My Personal Top 10 Games of 2020

This year has been weird, obviously, I was laid off from my job last year, and was planning to back to school, I really enjoyed watching AGDQ is January and excited for new consoles like most people were. Then this year happened, I took the summer off and went back to school in September but like most people turned to games to take my mind off of the mess of a world in 2020. New consoles were cool but also the weirdest launch ever, my most anticipated games are still PS4 games and overall Im still not sure whether these new consoles are necessary (spoilers they're not) but I love my PS5. Anyway here's my Top 10 list for the year, and I apologize in advance, i'm not much of a writer.

Honorable Mentions

Spiritfarer - I really liked what I played of this game. I played about half of this game and then lost my save and just didn’t want to go back to replay what I had again I really liked the first half but was adminitly running out of steam by the time I lost my saves. I felt like the early characters were more interesting to me than the later game characters. It was a cute little game that I know I will go back to at some point.

Touhou Luna Nights - 2020 was the year Metroidvanias clicked with me and this was one that originally released on PC last year and Xbox and Switch this year. Its a real great metroidvania that takes a lot of inspiration from bullet hells, you main attack is throwing knives and you can slow down time based on a recharging meter. The boss fights are great and the basic platforming is fun and interesting.

Yakuza Like A Dragon - I have only played about 5 hours of this game, but really enjoyed what I have so far, I am playing it on my brothers Xbox so I haven’t been able to play too much but really want to get back to it.

Pokemon Sword and Shield DLC - This year was the year I finished my pokedex, got into training pokemon and shiny hunting. I played a ton of pokemon this year, and both DLCs were cool, it felt like a “traditionally 3rd” pokemon game without having to play through the original stuff once again. I enjoyed running around the new areas which are better designed than the original game and the availability of the legendaries are cool.

2020 Top 10 Game of the Year

10. Cyberpunk 2077 (or Im not sure where this game is on my list but I really want to talk about it.)

Man, I really don’t know where to begin with this one. I was excited for this game, like most people. The marketing had been shitty but I was willing to look past that for a fun game. Even with my low expectations this game is rough(despite some crashes not ever having any major bugs), and not just technically, but even in design.

This game really has problems, there isn’t any real antagonist other than this vague timeline of V’s death, throughout the game you disrupt various different groups but none of them ever confront you outside scripted moments, even Arasaka being touted as the big bad in the series rarely feels like the enemy outside of the few story quests where they matter. After disrupting their parade and kidnapping their heiress, they just stop coming after you. It makes for a real whimper of an ending, where the one real choice of the game is as predictable as anything.

There has also been a ton of talk about portrayal of trans folk, and even ethnicity and there isn’t really anything I can say that hasn’t been said already. Overall this game just feels bad, from bad design to technically a mess, shitty marketing and the prospect of a multiplayer mode/game in the future. I really am disappointed and honestly it’s going to take a lot for me to reinstall this game on my PS5.

09. Tell Me Why

I love the first Life Is Strange, it was my gateway back into playing video games back in 2015 when I jumped into it right after the release of the 2nd episode, I spent all my time on reddit talking with people, coming up with theories and generally just enjoying the game. The original Life is Strange might be my favorite gaming experience in the last decade and as a result made me a dontnod fan for life. I was excited for this game, it looked great and the trailers really made me intrigued by the story. Plus a new Dontnod game is always excited.

I mostly enjoyed this game, this game does what I personally think Life is Strange 2 did not, in that this game is relatively small in scope, the game takes place in 3 or 4 places, over the course of 2 or 3 days contrasted to my issues with Life Is Strange 2’s year long cross country journey. My biggest problem was an issue with me more than the game but I kept expecting there to be more Transphobia in the game, from the beginning I was waiting to be defensive of some person just being hateful and it really didn’t happen outside one instance that ended pretty quickly. I liked the gameplay mechanic of experiencing different memories as a result of the 2 different characters, and the overall fantasy backdrop to the game. I also think personally the game ends well, something that I think Dontnod games have struggled with in the past.

08. Nexomon Extinction

The trajectory of this game makes the placement of this game on this list difficult. At its core this is a pokemon clone, that does some new things, but does all of it well. The game started too difficult, and more than that just seemed tedious, a lot of running back and forth between patches of grass to level up your party and running back to the healing center to heal your party. They then fixed that but changed how the moveset learning worked, they then changed it back and fixed the difficulty curve. I enjoyed my time with this game but really never got too engaged with the world or characters.

