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timed exclusives dont count
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Dec 22, 2022 21:56
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GotY next year will be the new Zelda I hope
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Dec 22, 2022 21:57
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New Zelda, Silksong, Baldurs Gate 3, Oxenfree 2. Lots of heavy hitters coming out next year.
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Dec 22, 2022 22:03
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Silksong will change gaming and world history forever
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Dec 22, 2022 22:06
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Wittgen posted:New Zelda, Silksong, Baldurs Gate 3, Oxenfree 2. Lots of heavy hitters coming out next year. Starfield and Diablo 4 (lol I know)
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Dec 22, 2022 22:13
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Also I technically have not beaten TTYD yet but the Shadow Queen can suck an egg.
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Dec 22, 2022 22:32
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Silksong won't come out until I announce its release date in the GOTY '23 OP
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Dec 22, 2022 22:37
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Oh I thought everybody had a ps5 my bad
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Dec 22, 2022 22:46
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i will get a ps5 once ff7r2 comes out and not a second sooner
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Dec 22, 2022 23:20
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i appreciate reading everyone's lists. here is mine, top 13 because i arbitrarily decided the three below games were too good not to mention: 13: neon white the fact that it has a fast forward button for all cutscenes means it's automatically better than 90% of video game plots. in fact by making the story and characters and voices so cringe, they encourage you to speedrun the story, not just the levels. next level diagetic immersion. 12: 13 sentinels anime that doesn't take 100 hours to establish that yes, weird things are happening, and yes, everyone's gotta deal with it. only this low on the rankings because the RTS bits were bad. the story was great. 11: betrayal at club low probably my most surprisingly enjoyable game of the year. a really strange game, one of those that seems to have sprung forth from some auteur's mind fully formed. you're an agent sent to infiltrate a club to contact a spy, with stats being checked and dice being rolled constantly, which is my jam. it's constantly vibrating with a low deranged humming, nothing that's gonna make you shoot out of your seat and go this says a lot about society but rather a continuous trickle of weird wrinkles in everyone's personalities and motivations. and onto the actual top 10. 10: the forgotten city actually maybe this was the most surprisingly enjoyable game. i thought i would never enjoy a bethesda game again but here we are, oh wait, it's made by a bunch of fans and there's no combat, that's probably why it was so good. 9: dark souls 2 scholar of the first sin (+ dlc) still the worst souls game until right around the last third of the game when it suddenly becomes the best one. the DLC bosses take 3 of the 5 top spots for best souls bosses ever. just as i start to get annoyed with the game around amana/dragon aerie, the DLCs kick in and i’m making my way down the sunken city and suddenly everything is lovely once again. i’ll play this game for all time. it makes me wish there was another universe where they just kept making small, 4-6 hour long dungeons that are entirely self contained. 8: cultic a very very good FPS, fantastic movement and headshots that gives the steak its sizzle. doesn't ever feel like it's overreaching and as a consequence you have a very tight game with 0 flab. the level design is contentious but i thought it was dope. the guns sound great, and would make any american cry wet the flag they wrap around their bald fat head. 7: omori i'm not so sure about how i feel about omori. i played it in the summer on holiday so it brought back the feelings of playing RPGs on long summer days when i was a kid. and the game was both gentle and rough with those feelings. it has both joy and sadness, the way a kid kind of feels about stuff where you don't really feel it at all, but you do. 6: SMT nocturne i started playing this game around this time last year and played it for like 2-3 hours a day during my holiday, and then i played a few hours of it while i was working from home every day. it's great. the best realised SMT game for sure, in terms of the scope and the story, and it makes sense why it's the one all other SMT games are compared to. can't imagine how this blew people's loving minds in 2003. i played both this and strange journey this year (haven't finished it yet though) and i think playing both made it kinda clear why nocturne is the one that's really remembered. the general oppressive nature of the random encounters, the fiends, the brutal first fight with matador, pale rider ambushing you outside a save point after 45 mins, that absolute dickhead ongyo-ki, being ambushed and killed by an instant death spell in a random encounter you could do nothing about, etc. etc. and so forth, the game's first half is a real masterpiece of making gameplay immersive. all you're doing is clicking a button and choosing spells or attacks, but all of the context surrounding every fight in the first half-ish of the game creates a Powerful Video Gaming Sensation. you are adrift, vulnerable, without allies, lost in a strange place. but you gradually start gaining power and with it everything else comes. around the late midgame you become ridiculously powerful, and the story changes from you drifting between points of view ("characters", they call them) to making the decisions, beseeched by the various representatives to support their plan because all these noobs can do is flap their gums while the demifiend is busy making moves. strange journey is still really dope though, probably would have made the list if i had finished it. 5: cuphead DLC (the delicious last course) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUz9xCTOPRw&t=15s 4: monster hunter rise: sunbreak it's like they took the best 10% of base rise and turned it into a whole game. 3: elden ring yeah obviously, only third because it doesn't need the votes and i'm trying to be special. 