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What do you know, my list is actually, like, half current! Assuming you count me waiting a year to play a game on Steam that came out in 2021 on EGS as having come out this year. Which I do. Anyway, here's some games, and some songs from those games, because I like video game music. I generally want to do different vibes with each one but I kinda just go with my heart on some of them. Maybe next year I'll do some fancy graphics as well, who knows? Also apologies on a couple since certain companies are annoyingly proactive about their takedowns so I may have had to locate some less-than-perfect uploads. Honorable mentions: Yu-Gi-Oh Master Duel. gently caress man I can't believe I'm just fully back on board with this stupid game now. I was on and off with Duel Links over the years, playing the Steam client but the phone game-yness of it always felt bad. But, thanks to Duel Links, I was at least familiar enough with some of the more modern concepts that I didn't feel like a complete fish out of water getting back in like a lot of people did earlier in the year. I had a leg up on a lot of the people who quit playing in the DM era of 02-05 like myself, because I actually knew how to do things like Pendulum Summon! Not that I would ever do such a thing. Pendulum decks are for perverts. Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes. I'm not a Musou guy, having only really gotten into Hyrule Warriors, and I feel I should stress that, after finishing each house one time (gently caress church route), and sitting through a good chunk of The Discourse, I am beyond sick of Three Houses, so I didn't expect to enjoy this game as much as I did. But I did kinda fall off hard about 2/3 through Scarlet Blaze and have tried picking it back up a couple of times, and just haven't been feeling it. So I figure an HM is warranted. Cool game, actually does some really interesting stuff with the story and characters, but it is still a Musou at the end of the day. #10 - Xenoblade Chronicles 2 [2017] 1 | 2 | 3 I have very mixed feelings on Xenoblade 2. I wrote an essay about it in the Xenoblade thread a few months ago, so I'll keep this bit short. It's a game that has good things in it, and I liked parts of it. But I am also the type of person who plays games somewhat slowly, and I'm going to be honest I did not play many more than 10 this year. If I had, I would not be talking about XB2 here. But, I had to see what it was, and I ended up liking it in the end. But man was it a struggle at points. #9 - Bowser's Fury [2021] 1 | 2 | 3 Not really much to say on this one. It's a pretty stock-standard little Mario experience with a neat gimmick or two. I like 3D World a whole lot and using that engine for a miniature Odyssey-esque expansion is a really good value add for a 3D World re-release (which I didn't actually play since I'd already done so on Wii U. My brother bought this one.) #8 - Torna - The Golden Country [2018] 1 | 2 | 3 For years I'd heard about how Xenoblade 2 was incredibly divisive but everybody seemed to agree that Torna, its DLC released a year later, was almost unanimously adored. I definitely get it. Torna fixes so many of my issues with the base game and overhauls the combat I never really got used to and makes it both more active and more understandable. There are fewer needless mechanics bogging it down, less UI clutter, and an overall increased pace to it that felt a lot more satisfying to engage with. That's not to say it was perfect, it still has a few lingering issues, but I generally enjoyed it much more. As far as the non-gameplay bits go, the story, characters, and writing were likewise leaps and bounds better. There's a drastically reduced quotient of "unfunny anime hijinks" and I say that as a big weeb who loves me some anime and JRPGs. The biggest problem with it story-wise are it being locked to a pre-determined event in the main game's chronology, meaning they couldn't deviate from the villain of 2, since he was present then as well, and as I mention in the post I linked above, I very much did not like him. That doesn't really change here. Still, despite the "Xenoblade 2-eyness" of it, they seemingly took a lot of fan feedback into consideration and did what they could with the game they were working with to make a largely much better experience. #7 - Pokemon Legends: Arceus [2022] 1 | 2 | 3 This is absolutely not unique to me but I've been in and out of love with Pokemon for awhile. I was pretty disappointed and annoyed with Gen 5 when I played it back in the day, and ever since I kinda realized "Maybe... I don't need to play every single one of these." And so ever since, if the game has things that interest me, I'll pick it up. If it doesn't, I won't bother. I'm not expecting radical change in this series at this point and have just sort of accepted it's going to be stagnant for as long as they think they can get away with (which is