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Rarity posted:7th Guest listed Elden Ring, the gimmick is dead lol but seriously, 7th Guest, your presentation continues to astound year after year. love to see the little gamer score head dude slowly lose they poo poo
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Dec 31, 2022 23:51
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:Number 1: Don't ask me for poo poo  I think I do agree that T7 may not be the best fighting game for beginners, but I think it's the absolute best game to introduce people to Tekken. There's a huge variety of characters that cater to all sorts of play styles (it can't be said enough just how big a deal having Akuma from Street Fighter on the base roster for the home launch was), the graphics still look great even now (seriously the game is almost eight years old), the gameplay is still incredibly tight... Tekken 7 is arguably one of the greatest fighting games ever made, and definitely one of the best made in recent memory. I know some long-term Tekken players hate projectile characters, but I hope Harada doubles down and makes Akuma and, I dunno, Sub-Zero launch characters for T8 
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Jan 1, 2023 00:01
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rd6wRnHQ_z0
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Jan 1, 2023 00:15
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first year I've gotten around to doing one of these, so here we go!! first off, some honorable mentions for games that I dipped my toes into but didn't get a chance to really dig in: Pentiment Strange Horticulture Backpack Hero Norco Monster Train Hardspace: Shipbreaker Library of Ruina Sakuna of Rice and Ruin All of these titles have enchanted me in one way or another and while I couldn't get around to them this year for whatever reason, well, that's what next year is for!   10. Glitchy, inscrutable, looks like dogshit, Chimeraland is one of the most fascinating and unique online games I have ever played. I am actually struggling to describe this game in a concise way. Within the first 20 minutes of playtime, (once you've experienced the Wheel of Creation and customized your jellyfishgirl or hulking bipedal bison), the game is urging you to build your own house out of whatever resources you've collected, resources that are most efficiently gathered with a flamethrower. The landscape is full of cool vistas and unique landmarks that you can build your home on, on every horizon lumbers a gargantuan, freakish monster, nearly all of which can be captured pokemon-style and fused together to create unique and horrifying companions, combat consists of comboing together attack strings from various weapons that include swords, hammers, flutes, fans, six-shooters and hand cannons. You get your own little farm! There are merpeople. A glitch once hurled me into space and through the loving sun. Despite the gushing I don't want to sugarcoat it, on top of the wonder and whimsy this is a grossly monetized jankfest MMO that will try to pull you into an endless grind. I cannot in good conscious call it a "good game", but I was absolutely obsessed with it for two months and had a great time making a weird horse or leveling up my home building skill and spending hours designing and re-designing my in-game home. I will never play it again but I am glad it exists.  9. Apico. Fun and chill apiary sim featuring Real Biology bee breeding and an unprecedented recent update that adds butterflies, Apico is just a heckin good time. Gather and craft a variety of bee-related products on your quest to breed and re-introduce endangered bee species to the world, through a variety of simple mini games and menus. A Lot of menus. Apico is truly the menu gamers' paradise, which may sound like a dis, but it is truly designed in a way that navigating through the many windows of hives, extractors, bags, barrels, crates, etc. feels very fluid and nice. While I don't personally have experience with Minecraft's Forestry Mod, the dev has said that it was a direct inspiration for this game so if that's your jam, then this game is for you.  8. Dave the Diver, while still Early Access, is an EXTREMELY charming and effective blend of exploration/underwater combat and restaurant management sim. Comb the ocean depths by day gathering resources and using various tools to kill or capture a variety of tasty fish, serve them up to guests and impress VIPs with unique dishes by night. It's got a large cast of fun characters with cute sprite work and fun cutscenes, the gameplay loop is seriously addicting, and heck, I like all the little customization options you get for your restaurant. The underwater combat is not the best, I found that taking on aggressive sharks was a pain in the rear end due to your limited firing angles, but it only slightly dampened the experience. Usually I am a bit of an anxious baby when it comes to video game underwater environments, but the artstyle and lovely backgrounds completely defeated my weird phobia. I'm really looking forward to future updates for this game! 7. Powerwash Simulator. What else can be said about everyone's favorite absurdly satisfying aim trainer disguised as a chore sim? Playing this both sober and high has been a powerful cure for the years anxieties for me, orange nozzle crew for life  6. Is the combat fail, yes, is the crafting system a baffling mystery, yes, is this a 20+ year old game with a remaster released in 2021, yeah baby!!!! Legend of Mana is one of those games that buried itself into my psyche as a child and never left. The music, the gorgeous art and backgrounds, the wild character designs, the story arcs, the world map and progression, desperately searching gamefaqs to figure out how to make a loving sword, I really fell in love with this game when I first played it all those years ago and everything came flooding back when I played the remaster this year. This is one of those games that, warts and all, just brings me a lot of joy.  5. Amazing Cultivation Simulator. This game had been sitting in my Steam library for a while but This Was The Year I finally got into it and man oh man. First off, the flavor. If you are familiar at all with the cultivation genre and its myriad subgenres, this game is a real delight. It has it all, from dudes flying on swords to objects gaining sentience through absorbing spiritual power to frogs cultivating their way to personhood and then being exploded by lightning for defying the will of heaven. Dozens of systems that, while not the deepest individually, combine to create those powerful colony sim moments like a disciple instantly dying because they ate an herb that had too much qi channeled into it, or having a heart attack because the door of their bedroom faces the wrong way, or being decapitated by a wayward artifact flung by an irate snakeman. The main focus of the game is turning your sect into a powerful engine that supports individual inner disciples on their path to enlightenment and immortality, and trying to get the most out of those powerful Taoists before they gently caress off to the heavenly realm. There is a main story quest but frankly I have never been interested in it and it's not necessary to engage with at all to enjoy the game. This is a game where I learn something new every time I play, and even starting over from a 100+ hour run still feels full of excitement and potential. Hard to learn and harder to master, this game has brought me hours upon hours of fun and I'm excited to see how the devs' next project turns out. 4. Final Fantasy Fourteen Endwalker. It's Final Fantasy Fourteen Endwalker!!!! One of the least played games of my top ten this particular year, FFXIV's story and music and characters nevertheless have stayed with me throughout 2022. Sappy as hell but the final zone of the Endwalker expansion inspired me to take a trip to a national park for some real life stargazing and I had a fantastic time, and I'm excited to see where Business Unit III takes us in the coming years.  3. Potion Craft: Alchemist Simulator. Oh boy, I really can't shut up about this game. A nearly pure crafting experience, Potion Craft is all about traversing a map of various attributes to imbue your potions with, utilizing herbs, fungi, minerals, and your trusty mortar and pestle. You of course will be selling your potions for money, but despite an overhaul to the haggling system this part of the game is not a huge focus and mostly exists to break things up a bit and provide you with Potion Goals, as your customers will request both simple and complicated or highly specific potions. The real meat of the game is the crafting map exploration and fine-tuning your recipes to get the most bang-for-buck out of your ingredients. I haven't delved much into all the new content since 1.0 but man, I am just really enamored with the crafting system and charming art style of this game. 2. Noita. Finally got into the wand game this year, no other game has simultaneosly made me feel so smart and so loving dumb. Puzzling out the language of spell creation on my own with minimal guide peeking was a great experience, and even the numerous bullshit deaths have been fun. Many people have praised this game way better than I can, but wow. Just a marvel of a game. The spells, the physics, the interactions, the hilarious, hilarious interactions... This is one of those games that I'll come back to again and again for many years. One day I may even beat it!  1. Dwarf Fortress. The GOAT, the OG, the ur-colony sim from which all other colony sims were wrought. What can words even say? The simulation hypothesis is real but in reverse. I first played Dwarf Fortress some 16+ years ago, for a few hours, and bounced right off. Despite the inability of my brain to really grasp playing it I could immediately tell how special it was, and the Steam release this year both surprised and delighted me. The combination of graphics and mouse support in this release provided the bridge I needed to really get Dwarf Fortress, and I've been battling aquifers and cursing weregilas ever since. The Adams brothers have poured decades of blood, sweat, time and love into this incredible game that feels like way more than a game. Few gaming moments can compete with the high of successfully digging my first well without killing everyone, or the pride I felt gazing over my massive herd of domesticated llamas. Watching my little guys get blasted on strawberry wine and getting down with a bunch of visiting bards while Ilun Kinem is blaring... sublime. Strike the earth baby!!! for Rarity's eyes only: 10. Chimeraland 9. Apico 8. Dave the Diver 7. Powerwash Simulator 6. Legend of Mana 5. Amazing Cultivation Simulator 4. Final Fantasy XIV 3. Potion Craft: Alchemist Simulator 2. Noita 1. Dwarf Fortress YES bread fucked around with this message at 00:25 on Jan 1, 2023 |
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Jan 1, 2023 00:23
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CuriousSymptoms posted:Mostly, however, I enjoyed rolling a warrior with bright green skin, naming them ‘Shrek42069’, and leaving messages around the starting area warning people to be 'wary of bog’ and noting that the donkey next to the merchant was a ‘friend ahead’. I decided to ignore all plot or game directions and instead fully immerse myself in this disrespectful roleplay, finding skulls scattered on the ground and providing football commentary as I kicked them between trees for goalposts. This was a fine and pleasing decision, as the fundamental unseriousness of this approach, contrasting so beautifully with the self-importance of the game’s premise and delivery, infuriated my long-suffering husband to the point of apoplexy, and made me laugh so much, in turn, that I nearly ruptured a stitch. Thanks, then, to FromSoft, but probably not for the reasons they intended. This loving rules 
