ArbitraryWater's Best Games of 2016 that did come out in 2016

I already gave my little “Boy guys, wasn’t 2016 an endless nightmare? But at least video games were good!” preamble (that seems almost required) in my last list, so I’ll spare you from having to read it again. Here are my top 10 video games that came out in North America within the 365 & 1/4 day-long period of time as our planet rotated around the sun, representing my dedication towards the zeitgeist of having to play the new stuff when other people also played the new stuff. Early 2017 doesn’t seem like it will let up either, with a handful of games I have my eye on coming out in the first few months, though I think I might leave some of them for later and focus on whittling down my backlog a little or figuring out exactly how the hell to make good formations and execute good flanking maneuvers in Total War: Warhammer. That game seems like it could very much devour me if I got over its fairly intimidating learning curve, so I think a good chunk of the rest of my break could be spent on that.

Oh right, starting at 10 and going up to 1:

Best slightly-updated version of a game I already played a year ago: Monster Hunter Generations

Original Blog

You may recall, dear reader, that Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate was my #2 game on last year’s list, It was the first Monster Hunter game I really got into, and kind of dominated my life for a period of multiple months to the point of likely helping to tank my grades the semester it came out. Monster Hunter Generations is that game again, but with super moves and moveset variants. Don’t get me wrong, Hunting Styles and Hunter Arts aren’t little things and they do impact the way the game is played. While it definitely feels like the developers had a little trouble shoehorning all of the weapon types into 4 different hunting styles, most of them feel distinct, viable, and fun to use between “The regular one” “The one with more super moves” “The jumping one” and “The one with the perfect dodges.” Oh, and you can play as a Palico who are basically their own weapon class, though if you’re like anyone else online, you’re probably using one of the handful of viable cats capable of a respectable damage output. The rest of the game’s tweaks are less impressive, such as slightly less confusing weapon upgrade paths (that you still need to look up online) the ability to tell players what your online lobby is for, and deviant variations of monsters with super powerful armor sets and weapons (that you have to farm over and over again.)

As a whole though, it’s a weaker game than 4 Ultimate was, with a roster of mostly recycled monsters from past titles and no real G-Rank endgame to speak of. That didn’t stop me from spending somewhere in the neighborhood of 120 hours in the game, but that’s about 1/3rd as much time as I spent in 4U. With the announcement of this game’s “G” or “Ultimate” version for Japan early next year (Monster Hunter XX) I imagine things will be rectified a bit, though I don’t think my affection for this series runs so deep that I’m willing to get milked by another iterative sequel, unless the rumors of it coming to the Switch are true or something.

Best game everyone immediately forgot about after its release: XCOM 2

Original Blog

XCOM 2 is a pretty safe sequel to Firaxis’ reboot of the original “Turn-Based Strategy Game Featuring Aliens” and that’s hardly a bad thing, given that Enemy Unknown was my game of the year in the far-flung past of 2012. It’s a natural progression, one that fixes a lot of my quibbles with EU and moves the tactical combat forward in an even more assholish direction with its premise of “YO, YOU LOST THE FIRST GAME.” I’m more than okay with that, it turns out. Between the timers, the enemies capable of yanking your dudes out of cover, and the occasional bout of RNG bullshit. I was even okay with the ridiculous super-boss aliens that were added in one of the DLC packs. Sure, I made the mistake of playing that game on its “Normal” equivalent and reached the point of breaking the power curve and steamrolling everything 10 hours before I actually finished, but that one’s on me. The meta-strategy layer trades the overt frustration of the last game’s ridiculous satellite juggling bullshit in favor of mostly being boring, so I’d call it an improvement. Though, much like EU, you still have to pour your resources in a specific direction early on to avoid crippling yourself or outright losing on the strategic layer. It’s not great, and it probably dragged the game down a little for me.

I feel the need to mention, if only because of this game’s kinda infamous profile at launch, that I encountered very few serious bugs outside of a handful of hard crashes to the desktop and the usual janky, nonsensical camera angles and animation glitches that are disappointing but otherwise harmless. I’m not going to pretend XCOM 2 is the stablest game ever or whatever, but yeah. If that was the big reason you didn’t play it back in March, don’t be so worried now.

