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Regy Rusty posted:They should be counted together since they also function as one complete story. If people list GAA2 as their number 1 and GAA1 as their number 5 or whatever then they should split them up, but I think everyone who will list them will list them as one entry.
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Dec 13, 2021 14:49
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| # ¿ May 10, 2024 03:19 |
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cheetah7071 posted:I was misremembering, Heavensward was my number 15 last year so I didn't post about it. Thanks for the correction I had Heavensward on my GotY list last year. 
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Dec 17, 2021 02:00
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Honorable Mentions What the Golf This game was great for a couple of evenings just seeing how they could turn everything else into a golf game (or in some cases, turn a golf game into everything else). There was only one section of the game that ended up being frustrating because my wife wanted to watch me play it but the game kept insisting "No, you must pay this in undocked mode." Still, a great game to play nonetheless and I recommend it to anyone who likes these kinds of gimmicky experiences. Boyfriend Dungeon  The game plays like a poor man's version of Hades, but there's something to be said about the story the game presents to you. I love that the game's central villain is someone who believes that they can gamify relationships. Several of the weapons that you meet in-game are pretty well-rounded characters (although I wasn't too keen on the weapon from the cover-art). Dishonorable Mentions (Disappointers): The Medium  Did you know that child abuse is bad? You'd say that child abusers are evil, right? What if that child abuser... was a victim of the holocaust? I bet you feel bad now, don't you. Suicide is bad, though, right? Well, what if the only way you didn't kill people... is if you killed yourself? These kinds of questions will endlessly frustrate you and let me make the next Silent Hill game. This spoiler bar is the psychic world of my posts. Oh, but there isn't actually anything interesting here. So it's just going to take up thread real estate while contributing nothing of value. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The Good Life  Swery, for the love of god, please make a game that's fun to play. The Good Life has some serious jank to it, and I love a lot of those elements, but it is such a chore to even go around and explore that I had to put this game down. THE ACTUAL LIST 10. Returnal  I don't know what I was expecting when I picked up Returnal, to be quite honest, but I can safely say that I didn't expect it to be as good as it was. As far as a shooter/roguelite/metroidvania? game with horror elements goes it's a pretty unique and worthwhile experience. There's a lot about the character of Selene that I think is explored in very interesting ways, although I can't say I was that big of a fan of the game's true ending (although I did love how much 'Dont Fear the Reaper' came up throughout the whole game.) Still, I recommend it as one of the few PS5 exclusives available. 9. The Eternal Cylinder  We found this game while trolling the Playstation Store; I think after we were particularly disappointed by one of the other games that had come out this year. It looked really interesting from the art style to the world design, so we took the plunge and decided to give it a try. It did not disappoint in the slightest; you get to play as a tribe of cute little creatures that evolve in different ways depending on the food they eat. Sometimes you have to navigate through environments with "servants" of the cylinder - human-machine hybrids that try to assimilate you and your tribesmen into other servants. Sometimes you have to solve puzzles with your powers on how to meet the next Elder Trebhum and get advice for how to proceed. Oh, and you have to do all this while outrunning a world-encompassing cylinder. The game has several memorable moments, my favorite of which being early on you try to outsmart the Cylinder by Just... flying behind it. Of course, when you do you see that absolutely nothing survived the Cylinder's roll- it consumes everything on its path through the planet. The game goes to some pretty interesting places from there; several times I thought the game was going to be ending soon only to be pleasantly surprised that "No, that plan won't actually work" and get to play the game more. I think I only got frustrated a little bit towards the end when dealing with some creatures that can take away your powers by looking at you (and every once in a while when your tribe AI starts to glitch out and get stuck in an area taking some damage.) Oh, and the soundtrack is fantastic. 