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As of right now, there are only eight games I have yet to play that could make it on this list, but six of them are new releases I’m waiting for price drops on, one I’m waiting for the PS5 version to release, and the last I own but haven't started, but I’m pretty confident would only make the HM list at best. Overall, a decent year for video games, and I’m really hoping the back half of 2022 gets filled out with games I want, because the first half has almost nothing of interest to me, especially with the delay of Saints Row. Regardless, my current goal for 2022 is to finish the year without a single game in my backlog, as I’m closer to that goal than ever before. First, the best games I first played this year that did not release this year: Games of Yesteryear 2021 Like A Dragon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VV1lOo-T15I Despite the slowest start in Yakuza series history, followed immediately by the worst plot sequence in the entire game (whatever the gently caress that Nanba's brother poo poo was) LAD is the best Yakuza game. I see people sometimes mention how it's obvious this is RGG's first JRPG, and while I agree on a small level, I'm also astounded by how well everything works, the minor QOL stuff absent in a lot of other JRPGs, and how seamless of a transition this series made to an entirely different genre and gameplay format, while retaining and enhancing so much of the usual Yakuza fare. This is an exceptional game, one of the best JRPGs I've ever played. The combat music is so good, the game looks great, the job system is a good start, I like all the party members (justice for Eri, we demand Seong-hui), and I'm really looking forward to what LAD2 does with Yokohama, and I hope Ichiban gets to hang out with Amasawa because Yagami was kind of a bad choice to do LJ's school stories idea with. Besides the balancing issues late in the game, and the game being a little too referential to DQ to the detriment of the gameplay, I do think the story is probably the weakest element of the game, only because it starts slow and doesn't really actually move along until nearly half way through the game. Ichiban is a great protagonist, and the second half of the story is mostly good (Mirror Face is a substory that fell into the main plot), so if anything, I have higher expectations for the next game. I really, really like this game! Probably would have ended up taking FF7R's spot last year. Genshin Impact Unless this game does something to irrevocably piss me off I have sunk too much time and money into this to give it up so it'll probably end up in the HM list every year. It's great, and despite some really aggravating missteps lately, specifically with new enemies and plot/character/dialogue writing, it's still fun and enjoyable. It's free. Play it. Death Mark A horror adventure game originally released on the Vita, Death Mark takes influence from Japanese folklore, urban legends, and real life haunts to make a great and genuinely intense experience from start to finish. Every chapter gives you a new location and two partners to explore it with. You're tasked with investigating the location in a dungeon crawler like format until all clues related to a spirit and their killings are found. Some clues can only be found with specific partners, or if you solve puzzles. Sometimes clues are gated behind "story progression", which are usually just things like short scenes establishing the spirit or giving a minor bit of character development to someone when you go to certain spots. There are about two or three clues in the entire game that are missable, which are related to something I'll mention later. Once you collect all the clues, you take on the monster in the only combat in the game: turn-based fight where you and your partner have to do certain actions in certain orders to battle the enemy, using the collected clues about the spirit and their weaknesses for help. For example, creating a makeshift shield where you open a broken umbrella and your partner slides a large piece of plastic sheet inside of it to stop the spirit from hitting you with a volley of sharp attacks. Once you successfully beat the spirit, depending on your actions in the fight, the spirit is either saved or killed, which changes the ending to the chapter as well as the overall ending to the game. Death Mark is so unique and cool as hell. The mysteries are intriguing and the puzzles both in the investigation and the boss fights can be really big brain type poo poo, in a good way. Each chapter introduces at least one new character, and they aren't exactly the most fleshed out, but they usually leave the game one way or another by the end of the chapter they show up in. I highly recommend going into this blind, but make frequent saves, because boss fights can come up kind of suddenly, and sometimes the difference between killing and saving a monster might be one very specific action you did or didn't take, or a missable clue you didn't get because the game (intentionally) progressed past it. Honestly, Death Mark is like, a top 3 recommendation out of all the games here. It's a brilliant blend of dungeon crawling, adventure, puzzles, and horror. The sequel, NG, is good but much more ambitious for better and worse, and leans heavier into the visual novel aspects Death Mark didn't really have, while also being like, twice as long. The upcoming Shibito Magire is the third entry, and comes out in Japan in March, with the localization probably coming in the late summer or fall, and looks to be a "proper" sequel to Death Mark. All this to say: please play the Spirit Hunter series. Thank