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Jan 1, 2023 00:46
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Counting up is strange as gently caress, but I am all about new experiences. My list: Just pure gaming nirvana 1) Elden Ring Everything I wanted from a Souls game, everything I wanted from an open world game. Even let me play coop with one of my brothers and my son. From when it came out until I finally finished it 120 hours later, I played like every night. In that steam 2022 replay thing it’s all I played for February and March. It’s my favourite game of all time and I’m not sure it’s close. Second place Souls 2) Dark Souls 2 I've bounced off this one in the past, but finishing Elden Ring made me anxious to get more souls, and Elden Ring was so good that the positive vibes from finishing it carried me through the first half dozen hours of DS2 while I got my feet wet. Once I hit that point I was fully vested and dumped another 40 or 50 hours into my second souls game of the year. I know it’s got a less than great rep in terms of the Souls series, but I think it ranks up there with the other numbered Souls games. I think I came to like the slower combat here more than the DS3 combat. Marvel is my favourite IP 3) Marvel Snap Back in the day I played a fair amount of Hearthstone, and I’ve tried my hand at many other digital cards games that have come out since. Ultimately, I don’t want to spend time sitting in front a computer playing these card games, and most of them just play way too slow on mobile. Enter Marvel Snap. The games take like 30-120 seconds, there’s a great balance of randomness and strategy, the cards are fun to look at, and the f2p monetization feels pretty fair (this one is tough… I recognize that I’m in a privileged financial position where the cost isn’t a meaningful consideration for me. I’ve bought the season passes as I’ve completed them and that’s helped speed up progression for sure) This also reignited my love of the Marvel universe, so I bought Midnight Suns and I’ve restarted my reading of all Marvel comics (Rarity - are you posting about your efforts anywhere? I know there’s a handful of people who post about it in the comics forum sometimes. I’m up to the mid 70s. If you’re in the mid-late 60s you’re about the enter a really magical period for the marvel comics universe, enjoy it.) Speedrunning is for everyone 4) Neon White The story doesn’t bother me, and towards the end it seems to be getting pretty interesting. But despite having 25 hours in the game I haven’t finished it, because most of that time was spent grinding the first two mission sets over and over again to get those developer times and, more importantly, to beat my son’s time. I was successful at the former but ultimately got smoked at the latter. Every time I beat him by a couple milliseconds he would come back to take my time down and push me further. I’m not a speedrunner by any means but this game just makes speedrunning so accessible that it’s an unqualified recommendation from me. https://youtu.be/xi8ZT2h8z9k Gaming with my wife 5) The Case of the Golden Idol My wife isn’t a gamer, but she loves spending time with me (and vise versa), so we do end up spending time playing video games together. What works best for us is shorter narrative experiences; the other game this year that we both really liked was Firewatch. She also really likes mysteries. A couple years ago we played Return of the Obra Dinn and absolutely loved it, and as other have mentioned this is really about as close as anyone has gotten to that feeling. It’s a lot short and a lot easier, but I would play so many games using this system. please please please let this be the start of something, not another interesting game that doesn’t get followed up on Gaming with my son 6) Victor Vran Sometimes I want to play something with my son that doesn’t have us sitting beside each other using controllers. He has a pretty good PC, might as well use it! This year we played a bunch of games together - highlights included Valheim, V Rising, Core Keeper, Necesse, and our coop mainstay Terraria. But the best of the bunch was an older ARPG called Victor Vran, a fairly compact hack and slash where you build up your weapons rather than your character. It’s got a nicely narrated story, interesting loot and combat systems, and a satisfying gameplay loop. I think we still have to beat the final boss and obviously there’s lots of cleanup to do, so we may be coming back to this in 2023. Still gaming with my son 7) TowerFall Ascension Other times I like sitting next to him, and including my wife or other family members. We played a lot of local coop this year but TowerFall is the most consistently fun. Short games, great feeling movement, just enough randomness with power ups that everyone has a chance to win. Other contenders below. These are all great local coop games for 2+ people. Broforce - grahhhhhh bang bang bang. Boomerang Fu - little food icons killing each other with boomerangs. I will post about this in the hidden gems thread. Aeolis Tournament - furries using vacuums to play minigames. I think I mentioned or even ranked this one last year and we still play it a lot. I will post about this in the hidden gems thread. Duck Game - shoot shoot quack quack Starwhal - this was made by the son of one of my mom’s friends apparently. It’s narwhals stabbing each in the belly. Jamestown+ - my favorite shooter also has coop and the coop is really good Heroes of Might and Magic 2 - I was on a DOS kick this year and we played a couple games of this local hot seat. Game holds up. I got a steam deck 8) Monster Train 9) Mordor Shadow of War There are so many games that could go here, but I picked two of my favourites from this year’s Steam Deck gaming. Monster Train is made for this thing. It’s a seriously addictive roguelike deck builder in that Slay the Spire style. I originally bounced off it because I thought it looked like a StS/Hearthstone ripoff, and maybe it is, but it’s a really good version of that. Shadow of War is, to steal a phrase from the steam thread, the best orc dating game mixed with an Arkham game. Plays like a dream on the Deck. Some other games I played a lot of on the Deck and considered putting here: Stardew Valley - I almost finished the first year, which is the longest I’ve stuck with a single run. The Void Rains Upon Her Heart - this kickstarted a run of playing shooters for me. Wintermoor Tactics Club - just delightful little tactics / narrative adventure game based around a weird private school dnd club. I need to go back and finish this one though. Kingdom of Amalur: Reckoning - my mindless action game for about a month. It has shockingly high production values considering how shallow it is. the year of vampire survivors 10) Spellbook Demonslayers This was my favourite of the various vampire survivor clones. It’s very similar to VS, but faster. I also played: Brotato Vampire Survivors Boneraiser Minions Nomad Survival 20 Minutes Till Dawn They’re legit all good and could fit in this slot. It’s really cool when we get to see new game genres emerge, like when tower defense became a thing. Other I also played other stuff this year. Like 150+ games according to Steam and looking through gamepass. I didn’t finish much, and some of these don’t make the list this year but will in years hence. The best of it was: Sekiro - I did this after ER > DS2 and it was too much. I need to come back to this. Tomb Raider: Legend - I’m almmmmost done. It’s not perfect but it’s just a good fun Lara Croft adventure game. Hob - a beautiful world to explore Epistory Typing Chronicles - I like typing games, still need to finish it so I can go play the sequel Pawnbarian - a little puzzler roguelike. Very compelling gameplay loop. I will post about this in the hidden gems thread. Luna’s Fishing Garden - do you like the Stardew Valley fishing game? This is a whole game of that. Very cute. I will post about this in the hidden gems thread. Orb of Creation - my and my son’s idle game. It would make his list this year for sure. I will post about this in the hidden gems thread. XCOM: Enemy Unknown - Long War Rebalance - I was addicted to this at the end of last year but fell off. I need to come back to it. It’s the best version of XCom for me. Might and Magic World of Xeen (4&5) - oh man I love this game so much. About 60% done, it may make next year’s list if I come back to it b Exile 3 - see MM45. The exile games were my favourite RPG as a kid, and I think they still hold up. And finally, a correctly ordered list for Rarity. 10. Spellbook Demonslayers 9. Morder: Shadow of War 8. Monster Train 7. TowerFall Ascension 6. Victor Vran 5. The Case of the Golden Idol 4. Neon White 3. Marvel Snap 2. Dark Souls 2 1. Elden Ring
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Jan 1, 2023 01:10
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T'was my new year's resolution to finish games. I've made a habit the last few years of playing a little bit of a lot of things, but not getting to the end of what I played, and wanted to change that. So I made a list of just shy of thirty games to get through, with a few slots open for recommended games that I heard about over the course of the year. I didn't want to or try to 100% any individual game. The goal was to get through the list, which I finally managed as of last night, finishing off Sekiro. 2022 complete. I'll try to put these in an order that makes sense to me. 12: Batman, Arkham Knight I played a lot of open world games this year, and this one kicked them off right. Out of all the open worlds, Knight felt the best to just get around and explore in. I loved the tank, the gliding, the grappling, just flitting around Gotham on a whim. What a gorgeous representation of the city, and to watch it change and burn was incredible. 11: Horizon Forbidden West I'll admit it, I really like Aloy as a video game protagonist, and I really liked bopping around the forbidden west interacting with all of the people in that world, as needy and obnoxious as some of them could be, the new facial animation tech just blew me away. There was a bit too much for my tastes of new gear, too many bows, the skill tree was a bit unwieldy, but in terms of what I enjoyed spending time doing this year, ripping chunks off of robot dinosaurs and using those chunks to blow up other dinosaurs was right near the top. Also, I love me a corny sci-fi plot and this one sold it. Might not have been as good as the last game's, but I can't wait for more. 10: Return of the Obra Dinn Lovely different style, a really compelling mystery, had me keeping a journal on the side in parts. The sound work was outstanding. After seeing it on so many lists in the past couple years, I had to give it a shot. 09: God of War (2018) I still haven't got around to Ragnarok yet, but I did get to finally pick up the last entry to the series and had a marvelous time with it. I think this is another one where it was the sound that sold me the most, the heavy, weighty, thunderous sound of it. Throwing that axe, hearing it hit, and hearing it clap back into Kratos's palm was so satisfying every single time. The story brought me to tears in places, and the character tension as Atreus grew self aware was incredible. Looking forward to the new one. 08: Persona 5 Royal The game that I spent the most time on this year (barely) according to Sony's wrap up. I bounced pretty hard off this game when the original came out, but this time around it stuck, and hard. I've not played much of the SMT games in the past, and finally getting the hang of the demon systems and the different approaches to combat, the follow up mechanics and all felt really great. I enjoyed the slice-of-life stuff in the story and can't think of a character that really fell flat for me. Nothing more really needs to be said about the soundtrack, but goddamn, that bop. 07: Resident Evil 2 REmake I had to put this game on my list to play this year because as I was sizing up things I came to the realization that I had started a few but never finished a single RE game in my life and that needed to be rectified. I'm not really a horror guy, but I do love schlock, and finally seeing one of these stories through with all of its just wild out there scenes was wonderful. 