8. Metroid: Dread  It's almost a shame that Metroid: Dread is sitting at my #8 spot this year, considering just how drat good the game actually is. It's finely tuned, it absolutely nails the feel of playing a metroid game (with some very light suspense elements to keep the gameplay varied and interesting) and rewards mastery of base elements that the game puts in boss skips dependent on you sequence breaking to get items out of order. They do a great job of establishing the character of Samus Aran in very subtle ways; they don't give her a monologue about he she feels or a 20 minute cutscene establishing her history with a certain enemy, they show it through her actions and emotion (or in some cases, lack thereof). I feel okay putting it at #8 because this list isn't about which games are the most mechanically tuned or the most fun to play; because this game is both of those things. I ordered this list based on how the games resonated with me, and this isn't one of those games. It's a great game, don't get me wrong, but I ended up liking the others below a lot more. I hope this shows you how arbitrary my GotY lists are going forward. 7. Resident Evil 8  I think that a lot of what I can say about RE8 has already been said by a lot of people in this thread. It's a great game from start to finish, and the standout moments hit really well. I think during the week of release my wife and I tried to watch every streamer we could go through Beneviento's manor and see just how they responded to the stuff inside it. I don't really think I have much else to say about RE8 aside from that it's a very good game and I look forward to whatever RE9 is going to give us. 6. Hades  I've been on-and-off Supergiant games for a while now. I wasn't too keen on Bastion, but I loved Transistor. Never really got into Pyre after several attempts so I couldn't really give you my opinion on that one one way or another, but seeing everyone vote Hades as their #1 GOTY last year got me interested enough to give it a shot, and that's pretty much how I spent my March. Pretty much every day before work (and immediately after) I'd do a run or two of the game and try to get as far as I could, until eventually I found myself farming every boss on their harder modes. One of my favorite things to do in an RPG (or any video game, really) is build a character and see how those abilities synergize together. Hades has that at its core- you choose which gods you want to favor in your run and your build your character around that. And it's a ton of fun to experiment around and see what all works out, especially when you factor in the different weapons and trinkets you can slot onto Zagreus. Hades is an incredibly game that I cannot recommend enough to others, and I hope that anybody who enjoys action rogue-lites will give it a try. 5. Divinity: Original Sin 2  Did you know that when I started making this list back in November I had this game firmly at the #10 spot? My wife and I had a great time playing it earlier in the year (January -> February) and I thought it was a great time, but not as good as a lot of the other games on this list. Well, when my wife's sister died on Thanksgiving she ended up needing to go across the country to clean her apartment while I tended to our 17 year old dachshund, but every night we would play this game on our respective switches because we were still aching for something to do together on our evenings. Not only that, but it's still fun as hell to play on a replay, too. The first time I played I was playing a pure summoner build (points in everything to get every summon spell), but the second time around I'm playing as a huntsman/scoundrel and the game still feels incredibly fresh and fun to play. The story I wouldn't say is anything to write home about - it's not bad, but it's not great either. But the level design is fantastic, character building options always remain fresh and fun (unless you decide to cheese the game with Barrelmancy), and there are so many encounters that will have you biting your nails and trying to figure out the best path forward for an optimal resolution; which works so well in a game designed for cooperative play. Even after playing through this game a second time, we managed to convince a couple of friends to join us for a four-player co-op campaign of this game and I'm already planning out an elementalist build. I really hope that Larian is able to recreate the co-op magic with Baldur's Gate 3, or at some point release an Original Sin 3. 4. Psychonauts 2  I was a pretty big fan of Psychonauts 1, and when Psychonauts 2 was backed on whatever crowdfunding service they used to fund it, my expectations for this game were incredibly low (especially after Broken Age ended up being a little bit disappointing). I'm very happy to say that I was wrong about how Psychonauts 2 was going to turn out. It's weird to think that it had been approaching 16 years between the first Psychonauts and Psychonauts 2, but it doesn't feel like any time had passed at all between the two games- apart from the second game handling the idea of "going into people's brains to try to fix them" with a lot more maturity than the first one did. This game has a lot of memorable moments that I end up rewatching over and over again on youtube because of how impactful they are. It has a lot of standout levels and messages that hit really hard in different ways for different people. Bob's Bottles and The Feast were both great levels for me, while my wife in particular enjoyed Cassie's Collection. The overall villain I thought was a little toothless for who it was supposed to be based on (which kind of has the game go against its overall themes to try to dunk on someone the way it does) but final confrontation aside I thought Psychonauts 2 was a great game and will very likely be replayed several times in the years to come. 3. Devotion  I think part of what made Devotion such a memorable game for us