seemingly forever), and so when Legends Arceus gets announced, it's a genuine surprise to me. Early footage looked a bit wack, but as it came closer to release, people started to realize "Oh man... is this game... actually kinda cool?" And it is! It's about a decade overdue, sure, but it's a genuinely cool new spin on the formula, and I loved being able to actually CATCH them now. The story was, while not anything particularly outstanding, still more daring and creative than anything the main games have done in awhile. Lot of cool characters, a few interesting new Pokemon (Sneasler and Hisuian Zoroark are two of my new favorites). Just in general there's a lot to like here. I haven't played Scarlet/Violet and I know there's a bit of influence from Legends in there, but since that was being developed in the same timeframe, I'm hoping the next entries that are starting development post-Legends will incorporate more of what makes that game so fun. Or just do a sequel set in a different region's history, that works too! #6 - Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition [2020/(original: 2012)] 1 | 2 | 3 Yes, Xenoblade takes up 3 spots on my list. And yet none of them are Xenoblade 3! Funny how that works. I'm going to be real here. This is my second favorite video game of all time. It has been since the original came out in 2012 (in the US anyway). I feel comfortable listing a replay of it here because I went ham on it this time. First time through, I didn't complete Colony 6. I didn't do anywhere near every sidequest. I only discovered there were extra Skill Trees at the very end of the game. I had spent most of the game with a single party formation and had no Affinity between anybody but Shulk, Riki, and Dunban (plus Shulk and Reyn since they spend so much of the early game together). This replay, which I admittedly started but dropped off back in 2020, I got about as close to 100% as I was willing to bother with. Finished the collectapedia, maxed out both Affinity Charts, got all the Skill Trees, rebuilt Colony 6, etc. All while re-experiencing (most of) the story I adored for the first time in a decade. I love this game. When I hear people dismiss the Xenoblade series because X was a weird outlier and 2 was an embarrassing horny romcom anime, it genuinely saddens me that they're also including the first game in that. I'm hoping the massive critical acclaim 3 has gotten will inspire more people to check out the first one, because I would genuinely say it's a masterpiece. There's also the Future Connected extra story. It's fun. It's nowhere near as significant an addition as Torna is to XB2, I feel. It mostly just serves as an epilogue to give Melia a bit more closure after things kind of go off the rails for the High Entia and the main plot can't really afford to take that detour at that point. So while FC was nice it was mostly inconsequential other than the Melia stuff. #5 - Yakuza 5 [2020/(original: 2015)] 1 | 2 | 3 My gradual journey through Yakuza continued with Y5 this year. I had some issues with this one while I was playing it. There was a lot about the story that just... lost me until the final hours when everything was tied together again. But still, I had a lot of fun in the various cities as different characters. Kiryu's new life as a taxi driver in Nagasugai named Suzuki, trying to fly under the radar only to get caught up in the underground street racing scene was a good way to start the game. I was a bit annoyed to see Saejima back in prison, repeating the escape plot beat from 4, but ending up in a small mountain hunting town in way up in Hokkaido helping the local hunters deal with an enormous bear that had been terrifying them for years was a nice twist on things. Haruka's budding idol career was a fun bit of combat-free gameplay. New character Shinada has a baseball subplot that I did not play because I didn't like the batting cages minigame. Akiyama is also present. And of course, all of them eventually get dragged into Tojo clan drama, for one reason or another. The way the game wrapped up was both satisfying and interesting, and I'm planning to start up Y6 soon next year to see where they take things after the ending of 5. Also, Shinada ftw. I may not have done his subplot but his involvement in the main story was probably the best part of the game. Aside from Akiyama's combat; holy poo poo juggling dudes with air kicks like Sanji from One Piece was so much fun. With both the gameplay and the story, you can very much feel that Yakuza 0 was the next game they made after this, because they're really hitting their stride in a lot of areas, it's just that Y5 was a bit too ambitious and winds up bogging them down a bit. Still, ended up being a great experience by the end. #4 - Hitman 3 [2022/(EGS release: 2021)] 1 | 2 Hitman is good. I like Hitman. Assassinating rich and influential scumbags will never get old. I know people are probably thinking IOI are going to change