you. Cyberpunk 2077 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWMSvX4Q218 Yes, the unfinished mess from a studio that took three tries over a decade to make a 7/10 game made one of the best games I've played this year. To be honest, if this game released three weeks later it would have ended up on my GOTY list, at either #4 or #5. I really, really enjoyed my time with this game. I did a pretty much completionist playthrough with female Streetkid V, and Cherami Leigh does such a great job. Who would have thought the voice actress for one of my favorite Persona characters would be good here? I ended up doing every ending back to back, starting with the ones I heard the least about to the ones I heard the most, so Sun-Temperance-Star-Devil. The Star ending is so goddamn good I kept waiting for something to come and ruin it, but it surprisingly never happened, and ended on a bittersweet but mildly hopeful note. It's a shame I had to end it all with the immensely depressing Devil, but Star with Judy is perfect and you cannot change my mind. Yes, this game has it's problems; missing features, lack of choice, illusion of choice with those present, a really uninteresting main story due to it's rushed pace and linearity, and every single system and mechanic is fundamentally flawed, but Cyberpunk still manages to be an entertaining, fun, stylish game from start to finish. I can name only two other open world games I can just throw the in-game radio on and drive around the city taking in the sights and sounds, and they both came out over a decade ago in Saints Row 2 and Grand Theft Auto IV. Night City is so, so good looking and such a well designed city parts of it actually reminded me of areas I've driven IRL, which is insane for a fictional city. Even if the streets and sidewalks are empty or filled with repetitive, inconsequential literal footnotes, Night City is still an atmospheric, beautifully crafted wonder, and it’s developed inhabitants are highly memorable. Resident Evil 2 Remake I played a couple of hours of RE7 a few years back and didn't get into it, and had a desire to try it again this year. I loaded the old save and after a while realized part of the reason I stopped playing was because I didn't really know how Resident Evil games worked, so I started a new game and after the second Jack fight, just short of where I originally left off, started enjoying the game. However, by the time Luke's section was over and the infamous boat section started I really wanted the game to be over with. By the time I finished, I had no desire to replay the game, but I had this growing desire to play RE2. Honestly, the biggest reason was because I was impressed by the game's graphical fidelity. It looked really good; and I would quickly learn it plays even better. The reason I mention all of this is because RE2 is the best part of RE7, the Main House, expanded over the course of six hours, the time of my first playthrough. I cannot praise this game enough: it absolutely consumed me for two weeks straight. The three main environments are expertly designed and give off fantastic vibes, complemented well with the tense musical score. The sound design, from the enemies to the guns to the guns making the enemies explode or burn up is so visceral. Every single character plays their role well, and Leon and Claire are genuinely really good protagonists. Mr. X is a tension machine, and even though any player can very quickly figure out optimal strategies for circumventing him, any sudden appearance means you have to completely change your route and immediate plans. The game is as short or as long as you want and I love that. It's a game where I can start and finish a playthrough while experiencing anything and everything I want to. Hell, I rarely play games more than once, and played RE2 like eight times in the aforementioned two weeks. I remember groaning when I saw the platinum trophy required Hardcore playthroughs, because I immensely dislike trophy lists with required multiple playthroughs and/or difficulty settings, but RE2 manages to make Hardcore playthroughs fun. It's quite a testament to how well designed a game is that every difficulty and route combination are all equally fun and rewarding. I have two main issues: First, I wish the secondary protagonist sections were skippable. They're both short but ultimately their brief length and complete pointlessness in repeated playthroughs does drag a bit and bring the mood down for a moment. Sherry's is worse though, just because it's five minutes of alternating between holding a button or pushing the left stick forward. Secondly, I just wish there was more of this game. I would pay any amount of money for more Leon and Claire in environments with the same design doctrine as here. I love the interconnectivity and puzzle solving, and it sucks that RE3 briefly touched on it then completely threw it out in favor of linearity, setpieces, and boss fights. I never played RE2/3 classic, but I can still see why people love 2 and hate 3, even if I think 3 is just a sometimes small, sometimes massive step down from 2. While my experience with several Resident Evil games after playing RE2 has been mixed so far, I loving love RE2 and I hope Capcom makes another RE game like this one, whether that be with Rev3 or RE9, though I have low expectations for that. Ultimately, Resident Evil 2 Remake has retroactively become my 2019 Game of the Year, unseating Fire Emblem: Three Houses, and might even be among my top 10 favorite games of all time. Next, games that deserve shout-outs: Honorable Mentions 2021 Riders Republic I didn't even consider playing this game until the Gamescom trailer