06: Sekiro There's going to be some recency bias involved with my relationship with Sekiro, or maybe more accurately Stockholm syndrome, and it may move around on this list a fair bit by the time I finish writing. Being as invested as I was in getting through this resolution this year and stalling out on making progress on Sekiro so many times, it kept falling later and later on my list until I had nothing left to but either fail the year or just knuckle down and learn to play it in the final month. I've only played a few other From games and honestly had convinced myself that age had left me physically unable to keep up with what this game was asking of me. I can see and appreciate the craftsmanship, both precise and sloppy that make this such a good game, why so many of you love it so much, but I just didn't think that I could. But I did, and when I was finally able to fully exhale, the breath just kept coming. I feel exhausted by this game, completely, and it's so recent that I don't think I've even allowed myself the sense of achievement to set in yet. 05: Mass Effect 2 Played the first one last year, will play the third one next year. It's exactly the high budget interactive television show I wanted it to be. Seeing the mission structural influence it has had on so many games since, it was great to get to the OG. 04: The Last of Us 2 I played the first TLoU at launch when the sadistic bastards at Naughty Dog put it out on father's day weekend. My wife and kids were out of town, and I spent the whole weekend just driving through that game end to end. I was a wreck by the end of it, and looking back at that took a hard pass on playing the sequel in 2020. There was just too much bad in the world that year that I didn't want to do that to myself. But things are much better now and I figured with the wife and kids gone again it was time for another delve back into that world. A much longer, harder delve. God what a dark world they've made here. Somehow I had managed to make it until November of this year without spoiling very much and that story was brilliant to me, and in such a gorgeous package. Growing up there, seeing Seattle like that was something else. 03: Elden Ring When I said I hadn't played a lot of From games, I mean to say that I have played a lot of this From game and not a lot of others. Everybody knows why this is so high on so many lists. Of all of the games on this list, Elden Ring is the game that I am most looking forward to playing more of next year, with so much more yet to do. 02: Red Dead Redemption 2 Like I said, a lot of big open world games this year, but out of all of them RDR2 had the realest feeling world that I wanted to be in, the best characters that I wanted to interact with, and the protagonist I most wanted to control. It was such a departure in movement and control (frustratingly, initially) but once I really felt the pace of Arthur getting around that place, it sucked me in so much deeper than I expected. It kills me that they haven't updated this game for the new consoles, but it's so gorgeous nonetheless. 01: Vanquish This loving video-game-assed video game right here. When there were so many giant, plodding, gripping, enormous emotional worlds on my list this year, Vanquish came along and said "but what if you were doing those in an arcade, instead?" I wanted to go fast. I wanted an over-the-top giant schlock story that just threw itself at me relentlessly and made me defend myself with laser cannons. Vanquish just kept going bigger and going bigger and going bigger. I absolutely adore the weapons and upgrade system in this game, the enemy design, the whole station design. In terms of which game left me just feeling like an absolute badass at the end, grinning ear to ear it had to be Vanquish. For ease of tabulation 10: Return of the Obra Dinn 09: God of War (2018) 08: Persona 5 Royal 07: Resident Evil 2 REmake 06: Sekiro 05: Mass Effect 2 04: The Last of Us 2 03: Elden Ring 02: Red Dead Redemption 2 01: Vanquish
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Jan 1, 2023 01:10
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I think elden ring might have a shot at winning this year
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Jan 1, 2023 01:17
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fridge corn posted:I think elden ring might have a shot at winning this year Hmm perhaps
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Jan 1, 2023 01:17
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The list of games no one asked for! My criteria was mostly "What are the games I kept racing back home to play", and boy howdy there were a few. 5. Persona 5 Strikers: Got it with PS+ way back in January and it made me want more games where I can just hang with the crew. Persona 5 still remains GOAT and singlehandedly got me interested in scratching a JRPG itch that I haven't been able to satiate since, and P5S reopened that wound. Waiting patiently for P4G to come out on PSN so I can play it. Also haven't played P5R but... not sure if I can sit through 120 hour JRPG at this point. 4. Phantom Doctrine: I don't know how popular or well known this game is, but it scratched all the right itches for me for a tactical turn based game. Set in the Cold War, you're playing as one of three factions as you try to uncover the other sides' agents/plans. An XCOM-like that's more simple in gameplay in many respects, but I really did enjoy how the story was revealed. You go through each mission to collect bits of evidence, and afterward you piece together how they all connect to reveal "what happened". Yeah, I can see why people found it tedious, but I thought it was a neat mechanic. And I really was itching for a turn based tactical game and this was the one that scratched the itch. 3. Returnal: Truly addicting gameplay, next level graphics and sound design (+ controller haptics). I also REALLY liked the slow reveal of the story, and it had literally some of the creepiest moments in gaming I've experienced. Though I didn't like the ending reveal for the story, I still really enjoyed it overall! 2. Dead by Daylight : The game I spent the most hours on this year. I've never been huge into horror as a genre before, but playing this with friends and being chased by all the iconic slashers really made me dig into the classics of the genre to learn more. This was my live service game of the year and I will probably keep continuing to play it until my hands fall off (or idk they completely ruin the game). 1. Elden Ring : Don't think I can add any more that hasn't already been said. That feeling on release day/week when everyone was exploring the world, trying to figure out its secrets and little eccentricities... whether it's stumbling upon a shaft elevator and taking it down only to see a whole gigantic twilight underground waiting to be explored, or hearing some loud scratching sound somewhere and angling my camera only to find a huge bear scratching a tree for no other reason than because that's just what it was doing. I'm sure all of us have stories like this who have played the game and it's truly a magical experience the first time through. And the second. And third. Cannot wait for the DLC to dive back in!
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Jan 1, 2023 01:26
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fridge corn posted:I think elden ring might have a shot at winning this year  it's gonna hit the buffer overflow and end up as the worst game in history
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Jan 1, 2023 01:34
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Jordan7hm posted:Second place Souls ds2 has l ong been unfairly maligned, but its very good, and it gets the demon/ds1 concept of what a souls game is better than ds3 does imo. glad to see people enjoying it now 
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Jan 1, 2023 01:51
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Just under the wire! I planned to spend the last week catching up on games but I mostly slept in instead; no regrets. 10. Tinykin. It's not the Pikmin it looks like from the outside--your buddies are basically disposable powerups, nobody's fighting--but it's a cute little 3d platformer in its own right. Being tiny in a giant world is always a delight, and it is here too: bop around in a giant house, hang out with bugs, collect things. It's mild and relaxing. 9. Vampire Survivors. It's like an XBLA game, in the best way. Super janky presentation, and it's only got one idea, but it's a good idea: just keep leveling up until you're firing infinite bullets at infinite skeletons. Castlevania's armory gets the job done in Castlevania but really shines in an arena. 8. Wordle. There's not much to it, it was the right game at the right time. It's nice to be playing the same game as everyone else! But also nice to have a daily word game that you can do in five minutes and be done with. 7. Soul Hackers 2. SMT on a budget--it's a small game without a lot of extra frills, and you spend more time in fewer dungeons--but sometimes all you want is a little more SMT. Collect monsters, fuse 'em to fill out your pokedex, level up to collect bigger monsters. It's got a lot of the UI refinements from SMT V, so friction comes from the game and not the interface. It's also swapped out Press Turn for a slightly more forgiving but less interesting combat gimmick. I don't miss instant random death, entirely, but it would be nice to be on my toes a little more. Its human characters are actually characters, I enjoyed hanging out with them for the duration. 6. Citizen Sleeper. I like seeing tabletop concepts spill in to video games, though in this case I think it was a neat experiment that didn't quite pan out. Once the game part fades out the atmosphere takes over, and that's plenty; the station dwellers and their stories are great, being a ghost robot on the run is great, and that's enough to get you through to the end. 5. Nobody Saves the World. It's a shapeshifting ARPG about leveling up and unlocking powers so you can make builds to do challenges so you can level up more. Is it a little zany? Yeah. But it's perfect for this, where you can put a rat's poison fangs on your mermaid, or combine the stage magician's hat rabbits with the zombie's contagious bite for the ultimate minion build. 4. Pokemon Legends: Arceus. You get to run around in a big world full of pokemon! 3. Strange Horticulture. You've got a plants manual, a drawer full of mysterious letters, and a steady stream of plants that need identifying. It's so nicely tactile! Everything's a thing to move around with your mouse, and it stays where you put it. 2. Signalis. What if Silent Hill... but you're an android??? Extremely stylish, played absolutely straight: there's a pouring-liquids-between-beakers puzzle, a 'combine photograph and photo developer' puzzle. 1. Elden Ring. It's good! Idk what it is, maybe the world map? But something clicked and I went from "ugh, Dark Souls bullshit" to "oh, D&D bullshit!"