things up when they return to the series after their James Bond project, but I hope they manage to keep the straightfaced clockwork lunacy of these games. It's so much fun. My only real gripes with 3 are I wasn't a big fan of the Berlin level, and the story, which had been fairly interesting in 2 and the later stages of 1, got a bit up its own rear end by the end. But hey, they earned it. Excellent trilogy. #3 - Triangle Strategy [2022] 1 | 2 | 3 This sits in that category of game that would just live rent-free inside my head pretty much from announcement to release, along with Persona 5 and Dragon Quest 11. I was so insanely hyped. I've heard some Tactics Ogre/FFT purists dismiss this one but everything it was doing just worked perfectly for me. The 3-way conflict, the choices and branching story paths (and not always being able to get the outcome you want, depending how you play!), the satisfying tactics gameplay and probably most obviously, the presentation. All just chef's kiss fantastic. I definitely hope this genre gets the HD2D treatment again in the future, not necessarily another one in this world, but something of a similar tone would be wonderful. I really loved just about everything this game had to offer, with only a few minor issues here and there. If you have any love for political dramas and tactics RPGs, give this a look. #2 - Sonic Frontiers [2022] 1 | 2 | 3 If I'm being completely honest, I think Triangle Strategy probably should take this spot based purely on the quality of the games alone. But the narrative of Sonic finally getting a big W for the first time in a long time (not counting Mania) pushes it over the edge for me. It's such a good feeling to play a fun, well made 3d Sonic game that maybe not everybody loves but most people will at least agree is a massive step in the right direction for the series. Like with Pokemon Legends earlier in the list, I think Frontiers does a lot of Open World Video Game Tropes that people have moved past or gotten sick of after years of Ubisoft's blueprint dominating so much of the industry, but the thing to keep in mind about franchises like Sonic, Pokemon, and Zelda is... they can kinda get away with it because of what they are. It turns out, even if your open world is just a vaguely pleasant cloudy green field with some cliffs and patches of woods, or a big desert separated by some canyons, it's still fun as gently caress to run around it as Sonic the Hedgehog, because he's Sonic the Hedgehog. The Cyberspace levels are probably among the most common complaints, specifically the 2D ones, and... yeah I kinda can't defend them. They just feel wrong to me. The 3D Cyberspace levels are good, nothing on the level of the original Boost Trilogy's best stuff, but certainly a step above Forces. The open world combat is bizarrely engaging. I've been a big proponent of the opinion that normal enemies in Sonic should never have health bars. However, giving Sonic a bunch of different attacks and abilities and tuning enemy encounters around that stuff (or not, in many cases, and letting you flatten them completely) is a fun alternative. Translating that moveset over to the incredible spectacle boss fights at the end of each island feels like such an awesome power trip, and by far the best incarnation of Super Sonic in 3D in history. Just for the love of god don't forget you have a Parry, as useless as it might seem for most of the game. I never fell victim to this, but I've seen a number of people do so and it hurts to watch. The main story plays it pretty safe, barring two big points that being the developments with Eggman and Sage, as well as the revelation of the origins of the Chaos Emeralds, Chaos from SA1, and the Chao. However, in that safety, Ian Flynn, the lead writer and main creative force behind the last 16 years of Sonic comics, makes a point to build up the main cast of Sonic, Tails, Amy, and Knuckles. With a lot of small conversations around the maps, some optional, the four of them are fleshed out in ways the games haven't seen practically since Adventure 2. With the recent announcement that they're going to be working on the game post-launch for awhile, adding new content and fixing issues (hopefully like the game's absolutely gnarly pop-in), as well as playable characters besides Sonic, I'm absolutely looking forward to where things go from here. #1 - Live A Live [2022/(original: 1994)] 1 | 2 | 3 And here it is. The game almost nobody saw coming. An HD2D remake of a Japan only Super Famicom JRPG that seemingly nobody but hardcores who went digging deep in the emulation/fan translation mines spoke of. If you aren't aware of what this game is, think of it as the original Octopath Traveler. A game split into a series of seven vignettes, each starring a different character, and each taking place in a different time period. Ranging from Prehistoric cavemen fighting extinct beasts and dinosaurs while grunting and pantomiming to each other, all