2: shiren the wanderer: the tower of fortune and the dice of fate i'm loving awful at turn based roguelikes, as a general rule. my impatience and inclination to go with the most readily effective solution without really thinking about the bigger picture has hosed me over more times than i can count in many different roguelikes. enter shiren the wanderer, a game that presents you with four hundred different options in every encounter. this game is heaving with items and systems, wands, scrolls, companions, pots that change or merge stuff, there's ways to make new items, ways to befriend the monsters, there's an entirely different system for exploring dungeons at night (you can't fight the monsters at all, but you get a limited pool of powers) and it all interacts in various ways to make an intricate and complicated game with what feels like ten correct and one thousand incorrect options at every turn. i never managed to beat the original game for DS, and that memory has stuck with me for a long time. so when i finally did make it to the final boss, after a long and arduous run through the game, having saved up scrolls of find out where the gently caress the stairs going up are so i could book it past the three top floors (which are full of brutal enemies that kill you, or the companion you have to escort, in one or two hits) with a full set of consumables, grasses, scrolls, pots, and wands. it was the first time i'd gotten to the final boss but the third time i'd gotten to those top floors. (as an aside, shiren also has a lovely system for getting rescued when you die. you can get rescued up to three times per run, the only caveat is that an actual irl person has to go rescue you in their game. god bless all those japanese players who are still playing this game and responded to my 'I MESSED UP. PLEASE HELP' requests.) i think i spent at least 2 minutes per turn just trying to calculate every single option. what consumable should i use here? and what's going to happen the turn after, and the turn after? it's the kind of game where you died five turns before you're actually dead. and the boss is nuts, totally unfair, unequips all your poo poo at the start of the fight and then goes crazy every single turn with one thing or another. summon up a bunch of dragons? sure. oh and it does that at the start of the fight too. fires a cannonball at you. cures all conditions after one turn. blasts everything with massive damage lighting. etc. the fight started. went on. everything was going well. i was getting rid of the dragons, moving and shaking with some swap staves, vacuum slash scrolls to wipe out the dragons, blinding and confusing the ones i couldn't kill, doing some good damage to the boss, keeping my head above water. then i was starting to run low on consumables. all out of swift grass. all out of clears for the dragons. and then the invincible grass is gone. and then the resurrection grass. no more heals left. just chucked my last confusion herb at that dragon but his buddy's on the way. all my wands are expired and i'm on my last legs. i haven't looked anything up about the game so i don't have a clue how much HP it's got and i didn't keep track of how much damage i was doing anyway. all i can do is trade hits with the boss until one of us is dead but i'm looking at the screen like, there must be another way. there wasn't, but all i needed was one more hit. love defeating the ghost of my teenage video game obsessions by pressing A for Attack  1: guilty gear: strive i played this game for hundreds of hours local and online and i got so good at it that i've become the ghost of someone else's teenage video game obsession for sure. some kid had his worst day online when he met me. nothin personnel of course  ez list: 10 the forgotten city 9 dark souls 2 SOFTS 8 cultic 7 omori 6 nocturne 5 cuphead the delicious last course 4 monster hunter rise sunbreak 3 elden ring 2 shiren the wanderer tower of fortune and the dice of fate 1 guilty gear strive
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Dec 22, 2022 23:29
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Thanks, y'all.  It's 19 degrees out and I'm happy to be by the fire itt with so many dope games and goons 
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Dec 22, 2022 23:59
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Foul Fowl posted:words I can confirm that Shiren 5 is indeed better than Elden Ring. A good list.
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Dec 23, 2022 00:14
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Some great lists, I actually got confused halfway through BP's list when I noticed none of the entries had numbers, then I realized I hadn't reached the Top 10 yet  Foul Fowl posted:5: cuphead DLC (the delicious last course) 
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Dec 23, 2022 00:21
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Jay Rust posted:the ps5 exclusy? Not bloody likely!! I will buy alts to stuff the ballot box
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Dec 23, 2022 02:46
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Glad to see Elden Ring and Horizon Forbidden West showing up so much because I was already hoping to make time to play those next year and it sounds like I'll be in for a treat. Reading this thread has added so many cool-looking games to my backlog though 
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Dec 23, 2022 02:59