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Jan 1, 2023 01:58
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Meant to post this a few days ago but got snowed in with no power. Anyway here's my list. 10) Shadowrun Returns Trilogy - I'm not a fan of x-com style games. Too stressful for me. But I do love the Shadowrun setting. Cyberpunk with fantasy races is still a unique concept after all these years. The first game in this pack is too bland and buggy to recommend, but the other two are great. Many say Dragonfall is the best of the bunch, but I prefer Hong Kong for its cast of characters and unique mythology. 9) New Tales from the Borderlands - I'm a bit mixed on this one. The original was lightning in a bottle so when this was announced I had low expectations, and those concerns turned out to be not unfounded. The game is shorter, the plot is more meandering and I found fewer of the jokes funny, the game often resorting to the cringey humor of the mainline series. But there's still stuff to like. I found the player character Octavio an endearing dunbass, and his affably polite assassin robot best friend steals any scene he's in. It's also nice to see Telltale trying to actually make player choices matter later in the game. Looking forward to how they iterate on this in Wolf Among Us 2. 8) Triangle Strategy - A decent attempt at a successor to Tactics Ogre and FFT. The worldbuilding is really well thought out, especially when answering the question of how and why a country was able to gain political power from a monopoly on salt trade. 7) Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes - an AU spinoff of the 2019 game, this game serves as a great supplement to Three Houses. The writers took the opportunity to address the writing issues from it, allowing characters' flaws to shine, fleshing out the various families, and writing supports for character pairs that really should have had them in the first place. Combat is your standard musou fair, so you can also enjoy the usual hacking and slashing. 6) Pokémon Legends Arceus - while overshadowed by another Pokémon game this year, this was an ambitious stepping stone along the way. It's got a refreshing take on the usual Pokémon battle system, focusing on speed, reflexes, and even stealth. Setting the game in the past is also a great way to flesh out how the Pokémon world came to be, and it's always neat to run into the ancestor of a Gen 4 character. 5) Blue Reflection Second Light - This game got a ton of push from last year's thread so I knew I had to at least try it out. Glad I did, because it's really interesting. The highlight is definitely going on dates with your many party members. The posters in the last thread were right - this is one of the gayest games I've seen. There's also a twist to Final Fantasy's ATB system, where the bars fill up faster the more times you attack, in turn unlocking stronger moves for you to use. 4) God of War Ragnarok - in 2018 this game's predecessor was my personal goty (despite playing Monster Hunter World more). This game is quite simply more of that game; more worlds, more characters, more enemies. A LOT more, to an impressive extent. The standout of this game is definitely Odin, who is without a doubt this year's best villain. Despite being a frail old man, he gives off a commanding presence thanks to an amazing performance by Richard Schiff. Unfortunately it's sitting at 4 because it never quite came together at the end, ending abruptly and with no catharsis. 3) Pokémon Scarlet/Violet - People were understandably down on Sword and Shield and were worried this game would follow in its footsteps, but I wasn't worried. The previous 2 Gens that debuted on a new console, Diamond/Pearl and X/Y, were also underwhelming, while their sequels, Black/White and Sun/Moon were phenomenal. This time was no different. This game nails two of the most important aspects of a Pokémon game: a cool roster of creatures and a compelling cast of characters. My favorite part of the game is the fact there are actually three separate storyline with their own level curves. I used this as an opportunity to make a unique team for each individual storyline, essentially giving myself a team of 18 Pokémon instead of the usual six. Also commendable is the near-pefect online coop. Players can join and leave at any time (take notes, Monster Hunter) and even on my crap internet had almost no lag (again, Monster Hunter). 2) The House in Fata Morgana - This is quite simply one of the best stories I've experienced in any medium. It's the story of an abandoned mansion that locals claim is under a witch's curse. You play a mysterious individual with amnesia, guided by a strange maid through various time periods chronicling the stories of the mansion's previous inhabitants in order to solve what caused the house's dereliction and the origin of the rumors about a witch. It's very Eternal Darkness. Like most visual novels, its atmosphere is bolstered by a great soundtrack and good use of sound effects. It also boasts a wonderfully captivating cast I found myself rooting to pull through despite the inevitable outcome. I would honestly recommend this game to anyone looking for a good story. It does bring up some pretty serious subject matter, though it never feels gross or exploitative. Just a fair warning. 1) Xenoblade Chronicles 3 - The proclaimed ending to the current Xenoblade storyline, this really does feel like a send-off to the games before it. The world of Aionios feels like a melding of Xenoblades 1 and 2; not just in setting and characters but also in design philosophies. It still manages to do its own thing though. For instance, where the sidequests of 1 focused on improving relationships within individual communities, and 2's focused on the individual, 3's are about foging bonds between the communities themselves. Whether it's providing supplies, helping foster independence in recently liberated colonies, or brokering peace, all seem to work toward uniting a world currently torn apart by war. It's ambitious, even if it comes at the cost of individual npcs not being as developed as the previous 2 games. The game keeps it cards hidden, providing just enough mystery to make the player want to keep playing to find out what made the world this way, who the mysterious villains are, and why the hell everything is so familiar and why there are pieces of the worlds of 1 and 2 scattered everywhere. What bumped this up to #1 on my list is the fact that, unlike GoW Ragnarok, this game absolutely nails its ending. From the start of the final boss to its bittersweet conclusion, I was completely glue to the screen. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 was the MVP. You were all thinking it! And since everyone is doing abridged lists: 10) Shadowrun Returns Trilogy 9) New Tales from the Borderlands 8) Triangle Strategy 7) Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes 6) Pokémon Legends Arceus 5) Blue Reflection: Second Light 4) God of War Ragnarok 3) Pokémon Scarlet/Violet 2) The House in Fata Morgana 1) Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Kay Kessler fucked around with this message at 08:34 on Jan 1, 2023 |
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Jan 1, 2023 02:01
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Oh god oh gently caress I forgor! But PST not GMT :gremlin: I am safe. 10: Rogue: Genesia: Vampire Survivors may have been the key to popularizing the genre but R:G is the best refinement of it I've come across yet. 9: Rollerdrome: What if Tony Hawk's but with shooting a bunch of people in a 70s-retreaux style? What if the music loving slapped? What then? 8: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: I shamefully never got out of Peragus before I replayed the series this year and wow what a banger. Loved every moment of this. One of the best works in the SW setting. 7: Project Zomboid: Thanks in part to official MP, PZ has been breaking out a bit this year, and it's well deserved because it's the best zombie game ever made at this point. No immunity, no cure, no help, just survive until you don't. 6: Terra Invicta: A game carefully designed to appeal directly to me, personally. Lost most of November playing this. Ayys gtfo. 5: Stray: Just an extremely sweet, chill game about being a cat going around a cyberpunk city helping robot friends out. 4: Rimworld: Biotech: A true banger of a game got way, way better with the best expansion yet, one which adds unbelievable amounts of options to how your mans function and interact and do basically everything. You want orks? Astartes? Catgirls? Vampires? Biotech makes it all possible with a vastly better solution than modding races in individually. 3: Yakuza: Like A Dragon: Spent all of January playing this baby because god drat. Personally, my fave Yakuza game, Ichiban rules, turning it into a JRPG was the work of a mad genius, and the music contains some loving bangers. 2: Elden Ring: I mean. It's Elden Ring. What do you want me to say that hasn't been said better a hundred times before? I don't generally vibe with Souls games too much (I'd only completed DS1 before this) but this is such a towering achievement that it sucked me in for weeks and I loved every moment. 1: Pentiment: Funny thing, when I first heard about Pentiment I was like "Okay sounds good but not for me." then it came out and on a whim I gave it a shot and I immediately fell absolutely in love. I would never have expected it to be my GOTY but I care so much about the people of this little community and I have maybe never seen a game with such loving dedication, care, and attention to detail. This is the gold standard by which the term "Labor of love" must be defined. Ms Adequate fucked around with this message at 02:35 on Jan 1, 2023 |
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Jan 1, 2023 02:16
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10. symphony of war - i like game 9. Tiny Rogues - i like game 8. NORCO - i like game 7. Triangle Strategy - i like game 6. Dwarf Fortress - i like game 5. Against the Storm - i love game 4. A-Train Tourism - i love game! 3. Pentiment - i love game!! 2. The Void Rains Upon Her Heart - i love game!!!! 1. Romancing SaGa Minstrel Song - i love game!!!! Snooze Cruise fucked around with this message at 07:40 on Jan 1, 2023 |
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Jan 1, 2023 02:21
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u will have to write "i like this game" after each one of those otherwise your list doesnt count
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Jan 1, 2023 02:34
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I want to know why they put minstrel song as their number 1 cuz I had a blast with saga frontier remastered this year (my number 4) and itching for more saga. Talk to me
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Jan 1, 2023 02:39
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Fix posted:
hahaha hell yes  i'm really glad you made a list!
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Jan 1, 2023 02:50
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Kay Kessler posted:Pokemon Scarlet/Violet I dunno if you'll see this but maybe somebody else will see it and straighten me out. How did you get it so players could join at any time in co-op? In my experience, players could leave whenever they wanted, but could only join when we first created the group at the Union Circle. I would love to be wrong!
