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badseed

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Game of the Year 2017

To echo the start of my 2016 list, 2017 has been a strange year. It was a spectacularly shitty year in the world and also contained some pretty bad events for me and my family. One of the few bright spots of the year was games. This was a great year for gaming, and while it’s tempting to say it’s in response to a higher need for escapism the truth is most if not all of these games were in development long before we knew what 2017 would bring.

I played a lot of games this year, but I also missed a bunch that I’m hoping to get to in the coming year, so a few notable games left off my list due to time are:

Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator, Doki Doki Litterature Club, Hollow Knight, SteamWorld Dig 2, Torment: Tides of Numenera, What Remains of Edith Finch. (also, I do not own a PS4 so Horizon Zero Dawn and Windjammers are out of contention)

Next up the dis-honourable mentions, the games I did play but want to make clear they do not belong anywhere near my top ten:

Mass Effect: Andromeda (biggest disappointment of the year for me, I love the Mass Effect series and replay the trilogy yearly. It had nothing to do with the bugs or the bad facial animation, the story is just bad)

Sonic Mania (though to be fair, I’ve never been a fan of Sonic so this was never likely to be a match made in heaven)

The final preamble are games I played and liked, but they just didn’t make the top ten:

Destiny 2 (this was the year I got into Destiny after skipping the first one, playing on PC I had a lot of fun with a great shooter, but since I was never going to spend the time getting raid ready never mind actually playing the raid my brief affair with the game ended after the single player stuff ends.)

Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy (Holy shit this game… everything about it is perfect, the sounds, the music, the inspirational narration. I spent far to much time trying to climb a mountain I will probably never be able to climb, but I’m ok with that.)

Golf Story (It’s a fun little golf rpg, but the mechanics wear a bit thin in the end, also Disc Golf sucks)

Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle (This game was surprising in that it was actually good, and the perfect pallet cleanser in between BotW and SM:O)

Nidhogg II (It’s a great game, but I think I still prefer the original)

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus (Yeah, in any other year this would be a shoe in for the top ten, it’s got a lot of fantastic moments and some truly cathartic gameplay, but while the story is great I just wish it was a little more fun to play)

And now the main event, my top ten games of 2017

List items

  • This is a bit of a full circle thing for me, the Persona 4 ER was the video series that brought me to this site, introduced me to the Persona series, and got me to play both P3 and P4 multiple times (as well as the various re-releases, fighting games, dancing games and Etrian Odyssey crossovers). This would be the fist time I play a Persona game at the time of release. While some of the localisation grates a bit, and some of the characters are annoying, let’s face it, the same can be said of Previous entries in the series. The story is good, the youth revolt against the corrupt men in power felt very fitting in the year 2017. The music is great (really a great year for game music this year), the one thing that annoyed me is the dungeon design, but the tweaks to the combat system more than makes up for that. Game of the Year for me.

  • Again, Wow! This game is just concentrated fun, everything just feels good, and where there has been a lot of griping about the motion controls, most of them are unnecessary (it helps that I played almost exclusively with the pro controller of course). The story is nothing, Bowser kidnaps Peach once more, this time intending to marry her. I whish we had moved past that sotry by now, especially since Peach proved the was the GoaT way back in the American edition of SMB2. Still the game mechanics and platforming are solid, and the game is a joy to play. It hits all the nostalgia buttons and then some, and the ending sequence and credits are truly great. The post-game moon mop up provides some of the best parts of the game, I’m at around 550 moons right now, and picking the switch up and getting a moon or two is the prefect bite sized game.

  • Wow! Nintendo really nailed it with this one. I’m on the record of not really liking the 3D Zelda games (with the exception of Wind Waker) feeling the series peaked on the SNES with A Link to the Past. Here everything just works, there’s no hours long intro before the game starts, instead they just throw you in the deep end from the start just letting you acquaint yourself with the mechanics. When you get the quest to defeat Ganon at the start I instantly got what they were going for, I could storm the castle immediately, alas with my skills I need few more heart containers first. Heading out into the world it immediately becomes obvious what the hook of this game is, exploration. Everywhere you look out on to the horizon you see a few interesting things that you want to discover, and by not populating the map with a bunch of icons, Ubisoft style you don’t get overwhelmed by the sheer size of Hyrule. You just mark a few points on your map and set out, almost assuredly getting side-tracked along the way by something shiny. I still don’t think it replaces ALttP at the top of the Zelda pyramid (triforce?), but it’s probably my number two.

  • I’m slightly weirded out by how much I identify with Night in the Woods. Also hailing from a small community where everyone knows everyone and being at a point in life where I’m transitioning from my past life to a more uncertain future. The story of Mae and her friends hooked me immediately. The charming art and animations are great.

  • I don’t really play competitive multiplayer games over the internet, not since the days of Quake 1 and the original Counterstrike anyway. But every now and then there comes a game that just forces you to take part. After seeing the first couple of videos of this game right here I knew I had to try it out. Man this game is addictive, after plugging away at the game solo and getting my first (and to date only) Chicken Dinner I managed to rope in a friend to play Duo with. It’s amazing how much the game is transformed in Duo mode, solo play is a harrowing trek across a desolate landscape where you know everyone is out to get you, add in a friend and suddenly you’re trying to jump across rooftops with a motorcycle. I see this game continuing to eat a lot of my free time in the future.

  • After Gone Home I would have followed Fullbright anywhere and they do not disappoint. While not the tear jerker that Gone Home proved to be Tacoma quickly gets you invested in the lives of the crew aboard the Tacoma station. The ingenious method of having events play out simultaneously in multiple locations and having you scrub the timeline back and forth is a genius way of making the act of listening to these conversations feel like an active rather than passive task.

  • This is an amazingly well-crafted game, the animations are beautiful, the music is great and the gameplay is perfect, it’s really hard but always fair. This is one game I delight in showing to non-gaming fans and see their jaws drop. My only gripe is that it’s in places too faithful to the animation styling of the past, incorporating the eras minstrel depictions.

  • This game had no right to be good, It’s a prequel, made by a completely different team, with a completely new voice cast, but the story is excellent. Chloe was already my favourite character from Life is Strange, but this really added to her story, and made Rachel Amber a fully formed character. Full marks, but please, let Chloe and Max be after this.

  • I had never played any Fire Pro games before this, but I had heard a whole lot about them, I’m happy to say this lives up to it’s reputation. The gameplay is great, the animations are very well done, and the move lists are humongous. The creation suite is amazingly versatile and the work shop support meant I quickly had more wrestlers than I knew what to do with. The only downside is the lack of a GM mode or Story creator, the former is coming in January, the latter is rumoured. But what is there already is more than enough the justify its place on this list.

  • Man, this game. After all I remembered hearing about the first Nier, coupled with the character design of 2b I was set to completely write this game off. But after hearing more and more people shout from the rooftops about this game (and that you must see the multiple endings) I decided to take the plunge. The story is fantastic, it goes places few games do, and has some truly wonderful characters. The music alone almost makes this a top ten game. Unfortunately, there is the part where you actually play the game. The gameplay, while at first fun, is extremely repetitive, and it’s far too long before you get a fast travel option, had I not heard all the voices praising the later endings I would have stopped playing after ending A. In the end I’m glad I finished it, but I can’t put it higher than this.
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