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7. Deltarune Chapter 2: An incomplete fragment of an RPG, but one that's interesting all the same. On my first pass, it seemed straightforward and basic for a Toby Fox production, but I reserved judgment until it was thoroughly scoured for all of its secrets. Turns out that there's major content hidden inside that recontextualizes the whole experience and raises many interesting questions. Well played! It's a charming, competent, and gripping little game and fantastic for the price of $0, but I don't feel comfortable ranking it higher until I see the end. I get the feeling that the game's final hours will truly define its message and character, so I'm going to wait for however many years it takes until that experience is in my hands. 6. Dragon Quest 11 Definitive Edition: After playing several games that jabbed a finger into my brain this year, I wanted to take a break and return to game a with a more conventional approach. (And you can't get much more "conventional" than Dragon Quest!  ) Dragon Quest 11 is still worth it for Sylvando alone. Most of the Definitive Edition's changes and additions were good, but one feature is so bad that it actively detracts from the experience. The optional 16-bit mode is absolutely abysmal and I recommend avoiding it at all costs, even though there's unique content sequestered away in it. It sucks all the feedback, charm, and energy out of the game's combat and replaces it with pure tedium. 5. Animal Crossing: New Horizons: Much less necessary this year than in 2020, when it was a welcome social outlet during the start of quarantine. It's still a terrific "zen garden" to tend, though. It kept some irritating design flaws in its final iteration, but it finally patched in all the missing content and is now a very robust package. Its DLC that finally lets you dig more into house customization is a wonderful creative sandbox that offers a rainbow of new possibilities. I'm sad that it's received its final content patch, as I'd love to keep going.  4. Disco Elysium: Needs no explanation on this forum: still here, still extraordinary, now almost fully voice acted. It's an absolutely insane addition to the game considering how many lines there are. Somehow, almost all of the voice acting nails it too. Hearing its most infamous lines read aloud is a magical experience. This game only ranking at #4 is not a dig at its quality: other titles just resonated with me more.  3. Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker: Quite possibly the greatest time vampire ever made, featuring a vast amount of unique, high quality, and relevant content that stretches in every direction. I'm still floored that an anime MMO can offer believable politics, compelling characters, and satisfying payoff to complex years-long plots. There may be high fantasy magic, technobabble, and dragons flying around, but its foundation is made from solid principles informed by reality, making its messages shockingly relevant and resonant. Endwalker's campaign goes unexpectedly sensitive places, plunging into subject matter usually avoided, merely superficially touched on, or flubbed by games as a whole -- with the added handicap of it being an MMORPG, a genre that typically torpedoes immersion and leaves its players detached and apathetic about the story. Against all odds, Endwalker confidently springs over this hurdle and sticks the landing. Players commonly say they were touched and cried at the final stretch, and it's a testament to its immensely talented developers that this is a normal reaction. For all of FFXIV's exceptional qualities, I just wish that it was less bloated and more accessible to new and returning players, but I have no idea how that could be done without diverting significant resources to revamp and trim old content. It will probably never happen, and this massive and unavoidable flaw tarnishes an otherwise stellar experience.  2. Pathologic 2: I did a more thorough overview of it here. Many people recommended this game in the 2020 thread, and I'm thankful for that. Pathologic can be classified as "survival" and "horror", but those labels undersell how it works in execution. It's an experience unlike anything else in this medium, and it was an incredible ride once I adjusted to its very steep learning curve. I've never been poked, stretched, and squeezed so much by a video game, and it's not pointless sadism: all this discomfort is for a deliberate and constructive purpose.  1. OMORI: Speaking of games causing discomfort for a deliberate and constructive purpose, this one destroyed me in the best possible way. I'd go into more detail about the parts that impressed and impacted me, but that would involve spoiling the hell out of it. In broad strokes, I'd describe it as "intimate, sincere, and compassionate", which is a set of adjectives I've never applied to a video game before. It helped me come to some important realizations about myself, and my life has improved ever since. It was all information I knew already, but the way OMORI is structured and executed finally made me understand. I'm so glad I found this game. Honorable mention: Hades It's in a genre I'm not normally interested in, but after seeing the internet singing its praises in 2020, I wanted to see it for myself. I loved almost everything it offered, but when it came down to it, the combat just isn't for me. Since combat is the game's backbone, the whole experience crumbled. Still, I appreciate everything it does and recognize that it's a fantastic package. Forsythia fucked around with this message at 09:23 on Jan 1, 2022 |
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Dec 13, 2021 00:25
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| # ¿ May 12, 2024 04:32 |
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This year I started writing my list months in advance. Why? Because two of the items on it provoked very strong feelings from me and I wanted to see if I still felt that way by the time December rolled around. Yep, I sure did.
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Jan 9, 2022 21:53
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