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Jan 1, 2023 02:57
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Sorry my list is taking so long, I’m trying to figure out what kind of last minute upset I can arrange this year heh heh
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Jan 1, 2023 03:01
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Spoilering my gifs for people who dont want to see gameplay and/or kill their phones   A co-op game with two wildly different roles: the hacker stays back at base to search through databases, read manuals and otherwise give instructions. The spy infiltrates the target site and interacts with on-site equipment. The tasks themselves are usually simple, but they require a significant amount of communication between you and your buddy. It's more of a width than a depth kind of game, so it exposes you to lots of different minigames but doesn't expect you to master anything, which means you can play it with someone who is bad at videogames! Also does a good job of mixing it up so that everyone gets to do some hacking and some moving around. You will likely not hate your friend after playing this, or a little, at most.    Climb a muddy hill. Get stuck. Go back to your garage and get a different truck. Get that one stuck too. Spam the winch. Tear down a tree. Despair. God can't help you out here, city boy. What's it gonna be? Respawn? You're in too deep. Get a third truck. And a fourth. Get trucks until their stalled-out husks dot the landscape like ants at a picnic. I only got this game because of last year's thread. Truly the ripples of time are ever complex and mysterious. Why do I like this pain? I don't know. But I do. Thanks guys.    Added a lot of features to the franchise that I don't remember anyone asking for. I'll be honest, yeah it's cool that Bayonetta has pokemon now, but I mostly ignore them. I ignore the platforming puzzles too. At least the core gameplay is still good old Bayonetta. In their self-imposed quest to come up with a bunch of new weapons for every game, Platinum have added some truly bizarre gear to this game, and I will cherish forever the memories of beating the snot out of a multiversal god entity with yo-yos and a tower. I ignored the plot too, by the way.     Maybe it is ethically questionable to breed a dog without legs and with an unfathomably tiny head. But in my defense, I have also bred dogs with many legs and giant heads, and they didn't seem to do much better. And in fact, if it is struggle that makes us stronger, then aren't these the healthiest drat dogs in the known universe? Look how they're dancing! I pet them every day. They're happy. That one is smiling, and he gets only poop to eat. For scientific purposes. Please dont tell PETA where I live.     This is so smooth and focused. There's all these tiny elements that intermingle to create a super-streamlined take on the survival horror genre: you manage your ammo and inventory space, you explore zombie-riddled areas for scarce loot, you find hints and solve puzzles, it's all kind of there and just enough to not overshadow any of the other elements. The game is constantly throwing these tiny choices at you that end up accumulating and somehow paying off way later. Shoot every zombie? May run out of ammo at the next boss fight. Run past them? Might just get grabbed and lose a big chunk of health. Hope you packed some herbs! This regular decision-making somehow really helped anchor me in the roles of Chris and Claire, which in turn immersed me in the oppressive atmosphere, but also made me really scared to have "it given to me" by X, whatever the gently caress that means.    The entire game is based around the concept of making you feel extremely slick as you shoot your way through hordes of enemies and goddamn does it do the job. There's wallrunning, and sliding, and practically infinite bullet time and you can vault into a wall and blast a hole through it and then your trajectory takes you through the hole and you pump everyone on the other side full of shotgun rounds before they realize what even happened. You can also rotate your camera in any direction without limits, meaning there is nothing to stop you from vaulting above an enemy, doing a summersault and shooting them in the back of the head while you're upside down midair. gently caress I'm cool. In this game I am. I am so cool.     What a unique experience. It's a puzzle game where you're an omnipresent observer with full access to every element a given stage. Your task is to look at everything and then figure out what's going on. Where is everyone? Who is everyone? Why is that one dead, and who is it? The game takes you through a couple such stages to tell an intricate overarching mystery story about an ancient artifact in 18th century England and how various influential factions collide in an effort to exploit its power. It doesn't make any sense at first, but the more scenes you solve, the more the picture comes together until it finally clicks into please and it's really just that drat smart or maybe I'm just that stupid, either way... pretty cool!    The US anthem but with TOOTS and FARTS.      The core idea is so stupid simple I can't believe we got this game only now. You basically run through a perpetual Skinner's Box for 30 minutes hoping to get the choice of upgrades you need to tip your character in the right direction off the razor's edge between being slapped around like a soggy cucumber and becoming a literal murder kill death machine that instantly evaporates anything that has the AUDICITY to enter its screen domain. The game has been updated all year, the new features blend together seamlessly, adding layers upon layers to a system that allows for ridiculous synergies. The game goes so hard they had to program in an option to turn off the damage counters so that graphics cards would have an easier time rendering the mayhem without eating themselves. Dirt cheap to boot.       There are too many ulcerated tree spirits. They shouldn't have put Astel in twice. The duo boss fights are bullshit. Enemies have too much poise. You have too little poise. Strength weapons are too slow. Dex weapons are too weak. Bleed is OP. Moonveil is OP. Rivers of Blood is OP and for noobs. Incantations are bad. Spells are bad. The enemies are copypasted from Sekiro. Melania is OP. Meele sucks. Archery sucks. The hitboxes make NO SENSE. I can't see the dragons when I fight them, and they suck. gently caress Myazaki. This game is bullshit. gently caress me. gently caress this game. gently caress you. YOU DIED. I point down.       FOR RARITY: 10. Operation Tango 9. SnowRunner 8. Bayonetta 3 7. Wobbledogs 6. Resident Evil 2 Remake 5. Severed Steel 4. The Case of the Golden Idol 3. Trombone Champ 2. Vampire Survivors 1. Elden Ring
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Jan 1, 2023 03:01
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imhotep posted:Sorry my list is taking so long, I’m trying to figure out what kind of last minute upset I can arrange this year heh heh I swear to God if Disco Elysium somehow ends up beating Pentiment I'll.... well I'll cry okay. Don't make me cry 
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Jan 1, 2023 03:10
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Entenzahn posted:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3l15mhxBwL8 Glad to see SnowRunner has had such a long tail.
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Jan 1, 2023 03:12
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I thought Elden Ring being a foregone conclusion would make the voting less interesting to me but I truly have no idea what’s gonna hit 2-10. I hope my games do, even Final Fantasy VI
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Jan 1, 2023 03:13
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Final fantasies 1-6 gonna be big contenders in 2023 when they hit consoles
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Jan 1, 2023 03:14
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This is the first time I have ever done one of these lists, so here goes. I haven't written such a long article of  since college (and I sucked at writing in college so lets say high school instead), just random shitposts and musings on an undead comedy forum, but I have things I want to  , so here goes.Honorable Mentions ------------------------- Final Fantasy V Pixel  For this years FF5 Four Job Fiesta I decided to try out the pixel version to see how it compares with the GBA version. And it compares very well! Despite Squeenix's cryptobaiting upper management the rest of the studio seems to be in quite a creative renaissance and I'm glad that they are putting that love and care into remastering their classics. It also has an emulator fast foward option, so that alone makes it listworthy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tLyhoor_74 The Roguelikes (Hades, Monster Train, Slay the Spire)  I've been falling asleep to Baalorlord these past few months running streaks in Slay the Spire. The runs never get old for me as he is a master at taking the various resources he has been given (in cards, potions, relics...) and making something with them good enough to find his way through Spire's increasingly brutal encounters. Being given such random (and sometimes incredibly crappy) tools and being able to beat all the challenges ahead of you with them is the mark of a great roguelike and what makes this game so replayable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbY4jlgHBdw  ...or you can take those tools and use them to break the game over your knee until the gods beg. Which is exactly what you do in Monster Train, which I ended up revisiting from when I picked it up in 2020. The gameplay is ultimately looser than Spire's, but that's not a bad thing -- I tend to enjoy games more that try to make everything broken than games that nerf everything to the ground. So if you want to make repeatable holdover damage spells that blow up even the tankiest trash mobs they are cast on, or stack 6 big demon dudes behind a living tree that all multistrike, or just summon Little Fade into the waves over and over until she can nearly one shot bosses by herself, the sky is the limit. Also, for something that looks like a dumb mobile game in the previews, the art style and aesthetic of the cards and units are absolutely bitchin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlQ4U2_RaBQ  Also I played through Hades again. I won't talk more about it, because its Hades and everyone has said what needed to be said. It was the goat a few years back and its still a goat now. I still feel like the main plot ends a bit anti-climatically, though. Can't wait for Lades! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oll7pr4JVTQ The Starcraft II Campaigns  Yes this is what Kerrigan ends up as,  On a whim I decided to play through and finish these campaigns that I bought a long time ago, in the shadow of me revisiting Starcraft I a few years back. My verdict? Wings of Liberty was great and I wish we just got three games of bumming around the sector with Jim Raynor fighting fascists. But instead we then we got Heart of the Swarm, in which Jim is MIA for most of the story while Kerrigan bums around the sector committing war crimes, but that's ok because she has become Super Saiyan Waifu 2 (SSW2?). Then we got Legacy of the Void, which was actually pretty solid with Artanis bumming around the sector fighting a cardboard JRPG villain with John de Lancie in tow, but really suffered from them running out of ideas for campaign scenerios so they just had you start taking 5 objective points in vaguely similar locations for every map. And then we got the epilogue, in which Kerrigan goes even further beyond and becomes SSW3 and shoots a laser beam at the JRPG villain in space hell and then goes back to her home planet or something. It was bad. I liked the campaign mechanics (leading to more busted-but-fun units and abilites to play with) and bumming around the ship in parts 1 and 3, with some fun characters that deserved some better writing and a story to hang things on. (HotS also had pretty bad ship characters. Why is Kerrigan's main lieutenant Zerg robot Aegis from Persona 3?) There is also Nova Covert Ops, which I guess is the ghost campaign? I didn't play it, because gently caress giving Blizzard money in 2022. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNbTg0Li36k XCOM 2  I've had a tradition to play through XCOM 2 once a year for a few years now. For this campaign I went Ironman Legendary, with perma-Dark Events on, but with the mod that starts mission turn timers when your squad gets revealed instead of when you rope in. With that ruleset and the  Tactical Legacy Soundtrack, I brought war upon the ayys. And I would have done it deathless too, if the berserker queen didn't come out of nowhere and wipe out 4 of my guys on that one mission. gently caress that DLC.