does advocate for positive self-care in a way that doesn't feel kitschy or ham-fisted. The only real complaint I had was that I put all the art classes off and then did them in a row at the end, but that's more my fault than the game's. There really are a lot of them, though. Highlights Swimming through paint was a great traversal option that never stopped being fun Macaroon just wants to be tough The "adult" who was very obviously a bunch of kids in a trenchcoat 11. LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga (PS5) LEGO games have their own kind of charm--they're essentially collectathons that heavily parodise their source material, some better than others. This game, however, takes it to extremes and does all 9 main episodes of Star Wars. This could easily have been two to three separate games--the Harry Potter ones were. Instead, in one package you get an absolutely ludicrous amount of content that isn't afraid to poke fun at the plotholes and bad writing of (some of) the original movies. Not only that, but it's actually pretty fun to play! The space combat feels pretty great for the most part, even if it's not as deep as Star Wars: Squadrons, and beating up mooks with force powers and a lightsaber never gets old. I did do absolutely 100% of the content in this game, and while it definitely felt like a bit of a slog near the end, it was at least entertaining enough as not to be miserable. The worst of it really is just how many of the final quests were things like "go to these three other planets to fetch me things that I want" or "escort me through space to this other system". They could have cut down those by about 80% and been fine, but restraint was apparently never on the drawing board for this game, and I can kind of respect it. Highlights Order 67 There are a lot of discos in the Empire, actually. Good on 'em! Chewie's never getting that medal --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ========== The Top 10 ========== 10. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy (PS4) This year had a lot of firsts in terms of me playing a new series, and the first of these firsts on this list was Phoenix Wright. I'd read a let's play of it (that never finished--I think the game is regarded as cursed in LP) years ago, so I knew the basics, but I'd also forgotten most of the salient plot points. Therefore, I was wholly unprepared for just how batshit insane this game is lol. Plot twists, murders, conspiracies, and what I'm pretty sure is a vastly inequitable legal system where defense attorneys have to be investigators to stand a chance at winning a case. I did think things got a little obtuse in the later games, sometimes. I definitely did a lot of save scumming, and occasionally looked up a guide because I was tired of pixel hunting for investigation items or guessing what the right order of conversations/topics was supposed to be, but overall I had a really great time with it. The characters were all incredibly memorable and it was a white-knuckle ride from start to finish. I'm sure one day I'll pick up Great Ace Attorney, but for now at least I feel like I've gotten my fill of wacky attorney adventures. Highlights Edgeworth stepping in when Nick fell off the bridge Every moment with Pearly and Gumshoe Maya always being hungry 9. Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age (PS4) The next first was Dragon Quest XI S. I'd never played a Dragon Quest game before, and honestly, after the 2D sections of this game, I'm okay with that. But that's fine, because the 3D portion of it (which is the majority) is pretty great! And the 2D sections were, I think, entirely optional, so I did it to myself. Dragon Quest XI S starts out with your typical "you are the hero destined to bring peace to the world" story and then stands that up on end a couple of times through the game. The battle system lets you choose whether you want each character to act independently, and in what manner, or if you want to choose all of their actions, which is nice. The other forgiving thing about it is that if your party dies, the backup party will come in and fight, and everyone alive earns XP after a battle. That saved me more than once. There's certainly a different kind of charm to DQXI than other JRPGs like FF, just in style, though I do still prefer FF to any other one. My main complaint with DQXI is that to actually experience all of the story they want you to experience requires some insane grinding. Like if you don't utilise a certain exploit, I'm sure it takes hours upon hours upon hours, but you need to be very high leveled to take on some of the end game bosses. I could have quit after what most people deem to be Act 2 and that would have been a relatively complete, satisfying story, but eventually I decided I might as well try and see what the rest of the game had to offer. Highlights A ton of costumes for everyone, and you can choose whichever ones you want without sacrificing stats Veronica sacrificing her magic to Serena to let her become a super mage, even if they unfortunately took it back later 8. Yakuza 0 (PS4) After trying out Yakuza 4 years and years ago when it was on PS+ and not making it more than about an hour or two in, I finally decided to try and get back into it with Yakuza 0, freshly on PS++. It's hard to accurately describe this game, I think, but it's a real roller coaster--only it's a roller coaster that you can get off at any time when you decide you want to go hit some dingers (don't actually do this--the baseball minigame sucks). The main story is an enthralling mobster drama that weaves together beautifully at the end, and while the minigames are hit-or-miss, the hits are very high. I filled out the real estate and cabaret clubs for fun, not expecting a huge