this year was how we learned about it. A coworker of ours told us about it and that if we wanted to download it we'd need to google it. After that, of course, we had to go to the Red Candle Games website and buy it directly through there; which gave us that "word of mouth horror experience" that we were both suspicious of and excited for. As far as a PT-like goes, this game hits the nail right on the head; although giving it that sort of genre I feel does it a disservice, because the game is anything but derivative. Exploration of the apartment the main character lives in, how it evolved over time to accommodate the family life he wanted to have, as well as discovering the moments that were defining for both him and his daughter. The game doesn't slouch when it comes to expressing these moments to you, either- one moment you'll be watching an FMV of her on the television while the next moment you'll be playing a side-scrolling platformer that looks like something out of a storybook. Overall, the experience is short, sweet, and very memorable, although I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who cringes at the sight of self-mutilation. 2. 428 Shibuya Scramble  As far as visual novels go, 428 Shibuya Scramble does a great job of sucking you into the story with its memorable characters and bizarre antics. I remember playing it on the Power of the Playstation 5- watching the introductory cutscene of someone tied up in the back of a car while the car explodes, and then getting to the very first part of gameplay and realizing that the entire game was going to be text over stock photos of characters. And you know what? For the next five days this game was all my wife and I did and talked about in our evenings together. We both grew attached to our own favorite characters, had speculations as to who the mastermind behind the whole thing was. It has some problematic issues with it; there's a character that's pretty much just a nonstop reservoir of fat jokes. The story doesn't end conclusively- it just kind of leads into what I hear is a mediocre anime. That's about my only grievances with the game; apart from that, I had a fantastic time playing it through from start to finish. The game even has a bonus story that's the visual novel equivalent of an "I luv u 5ever" facebook post, but you know what? That story brought us both to tears. 1. FFXIV: Endwalker  If you had told me in 2011 that in 10 years I was going to be putting Final Fantasy XIV as my #1 GOTY in 2021, let alone one of my favorite video game stories of all time, I would have laughed in your face. The game was an absolute mess at the time and I was of the opinion that MMOs were incapable of any form of competent storytelling. I was very wrong. This year, my wife and I played through Stormblood, Shadowbringers, and Endwalker and Shadowbringers alone was enough to put this game at my #1 spot. I was torn between giving FFXIV two spots on this list (Shadowbringers and Endwalker), omitting Endwalker entirely, or consolidating both games into one entry. As you can see, I opted for the last option for two reasons. 1) I wanted to give Returnal a spot on my GOTY 2021 list. 2) Endwalker took a lot of what was built in Shadowbringers and really went places with it. I wish that other MMOs would look at FFXIV and at least see what they can learn from its monumental success. I don't mean to imply here that FFXIV is the be-all-end-all of the genre (far from it), but it's at the very least a game that respects the user's time. I don't feel pressured or rush to do as much content as I can as fast as I can. If a new game comes out that looks like it's more fun than FFXIV, I don't get punished for putting it down to play something else - the content will be there for me when I get back, and (more importantly) I'm not going to need to do so much grinding to get on the same level as other players. In 2014 I had given this game a shot (and bounced off of it, eventually) because I had built my character in a terrible way and didn't want to go through the hassle of doing that again. In 2017 we had both given it shot again but bounced off it for two different reasons (she hated queueing up for dungeons with other people, I fell off in the interim quests of A Realm Reborn -> Heavensward). Somehow in early 2019 we both decided to give it another shot, this time saying "Alright, we'll do the Main Story Quests together." and somehow that seemed to be the key to us getting our MMO brain worms firing on all cylinders. She spends most of her free time leveling the different tank jobs and gathering jobs (did I mention that she absolutely loves the spearfishing changes? She used to hate spearfishing with a passion). While I spend a lot of time crafting and getting enough jobs to cap that I can do the role quests of the game. Entering Endwalker, this expansion started firing on all cylinders. The soundtrack is Absolutely incredible and the gameplay doesn't stop with its high-hitting moments (first EW dungeon spoilers) like this callback fight. I could write pages of black bars about its story, but I think the most satisfying part about this expansion is that from the very start it's clear that everything you've been doing since the start of A Realm Reborn has been building up to this. Your scions are with you because they believe in you; some of which are only alive because you didn't stop believing you could save them. Half