This should probably just be considered a mini-review of: Tyranny

As the game that held up this entire list in the first place, it should be remarked that Tyranny, Obsidian’s small-scale RPG about evil, is not a very long game. It took me slightly north of 20 hours to see the game to its conclusion, and after spending an entire month this year playing very little other than The Witcher III I think I’m okay with that. It’s a smaller RPG, taking place in a world where a purposefully vague and all-powerful evil has conquered all but the last parts of the world, and your character acts as an enforcer for their law. At its best, it’s a RPG about a particularly grim, mundane brand of evil, one less about murdering babies (though that can happen) and more about soldiers following bad orders, the gears of an uncaring bureaucracy, and things done in the name of “What’s best for you.” I sided with the Disfavored, the obvious Lawful Evil goose-stepping, honor-obsessed fascists, though it definitely seems like the game could’ve gone very differently had I sided with the Chaotic Evil screaming murder horde the Scarlet Chorus, the various rebel factions fighting the invasion, or done my own thing. It’s a compelling short-form RPG, and if not for a handful of problems, it’d probably be even higher on this list!

As a follow-up to my GOTY of last year, Pillars of Eternity, it doesn’t quite reach the same level of quality and execution, and even reeks of (dare I say?) Obsidian games past, complete with a bug that made one of my stronghold areas impossible to leave and a rushed anticlimax of a third act that just screams “We didn’t have the time or money to flesh this out.” This assertion feels more justified when considering some of the game’s systems seem built around something that was going to be much longer. Be it spell creation, stronghold building, the ability to send missives to other characters, or the apparent presence of a bunch of concept art pertaining to nonexistent acts 4 and 5, it definitely seems like Tyranny was kneecapped and scaled down at some point during its development, though if its real conclusion will take the form of DLC or a full sequel I don’t know. The combat lowers the number of controllable characters to 4 and focuses more on MMO-style cooldown timers rather than PoE’s “X per encounter” or “X per rest” is similarly a step down, and by the end I regretted dialing the difficulty up to hard, especially given the pretty questionable companion AI. It seems inexplicably watered down, as if the developers were attempting to aim the game towards an audience who wouldn’t run at the mere sight of an isometric camera and the words “Like Baldur’s Gate” Still, even with these problems I enjoyed Tyranny a lot, and certainly think it stands as an interesting side venture for Obsidian before the inevitable sequel to Pillars of Eternity comes out.

Most Dark Souls: Dark Souls III.

Dark Souls III stacks firmly in the back-middle of my personal Soulsborne tier list, with the secret curve that I think they’re all great games to some extent or another. It’s another excellently crafted “one of those games” with some of the best boss fights in the entire series and some really fun callbacks to DS 1 and 2. It doesn’t take as many risks or turns as Bloodborne did last year, kinda by its nature as the concluding game to a trilogy, but it turns out that’s fine and I still enjoyed playing the game the entire way through. I think it manages to explain itself the best of all of the games in the series, and I’d honestly argue it’s the one someone could play the most of without missing some vital piece of content. It’s good, often great, in a way that is difficult for me to quantify, mostly because it probably tries to rock the boat the least out of all of the Souls games, at least from a level design perspective. It’s linear for sure, though that linearity doesn’t feel constraining

Where I will mark Dark Souls III down is that it kinda backtracks on the number of interesting or viable builds to something resembling Bloodborne levels. As someone who enjoyed running around that last game dual wielding greatswords like an idiot or investing heavily in hexes, the changes to poise and the generally gimped nature of magic meant that running around with a regular straight sword and a shield with light armor was usually the best option, which is a little disappointing. Maybe they’ve changed the game balance since March and April, but I was put off from doing a replay precisely because magic seemed borderline useless when I dabbled it it during my first playthrough. Still, I imagine once the second DLC pack comes out I’ll give this one another go.