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 10.Stray Was a really nice chill way to kill a few evenings. Loved the art direction and just thought it was all around fun and super charming.  9.TLOU Pt1 is only so low on my list due to the context of it being an unnecessary reskin of a game that didn't really need it, that also lacks the multiplayer component (probably as important as the SP to me). But the actual game would be butting heads with Elden Ring and this is the definitive version of it. It's only on the low end because I don't think such a straight forward remake deserves to really contend for GOTY. They did a bang up job with it though. It looks gorgeous and the game itself is still an all timer.  8. Call of Duty:Modern Warfare 2 This game is just fun. It doesn't do anything new and the single player in MW 2019 was way better, but there is still nothing that can top the shooting in COD imo. It's just satisfying to sit back and blast dudes.  7. High on Life What can I say. I thought this game was mostly really good. I found it aggressively entertaining and legitimately a pretty solid game. Just a nice change of pace from all of the milsim/sci fi fantasy/bleak apocalypse/mopey twee indie poo poo that seems to be most games. It's like a dirty Toejam and Earl FPS for 2022. A lot of the jokes are dumb but in a way I found fun and there is a few actual really good ones in there. gently caress the haters. Game is good.  6. Horizon: Forbidden West This one is a bit tricky because I have dogged on it quite a bit but at the end of the day it was still gorgeous and mostly fun with a pretty fun story. Not everything I was hoping for from a sequel but the bar was pretty high after the first one. I still liked it quite a bit even if it didn't hit every note I was hoping for  5.Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare is probably a weird one to be putting on here in 2022, but I never played it when it came out and the campaign whips rear end. Not in a "good COD campaign" sense as much as just a good "hard" Sci-Fi game in general. Heavy The Expanse vibes. I also have heard people compare it to BG but I have never watched it. I think it took me almost a whopping 15 hours to do everything and everything there to do was good. Sure you could just play through it in the usual COD fashion in 6 hours, but the side missions are great. The game probably has like 6 hours of high budget space dogfighting, which is a rare thing to find these days. At least one side mission has a 20+ minute dogfight, and once you disable the captitol ship, you fly into the hanger bay and light a bunch of dudes up with your fighter, hop out of it and fight through the ship FPS style. it was fuckin awesome. Usually I think of COD campaigns as a fun way to kill a few evenings and look at millions of dollars on my TV. I don't take them very seriously, but IW is all around a legit great game to me. I'd almost put it neck and neck with Titanfall 2 but TF2 still wins. I can't believe I have 2 COD games on this list lol.  4.Returnal Ascension Totally kickass free DLC for an already kickass game. Played the tower mode for like 40 hours trying to beat my friends high scores. I'd probably still be playing if so much stuff hadn't come out.  3.Hunt:Showdown This one might technically be disqualified since I first played like 70 hours of this 2 years ago, but I revisited it this year and it just really clicked for me and ended up being my most played game this year. Felt like a fresh start so I'm including it. I just love the atmosphere and art direction in this game and the gameplay is absolutely nail biting. It really kind of offers what I like about extraction games (and also happens to be one of the first along with Tarkov) without being too unapproachable (Tarkov) or too dumbed down and casual(DMZ)  2.Elden Ring I could write a lot of words about Elden Ring, but I won't. I feel like everyone else has already done that for me. You know exactly why it's on this list already. One of the best games ever for sure.  1.Inscryption Ok honestly I can't say this or Elden Ring is my pick. It's pretty much a tie, but I'm giving Inscryption the #1 by virtue of ER being big Dark Souls, which is awesome, but exactly what I was expecting. Inscryption on the other hand, was unlike anything I have ever played. It's just such a weird, funny, atmospheric and surprising little game. I just loved everything about it. The art direction, the gameplay, the soundtrack, the story...It was just all so cool and different, so while I probably enjoyed ER just as much Inscryption narrowly beats it out just for being so fresh. Honorable mention: God Of War Ragnarok and Dying Light 2. I really liked aspects of this game but I was just too mixed on it in general to include it. Stuff that might have made the list if I had time to finish them: Tunic, Tinykin, Signalis and stuff I didn't get the chance to play at all yet: Callisto Protocol. veni veni veni fucked around with this message at 03:19 on Dec 23, 2022 |
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Dec 23, 2022 03:04
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Actually hold if the Returnal DLC counts I need to revise my list. Sorry Dying Light.
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Dec 23, 2022 03:13
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BeanpolePeckerwood posted:
Rock and stone, brother.
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Dec 23, 2022 03:28
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04 - Deep Rock Galactic 
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so many good gifs itt, veni bringing the heat not a cod fan but i need to play the IW story mode someday
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Dec 23, 2022 03:39
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I honestly think you'd like it. The campaign is barely a COD game outside of what it says on the title screen.
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Dec 23, 2022 03:41
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BeanpolePeckerwood posted:so many good gifs itt, veni bringing the heat Yeah, I played COD MW back when it came out and figured that was Sufficient Cod for me and have not paid any attention to the series since, but a hard-SF cinematic FPS is actually pretty solidly my jam and looks like it may be worth a look.