reward, much less for them to unlock the ultimate fighting forms for each character. One of the meh's for me is the combat. It's there, sure, but not something that I felt was really engaging or added to the experience. By the end, I was just using all the billion weapons I'd unlocked during the minigames/sidequests to make things go faster. It's cool that you can lightsaber enemies to death though, and it was fun to smash people's faces in with a random bicycle on the street. All in all, it was a fun romp, and I was surprised to learn that they wrote this one after the original Yakuza 1, because it seems to set everything up so well, to the extent that the story of 1 wouldn't make sense without it. Highlights Kiryu's awkward but sex-positive attitude towards all the weird perverts he meets Cornering the Kamurocho real estate market The Pocket Racer storyline 7. Blue Reflection: Second Light (PS4) Someone last year listed one of the pros of this game as the fact that it's super gay, and I am here to say that while it was indeed, very gay, I would still say:  But really, it was an enjoyable RPG through and through. The combat system was an interesting take on ATB, basically, in a good way. The whole gear shifting thing was a neat risk/reward mechanic, as well as having to time your superblocks so you don't get your poo poo wrecked. I saw last year that people said it was a big improvement over the first game, and while I never played it, Second Light does seem very sound. I liked building all the various facilities, even if I didn't often activate half of them. It's just fun to build up the weird little school in the middle of nowhere. Why wouldn't it have a coffee stand? Or a telescope? Or a shooting gallery? The story was pretty bog standard for anime, I think. Basically kill god before he kills you. But that's fine! It works for Persona 5 and every other JRPG. Highlights Every side quest that was about how terrible a cook one of them was The dramatic magical girl transformations Still pretty gay 6. Stray (PS5) Cat game! This game is a good example of a game being about a feeling or the overall picture more than the technical details. Sure, some of the animations aren't perfect and the plot isn't like *super* deep, but you can tell they really put a lot of effort into making the cat as cat-like as possible. A dedicated meow button is such an obvious choice, but they didn't have to put one in--plus the ability to rub on robots' legs, knock things off the sides of counters/edges, and take naps on a number of different surfaces. I think the story ended up being a little less interesting than I'd hoped going in (I don't think that humans needed to be involved at all--it could have just been about a cat running errands for robots--and the Zurks seemed like a mostly unnecessary component), but even as is, I was always interested to see what happened next, and the game mixed things up enough to keep it fresh. Highlights Walking around the city and exploring Napping on a robot lap and getting some pets 5. OlliOlli World (PS5) This game is just arcade joy--little else to say about it (but that won't stop me). It exudes charm and style and is just fun to play in little pick up sessions. They really built up the levels from OlliOlli 2 and the mechanics are better than ever. If you loved OlliOlli 1/2, picking up this is a no brainer, imo. It doesn't reinvent anything really, of what it's done before, but it makes it all better and gives you more of it. It also makes excellent use of the DualSense controller haptics, which adds to the experience in a subtle way. As with all arcade-y games, eventually they ask for a skill floor that I just don't have the energy to try and reach anymore (usually in the last or second-to-last area), but I knew that going in, so it didn't feel frustrating. It feels incredibly satisfying to nail a level-long combo, like finally beating a mid-to-end-game pro score. This one may have flown under the radar this year, but I really can't recommend it enough for a fun time. Highlights See the above video. The whole game is basically a highlight once you start stringing things together 4. Kena: Bridge of Spirits (PS5) What a surprise this game was. I don't really know what I expected going into it, but the game is gorgeous. It's like a playable Pixar film. This one has bow combat as well, so we know where I stand, but the combat is both surprisingly deep for what it is, and also surprisingly difficult at times. I saw it compared to Knack a lot of times, in that they are both games ostensibly aimed at children but that have some really challenging bosses in them. But to be clear, it's a much better game than Knack. Playing it through on Master difficulty added an extra challenge along with a sense of accomplishment usually reserved for Dark Souls. My only real complaint was that a lot of the collectibles were ultimately meaningless, as you could put hats on your soot sprites but it was hard to ever really see them in action when you did anyway. Otherwise, I'm really excited to see what this dev team puts out next. Highlights Beating this boss with a shield parry at 1 health left Seriously the animation in this game is so good 3. Elden Ring (PS5) I feel like From really reinvented the open-world game with Elden Ring. There's just so much to do, and a lot of it is interesting content--like a wide, ever more expansive Dark Souls 3. And then you do a NG+ run and find out you can basically beat the game in 10-12 hours after taking 60-70 for the first run, so it's amazing just how much optional content they managed to cram into it. This is, I think, both to its benefit and detriment. It's great that there's so much to explore, but it's kind of a let down when you do some dungeon and the boss is