earlier this year. Genuinely surprised me at how good it looked, and while it is solidly good, it's unfortunate how much potential it's missing out on. It falls short for three reasons: lack of progression, little depth, and sparse post launch support + roadmap. As of right now, the only reason to play the game outside of pure enjoyment is to grind for bucks and the RNG gear system. There's a decent amount of events and unique stunt challenges, all with different side objectives and baseline difficulty, so dedicating a few hours every so often is the best way to currently, and probably indefinitely, approach Riders. It's absolutely not as polished, content filled, or rewarding as Forza Horizon, but if you played Steep, this is essentially the ultimate and refined version of that, considering it's the same development team. $60 is a hard no but $20-$30 is definitely worth it. Mass Effect Legendary Edition ME1: I always thought ME1 was slightly over hated. I never disliked the inventory system and I feel the dialogue and choices still hold up decently well. The gameplay changes were fine, but it's really obvious that ME1 was where most of the work in this collection went and Bioware really needed another 3 months to fix all the problems updating the game brought. Lots of control lock ups, freezes, hang ups, just a slew of technical issues. Game is great though, and playing Bring Down the Sky for the first time was cool, albeit it was kind of short and uneventful in the grand scheme of things. This was also the first time I collected all the Insignias, Writings, etc., and I did not expect the ME3 pay-off at all, so that was a pleasant surprise. ME2: Always has been in my top 10 games of all time and still is. Tremendous from start to finish, never feels off. The graphical enhancements help a lot, and playing this through again reminded me of my only complaint: I wish there was a proper endgame, like Citadel's arena or something. Once you complete all missions, you can't do anything anymore, and with such a large and awesome cast, it sucks that there's a hard limit to what you can do with them. I can never bring myself to get anybody killed in the suicide mission, even a decade and multiple playthroughs later. ME3: When I played the first couple of hours of ME3, I thought I was burnt out because I had just played like 60 hours of ME in less than a week, but actually, Earth-Mars-Palaven is easily the worst section of all the Mass Effect games, full stop. It is so, so loving bad. The writing, forced linearity, level design, the weird mesh of boring politics poo poo while the galaxy is being demolished, it's god awful and it's incredible how good it starts to get the moment you step on Tuchanka. From that point forward, outside of some dumb annoying poo poo like Kai Leng and James' constant sexual harassment towards female Shepherd, it's pretty consistently good. This game also has some weird QOL issues, like the codex and journal being laughably bad and worse-than-ME2 armor customization, which could have been excused at the time, but it's really frustrating things like this couldn't have been uniformly adopted to one ideal system throughout all three games. This was also the first time I played through Citadel, and it definitely lived up to the hype. Seeing everyone together, especially Wrex, having a kick rear end time while a dumb goofy plot unravels was such a great time. The scenes in the strips were great, and the arena is so cool and definitely something that should have been retroactively added to the other MEs, or at least allowed the full inclusion of all squadmates in the series, like Virmire Sacrifice, Kasumi, Mordin, etc. Lack of meaningful consequences to dialogue or actions suck. Ending has and always will suck. High EMS Destroy is the only actual choice and is canon. The Caligula Effect 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2d0fr75YF4 I really enjoyed Caligula Effect: Overdose to the point it's probably in my top 5 JRPGS, but it was brought down by a lot of missing QOL features. I was really excited for CE2 because I thought a sequel would only bring improvements, and while CE2 does alleviate some of CE:O's flaws, it also brings along worse overall writing and a baffling omission of CE:O's best addition, the Musician route. I think CE2 is a good game, and I got my $50 out of it, but I do think a possible, but improbable CE2 Overdose would help a lot. There's far worse JRPGs out there and making sweet as hell combat combos to banging vocaloid tracks never gets old for me. And finally, this-is-where-the-goty-list-actually-starts list, my top five games of the year, in descending order: Best Games of the Year 2021 5. Last Stop I was pleasantly surprised by how good this was. It does start out slow, and the three story arcs have wavering moments of peaks and valleys of pacing and quality, but the character writing and dynamics are top notch, and the general mystery is engaging. I liked all three protagonists, but John Smith's story was really fun the entire time, and a really great scene midway through his story about toxic work culture is one of the best scenes in the entire game, if not the best. Most decisions in the game don't do much other than affect how that specific conversation flows, like how a character can call you out on lying about your whereabouts if you're inconsistent at the beginning and ending of your talk with them, or the general conversation while walking to a destination can change from one topic to another. This is fine, as the game never really advertises itself as anything more than a visual novel like, and the final choices each character makes are the only ones