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Dec 23, 2022 03:59
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edit for concise list for scoring: 10. Signalis 9. Final Fantasy VI 8. Pokémon Violet 7. Disco Elysium 6. Splatoon 3 5. Citizen Sleeper 4. Neon White 3. Pokémon Legends Arceus 2. Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes 1. Triangle Strategy Alright, I finished my list and finished my list, here goes nothing: Honorable Mentions: Kirby and the Forgotten Land - This is number 11 and it was incredibly close between it and my number 10. This was just such a lovable game. It captured the Kirby spirit perfectly in the transition to 3D and was chock full of things to find and transformations. Mouthful mode is a genuinely smart way to get more transformations without having to create new movesets, and using them in their levels is always fun and never feels like too much. It was just a joy to play through. Earthbound - the vibes of this game are immaculate. There are so many little things I wish I could change about the experience of playing it but when I’m playing it I’m completely engrossed in the mood it sets. The music is a huge part of this, I think it’s got one of my all-time favorite soundtracks now. Pokemon TCG 2/Jump Ultimate Stars - these are together because they’re both games I couldn’t play as a kid because they were Japan-only releases, even though I would have loved them. Pokémon cards is literally just more of the same, Jump is a platform fighter starring a billion animes that is a lot of fun even if being on the DS feels limiting. Front Mission: Gun Hazard - Front Mission is the interesting because instead of being what you expect when you hear Front Mission (tile-based strategy) it’s an action-platformer with mech-building elements, a world map, and a very in-depth and kind of non-linear story. It’s the sort of game I can imagine someone making a more modern version of because of how unique it is, which I bet was even more the case when it came out as a late-era SNES game. I didn’t get into it enough for it to make my top 10 but it’s probably my favorite thing I’ve discovered diving into classic games over the last few years, even if it isn’t the best. Horizon Forbidden West - I put a lot of hours into this game and there is a lot to enjoy about it but it has the open world bloat problem that keeps me from truly giving myself over to it. It’s gorgeous though, and the too-large world is still very pretty. Link Between Worlds/SMTIV - I played my 3DS a lot more this year and these were the two standouts. Link Between Worlds I finished and it was a perfect little Zelda thing, SMTIV I didn’t finish because it’s huge and brutally hard, but the atmosphere is great. My Top 10 Games of the Year 10. Signalis - This was the last thing I finished for the year; i initially picked it up for spooky season and set it down for a bit but I came back to it and finished it in the end. It really was a perfect little Survival Horror game that was able to keep the tension up the entire time, never had to resort to cheap jump scares, and also told a compelling and touching story. Play with a good pair of headphones! (and some sync-lighting if you can swing it) 9. Final Fantasy VI - I was just young enough that I missed the golden age of JRPGs. I got my SNES late and wasn’t exposed to RPGs in general, and even then I never quite fell in love with FF or it’s peers the way so many other had, probably because I kept buying Nintendo systems where the pickings were slim starting with the N64. This year I went into two of the biggest SNES JRPGs to finally see what I was missing. FFVI edged out Earthbound because I think the gameplay is a little tighter and more interesting, but also because FFVI has a very theatrical/ operatic quality to it, even before you get to the part of the game that is literally an opera. I’ll talk about this a little more later but theater has always resonated with me as an art form, and even as I’ve moved away from participating in it I still feel a connection to theater, and many games I love have qualities that are inspired by the theater. FFVI wears that influence proudly, and honestly there’s nothing I would love more than for someone to remake this, whether in the 2D-3D format ala Live a Live or a full blowout like FFVIIR. 8. Pokémon Violet - This is the most buggy unfinished pile of a game that I’ve played since Cyberpunk launched and yet I completely devoured it when I got my hands on it. I think big failures are more interesting than small mediocrities, and Scarlet/Violet feels like the game designers here were allowed to really stretch their wings and try to figure out what makes people keep wanting to play a Pokémon game. The story also is a big step up from the last entry. Even though it relies on a lot of very standard tropes it executes them well and the ability to pick and choose what story beats you progress when keeps any of them from feeling like they’re overtaking the others. I hope we get fixes to how this game runs because I think Game Freak’s design team is making more interesting games than they have in years, I just with they didn’t have to sacrifice performance to get them out the door. 7. Disco Elysium - This game is a feat of story engineering, the sheer amount of contingencies that it plans for makes it feel almost magic, and the world-building and characters that you encounter all have so much thought and care put into them, even the ones who are grotesque (morally or physically). If FFVI is the pinnacle of showing how JRPGs are inspired by the stage, DE is the same for Western RPGs that are inspired by the page. 6. Splatoon 3 - You can tell just by this list that I tend not to like competitive multiplayer but the way all of the Splatoon games are balanced makes them feel like I can hold my own playing against other members of the general public. The matches are short and intense but no one feels catastrophic, even if it’s a bad loss, and there enough ways to play that you can contribute whether you want to ink fools or paint floors. It’s just so much fun, and the world they’ve built around it helps make it feel like not just a game but a living breathing community. The city is a joy to explore with lots of little sideways and always filled with people sharing (mostly) wonderful art. The modes of expression make it possible for anyone to stand out, and the variety of game types reminds me of the treasure trove that is Kirby Superstar. It’s the coziest competitive shooter by a mile. 5. Citizen Sleeper - I played through this in one night. The story it told was so compelling that I couldn’t stop until I had no more to play. There’s no shortage of dystopic sci-fi at the moment but the way you engage with the systems in the game makes the story about how much of ourselves and our labor we truly own resonate that much harder. I appreciate when the medium and the story are in sync and I think the way CS was designed really prioritized that. 4. Neon White - This might be one of the best feeling games of all time, control-wise. First-person platforming has been perfected here, I don’t think you can top it. Even when you’re flying through the sky you never feel out of control and even on the ground the game is so responsive that if you look at a stage and think “hm I wonder if I could…” you probably can. That’s also a tribute to the level design, which is meticulous, and the gameplay loop, which encourages you to keep lowering your times, first by giving you the story and then by giving you medals, shortcuts, hints, and the times of friends and other players to push for. Plus, you’ll never get bored of the soundtrack, which sounds nostalgic on first glance but is really there to keep your heart rate up and to insure you never want to slow down. 3. Pokémon Legends: Arceus - This game felt like a rare treat because it was a game made with roughly the same level of work and resources that go into a typical Pokémon game (insert Game Freak Joke here) but with a much heavier focus on the parts of Pokémon games that I love most: the exploring and catching. It also felt like a preemptive apology for the lackluster Diamond/Pearl remakes, being set in prehistoric Sinnoh and featuring a Pokédex and landscape based on DPP’s. I adored the changes made to the gameplay loop here, and my only criticism is that I wish just a little more time had been spent on the battling structure because it felt very lackluster (or if they had eschewed trainer battles entirely, a thing that they would never do for obvious reasons but would have been more justified in the game than when we ended up with). Probably my favorite Pokémon game since Platinum. 2. Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes - I don’t know if you know this but I am actually responsible for this game’s existence. I know it’s hard to believe but it’s the truth: I wished upon a star for the people who made my 2020 GOTY runner-up (Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity) to make a version of that game but with my 2019 GOTY (Fire Emblem: Three Houses) as the inspiration and bam, Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes. I love this game with my whole heart because it’s a bunch of the best characters in video games written by people who love them as much as I do. It’s got fandom in-jokes, a million new recorded voice lines, and is as gay as the original should have been. It’s also a bajillion hours long because it’s a Warriors game and they once again gave us three full stories. It is basically a 10 gallon tub of delicious homemade whipped cream and I loving love whipped cream. But for a game I had penciled in as an obvious GOTY, I’m not particularly surprised it didn’t end up at the very top of my list. It’s gameplay is not quite as exciting as AoC because they included the class change mechanics from 3H meaning there are less really interesting and unique movesets. Its story is not quite as good as 3H because the time skip was a natural way to allow for lots of character growth, and FEW3H the period before the time skip is shorter so there’s no chance to get to know the characters as students. This means that the characters come off as more one note. This isn’t a huge deal as they’re all still very well written and the voice acting is still world-class but it’s one of a few small things that kept it from being perfect. Ultimately it still gave me hours of joy, not just playing the game proper but also engaging with all the new fan-art that resulted. (And the video game god that granted me the ability to manifest games has already approved my request for Pikmin 4, so if anyone has any suggestions for my next wish I’m listening) 1. Triangle Strategy - This is a game where the people making it clearly put all of their time into making everything fit together exactly right. The world-building is fascinating, with the history of Norzelia being important to the story in meaningful ways, and the towns that you get to visit all reflecting the world and their respective nations and citizens. The characters are all so well-written, each one has their own goals and values that are very apparent (which is mirrored in how each character has a specific role in battle, as well). This is important in a game that is all about how one’s values affect their path. The story itself is well constructed, which it would have to be to have the branching paths flow into and out of each other multiple times. The three different modes of gameplay all fit together well too. It came as a surprise to a lot of people that the talking and the exploring took up as much space as the fighting, but this game wouldn’t work if that balance didn’t exist. Everything you do, every conversation you have, every move you make in battle, every choice you make, it all reflects on you in the end. This game is about values in a much more interesting way than most games, which are content sticking a “Good/Bad” counter or even a “How much do these people like/hate me” bar in a menu somewhere. Triangle Strategy feels like it could push storytelling in games forward; the experience of watching Serenoa come to reflect my values and make choices based on them is that the medium of video games is uniquely equipped to offer. I would love more games that take after this in the future, especially if they’re made with as much care as Triangle Strategy was. DC Murderverse fucked around with this message at 03:57 on Jan 1, 2023 |
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Dec 23, 2022 04:03
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Hello again GOTY thread, it's always a pleasure! Honorable Mentions Elden Ring I can't give this a ranking (this year) because I'm only 5 hours into it. It's my first FromSoft game, and so far I'm liking it! I killed two minibosses and then doubled back to a ruin dotted with soldiers to kill them all... only to discover a stairwell going underground I had no idea would be there. Friends, finding a secret you didn't have reason to suspect existed is an even bigger dopamine hit than a chest behind a waterfall. If the whole game goes like this then I'll be a big fan. That said, the LONE Wolf Ashes are unplayable garbage. They summon a PACK of three wolves! In this house, words mean things, dangit! Genshin Impact Another year, another way too many hours spent in this game. And now it's added the best region yet, and a card game, and oh dear I'm superhooked again... Wordle I played QUEST into TRAIN for a 2-round win and I'll love it forever. 10/10. AI Nirvana Despite being a huge fan of Uchikoshi, I haven't had time to play it properly. I'm halfway through the Mizuki route I think? Tama has definitely been the star of the show for me. I expect this, like Elden Ring, will be in my top 10 of 2023. 10. Dragalia Lost At some point, this game became good? And then it died. I tried it out at launch and then set it aside. There wasn't the right amount of content, and the writing didn't quite gel, but something about it was appealing enough not to delete it. I'd log in every couple of weeks to rack up the free pulls they passed out (the devs were so generous that it may have killed the game in the end... I can't imagine needing to spend money in this gacha). When end of service was announced I rushed through the main quest. The writing got better, the story got more interesting, the cast of characters became less tropey and more interesting, and the systems of the game became more engaging. It never had a big transformational moment, it just incremented itself into something special and solid in its own right, and it turned out to mean a lot more to me than I expected when the servers went down. I'm sorry to say it's dead now, and maybe someday they'll bring it back with a sequel or as a console port. It deserves it. 9. Bayonetta 3 The creativity with the demon summons, kaiju battles, and weapon forms was absolutely top-notch. I can have a bad habit of falling into a routine and sticking with one set of weapons for too long, but this game trained me fast to rotate into whatever new weapons and demons became available as soon as possible, and they never stopped coming. The set pieces and the Jeanne chapters were fantastic too. I wanted more Bayonetta, and I got more than I bargained for. I'm looking forward to the next game, whenever that comes to pass. 8. Fez Me, about five minutes into Fez: "Oh, THAT'S why everyone was raving about this game a decade ago!" As it turns out, this is the kind of puzzle game that is perfectly calibrated to scratch the itch in my brain. I regret leaving it on the backlog so long! The mechanics are simple but iterate as far out as possible. The puzzles are smart. The game has excellent signposting and a map that was helpful without taking away from the sense of discovery. Definitely a top tier game to break in my steam deck with. 7. Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn If this is the "bad one" I can't wait to see the expansions that actually get praised! It has a bit of a slow start, with the first 40 levels going from forgettable to mediocre. But by the time I had an airship, a Cid, and high stakes, the game felt like a true classic Final Fantasy. But it was hitting the 2.X content that made the game shift into high gear for me. That questline was a phenomenal culmination of everything that had come before, and showed how good they could make the game once they had some distance from 1.0 and had had some time to lay a foundation for the world and the story they were telling. And because I was on the free trial, I took a break to spend some time on side content like the kobold faction, Hildebrand, the postmoogles, and more. This game was everything that the forums have been raving about for years and I'm looking forward to doing, hm, probably Heavensward and Stormblood next year. I'll be caught up by... 2026 or so? Nice to have something to look forward to! 6. Drakengard 3 The thing that really surprises me, in retrospect, is how dang funny Drakengard 3 can be. It's a brutal experience shot through with horror and drama, but that makes the occasional detours into heartfelt moments and comedy hit all the harder. The gameplay itself was just fine, but it was the time spent with Mikhail and the disciples that made this a winner for me. Also, I'm normally one for English subtitles, but the dub cast knocked this game out of the park. The game never outstayed its welcome. Even with all 6 DLC campaigns, I never felt like the game was too long or retreading ground. If anything, now that I've put it down I'll be missing my dumb goofy dragon and the weird oddball disciples. Hopefully this game gets a modern port like Nier did, so the world can experience the wonder of the best/worst final boss of all time. 5. Great Ace Attorney I waited a long time for this one. Hell, I waited a long time for any Ace Attorney at all after Spirit of Justice came out in 2016. So imagine my delight at getting a two-for-one deal! GAA1 is a little on the weak side, and the compilation is if anything too long by a case or two, but as a whole package this is in the running for one of the best Ace Attorney games ever. Second only to the initial trilogy, and only maybe. I hope we see more Great Ace Attorney games come out in the future, in addition to mainline Ace Attorney, as they definitely left that door open in the finale. Also, this is one of the few games where I deeply regret never seeing it on a 3DS, if only because there's a certain amount of visual spectacle at the conclusion of the last courtroom trial that seems like it was calculated to be maximally impactful in 3D. Oh well! 4. Metroid Fusion Oh poo poo I can hear audible footsteps run run run run hide hide hide 3. Super Mario Sunshine 3D Mario has only gotten Bowser's Fury in the last five years, and this drought finally went on long enough to force me to dust off the only 3D Mario game I had never played. Once again I find myself regretting a gem like this languishing in my backlog, because Sunshine had me grinning from start to finish. So many Mario games string together a series of biomes and set pieces, like the paintings of 64 or the worlds in Galaxy. Sunshine paradoxically shows more ambition with a more restrained set of environments. Even though the level select system could have allowed them to make any kind of level environment, every level is designed to expand on the idea of Delfino Plaza, creating a sense of 'place' that few Mario games have ever really tried to do. And sometimes that can feel uninspired or repetitive, but here it creates a sensation of the island continually opening up and expanding. Little things like seeing the Ferris wheel in the distance in world after world made it feel meaningful and interesting when I finally got to it mid-game, to give just one example. I can absolutely see why a Sunshine DLC for Odyssey was so hotly requested for years. An open world version of this, with the levels integrated into the island, is the natural culmination of the careful design of this game world. I will say that the linear progression of getting the first 7 stars of each world, in order, was restrictive. And I have downright angry things to say to whomever approved the blooper surfing/8 red coins challenge. But beyond a few niggling issues like those, it was truly a worthy addition to the series. 2. Return to Monkey Island Just seeing a new Monkey Island game, at all, is an astonishing feat. To get a new one after Disney gobbled up LucasArts, while they're actively pushing Pirates of the Carribbean, is amazing. I had figured it was locked in a vault forever in favor of their OTHER wisecracking pirate comedy. But to have Ron Gilbert come back 30 years later to this series, carrying forward his original vision? While balancing that vision against the changes made in other games in the intervening years, and courting fans of all the games together, and absolutely nail it every step of the way? Return to Monkey Island's success is a triumph in the face of literal decades of built-up expectations. And the game itself was great! In presentation, it had the signature voice acting and music of the franchise. It had an art style that, as it turns out, looks pretty great in motion. The characters were fun and the writing was by turns hilarious and thoughtful. Gilbert tells a story in this game of a Guybrush who is becoming obsessive to the point of destructive to everyone around him, with Elaine patiently trying to give him support and perspective when he's clearly going too far. It was an interesting direction to move the characters in, one I'll be thinking about for a while. I wouldn't mind if this was the final game, and I also wouldn't object if they made another half dozen, which is about the highest praise I can give it. I'm just happy with what we got... which is maybe what Guybrush is trying to say on that park bench. 1. Kirby and the Forgotten Land Well THAT sure turned into Resident Evil 2 when I didn't expect it! This game is just a cozy bit of perfection from start to finish. It's stylish and cute. Serene and ominous. Simple and clever. The challenges are fun, the combat upgrades are interesting, and the puzzle levels are engaging. The game is joy and coziness and engagement in perfect proportion. It runs the exact amount of time it needs to. The main campaign is just short enough to leave you wanting more, and the postgame remix is perfectly paced. DLC doesn't even feel like a missed opportunity because the game feels complete and whole out of the box in a way that is altogether too rare nowadays. A perfect game, elegantly executed, and exactly what I needed, when I needed it. Final list: 10. Dragalia Lost 9. Bayonetta 3 8. Fez 7. FF 14: A Realm Reborn 6. Drakengard 3 5. Great Ace Attorney 4. Metroid Fusion 3. Super Mario Sunshin 2. Return to Monkey Island 1. Kirby and the Forgotten Land
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Dec 23, 2022 05:32
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DC Murderverse posted:(And the video game god that granted me the ability to manifest games has already approved my request for Pikmin 4, so if anyone has any suggestions for my next wish I’m listening) Mother 3 in English officially please and thank you.