07. Bloodstained Curse of the Moon 2

This is a really simple one, I love action platformers, really liked the first Curse of the Moon and had a great time playing this game. Nothing about it is revolutionary but I really enjoyed playing this game.

06. Aokana -Four Rhythms Across The Blue-

This game is a visual novel andI feel weird putting a visual novel on my game of the year list, much less lower than number 10, but as I thought more about it, this game stuck with me in my mind since completing it.

I originally watched the anime adaptation of this when it was airing back in 2016 and really fell in love with the world, a world where advancements in science allow for flying through the use of special shoes. It becomes a pretty typical sports story of new person comes to town, gets interested in sport, and goes through the tournament arc etc. I really enjoyed the show and at the time the visual novel wasn’t available in english, and so I forgot about it until earlier this year when I saw an ad for the Switch release.

I fell in love with the world again and based on the year we have had the idea of a bright island where you can just fly sounds great.

05. Paper Mario: The Origami King

This game would have been better if they cut out most of the battles, simple as that. Despite that I really liked this game, it was bright, funny and heartfelt. As my first Paper Mario game I enjoyed it, the game gave characters an actual personality. Enemies such as goombas, koopas and even bob-ombs all have arcs that allow for them to be more than just repeatable sprites.

The boss fights are probably the best part of this game (second to maybe only the actually writing) and I really just enjoyed seeing the next boss in each area.

04. Final Fantasy VII Remake

I love the original Final Fantasy VII, and as someone who played it for the first time in 2017, it’s not just nostalgia for me. As someone who plays a bunch of JRPGs (and more specifically less than great JRPGs), Final Fantasy 7 is a game that has pretty much everything, great music, characters that have both personalities and arcs, a battle system that feels fair and even to a certain degree good graphics (at least for the time, and in 2017 I thought the weird blocky character models held up better than some more detailed models in later games). I fell in love with the characters and the world and was super excited for a brand new version of the game.

I love being in this world, the game does a fantastic job of taking areas and backdrops from the original and not only opening them up to explore but giving them life and making a reason to explore. This game gives characters like Biggs, Wedge and especially Jessie an actual personalities that expand their inclusion in the world.

The game is aware of its remake status and gives itself opportunities to both improve the issues of the original game as well as subverting the things people think they know. I absolutely loved playing through this game, from the Reactor 1 bombing run at the beginning to the Church is Sector 5 slums to the upper plate with Jessie’s house. I loved being in this world and am looking forward to seeing more outside midgar in the future.

03. Shantae and the Seven Sirens

2020 was the year metroidvanias as a genre clicked for me, I generally enjoy a structured start to end action platformer more, and Shantae was my favourite one I played this year. I love the Shantae series is really great and like some of my other favourite games is really bright and colorful. The metroidvania aspect of this game is simplified a little bit and doesn’t have a ton of abilities or backtracking. Each area has a different mechanic and a fun boss fight at the end, I really enjoyed spending the time to explore and uncover most of the map. Not to mention this game feels great, its a real nice and tight platformer, with fantastic music.

02. Marvel's Spider-Man Miles Morales

My love for this game is relatively simple, but that makes my feelings on it pretty clear. This being a launch title for the Playstation 5 make it a stunning choice for one of my favourite games of the year. Technically speaking the ability to showcase the power of making that game 60fps mixed with the loading times enabling the ability to jump between the open world and smaller inside spaces makes the game an incredible showcase not only for the PS5 but also for how open world games can play.

With the technical showcase aside, the story of this game is really what I attached to. In the year we’ve had a relatively small story about 2 people fighting for the home is really touching. It’s about Miles growing not only as Spider-Man but also just as a person living in a big city. I also find it amazing that while not unique, it manages to end the game well and makes me glad I spent the time with the game.

01. Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV

I fell in love with this series at the beginning of last year, I had been aware of both the Sky games and the Cold Steel games but never played any of them, so when the Cold Steel 1 rerelease for PS4 came out I was excited to try it out, and ended up loving it, and falling hard, as this point I have played 7 of the 9 games in the series.

This game is the finale to the arc that had been started in the first Sky game, and really is the climax to the story. The world is still great, and specifically has evolved to a point where exploring is fun, even 4 games later. There are also a ton of cameo’s in this game, the main characters from the Sky games asweas the main characters from the Crossbell games, and even side characters such as Cassius and other characters from the world.

This was also the game that I dove mechanically into the most as well. This game became a bit of an obsession for the 100 or so hours I played. This game may not be my favorite in the series but it is probably number 2 and easily the best thing I played this year.