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbftQpzIyUk Metroid Dread  Yes, Metroid Dread isn't even making the top 10. Its not that its bad, not at all -- the controls are tight (even if there doesn't seem to be enough buttons on the Switch pads to really accomodate all of Samus's options), the hard Souls style bosses rule, Samus gets to be a badass motherfucker and take an epic poo poo on Other M, the stealth sections were tolerable and terse... but it was missing the one thing that really makes Metroid pop, which is the immersive world design. All the areas in the game kind of just blend together (sci-fi installation flavored with your standard Mario world themes in the background) and they just didn't really do anything for me. The earlier metroids (especially Super and Prime) nailed the atmosphere so well that it really does feel like a backstep. But hey, Metroid is finally back, so I'm sure we will get there again eventually. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mv3IAbLJtUc Baba Is You  Another excellent game that probably should be in the top 10 but isn't because of my own hangups. The hangup in question? This game revealed how dumb I am. Its an exquisite work of art, such a cool puzzle concept, with real cool tricky levels, but I just can't seem to think outside the box enough to figure out the answers. It also didn't help that I'm the type that gets frustrated and looks up the hints and solutions, which is a real bad habit that I need to break. I think for this one I need to come back fresh after a year or so and give it a real college try. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgYFUjsu5tU Cult of the Lamb  Right at the edge of the top 10, this along with Loop Hero from last year gets the "best game I binged in a weekend and then uninstalled, ever to see again" award. Great art and ost, amazing concept, but is ultimately pretty shallow on both the roguelike and basebuilding aspects. That said, I feel like this is a game that only needs a couple dlcs to really pop off and round it out. Until then. Also, I'm such a saintly cult leader that I even indoctrinated the main bad guy god! Everyone is loved in my family, until it comes time to send you off to heaven because you've gotten too old. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-OWYrQ2pAE The List --------------- 10: Warhammer III  Until this one came out the only Total War game I had played was Medieval II a whole lifetime ago, so I came into this one as a total noob. That was unfortunately kind of a bad move, because the base campaign is has a boatload of issues (although its improved quite a bit since launch) and is kind of terribly balanced, both mechanics and mapwise. Seriously, as one of the factions (the Daemon Prince) you got multiple full strength stacks sent at you on turn 3 because you are chaos and surrounded by factions that think chaos is kind of cringe. But I stuck with it and got better, kicked rear end through the campaign as Kislev, and even got the first two games for Immortal Empires (which is far more fun). I know crap about classic battlefield tactics and man has it been fun directing around my dudes, using real formations and terrain to my advantage, flanking and hammering with my calvary, utilizing deception to get the jump on my enemies, and much like Napoleon, Ceasar, and Alexander the Great, sending out a gigantic magical two headed doom chicken to rain fire upon my enemies. Basically what I am saying is that for all its faults, the base simulation that has been honed for two decades still holds up, and being able to go full Blood for the Blood God on your foes is exhilarating. This has also been (suprisingly!) a real fun multiplayer game to play with one of my buddies, as we can play the map together and take control of each others units to run special operations, or micro calvary to munch archers and cap points, and so on. With the amount of different factions we can try out (and having a fallback with the Dorfs because they are clearly the bestest race) we probably got a lot of campaigns ahead of us. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-c1asQ-j-Y 9: Rogue Legacy 2  I got into this one because I love roguelikes, I love legacy (board) games, and hell, I even love the number 2. But the main reason I ended up playing this game in the end, is because its really Castlevania in disguise. (Although its not quite as indebted to Castlevania as a game further down on the list). Yes, as a metroidvania its already in that wheelhouse, but so much of the art and feel of the soulslike world that you explore feels like it came directly from Symphony of the Night. The story is unfortunately somewhat Souls-by-numbers although one fight towards the end does a lot to tie things together but the great menangarie of bosses and boss designs carries it when it falters. And plus, its all background to the wanton ransacking of this domain anyway to make your numbers go up. And making your numbers go up is quite addicting, upgrading your manse to pad out your stats and unlock more classes and such. Each of the decendants you can choose from when mommy or daddy inevitibly croaks can have a large variety of classes (each with an unlockable alternate weapon) or traits. These traits are a fun way to make the heirs unique while giving you extra looting potential depending on how more difficult they make things, ranging from screen effects to having one hp or forcing a pacifist run or being hella gay. This allows for some fun built in variant runs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIOuAK9Czhg 8: Gloomhaven  I need to paint my models I had actually already played through the board game a couple of years back, but this year my bud and I really dove into the  Steam version. And its an excellent adaptation of an excellent (if janky at times) board game, which is a lot easier to play when your bud is half a country apart. Frosthaven can't come in the mail soon enough.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6l8MFdTaPE 7: Noita  Me, bathing in the blood of my enemies https://i.imgur.com/B5r2a6f.mp4 Me, bathing in my own blood due to landing in polymorphine The newest one on the list and the second to last game I have played / beaten(?) this year. Don't let them fool you: This isn't just a wizard roguelike with fully destructable terrain and a buttload of secrets; this is just Doom in disguise. Except its Doom where you can fully customize and build your own BFG9000, with each level and area you explore giving you more options to build a much bigger, much flashier, more damaging, and much more suicidal map liquidating hand cannon. You can pull off some crazy sick combos with the spells you are given, and the game heavily rewards you for thinking outside the box. (Much like Baba is You, which incidentally shares the same goon developer). And thats not to mention the much more expansive than you think world, secrets galore, and an incredible pixel physics engine. And you got to love a game that goatses you if you get the bad end.  Too bad its missing the ring. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re0A23CSvpw 6: Dyson Sphere Program  Its a very screenshottable game. What if Factorio, but across a star cluster with a much more tangible (and cool as hell) end goal? Made by a small Chinese development team who coded it in a tiny office? The gameplay is very similar to the aforementioned game but more refined and streamlined -- you automatically have drones to place structures down, the copy / paste blueprint functionality is easier to use, you don't need coal to smelt, no enemies to deal with as of yet, etc. On top of this, you can extend your operation to span (very small but managable) worlds and build a fleet of robot ships and insterstellar stations to port things across the galaxy. All this is in service to tech up to the point where you can enclose your sun (or multiple suns, if you have the time and patience) with a sphere of your own design. (Or of someone elses design, people have come up with some incredible ones in the community.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEpTaXRIhE0 5: Vampire Survivors  If Konami isn't going to ever make another Castlevania game then the gaming community is gonna make their own, with blackjack and hookers. In fact, forget the Castlevania; We will just take the basic sprites and designs, remove the platforming, make whatever weird story crumbs fall out not even about vampires at all, and turn it into a one stick shooter. Its brilliant. The coolest bit of this game though is the constant updates and love and care it gets by the devs -- it feels like quite a passion project for them. I love the wierd in jokes, how the weapons keep getting goofier and goofier, the esoteric humor... even after you figure out the best way to trick out your build and finish all the achievements, its a treat to come back every week or so to see what new crazy crap they have thrown into it. And the music! How can a game put out for 3 bucks (5 with the dlc) offer you so much? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8UajtMkN-I 4: Persona 5 Royal  Persona 3 and 4 are two games I hold close to my heart, but it took me more effort to stick with 5. I think the main reason is that they are very teenager focused games and I played the former two when I was around that age. In addition, while I appriciate the base story (I feel like the game really nailed the meme cycle the Thieves went though), the base ending left a lot to be desired. And most importantly, I feel like the main gang didn't gell together as well as they did in 3 and 4, and the obligatory persona hang out sessions felt kind of forced. But man, exploring Tokyo and doing confidants and running the palaces is so drat fun. Each of the main dungeons (gently caress mementos) are gorgeously designed and interesting to run through, and while fairly basic puzzlewise are a large step up than the randomly generated dungeons in 4. (And better than 3, but I'm like the only one who enjoyed Tartarus.) And while the story arguably pulled its punches there are still a lot of resonant plot beats, like Sae and Makoto's family relationship and struggles, Futaba's whole situation and Shido's palace being an Eyes Wide Shut party boat carrying the 1% away while the rest of us drown. But the best bit of the story came along with Royal and the third semester. What makes the Royal additions so good is that it takes the concepts introduced in the base story and takes them to their natural conclusion. For me it was very hard to turn down Maruki's offer, a way to mend such a broken world with a catch that takes some reflection to understand what a bad idea it ultimately is. And while I had to beat the crud out of him in the end, I really felt for the guy when he was reduced to haphazardly wailing on Joker with his fists at the end of that fight. Take your time and use me as a punching bag. After the poo poo you had to go through man, you deserve it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McO2P-Hfq0Y 3: Halo: Master Chief Collection (original Halo Trilogy)  Its been another lifetime since I played me some old fashioned Halo so I revisited the original trilogy to see how it held up. I don't want to say they haven't aged a day, but they have aged very well. In retrospect Halo is the granddaddy of every non boomer shooter that exists nowadays and to be honest not a lot of them really compare still. I will never get sick of the choir chanting, grunts panicking when you throw a sticky grenade on them, the totally bullshit jackal sniper 360 noscopes, 360 noscoping guilty spark with the spartan laser, blowing up everything with the scorpion, blowing up your friends with the scorpion, Halo 2 multiplayer (RIP ), Blood Gulch, Red Vs Blue, covie vs flood vs brutes while you  in the corner, the god pistol (peace be upon it), the not quite as godly but standard issue battle rifle, the covie carbine which is actually better than the BR, the Library, yes the Library, its an underrated level, no we aren't skipping it, the N00b combo, and The Best Video Game Ending Ever in the warthog race escape, which has yet to be replicated even if Halo 3 tried its best.Incidentally, while the first Halo campaign is a goddamn classic (backtracking through the game in the second half besides), I actually enjoyed the second's campaign quite a bit. I really liked the Arbiter (and the attempt at a bigger story) and I'm still kind of pissed that they demoted him to second banana in Halo 3. Anyways here are some dorks a cappellaing the Halo theme in a chapel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGCa2kyHFpM And the best early internet video ever, downloaded on my machine before Youtube even existed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGQIQljaAc0 2: Binding of Isaac: Repentance  I'm gonna admit, this one is a bit of a cheat -- while I definitely put in some hours in the basement this year, this one has kind of been overlooked in the GOTY threads. So I'm gonna sing is praises a bit. As anyone who has spent some time with Isaac knows, its had quite a rocky development history (and it still does to this day). Bugs and glitches, broken items, the creator throwing a shitfit at dumb stuff the fanbase does, etc. So when the second most latest