just a slightly strong version of some enemy you see walking around on the overworld. Also, gently caress the Crucible Knights and definitely gently caress two Crucible Knights at once. Co-op was easier than ever in Elden Ring, and that's where I got a lot of enjoyment out of it, since I don't like PVP in From games at all. Running newcomers through Elphael was a great way to spend an evening, or helping fellow goons take down a boss here or there, and it was all fairly without tedium. They even added the summoning pools that let you be summoned without having to stand around in the same area, which was great. There is little that compares to playing From games at release, comparing notes with other players, and complaining about bosses (like a certain blade of Miquella). Plus our very own VideoGames played the game for like 70 hours without noticing that it had a compass. I think Elden Ring is probably tied with Sekiro as my favourite From game that they've ever made. It's more accessible than ever, with more NPC summons that only cost FP instead of consumable items. Just to some degree, I think the game is too big for me. I can't imagine wanting to go through it again, especially from scratch. And Hidetaka, not satisfied with his usual poison swamps, had to go and make a status effect that was even worse this time around. Also, as with most From games, the type of storytelling they employ just doesn't grab me that much. They all boil down to "kill everything to make the world better/gently caress it up some more", and there's nothing wrong with that; they've made a body of work that encompasses that very idea to excellent results. I just tend to like some more explicit storytelling in a game that's about story. Highlights Slowly uncovering more and more of the map (it's seriously ridiculous, how large it is) My wolf friends killing Margit after I died Beating Malenia Watching veeg play it on stream All of the Haligtree. Probably my favourite From area ever 2. Metroid Dread (Switch) I have finished four Metroid games in my lifetime: Super Metroid, Metroid Zero Mission, Metroid Fusion, and Metroid Dread. This one is by FAR the one that feels the best to actually play. The running and sliding is fantastic (really the movement in general), and the combat is engaging af. The final boss was one of the best bosses I've ever fought in any game, in terms of feeling like I could dominate once I understood the patterns and rules. The game is relatively linear if you're playing it normally, but there are also some cool sequence breaks possible, which is a great addition for high skill players (I am not one). It's certainly not the openness of Super Metroid, but I wasn't looking for that anyway. The EMMI sections were uneven, in terms of how enjoyable they were, but overall I thought they were good. I'm glad that it's only certain sections, because getting chased the whole game would be annoying, so the restraint there was appreciated. All in all, the only real complaint I saw thrown at it was that it's short (coming in at about 10-12 hours), and that's fair, but it's a high quality 10-12 hours with pretty much no stops, so I think it was worth the cost of admission. I really want more 2D Metroid games if they're like this one. I'm glad some others have taken up the mantle, like Hollow Knight, but there's just something about Metroid in particular that appeals to me. Highlights I mentioned it above, but that final boss. The parrying, the combat in general, it all came together for that fight. Best Metroid moment I've ever had. 1. Horizon Forbidden West (PS5) First let me just say I am a sucker for bow combat. It's what I loved most about Twilight Princess on the Wii, it's a large part of what sold me on the first Horizon, and it's the only reason I ever finished Hades. So, the very act of being a game based on bow combat meant Forbidden West already had a lot going for it (along with the high quality of the first game). The second game expands greatly on the traversal of the first, adding underwater exploration combat and a paraglider, as well as flying mounts--none of which was in Zero Dawn. The character work was, in my opinion, improved, and it was nice that they gave you specific side quests to flesh out the stories and relationships of your friends. Plot-wise, you probably either like it or you don't. I thought it was great, personally, after an entire game of Aloy learning basically that she's the only person who can save the world, that the second game is about her having to cede that line of thinking and rely on others. It's not a new trope, but it was effective. The side quests were also a welcome upgrade, both in terms of relevance and rewards. It felt like the items you got for completing them made them well worth the time, and some of the stories were absolutely beautiful, like the Plainsong big machines. It's not a perfect game, certainly. The racing minigame is.. there, I guess--same for Machine Strike--and I wish there could have been more to do with San Francisco, but the DLC coming out next year will expand on some areas of the game (even if it's Hollywood instead), and I'm looking forward to that. Horizon may be my favourite new IP of the previous generation, and I really enjoyed my time with Forbidden West. Highlights Flying around on sunwings Plainsong in general--what a neat idea for a city/community Talanah showing up to do some tracking Nil being the secret top racer morallyobjected fucked around with this message at 01:41 on Dec 19, 2022 |
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I love your highlights sections. goon lists still innovating half a decde on
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Dec 19, 2022 02:18
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