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BusinessisBlooming

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GOTY 2021

Hi, I played video games in 2021. I made a list of 10 games I thought I'd write about. I didn't mention Genshin Impact, but trust me, I've been going strong with that as well. We got the Inazuma region this year and I've been happily grinding my characters up. It's definitely what I played the most this year. I experienced NieR Replicant this year, and can now say I have. I wanted to like that game man, but the back half of that game is so needlessly sloggish. Went on a small Metroid binge, thinking I'd play em all. That didn't work, but have Fusion, Zero Mission and half of Prime 2 under my belt (as well as some others that might come up later). I was the only person who liked New Pokemon Snap, Sonon deserved better, I acquired PlayStation 5, I worked a job and quit it, and here's the list:

List items

  • Why doesn't this website have an entry for Bowser's Fury?!

    100 stars in one 3D Mario level. What a cool thing. What I really like about Mario 64 is the ability to adjust your strategy mid-level and go for a different star if you change your mind or something tragic happens. If you put yourself away from a specific cat shine, you can just go for another one. Except the scale isn’t just about pivoting to another of 6 stars in the same level, it’s grander; you can pivot to dozens of other shines. The map is big by Mario-standards, but Plessie is always there when you need to get somewhere, and with no waiting or loading screen. The game is really short too, you can beat it in two sittings, or one big one, which is a strength in my book.

    The discourse around this game reminds me of Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, where it’s seens as a smaller version of a potential bigger thing. Unlike MGSV at the time, we don’t yet know what the next Mario thing is, and I’m pretty happy with what’s on offer here.

  • I think this is my new favorite in the genre. I really like how this game’s design mostly allows you to keep going straight. There’s always a good pathway forward (aside from the first loop through Dairon), which alleviates the classic Metroid problem of ‘where do I go now’? I thought I’d hate the EMMI zones, but the level of tension they bring to the game is just enough for me, and diversifies the gameplay to where I never wanted to put the game down. The boss design reflects that of games like Hollow Knight where they’re difficult until you learn their patterns and then they’re pretty easy. The cutscenes make Samus look like the coolest dude in video games. There’s a lot of good moments in this game. It’s so good. If the endgame powerup hunting wasn’t so shinespark focused, and the OST was at all memorable, I’d think this game was perfect.

  • This is my most stretched out game of 2020. Played the two games in this collection over the course of like 3 months. Took around 80 hours and still haven’t done the mini-episodes thing. It’s Ace Attorney, but done over the course of 10 episodes instead of 4, which lets the arcs be grander and that was neat to see play out. I feel like there’s a hole in my life now where the ability to play new Ace Attorney games should be.

  • I messed up. I should have played this game years ago. I would have liked it. This does feel like the embodiment of what 2D metroid should be in 3D. The areas conform to traditional ‘fire area, water area, ice area’ archetypes, but it does that well and I’m willing to excuse it here. Music is good. Final boss is a huge jerk. This was my new favorite Metroid game (franchise, not genre) until a later entry on this list dethroned it.

  • I forget exactly how I found out about this game beyond just really positive word of mouth around holiday time 2020. It lives up to the talk. The game has 13 different protagonists that follow 13 different stories that juggle a variety of tires sci-fi tropes and ties it all together well. I’ve heard it likened to having the entire plot of the Metal Gear franchise, but in one game, and without having to retcon anything. I remember having a four hour session where I just read the events of the game chronologically and mentally pieced it all together. The strategy game aspect is also well done. It felt like just about every class of sentinel had a few good ways to just break combat. Experimentation with the systems felt great to figure out. This game also makes a great case for yakisoba pan. Still need to try it some day and make Hijiyama proud.

  • Hitman 2016 is great, and Hitman 2 seems great and Hitman 3 continues to be great. This game plays with map objectives more than what I’ve seen from the other games, especially Dartmoor and Berlin. I got to mastery level 20 on all 5 maps. It’s really neat. I don’t know what else to say; Hitman seems like a real known quantity at this point, and it’s just that again but still good. Excited to play more Hitman 2 next year.

  • The DS remake of this game is my first and one of my favorite Fire Emblem games, so it was fun to play the original and think of it as a messed-up demake. It was academically interesting to see what was changed and speculate as to why. And, there's so many weird aspects of FE1. Only a few classes can promote, so I ended up bringing a level 20 unpromoted axe boy Barst to the final maps. Stat boosters are nuts. A speed ring is 7 speed. Boots give 4 movement. Healers can only level up by getting hit, which is hilarious and terrible.

    I had a lot of fun experiencing this Famicom game in 2021. Really cool that they finally officially translated it. Really lame that you can't buy it anymore.

  • This is my first Ys game and it seems alright. Seems the Ys people run a solid ship. I mean, not the guys in this game, their ship is decidedly unsolid. I ended up really liking this game. It takes a while to grow your little Lost village after the shipwreck, but at the end of that arc, the narrative starts to get more interesting and Adol’s dream sequences start to become relevant. I can’t stop thinking about some of the later scenes of this game, though I did only beat this game a few weeks ago. The music is also pretty good. Hearing Sunshine Coastline before I heard of this game did a good job drawing me to it, and Garden of Celen is the final form of Final Fantasy crystal room music.

    Also, it's eighth on the list because it's Ys 8. Get it?

  • In the wake of Microsoft buying Bethesda this year (that was this year, right?), I looked at Dishonored 2 on my shelf and figured I'd finally give it a real go. But if I'm gonna do that, I may as well replay all of Dishonored 1 and the DLC I never played, right?

    Dishonored 1 is fun. They start you with a blink, an easy upgrade point to max the blink, and a bone charm that strengthens the blink in the first real level. It's fun to warp up on a dude and just get im, and the game just lets you have fun with it quickly. The Knife of Dunwall levels were my favorite, especially the whale slaughterhouse. The narrative also did a good job propelling me forward and want to see the bad guys brought to some form of justice.

  • This game was free on Playstation+ this year, so I played a surprising amount of it with a buddy this year. It was fun to see him kinda come around on the Dark Souls format, and get that high after defeating an especially difficult boss. There was another boss that had infinitely spawning enemies, but we learned that they only spawn when you look at the walls (for some reason?), so we got past that room by looking at the floor and each others footsteps. It was really funny. I realize I didn’t make this game sound good, but I promise it is.
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