Dan Ryckert and Brad Shoemaker Present: Best Murder Sandbox: Hitman

I honestly haven’t watched most of the staff’s misadventures in Hitmanland, but I watched enough of them to know that this was a game I should probably get, and the second it went on sale I did. That was a smart decision. Well, I mean, it was a bad decision because it was right before finals, but I can confirm that Hitman’s brand of clockwork simulation is something that I’m very into. It’s not just the goofy disguises, the weirdly self-aware NPC dialogue or the ridiculous ways you can inflict murder upon your foes, it’s also good map design and the puzzle-y elements of figuring out how to commit said murder in the most creative way possible. It gels well with my inner stealth perfectionist, though I do feel like some of the more obscure opportunities or killing setups feel like they require inordinate amounts of time or a guide to figure out, though I’ve been disciplined enough to avoid the lure of looking up too many suit only/silent assassin runs and ruining things for myself by repeating a script to the letter. The game’s format is something I can’t really comment on too much, since I got it when it was already done, but I’m looking forward to experiencing it with their next season. I’m a pretty big fan of Elusive Targets, for as much as I’ve tried to resolve most of them by shooting the fool in the head with a sniper rifle.

Best J-Pop: Tokyo Mirage Sessions # FE

As the last good Wii U exclusive before Nintendo unceremoniously puts a bullet in that thing’s head with Zelda, Tokyo Mirage Sessions surprised the hell out of me. It’s an infectiously cheery, exceptionally silly and super anime RPG about the Japanese entertainment industry, and leans into that shit in a way that makes Persona 4 look like Gears of War. Also there are Fire Emblem characters hanging out for some reason. I kinda love it. Oh, the JRPG part of it is pretty good, being built on the basic Shin Megami Tensei foundation but with way more focus on chaining follow-up attacks, but it was the prospect of another ridiculous choreographed J-Pop performance or weird skit that kept me going through the game. TMS knows exactly what it is and acts accordingly, which is why the supporting cast all fall into recognizable anime archetypes but are executed on with confidence and enthusiasm. Did I mention that everyone in the cast sings at least one song? It’s pretty great. Oh, the plot is fluff, but it’s enjoyable fluff.

You’ll notice I haven’t talked about the Fire Emblem connection, which is because it’s tenuous at best. While there are Fire Emblem characters acting as the persona equivalents to the anime teens, they and all of the FE imagery could probably be removed without much loss. There are a couple of easter eggs and references for crazy people like me (Did you know that Cath from Binding Blade is the clothing shop girl? No you didn’t, because that one only came out in Japan) and a rendition of the series’ opera theme right before the final boss battle, but the only real gameplay concession is the inclusion of the Fire Emblem weapon triangle into the usual SMT brand of weakness exploitation. It’s probably best to think of this game as less of a crossover and more of its own weird thing. I think it does quite well in that sense.

Game most likely to show up on this list: Fire Emblem Fates.

Original Blog

Feel free to read the blog linked above if you want to read my exhaustive breakdown of exactly what I think of this game and its 3 campaigns. Fire Emblem Fates was a weird one to place on my list, mostly because I think 1/3rd of that game is fantastic, 1/3rd is passable and 1/3rd is kinda bad, and being the nut that I am I decided to count them all together. I ended up compromising and shoving it towards the middle, and that’s why it’s where it is on this top 10. Of the three campaigns that comprise Fire Emblem Fates, Conquest is the best of them by a wide margin. As someone who found Awakening to be a little too easy and simple, Conquest’s range of tactically demanding murder maps (without the crutch of grinding) was exactly what I wanted, and I think it probably has some of the best scenario design in the series. It might not be what the person who played Awakening once on Normal/Casual wanted, but for them there’s Birthright, the human-friendly, grinding-allowed, straightforward one… which is good at that, but is probably not as good at doing that as Awakening was. And then there’s Revelation, the DLC/Special Edition-only “Golden Route” that you’re supposed to play after messing with the other ones. It’s meant to be a compromise between the other two, which means it borrows a lot of its map gimmicks from Conquest, but instead of making its maps challenging, it just makes them time consuming and annoying. It feels like a bad, unbalanced ROM hack for a better Fire Emblem game, and should probably be avoided by anyone who isn’t an insane fan of the series like me.