that change the ending. Each character is kind of set in stone about their ideals, personality, beliefs, etc., so the decisions you the player make are more about asking "is this what Donna would do?" or "Would Meena value this option over another?". It's not a deep character study or anything, but it does present and deliver a much more charming experience than it first appears. The game does hit a really hard wall in the final chapter because the plot now has to introduce an entirely new area and characters, explain the overarching mystery, and solve all these new dilemmas while tying up any loose ends from previous chapters. It does succeed in bringing a decently satisfying conclusion, but it's plainly obvious that either time, budget, and/or scope hit a limit here and the developers couldn't do as much as they wanted. This game is short, being a 99% linear experience at around 6 hours. It's on GamePass, and I highly recommend this for a relatively laid-back, really delightful experience. 4. Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy A great game that achieves everything it sets out to do. Basically the entire cast is entertaining, with Mantis, Cosmo, and Gamora probably being some of my favorite characters I've interacted with this year. The plot never tries to do more than it absolutely needs to, managing to balance both exposition and character development for the Guardians and other main characters. Groot is shoved off to the side for obvious reasons, but Drax and Rocket have pretty major sections of the game devoted solely to them in either focus or narrative structure. Gamora doesn't really get this treatment but she's by far the best Guardian in many ways so while it would have been nice for her to get a bigger story focus, it wasn't strictly necessary simply because she is constantly stealing the show. Seeing people getting mad at a game they didn’t play winning Best Narrative at a show they swear they don’t actually care about is also pretty lmao. Only a few games actually impress me with their graphical offerings but GotG is an insanely pretty game with stellar facial motion capture, ironically at its best with alien characters like Nikki, Lady Hellbender, and Mantis. Speaking of, I'm not a fan of Marvel or the MCU, (haven't even watched either GotG movies), but I like how the game never really expects you to know or care about anybody preemptively, especially because some included characters and collectables in here are pretty deep cuts. This is a completely new adaptation and it respects both the new and the knowledgeable. The gameplay is the most divisive element of the game and while I wasn't as negative as some others are I did feel, especially as the game went on and combat started becoming more frequent, that all enemies could have had 5-10% less health and the overall experience would have been a lot more enjoyable. I liked the Huddle Up mechanic though because I was never really in danger when using it I got the same handful of lines most of the game, and I do wish Guardian cooldowns were slightly shorter as well. Personally, my biggest complaint is the really strange way the developers have approached saved games/chapter select with a patched in, quasi hidden Save Rollback feature, and by extension the overtly long nature of many chapters in general. Chapters either needed to be cut in half (keeping the content, just doubling the number of chapters) or having mid chapter checkpoints that can be jumped to. Another complaint is while the first two-thirds of the game have a lot of unique and consistent banter between the Guardians, the quality and quantity starts to diminish in the last act. It's still impressive the writers managed to pull off so much good dialogue that most players won't even hear, however. Overall, this is a drat good game and while it won't be something I reminiscence about years from now, it's a great, highly enjoyable effort. 3. Hitman 3 For all intents and purposes IOI considers Hitman 3 to be *the* Hitman game, and everything prior to be DLC for it, so that's the way I approached this write up and the placement on this list. I first played Hitman with the entry Blood Money when I was like, ten years old. I think I got pretty close to the end, but my most reliable memory is constantly replaying A New Life. I played Absolution when it released but remember nothing about it despite apparently getting nearly every single achievement for it. Years later, I picked up Hitman 1 GOTY and the DLC for 2, as Hitman 2 was given away through PS Plus and it gave me an excuse to finally come back to a series I've been slowly growing more interested in. In two weeks I played about 100 hours, and I wasn't even half way through Hitman 2. Every destination is its own level of quality, ranging from the top tier Miami to the bland Marrakesh, but for the most part, that doesn't stop the moment to moment gameplay of Hitman from being absolutely fantastic. Going from a absolutely idiot when I first walked into Paris to abusing the hell out of Mendoza's AI didn't feel like I "figured the game out", instead it felt like Hitman was rewarding me for knowing it's ins and outs, for sticking with it and learning what to do and when to do it. Playing the games back to back also showed that IOI knew exactly how players manipulated certain situations, so they created new environments that forced veteran players to completely change their approach, and it made sense from both a gameplay and narrative sense: the world is getting more dangerous, so the old guard either adapts, or dies. One thing I really like about every level is how most of them are static: nothing really changes unless you