of the armies that fight by your side are only able to do so because of the work that you put in several expansions ago. You get several moments of dialog choices that let you decide which story characters made an impact on your Warrior of Light (one of which brings my wife to tears every time they're referenced). I could go on and on, but I'll finish this off by talking about the gameplay. Even as they add multitudes of classes to the mix, every class has a unique and interesting gameplay rotation. I'm maining this expansion as a Ninja (because I think the fast paced gameplay suits me), but I also love playing Summoner. And Machinist. And Dragoon. And Astrologian. And Warrior. gently caress, i'm probably going to pick up Samurai soon and see how much I love that class. The game never fails to keep the gameplay of each class interesting and unique in that regard. Oh, and we made a Chocobo Cake to celebrate the new year. Okay, I made it. All she did was cut the strawberries  Concise list for Rarity 10. Returnal 9. The Eternal Cylinder 8. Metroid: Dread 7. Resident Evil 8 6. Hades 5. Divinity: Original Sin 2 4. Psychonauts 2 3. Devotion 2. 428 Shibuya Scramble 1. FFXIV: Endwalker
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Dec 31, 2021 15:28
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CharlieFoxtrot posted:gently caress, if we can give votes to a demo maybe I should put stranger of paradise: final fantasy origin in the main list... I'm looking forward to next year when I will have the full game in my top 10 list 
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Dec 31, 2021 22:15
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this is my favorite theme from 428 shibuya scramble
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Jan 1, 2022 18:16
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I'm afraid Final Fantasy: Stranger of Paradise will be taking GOTY next year as well.
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Jan 8, 2022 15:09
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You mean to tell me that 428 Shibuya Scramble made it past 25 points? Holy moly!
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Jan 8, 2022 16:21
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jimmydalad posted:Apart from the popular thread picks, I think all my other nominations didn't make the top 75, which is funny. I'm proud to have put The Eternal Cylinder on the list with its whopping 1 vote and 2 points.
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Jan 8, 2022 16:41
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Nice.
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Jan 8, 2022 17:00
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Entenzahn posted:if only i had saved up my nice
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Jan 8, 2022 21:47
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This is a strong showing for 428 Shibuya Scramble. We just might take it to the #1 spot, Hirsute!
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Jan 8, 2022 22:34
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I'm also waiting to play Deltarune sometime in my 40s when the game is finally finished.
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Jan 8, 2022 23:13
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cheetah7071 posted:I feel like every november or december game which places highly will end up placing against the next year, as people get around to it in january and february I think there's also games that take GOTY awards, as several of the games I played this year were solely because goons gave them a good rating the year prior.
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Jan 8, 2022 23:31
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I was very glad to have played Hades this year at the suggestion of SA GOTY 2020.
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Jan 9, 2022 00:00
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Psychonauts 2 is a great game that i'm very happy was able to happen.
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Jan 9, 2022 00:08
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If the #1 spot is between Metroid: Dread and FFXIV: Endwalker then I think it's safe to say that whoever wins, we all win.
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Jan 9, 2022 00:24
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Jan 9, 2022 00:25
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Regy Rusty posted:I may have only put Dread at number For real! I was so worried that there would never be a good metroid game again before this year and I was very happy to see it be so well executed.
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Jan 9, 2022 00:33
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Jay Rust posted:Wait so if Dread is only #2, does this mean... Morrowind made it to #1?? 428 Shibuya Scramble has yet to be listed so there's still a chance!
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Jan 9, 2022 00:34
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| # ¿ May 10, 2024 03:19 |
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Thank you Rarity and Video Games for hosting another great GOTY thread. Hit me with a GOTY probe, please  (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jan 9, 2022 01:01
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