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Dec 23, 2022 06:06
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metroid fusion and mario sunshine in a top ten hell yeah 2002 represent
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Dec 23, 2022 06:38
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Waffleman_ posted:I'm probably the only person who hasn't played Elden Ring yet  ah drat
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Dec 23, 2022 06:43
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Waffleman_ posted:
my favourite thing about Elden Ring is that people thought the message that pointed you to the tutorial was a troll/trick, so a bunch of people ended up just skipping it and wondering how they were supposed to figure out the controls
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Dec 23, 2022 06:46
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morallyobjected posted:my favourite thing about Elden Ring is that people thought the message that pointed you to the tutorial was a troll/trick, so a bunch of people ended up just skipping it and wondering how they were supposed to figure out the controls Yeah no there's a literal tutorial box now that tells you to go down there lol
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Dec 23, 2022 06:47
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My video game playing was pretty scattered this year with a lot of games that I started but didn't get far enough in to adequately judge them for this list. However there were a couple that really sucked me in and were responsible for the bulk of my gameplay time. 5. Pokemon Legends Arceus. I was a bit wary of this game at first but after watching some friends and family have a great time with it, decided to try it out for myself and I don't regret it. It's very easy and satisfying to just run around collecting items and pokemon and ended up being a nice change of pace for the pokemon series. 4. Fire Emblem: The Lonely Mirror I played a couple of Fire Emblem romhacks this year and this one ended up being my favorite. I think the reason I like it so much is that it doesn't change too much about the GBA FE formula. The plot keeps things rather simple and the game is better for it. Maps are diverse and fun without being constantly overwhelming like some romhacks. It is technically unfinished but the only major thing left to add is more support conversations. I'll probably replay it again once those are added because I ended up liking the character writing quite a bit. 3. Live a Live Remake It still blows my mind that we got a full HD-2D remake of Live a Live and so much care was put into it. The voice acting is very well done and captures both the humorous and serious moments perfectly. Only thing holding it back is some of the tedium that comes with being a SNES RPG bust still very much worth a playthrough. 2. Pokemon Scarlet/Violet Pokemon Scarlet and Violet is my favorite Pokemon game to come out since probably Platinum or HG/SS. The open world was a nice change of pace but as others have mentioned it was the character work that really shined. It's a game with a lot of flaws but manages to hit highs the pokemon series hasn't hit before. I'm really excited for the inevitable DLC which will hopefully allow the same level of character work and detailing put into some of the towns but in a smaller, more focused scope. 1. Triangle Strategy Triangle Strategy is good and gets better the farther you get into it. I ended up putting in 200 hours while doing 4 routes and enjoyed every bit of it. I loved the more grounded and politic plot and how different routes revealed different character motivations. The game is not afraid to put the main characters on their back foot and keep them there and it feels triumphant when they're able to turn things around for themselves. It's true that the voice acting is not good at the start but it turns around at the end. Frederica's voice actress is especially good and turns the 1st scene of the Roland Route into an all time great JRPG scene for me. I played on hard mode all the way through and really enjoyed the challenge it presented. Terrain is profoundly important and the game will shred you for trying to go toe to toe with enemies. I won most battles by the skin of my teeth, frequently by resorting to underhanded tactics. I've always liked JRPGs that give you a diverse team and let you pick who to use from that team so the individualized characters were exactly what I was looking for. It was especially satisfying on the later playthroughs to get revenge with a fully leveled and built up team. Overall it's an incredible game and I'm glad it has found success so we can hopefully get a sequel!