Oh right, also the stories for all 3 of the campaigns are terrible, with special attention going towards Conquest’s disastrously bungled attempts at creating any sort of grey morality. Also they took out the waifu face rubbing and I don’t care?

Best Giant Robots Dropping from the Sky and also Time Travel Level: Titanfall 2

While everyone else is apparently all about Overwatch and its off-Pixar brand of inclusive, Rule 34-friendly Team Fortress-ish shooting funtimes, I was spending my time with Titanfall 2, which is the first online shooter that I’ve fallen for in a very long time. The campaign alone probably would’ve propelled it to somewhere near the bottom of this list, actually. For what could’ve been yet another disposable 5-7 hour shooter campaign about generic white dude and robot buddy fighting war, Titanfall 2 succeeds by making each level as varied and distinct as possible, with the obvious standout being “A Crack in the Slab” and its time-shifting insanity. The plot is perfunctory, but the robot buddy is at least a cool buddy to have talking the white-bread protagonist’s ear the entire time.

And yeah, the multiplayer is great. I never played the first game, so the crazy fast wallrunning and the giant mechs are pretty great, and the entire thing has a layer of polish around it that shows that the people making it know what they’re doing and have honed that brand of twitchy “left-trigger, right-trigger” first-person shooting to a science. I’ve already prestiged twice, and there’s a decent chance I’ll prestige again before I put this game down. And then maybe I’ll start playing Overwatch.

Best Sneaky Sneak “Find the Vent” Game: Dishonored 2

Despite a handful of minor design hang-ups, I think I’m probably one of the more vocal advocates for the original Dishonored as the good and true successor to the throne of the original Deus Ex (and maybe Thief too,) especially given how Deus Ex is going right now (more on that in a bit.) Dishonored 2 takes that game and refines it to the point where most of my caveats regarding the first game aren’t an issue, and it’s a sterling example of a big open sneaking sandbox with crazy teleporting ninja powers and a great sense of place. Yeah, so the opening 10 minutes of the game should be a textbook example of how not to do story setup and exposition, but there are still a bunch of random diary entries that I can run around and read, so it’s all good as far as I’m concerned. It’s also a little more difficult as a stealth game, which I appreciated as someone who plays all of these sorts of games with a dangerous level of OCD perfectionism, though I’ve also found the combat to be entirely enjoyable on its own. It’s more Dishonored, yes, but it’s also more incredibly refined Dishonored, and I couldn’t be happier about how it turned out. Even if the time-shifting level isn’t as good as Titanfall 2’s.

Best: DOOM.

I let a friend borrow my copy of the new Doom, and I’ve been browbeating him to finish it so I can have it back so I can play some more Doom from time to time because it’s my Game of the Year and one of the single best shooter campaigns I’ve played in a long, long time. I wouldn’t be surprised if you get to hear more praise about that game from the Giant Bomb crew tomorrow, but hot damn is every part of this game great. It’s fast as hell in a way that evokes the original Doom and Doom II, but has enough modern trappings to not feel like a throwback. It’s also winkingly stupid between the portrayal of the Doomguy as a demon murdering force and the sinister robot voice talking about using hell for energy in a way that is so, so good. I got the platinum for this game, and I never get very far when I try and go for a platinum trophy. But yeah, if you haven’t played this game, you should play it. It’s real real good.

Alright, now time for a couple of honorable mentions

Game Number 11: Pokemon Moon.

It definitely seems like a trend that the new Pokemon game that shows up on one draft of my list inevitably gets cut for something. Honestly, I think Pokemon Sun and Moon are probably a touch weaker as games than X and Y, even despite their infectiously cheery attitude and finally getting rid of HMs after only 20 years of having to sacrifice move slots and roster spots so you can cross damn whirlpools or something equally asinine. At this point I’ve kinda embraced the comfort food angle that these games are stupid easy and for kids, though I wish this one wasn’t so naked with its railroading of the player and had better side-activities and subsystems. For as tedious as super training was in X and Y, at least it was easily understood and straightforward. The way to mess around with your pokemon’s EVs in this one seems way worse by comparison, and it’s definitely turned me off from the idea of getting competitive as a result.

