Game of the Year 2019
Work in Progress
List items
-
The exquisite design of its action sets Sekiro sets it above all others for me this year. Not only does it provide the opportunity to feel like a badass master swordsman, laying waste to crowds of grunts in seconds, but also a deadly assassin who can very quickly and quietly dispatch foes. It does all this in a way that still makes it enemies feel incredibly dangerous AND actively punishes you for playing it like any other FROM Soft game, enforcing a new style of gameplay that threads the needle between the turtling style of Dark Souls and the hyper-aggressive-ness of Bloodborne.
The story kind of sucks, but the vast majority of boss fights are memorable.
-
Three Houses takes the parts I hate about Persona and adds Fire Emblem, strategy RPG permadeath action. It was my first exposure to Fire Emblem, and holy shit what a game.
The school/dating sim part of the game I could have left, because it brought out annoying min-max "everything must go perfectly" compulsions in my planning and character building, but the combat aspects were fantastic. Simple and intuitive, and mostly fun and fair until the last few chapters. The "Divine Pulse" mechanic helps with those "oh shit" turns that really should have gone better.
I wish the New Game Plus was a little more generous with what carried over, given the incredible length of my first playthrough (I think I clocked in around 65-70 hours with my Blue Lions).
-
Devil May Cry 5 brings back that gonzo super-stylized action. If you're good enough, you can finish the game in the first chapter for a nifty trophy. It looks fantastic, sounds amazing, it feels REALLY fucking good to play.
Well, at least with Dante and Nero. V - not so much.
-
The Outer Worlds is greater than the sum of its parts for me. I'm not sure why I obsessed over it during the two weeks I played it compulsively because it is ostensibly just a very good "one of those". An incredibly tight, competent, funny open-world RPG game, where you can get through the vast majority of the game by just passing skill checks.
I think the game suffers from some pacing issues, with a large portion of the game happening on one of the duller planets, and it's absolutely riddled with loading screens, but I really enjoyed running around the Outer Worlds galaxy stealing stuff and schmoozing any and all.
That [DUMB] playthrough ain't bad, though.
-
-
I've never had a game simultaneously make me feel so smart and so dumb at the same time. In Baba Is You, YOU literally change the rules to solve your puzzles. It's a clever subversion that appeals to the ex-programmer in me.
Your first YOU IS WIN will be one of your favorite gaming moments.
-
-
Death Stranding is probably the most divisive game of the year. Outlets gave it 10/10, others gave it 4/10. My truth, like the centrist monster I am, is somewhere in the middle.
Yes, it's Kojima at his most self-indulgent - the writing is unsubtle trash, where characters repeat themselves and do all but say "HEY DO YOU GET IT YET?" - and there is some mechanical jank with the actual movement, but I still found walking around the country delivery packages way more enjoyable than it had any right to be. The online aspect shouldn't be understated either. I really enjoyed contributing to a road or finishing a zip-line network that uses other users' connection posts.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Load Comments