make it happen. Why is this a positive? Because it means when something goes wrong or is unexpected, it's a new opportunity you, the player, created, intentionally or not. Destroying all the cameras in Whittleton Creek means the targets make an emergency meeting, and you can kill both of them in one sniper shot or explosion. A body getting found means the Dubai targets are forced to evacuate, letting you cut their parachutes leading to an "accidental" fall from grace. Shooting certain bells in Colorado leads to a fiery outcome for everyone near you. Moments like these lead to dynamic and divergent gameplay where, even if you plan a specific route, you may find an entirely new objective or method you never knew about. I have exactly two problems with this game: I wish there was a better visual indicator for trespassing zones, and I wish IOI figured out how to make fun escalations, especially for how adamant IOI is about having you play them. Other than that, I cannot wait for season 2's content updates. 2. Persona 5 Strikers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18fI53b2VFE Before I played the #1 game on here, this was my default GOTY for a few reasons; most importantly "It's Persona", and even if it did get beat out for the top slot, it's not because this game was lacking. Hell, if anything, this game kinda exceeded a few expectations. I've played maybe an hour total of musou games, and never really cared for them, mainly because I feel like I've experienced everything the genre has to offer within that timeframe gameplay-wise. Persona takes the musou formula and combines it almost seamlessly with the unique turn based mechanics the series is known for to create a more action RPG style gameplay. It's really remarkable how many mechanics Strikers retains from the main series and flows so well; One Mores, Persona skills, the protagonist's exclusive Wild Card ability, all of it fits perfectly. The few negatives are more nitpicks or extremely subjective. The soundtrack is a bit weak compared to P5/P5R, but that's a huge ask of any game. It's a bit unfortunate most of the endgame content is a huge grindfest that I will never do because it takes at least a literal dozen of hours fighting the same boss to get the platinum. Some party members are inherently not as good as other, as I legitimately only used Wolf to get his Master Arts, but some of the benched Phantom Thieves from P5/P5R got time in Strikers, as I actually used Yusuke quite a bit for the first half of the game, Haru is a AOE machine, and for as much as I legitimately loving hate Morgana, he's the best support in Strikers vs being okay in P5/P5R. The story, while predictable, does have a nice balance of the first half giving a shine to the more notoriously neglected party members of P5/P5R, and the second focuses more on the new characters of Strikers, but the game never loses that feeling and vibe of this bring a summer road trip between the Phantom Thieves, and more importantly, a group of close-knit friends. Hell, I've played at least 400 hours of the original Persona 5/Royal alone, and Ryuji's opening line welcoming Ren back put a huge smile on my face that rarely left, because even when the stakes are at the highest, the Phantom Thieves know they can win, because they are a group of rear end kicking friends, and I love them so much. ...and Game of the Year 2021: 1. Gnosia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5StF7DfOJhs As of this writing, it is April 14th, 2021. I finished this game three days ago and I am still thinking about it. This is the game that inspired me to start writing my GOTY list early, because this game is a goddamn incredible experience. From the opening scrawl I knew I was in for a wild ride, and the quick pace the opening establishes is maintained throughout the entire game, meaning it is very easy to lose several hours of your day accusing your friends of conspiring to kill you. There is so much I love. Not a whole lot is explained about the characters, the ship, the worlds the characters are from, or even the universe itself, and it's easy to explain why - it doesn’t matter. The game, nor the situation the game is set during, allows or necessitates long winded expository dumps. The only time characters give exposition is to establish their basic backstory, or offhandedly mention the planet they used to live on. Hell, Jonas and Yuriko probably have the most backstory, and Jonas is legitimately insane and Yuriko fucks with the player so much it’s clear there’s a lot more going on with her than what she lets on, and if anything she says is even remotely true is a question she quite literally asks both the protagonist and the player. Speaking of characters, this is one of the few games I’ve played where every character has a role and fulfills it perfectly. Whether it’s the legitimately funny Shigimichi, the stuck-up Raqio, the virtuous Gina, or the absolutely beautifully written and my personal favorite Setsu, there isn’t any character I would take out or rewrite. My only complaint is that I can't spend more time with them. I want a Gnosia 2 where I can hang out with Chipie, Comet, Stella, everyone here, and hang out with my friends/enemies. Very few games affect me so much, that when the credits roll and eventually go back to the main menu, I'm just sitting there in silence, barely having a single thought go through my head, as I soak in and realize I just experienced something truly unique and unforgettable, and Gnosia is one of them. Truly one of the best games I've ever played.
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Dec 14, 2021 08:02
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