expansion came out (Afterbirth +), it kind of seemed like the end. The games story ended on a very bleak note to an already very morbid game, with it being confirmed that Isaac suffocated slowly in the chest and that it all was just his dying visions, with the final superboss being (intentionally) a poorly designed glitchy mess that is a total bitch to defeat and everyone hates. There was nowhere else to go, it was the end of the line. The end, no moral. After the game sat there for a few years, some dedicated modders released a well crafted mod called Antibirth, which added a bunch of items, an alternate set of stages, and a new final boss to fight at the end of it. There was a lot of love and care put into it, and it was a hit with the community. Such a hit, that Edmund decided to release one final expansion that incorporated Antibirth's content into the base game. It was the best decision to make, because something very notable happened. Isaac isn't a very happy game, as you could probably guess. Its a game where your mom wants to gut you with a knife in order to sacrifice you to God, or the voices in her head, or not at all. She is obviously mentally unwell and abusive, but the situation is surprisingly vague. You run around and down a increasingly deep and ever changing basement, fighting grotesquely cute (or sometimes just straight grotesque) enemies, collecting items which reflect Isaac's broken homelife and childhood, sometimes turning into a cat(boy) which allows you to roll over everyone with flies and trying not to die because the game is hard as balls. Repentance added quite a bit of content to this -- alternate versions of all the different characters you play as, each with their own gimmicks and mechanics, with some of them being a blast to play. A lot more items. The alternate path from Antibirth. But it also added something more. Once you beat the Antibirth path, a door opens up deep in the game. Once you beat Mom (for the first time in that run), you get an item which you take to the door to unlock it. It drops you down to the next floor (actually on the Antibirth alt path, but that's not important) and within you find an item. Dads Note, his goodbye note when he left his family. And then, after a decade of only going down into the figurative bowels of hell, Isaac ascends and goes up. And goes up, and up, and up, until you finally climb out of the basement and end up back at home. After a decade of unending misery and torment, Isaac is fed up and finally ready to confront his demons. And that boss is the incarnation of the twisted fundamentalism that took his mother, followed by the final confrontation of mom herself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuegld0PiGc&t=511s And after this, his spirit is freed and he is finally able to ascend into heaven. Or it turns out it was just a particularly imaginatively gruesome bedtime story told by his father. Either way, its a proper (if bittersweet ending), and most importantly its a hopeful, even wholesome one. The end, with an actual moral. So why is this so important? Isaac literally went through hell and instead of suffocating in that box, he said "gently caress THIS", found a different way, and found his salvation. Confronted the ugliness of the world, and instead of hiding away he fought back and rose above it. It was a cathartic moment that I haven't seen that often in games, or even a lot of modern media nowadays. In fact, modern media doesn't seem to be able to make a message like that anymore. That good can even triumph over evil. That faith can triumph over twisted dogma. That's what made it so notable. Its the second best game I've played with catboys about existential themes about fire, loss, and faith this year. 1: Final Fantasy 14: Shadowbringers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ugtWT_iNqw  Me giving a hearty  to some plot(?) developmentsYep, I'm putting FF14 at #1 the year after most of the rest of the thread put it as their #1 last year. Stay tuned for me raving about Elden Ring in 2023, folks. It hasn't been a good few years for me. I've been mentally affected pretty hard by the shitshow of politics in this past half decade and how my nation seems to be sliding into ruin, on top of all of the troubles 2020 brought us. But more importantly, I have had someone very close to me pass suddenly in these past few years, and I've had to deal with the emotional and familial aftermath of that as well. Having to manage all of that has been exhausting and heartbreaking and I feel like I've aged a decade since this all happened. Although to be honest, I've kind of had to. In the midst of my troubles was when I ran into FF14, in the middle of the great Blizzard exodus. I've taken my time with this game, only really finishing Shadowbringers in the early part of this year due to the Endwalker rush. And to be honest, I'm not actually done with Endwalker yet -- I ran into a habit of mine where I refuse to finish a story because I don't want it to end, and basically went on MSQ hiatus for 6 months after the first Endwalker trial. As I mentioned in the Repentance writeup, there isn't a whole lot of modern media that is hopeful anymore, because the media environment reflects the environment of the society we live in. Grimdark is the word of the day (and if you want a more recent example of this, just look at the games that were being advertised in the GOTY awards show) and even content that is more upbeat seems artificial, like the Hallmark movies I've been forced to binge over the holidays. There isn't a lot of hope left, and the media environment has become so consolidated that any actual human message can't get out because the execs wouldn't like it, or the producers and directors can't envision such a thing. And that's what makes FF14 so special, despite all its flaws. The story doesn't shy away from how grim its world can get sometimes. There is stuff in the game that honestly feels right out of Warhammer 40K. But despite that all the game keeps you going and keeps you fighting and gives you wonderful reminders of how beautiful that world is, and how characters are well realized enough to have human moments within all that drama. Its easy to identify with them because they are thrown into a similar situation that we have all been thrown into these past few years, and they rose to the challenge and did something about it. And those moments, the trial and dungeon duties where things come to a head are all the more exhilarating due to how much you (and your Scions) had to go through to even get there.  Me enjoying a hearty /waterfloat in the heated pool next to our FC house I will have more to say about Endwalker when I am finally done with it, but it's Shadowbringers that so strongly resonated with me. It was this story, at this particular point of my life, that I really needed to play and experience. The themes of Shadowbringers, of love and loss in a dying world was a salve on my soul. To fight back against Vauthry and his sin eaters. To emphasize with Emet-Selch, and the unfathomable loss and sacrifice that drives all of his actions. And the incredible faith of one man to rewrite history and put the one potato who can stop this in the right place at the right time to make all the difference in the world. There has been a lot written about how the game focuses on the Warrior of Light / Darkness / Unspecified Luminosity and how it makes them a character in their own story, but the greatest triumph of Shadowbringers is that it makes you WANT to be that light in the darkness, or that darkness in the light, and how being that beacon can inspire and lead others in a trying time. I still get tears when I think about the end of 5.0, and Emet-Selch's final words will haunt me for the rest of my life. Is it the best game of all time, with the best story of all time, and the best characters of all time? Probably not. Honestly there is a lot to quibble about the story and the pacing, especially back in ARR, but even in the later, better content. Even after going through Shadowbringers, I have moments when I wonder why I am bothering with the game at all. But there is no denying the impact playing through this has had on me, and its an experience that I will never ever forget. The rains have ceased, and we have been graced with another beautiful day. But you are not here to see it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjpF8ukSrvk  Final List: ----------- 10. Warhammer III 9. Rogue Legacy II 8. Gloomhaven 7. Noita 6. Dyson Sphere Program 5. Vampire Survivors 4. Persona 5 Royal 3. Halo: Master Chief Collection (original Halo Trilogy) 2. Binding of Isaac: Repentance 1. FF14: Shadowbringers Feldegast42 fucked around with this message at 15:24 on Jan 2, 2023 |
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Jan 1, 2023 03:15
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Should I go back and add a short list under my long one for scoring sake or is to too late for that?
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Jan 1, 2023 03:17
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DC Murderverse posted:Should I go back and add a short list under my long one for scoring sake or is to too late for that? it's never too late to be nice to rarity
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Jan 1, 2023 03:34
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I've miraculously woken up from my NYE shenanigans without a hangover, so I can quickly slide my list in before the year ends in North America. God of War: Ragnarok - 2022 was a year where I was disappointed by what I thought were surefire sequels and if I were to make a list for them, Ragnarok would also be included. It traded the previous game's tight focus on small-scale character drama for bombast and unfortunately going bigger also meant going dumber. However, I was not disappointed by the actual combat system, which was a well-tuned refinement of the first game's systems. There are plenty of meaty combat encounters and a great number of bosses to take down, exploring the crater was a blast. Unfortunately, some unskippable pacing issues mean I'll probably choose GoW18 whenever I want to revisit the combat, but that doesn't change the fact that it was well-designed. Cyberpunk 2077 - I played this one at launch on a PS4 Pro and... it was not a good experience. Replaying on a PS5 after years of patches was an entirely different experience. CDPR's gameplay design is still extremely uneven, but Night City is engaging to explore and nails a whole slew of different moods from the Cyberpunk genre. The city is the star of the show and the exploration rules. Horizon Forbidden West - I was disappointed on my initial run through this game, largely due to open-world fatigue. It's a style of design from the last decade that I really hope gets left behind as we proceed into the next. I also initially bounced off the changes made to the combat as a less freely-mobile Aloy made my playstyle from the first game, which I'd replayed immediately before launch, impossible. Revisiting at the end of the year, I found the tweaks to movement and arsenal made the combat much more focused and refined the challenge of each encounter. And yeah, it's pretty. Solar Ash - I feel like gets unfairly overlooked. It carries the odd moody beauty of Hyper Light Drifter into 3D and the "Shadow of Colossus as a skate-park "gameplay was a lot of fun. The gravity-warped level design was a ton of fun to explore as well. It doesn't have a lot of depth but it also doesn't overstay its welcome. I've replayed it a few times in just a couple of hours, but it's a fun little atmospheric run each time. Stray - I don't like cats but I do like Hong Kong and chunky old-school cyberpunk tech. Also, now that the real Hong Kong has taken down all the old neon lights, simulations are the only way I can revisit the feelings I used to get walking around Mong Kok. Stray's two town hubs evoke those old memories quite well. Like the previous entry, there's not a tone of depth to the gameplay, but its length is appropriate to give you a fun tour of a well-realized little world. Tunic - This one is kind of two games. First is the old-school Zelda-like, with simple but challenging combat and a nicely designed world to explore. You could finish the entire game and not realize it's anything beyond that. But then it's also a puzzle game with extremely lateral thinking and solving those puzzles unlocks the entire second half of the game. The little ah-hah moments where you gain access to new areas with newly discovered abilities that you didn't get from a boss, but that you'd had all along and just needed to discover were very rewarding. Return to Monkey Island - It was nice to see a story that managed to engage with its own nature as a nostalgic experience without being overly precious or clever about the conceit. It's a very "cozy" experience with good laughs and manages to honor the different eras of the franchise without sacrificing its return to the style of the first two games. Also, it finally achieved the genre's goal of making Loony-Tunes logic puzzles that weren't so abstract that they require pixel hunting or guides. Disco Elysium - Finally got around to this. It took me a good deal of time because it's a game where the only selling point is the story and every time I've been recommended an RPG for its story I've been disappointed. They have always been good stories... for a videogame. Until this time. The prose and narrative were actually as rich as everyone said. Returnal - I had been worried that Housemarque would lose their arcade energy and tight mechanics in the move to a genre as modern as third-person shooters. I also worried that my hate of roguelikes would keep me from fully enjoying this game. Both concerns turned out to be baseless and it wound up being my favorite of their collection. I was addicted all the way to the end. Elden Ring - Another entry for which I had many concerns that wound up being baseless. I was exhausted of open-world games and as much as I'm a total From-head I was a bit let down to see them return to yet another Souls entry after shaking things up so well with Sekiro. Well, it turns out I still wasn't tired of their Soulslike combat and From does open world smarter than anyone else out there. I don't have anything to say that hasn't already been said many times in this thread, but it was a masterful and magical experience. I had three full runs through the game this past year, exploring every nook each time, and each was fully engrossing all the way through. Which is saying something given the game's sheer size. Nothing else came close. Edit for Rarity: 10. God of War: Ragnarok 9. Cyberpunk 8. Horizon Forbidden Wesr 7. Solar Ash 6. Stray 5. Tunic 4. Return to Monkey Island 3. Disco Elysium 2. Returnal 1. Elden Ring Bugblatter fucked around with this message at 09:00 on Jan 1, 2023 |