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Dec 23, 2022 08:15
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Wittgen posted:New Zelda, Silksong, Baldurs Gate 3, Oxenfree 2. Lots of heavy hitters coming out next year. There's yet another Kirby game as well 
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Dec 23, 2022 08:38
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Tempura Wizard posted:I can confirm that Shiren 5 is indeed better than Elden Ring. A good list. truly a goated and swift grassed game. i stopped playing after i beat lost well and inori cave and never got around to beating the trap dungeon or the primordial chasm or destiny's descent or the other dozen post game dungeons. maybe next time i have like two weeks off from work and can section off half my brain for Shiren Strats
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Dec 23, 2022 09:39
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Feels Villeneuve posted:am i going to get super robot war pilled Classic srw gif, it's perfect:  Wittgen posted:Thousand Year Door on a 2022 list? You love to see it. Like I know why they'll never do it(cuz they suck). But they should
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Dec 23, 2022 09:46
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dude789 posted:4. Fire Emblem: The Lonely Mirror I played a couple of Fire Emblem romhacks this year and this one ended up being my favorite. I think the reason I like it so much is that it doesn't change too much about the GBA FE formula. The plot keeps things rather simple and the game is better for it. Maps are diverse and fun without being constantly overwhelming like some romhacks. It is technically unfinished but the only major thing left to add is more support conversations. I'll probably replay it again once those are added because I ended up liking the character writing quite a bit. ooh definitely gonna check this out
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Dec 23, 2022 16:06
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morallyobjected posted:my favourite thing about Elden Ring is that people thought the message that pointed you to the tutorial was a troll/trick, so a bunch of people ended up just skipping it and wondering how they were supposed to figure out the controls Seriously, what galaxy brain thought it was a good idea to put the tutorial at the bottom of a hole you have to jump down into when the Souls games are infamous for player messages trolling people to jump off cliffs?
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Dec 23, 2022 16:11
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you can very clearly see a series of safe ledges down the hole
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Dec 23, 2022 16:12
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i went down the hole. there was stuff down the hole.
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Dec 23, 2022 16:24
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will you jump? or will you die like a dog?
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Dec 23, 2022 16:41
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This isn't quite a full-fledged GOTY hierarchy but I wanted to talk about some relatively recent gaming goodness I got into. I've been on a bit of a quest to plat or nearly plat games on PS4 which do one-way save transfers to PS5, basically so I could have completed saves on both platforms without having to redo things, especially harder things. In that vein, I got really heavily into Resident Evil, a series I hadn't really experienced properly before. Specifically, I did, in order, Resident Evil 3 Remake, 2 Remake, 7 and Village. Resident Evil 3 Remake was a pretty fun action game with some horror elements of being pursued by a seemingly-unstoppable force. It was actually a good introduction since the puzzle aspects of it were pretty light and it's a lot more linear than most other titles I played. Resident Evil 2 Remake was even better, and the game mostly functions as a very large Hitman stage with lots of puzzles and things to find to gain access to different areas, with the main thing to be aware of is that due to deliberately tying in some mechanics from older games, enemies usually don't travel between rooms, and knowing that is quite important for figuring out some strategies. With four slightly remixed scenarios, various challenges to try to accomplish including difficulty modes and rankings, it's in a lot of ways kind of the perfect speedrun game. Resident Evil 7 really scratched the P.T. itch pretty well, the way the properties and areas were crafted and lit was really effective at feeling really unsettling. The game and its DLC are definitely not for people easily horrified, and I learned that for almost all RE games (and every one I played) there are two differently censored versions for the Japanese market due to stipulations about gore and things like dismemberment and decapitations. Resident Evil 7 actually underwent some pretty extensive changes for its CERO D version, with one particularly Saw-like DLC (the "21" sequence) being largely redone. In the original, one of the rigs severs your fingers for losing, but in the CERO D version, an entirely different rig is built that instead breaks your fingers by bending them completely backwards. Also the face-shredding saw is replaced with a bomb instead. It is especially hard, though, and even with cheat items there is a lot of death especially for my poor-skilled rear end. One thing to note is that the game's hardest "Madhouse" difficulty changes up quite a lot of things, it's not just bumping some sliders around. Resident Evil Village is a very weird fantasy-like scenario for the most part. Also a good time, but has developed a reputation for having some really bullshit higher difficulties because the enemies become insanely bullet spongey and the highest "Village of Shadows" difficulty, although some people have done it on a fresh new game, is largely considered to be close to impossible without at least New Game Plus to carry some upgrades and the like over. I'll give some kudos to the game for an end game reveal that explains why Ethan Winters has managed to be so relatively nonchalant about being eviscerated yet able to piece himself back together without having to question why that's a thing he can do. Endgame spoilers Ethan Winters is technically killed early in RE7, but is somewhat resuscitated by the metamycete infection of the Bakers which has put him into a weird sort of undead state where he's largely coherent and functional but has a dopey Bruce Willis in Sixth Sense way about him where he has trouble cluing into this new reality and never realizes or accepts it. So if you'd slept on the series like I had for ages, I recommend giving them a go, I found myself really hooked and enjoying multiple replays of each title. Not sure what the sale status is on these games, although RE7 without its DLC is available free for PS5 owners (might just be the PS4 version? It's not a big deal though, game still looks great and runs at 60fps).
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Dec 23, 2022 17:28
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What do you even have to lose at that point in the game? You don't have any runes or even the capability of leveling up. Just drop down that tutorial hole.
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Dec 23, 2022 17:30
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The chance to go through the much more appealing looking door at ground level
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Dec 23, 2022 17:51
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