the way to the far flung future, with a sci-fi horror plot starring a robot on a spaceship. Each story and character has their own unique gimmicks to them, and no two chapters are alike in the way you progress through them. The only true commonality between them is a shared battle system, taking place on a 7x7 grid, with each player character and enemy being able to move around and direct their different attacks to spots on the grid, with more powerful moves generally taking a bit of time to charge up. I knew I would be getting this game when it was announced, but I did not anticipate how much it would utterly endear itself to me. Knowing only bits and pieces about the original from a friend's description, I found myself loving every chapter for different reasons, and when when they all come together for the finale, I got so excited every time I met back up with one of my friends I'd just had an adventure with. The game is by no means perfect; there's definitely still a few things that scream "this was originally made in 1994" that they wanted to stay true to, but I've played a fair number of games that do that type of thing that hold up WAY less than Live A Live does. One of the posts in this thread I read said it still feels innovative in 2022 in a lot of ways, let alone for 1994, and I have to agree with that. What a wonderful surprise this one was. I spent over a year waiting impatiently for Triangle Strategy, and yet only a few months later another HD2D release would snatch away a potential GOTY spot right from under it. Folks, if you haven't, play Live A Live.
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Dec 12, 2022 10:34
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| # ¿ May 12, 2024 04:02 |
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Rarity posted:Congratulations on doing something no one has done before in the 5 years of running this thread: listing both a main game and its DLC as entries. In past years when people vote for specific bits of DLC the points have been counted with points for the main game so to stick to that standard what I'm going to do here is say Xenoblade Chronicles 2 w/ Torna gets 3 points and then you can either bump one of your HMs into #10 or keep your list at 9 games In fairness they do sell Torna standalone. I mostly separated them because of the gulf of quality/how much more I liked Torna than the base game (even if their relatively close positioning doesn't make it seem that way lol). I'll just keep it at 9 entries counted then I suppose.
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Dec 12, 2022 10:49
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Rarity posted:Oh cool if it's a separate release then that's fine You can get it either way, it's just a bit cheaper to get it as the DLC addon versus standalone, but yeah.
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Dec 12, 2022 10:55
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Epic High Five posted:It's Sylvando The way I always describe it is prior to Sylvando joining, your party doesn't really feel like a "party." It just feels like four people who happen to be going to the same place. The second Sylvando joins, you become a cohesive group. He brings such a lively, joyous spark to that game.
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Dec 17, 2022 00:36
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I just decided anything I play in December after posting my list will be considered part of next year's because I don't want to inconvenience anybody by editing my list again a week after posting it. Because I literally did the exact same thing as last year where I posted, then played a really good Mega Man game like 4 days later.
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Dec 22, 2022 14:20
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Rarity posted:This is betraying the sanctity of the calendar time is a fake concept anyway
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Dec 22, 2022 14:49
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Looper posted:permaban everyone who listed elden ring as their #1
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Jan 2, 2023 02:17
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Jay Rust posted:Post ur favourite 2022 game music!! I did in my list! That's been my gimmick every year. But sure I'll take an excuse to post another one I didn't have room for with the arbitrary 3 song limit I made for myself. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gzIL8_G4Xs
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Jan 2, 2023 03:25
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| # ¿ May 12, 2024 04:02 |
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if i don't see live a live on some of you mf's lists this december there will be violence
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Jan 8, 2023 17:06
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