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Jan 1, 2023 03:35
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Sorry I didn't grab pictures or videos for this one. I wasn't sure I was going to make a list until a few hours ago, and I kept some notes on what I played throughout the year but not really fully formed reviews. But all my posting pals are making lists and I stand with them in solidarity. Maybe next year I'll do a better job of preparing throughout. Anyway: 10. Sifu I almost forgot that this was a 2022 game, but it was all I played for a week or two. I beat it, realized there was another ending, then beat it again doing the right stuff. Maybe there could be more variety in the martial arts on display but there wasn’t a beat’em up that could compare this year. It felt good to get better and better at the game, learning the lines through each stage and striving to end as young as I could. Kind of like Sekiro, it made me feel powerful without giving me power. Once I learned the dance, it was just a matter of keeping pace with different partners. I also want to acknowledge the museum stage, which had some very creative set pieces that are still rattling around in my head today. 9. Last Call BBS Farewell, Zachtronics, and thanks for all the puzzles. I may never finish one of your games but I have bought them all and I’m a little sad I can buy no more. We’re spoiled by this last offering, which is not the normal two games (one puzzle system and a weirdo solitaire variant) but like six puzzle systems and two solitaire variants. I spent the most time here playing the food court game with my son next to me, where I tried to explain the thinking behind why I would connect this wire to that port or why I was being quiet for minutes just staring at my mess of automation components. Anyway, for the number of games inside this game, it’s a great value for logic-heads even if you aren’t going to solve the final puzzles on your own. 8. Hardspace: Shipbreaker I love to suit up and put in my honest 20 minutes of cuttin’ and slingin’ ship parts for an uncaring corporation. Nothing gets me salivating like some juicy nacells or a full bay of cargo containers just begging to be salvaged. Love the moment-to-moment logistical challenges, love the methodical dissection of a hull, love making the practiced call of slicing into a live fuel line so I can access the shut-off switch that some pencil-pushing moron in a cozy office decided should be located at the rear end-end of a kill zone. The only parts I didn’t love were all the talking. I get it. Workers unite. I’ll pay my dues and vote for representation, just let me do my job. 7. Rift Wizard You’re a wizard who forgot everything and also the multiverse is torn apart. Or something, the story isn’t important here. This is a rogue-like where your weapons and abilities are all spells, and you have something like 100 upgradable spells to choose from (along with 30-40 powers that augment how those spells work). There are good builds and bad builds, and sometimes you do something like spec heavy into lightning only to wind up having to face lightning-immune foes. If I was better at the game I might have beaten it by now, but I’ve found experimenting to be so enjoyable that I keep dipping into this throughout the year. 6. Kirby and the Forgotten Lands This was my son’s first Kirby game, and playing through it with him brought me a lot of joy. Kirby’s Dreamland and Kirby’s Adventure are two important games of my formative years, and it was special that I was able to share the character with my kid in a way that wasn’t me forcing him to like something I liked. It was a game that he kept asking to play, and it became important that we not only beat the game but beat all the post-game stages and get the true ending. The animations and creativity really brought us in, and every new mouthful mode form was a topic of discussion. It’s cute, it’s fun, it’s Kirby! 5. Iron Lung A single-sitting horror experience, Iron Lung was mentioned so passionately in a podcast that I almost immediately bought it. It is a claustrophobia simulator, telling you at the onset that nearly everyone in the universe is dead and you’re being sealed up in a lovely submarine for a one-way mission into a sea of blood. There’s nothing to see but a map, your controls for bearing and speed, and a camera in the back. These are the only tools needed to provide deep feelings of dread, and the whole thing is a masterpiece in the bite-sized scary story genre. 4. Fortnite I started playing this when my second kid was born because I a) had heard that zero-build mode made the game fun by getting rid of the part I hated b) needed something that I could play muted without missing anything and c) was looking for a new multiplayer diversion that I could con my friends into play. It was and has continued to be a hit, not just the battle royal action but the quest system and battle pass rewards that give me and my bestie something to do once or twice a week. It’s full of skins and emotes but none of that matters in the game, and I’m not even logging in to win a match. I use it to listen to a podcast while making meters go up, and that’s been enough for me this year. 3. Case of the Golden Idol This game came out of nowhere and struck me hard. I’m a big fan of Obra Dinn and its ilk, and I love putting the gray cells to work solving a mystery by putting evidence together. Case of the Golden Idol gave me one large mystery in a dozen or so chapters, each one growing in complexity but never becoming too challenging. You start by examining the scene of a death, then zooming into the people and objects in the area to get the clues needed to understand the who, what, and why of the death. I played the demo during a Steam fest and couldn’t wait to buy the game and get the rest of the experience. Unfortunately the experience ended all too soon, but its existence gives me hope for more games in this genre in the future. 2. Triangle Strategy Sometimes the most dangerous weapon is a stranglehold on a resource. A mid-to-high fantasy game that’s more concerned with human rights and relationships than some world-shaking magical power, this game filled a TRPG void for me this year. The cast of characters is diverse and unique, forgoing a job system in favor of bespoke classes, and each one can be vitally useful if used correctly. It also brings some quality of life changes to the party, like letting you fail a mission but keep the gained experience, as well as having an experience formula that lets under-leveled characters jump up to the recommended level incredibly quickly. The gameplay was good but the story was what brought me back for a second playthrough. 1. Elden Ring I can’t say anything new about this title. It consumed me upon release and gave me what I was hoping for and so much more. I did about 85% of the game’s content on my first and only pass, skipping the hidden dragon fight that I didn’t find and leaving a lot of quest threads dangling. But even 85% of Elden Ring is akin to two or three other games’ entire portfolio. I beat it once and haven’t touched it since, due in part to life changes and a desire to wait for some DLC that may or may not appear. I had a great time with it and found it to be a singular experience in spite of it being so similar to From’s previous games. It takes the top spot after some consideration by virtue of being one of the few games on the list that I’m looking forward to replaying. So: 10. Sifu 9. Last Call BBS 8. Hardspace: Shipbreaker 7. Rift Wizard 6. Kirby and the Forgotten Lands 5. Iron Lung 4. Fortnite 3. Case of the Golden Idol 2. Triangle Strategy 1. Elden Ring LawfulWaffle fucked around with this message at 03:48 on Jan 1, 2023 |
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Jan 1, 2023 03:46
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I'm lookin forward to the tradition of people missing the deadline and posting lists tomorrow
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Jan 1, 2023 03:51
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:it's never too late to be nice to rarity It is if she’s been keeping track gradually instead of doing it all after voting ends (I still went back and added it jic)
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Jan 1, 2023 03:58
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i've only glossed over the lists in here, but it seems like if you love elden ring, you don't list xc3. and if you love xc3, you don't list elden ring. i get it, very different games. still feels noteworthy, though, especially when i think elden ring will finish first and xc3 second.
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Jan 1, 2023 04:29
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abelwingnut posted:i've only glossed over the lists in here, but it seems like if you love elden ring, you don't list xc3. and if you love xc3, you don't list elden ring. i get it, very different games. still feels noteworthy, though. XB3 was #5 on my list and Elden Ring was #3!
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Jan 1, 2023 04:30
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in general! obviously a few lists had both, but most of the ones i've seen don't.
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Jan 1, 2023 04:31
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H dad zzz e: sorry for the pocket post, ok fine I’ll post a list I didn't play very many games this year, even with buying a steam deck to try and play games during breaks at work, so here were the 5 that stuck with me the most 5. elec - head 4. patrick's paradox 3. The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe 2. Pentiment 1. Trombone champ best music game ever tinaun fucked around with this message at 09:00 on Jan 1, 2023 |
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Jan 1, 2023 04:33
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abelwingnut posted:i've only glossed over the lists in here, but it seems like if you love elden ring, you don't list xc3. and if you love xc3, you don't list elden ring. i get it, very different games. still feels noteworthy, though, especially when i think elden ring will finish first and xc3 second. I put both
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Jan 1, 2023 04:39
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abelwingnut posted:i've only glossed over the lists in here, but it seems like if you love elden ring, you don't list xc3. and if you love xc3, you don't list elden ring. i get it, very different games. still feels noteworthy, though, especially when i think elden ring will finish first and xc3 second. Wrong
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Jan 1, 2023 04:40
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| # ? May 23, 2024 12:46 |
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abelwingnut posted:i've only glossed over the lists in here, but it seems like if you love elden ring, you don't list xc3. and if you love xc3, you don't list elden ring. i get it, very different games. still feels noteworthy, though, especially when i think elden ring will finish first and xc3 second. Elden ring is my number 1 and xenoblade 3 is my number 3.
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Jan 1, 2023 04:49
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