Though, I should mention this game’s story, if only because there is one and it gets weird and crazy in a way that I wouldn’t have expected out of one of these. Between implications that the original pokemon games and their remakes are set in parallel dimensions to the part where the final battle is against a lady fused with an alien squid parasite pokemon in weirdo space land, it’s better than it has any right to be?

Other honorable mentions:

Phoenix Wright: Spirit of Justice is a game that I didn’t like as much as its predecessor, Dual Destinies, despite popular opinion from the fanbase seemingly swinging the other way. While I’m always down for that particular series’ brand of anime courtroom nonsense, this one kinda emphasized how much the entire thing is beholden to its own continuity in a way that definitely can’t be healthy. While the twists and turns are as weird and ridiculous as they’ve always been, and the 3D models look a lot better, I’m definitely hoping they get to take a few more risks with whatever the next one is. Or, they should just release The Great Ace Attorney over here so I can get my Meiji-era anime courtroom nonsense on… yeah, that’s not gonna happen.

Salt and Sanctuary is a 2D simulacrum of Dark Souls that makes no effort in attempting to hide its influences. While the concept itself is an interesting one and the game itself very well made, I found its execution to be a little less consistent than From Software’s own, exemplified in the way I spent the last few hours of the game stunlocking every single boss to death by swinging a two-handed katana with the interrupt charm attached. For all I know they’ve nerfed that particular tactic in the months that it, but my point is that Salt and Sanctuary doesn’t quite nail the landing when it comes to imitating Souls, at least as far as grueling difficulty and existential sorrow are concerned. It’s not half-bad though, and I’d be interested if they ever did a sequel or something.

Darkest Dungeon is a game that is drenched in its own oppressive style and atmosphere, minimalistic dungeon crawling mechanics, and sanity management juggle, which would’ve been all great had I not run into the realization of how grindy the entire damn thing is and how ridiculous the RNG screwage potential gets after a certain point. But hey, those first 15-20 hours? Solid.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided might’ve made its way onto my list if I didn’t feel like I was getting swindled as the credits rolled. It’s a competent sneaky sneak “find the vent” game on its own merits, but it doesn’t feel like a huge progression from its 5-year-old predecessor Human Revolution. On top of that, it definitely feels like the story (which makes motions toward saying something meaningful about society but never does) ends at a 2/3rds mark and a good 75% of the game’s content happens in the Prague hub world, rather than the painstakingly hand-crafted level design of something like Dishonored 2, its closest analogue. If one were to believe conspiracy theories (and not the dumb ones present in this game) it’s almost like the game was originally going to be much longer but they decided to cut it down and pad out the hub area with a bunch of (admittedly interesting) side content to hide the fact that there isn’t as much going on as the hour count would suggest.

Games I’m looking forward to most in 2017: Persona 5 and Torment: Tides of Numenera

After a good 7-8 years of Atlus milking the hell out of Persona 4 (and to a lesser extent, Persona 3) I realllllly want to see what Persona 5 looks like. Other than knowing something about the game’s basic premise and hearing vaguely from people who know Japanese that it’s good, I’m planning on going in as blind as possible.

Torment: Tides of Numenera is attempting an even ballsier feat by attempting to be the spiritual successor to the single best interactive novel masquerading as a D&D game ever made, and the damn thing is finally coming out only 3 ½ years after I backed it on Kickstarter. I played just enough of the early access version (approximately the first two screens) to know that it’s going for it in the “walls of text” and “inscrutable alien world” department, but I’m going to have to see for myself come February if it succeeds.

Game from my RPG backlog list most likely to be played in 2017: Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, or Underrail.

The list, for reference

I didn’t say Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines, because I’m kinda in the process of playing that already. But yeah, if I’m going to whittle down my RPG backlog with something, it’s likely going to be something on my PC right now. Thus, two very different games. Lightning Returns out of a dark obligation to see that trilogy through in case Trump really does end the world, and Underrail because it’s been a while since I’ve messed with an overly-ambitious low-budget RPG developed in Eastern Europe. Or maybe I’ll play neither of these and you’ll hear all about Tales of Symphonia next year. Whatevz.