GOTY 2017
This is a list of every 2017 game I have played in preferential order. Note: I have not necessarily played all of these games to completion, because I don't have nearly enough free time to spare for something that I am not 100% engaged in.
List items
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Switch
The simplicity of the gameplay made me completely fall in love with this fighting game. It is a game with two punch buttons, a jump button, an evade mode, and a block button. I have been able to come back to again and again without having to worry about memorizing combo inputs. Party Mode offers enough variety to keep me coming back again and again, even if only for short bursts, and the free DLC updates have all been incredible. This game oozes style and was by far the one I had the most fun with this year.
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PS4
An amazing premise (Clue meets Groundhog Day) and a catchy title were enough to get me to buy this game, but the incredible aesthetic and soundtrack solidified it's place on this list. It is easily the best soundtrack of the year, and the art style and story made me get lost in this world. I normally ignore the bits of lore collected in games that you need to read but this game was so damn interesting I read every last note and enjoyed every minute of it. This is an incredibly unique and beautiful game and I can't wait to see what comes next from Cavalier Game Studios.
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Switch
This is a game that has no business existing, let alone being as amazing as it is. The Rabbid characters are all super charming and mesh surprising well with the Mushroom Kingdom. The game has a real Borderlands vibe (complete with its own Claptrap stand in) and the turn based gameplay provides multiple ways to tackle its missions. The characters are all unique and the challenges provide a solid level of difficulty beyond what is found in the story mode. Top to bottom, everything about this game just works and feels natural.
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PS4
More of a story than a game, but damn if it isn't a really great story. Exploring the Finch house and messing around with the different interactive sections was a lot of fun and I found myself completely captivated by the narrative and its presentation.
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PS4
I bought this game because it was made by Ninja Theory and came in expecting a character action game with awesome combat. What I got instead was a puzzle/adventure game with about a dozen or so combat scenarios (which are obviously top notch). Not at all what I was expecting but the game has such an engaging story that I did not mind it. It is a narrative driven psychological horror game that takes you through Norse mythology and does some incredible things with binaural audio to create an experience unlike anything else out there.
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Mac
A game about snooping through a phone you find. The narrative is a great coming of age story and the puzzles and detective work required to unlock the different parts of the phone are all fun. The game takes some interesting directions with its gameplay as it goes on and turns the player into a real piece of shit for the steps you are required to take in order to find out more information about this individual. But in a game about invading someones privacy and snooping through their shit I am glad the game goes all the way and really has you do some messed up stuff. This direction gives A Normal Lost Phone an added layer to reflect on besides the content of the story.
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Mac
A dialogue and text free point and click puzzle game that tells an engaging story using only its beautiful art and music. The puzzles are all simple and only takes about 90 minutes to beat so it is over before it overstays its welcome.
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Mac
This point and click adventure is the video game equivalent of a horror short story. It sets up its premise, makes you feel tense and scared as it tells its story, and then it is over. Short, sweet and to the point. It does what it sets out to do perfectly and there isn't really anything bad to say about it.
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Browser
A clicker about making paperclips. It is a simple premise that gets really really dumb in the best possible way. You are never doing the same thing for too long and the game was able to hold my attention through to the end due to how absurd the tasks kept getting.
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Switch
Got it on a whim because I was hearing good things. I've never liked Golf (neither in video game form nor in real life) but this game is pretty great. The act of playing golf itself is serviceable (not my cup of tea) but the story is phenomenal and enough to carry the game.
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Switch (Definitive Edition)
Never played much of it on Wii U because it was a busy year that year and life happened and I never got back to it. Finally got the chance to really dig into it in coop and really loved it. The checkpoints are super forgiving which allows for fun cooperative shenanigans as you knock your partner into enemies and hazards knowing that there is no real consequence for dying. The levels are nicely designed and the music is top notch.
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Switch (DX)
I never played it on Wii U and so this was a brand new experience for me. Character customization is always great and I love that like Splatoon, this lets you swap the gender of your character at will so that you can play dress up with two different characters. The gameplay itself is also fun with the 2D/3D phase shifts keeping the fights interesting and preventing one hit "touch of death" combos since too many hits knock you into a different perspective. The roster overall is alright although there are some glaring omissions and some questionable inclusions.
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Switch
A fun puzzle game. I prefer Tetris but my brother likes Puyo Puyo and it is really cool that we can compete against each other while each playing our preferred game. The other modes that mix and match the two are also neat.
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PS4
What a disappointing game this ended up being. After being so excited to get a new MvC game this game ends up coming out with the most uninspired roster and what might be the ugliest art style I have ever seen in a video game. How do you fumble something so simple!?!?!? The gameplay itself is actually pretty solid but Capcom has some gross as fuck DLC practices and hiding all the newcomers behind the season pass when the base roster was so bland was some real bullshit.
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Mac
Picked it up after hearing Patrick Klepek talk it up on Waypoint. A funny visual novel where you create a dad and date other dads. Very well done with some goofy as hell stuff throughout that had me chuckling.
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Mac
Another game about snooping through a phone. A lot of this gameplay changes from the first game feel like a direct response to some of the complaints people had about the first game. The game has a disclaimer at the start about not being a shit head and invading peoples privacy and then goes about doing its best to make the player character seem like not a total asshole for looking through this phone which seems dishonest and I wish they would have leaned further into the whole "doing this is wrong and you are a bad person for doing this" that the first game started to dabble in. That said, the story here is still ace here and playing detective is always fun.
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Switch
A well done rhythm game. Harmonix knows their stuff. The coop baseball mode is a ton of fun to go through as are all the other mini games in short bursts (except the golf one).
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Switch
The first Zelda game I have ever completed. I haven't played an open world game that felt this open since Fallout 3. The world is beautiful and the freedom you have to tackle things in whatever order you want is incredible. I am a sucker for games that let you customize your character and this game delivers in spades. Add in a great story and you have a game that is absolutely a must play. There is a lot to love but boy oh boy does that weapon fragility system suuuuuck. It really was enough to drag the entire experience down.
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Switch
Gameplay is fairly standard 2D beat 'em up fare that is ultra violent and stylized. It is pretty clear that a lot of research went into making this game but the game does a really poor job of presenting it. The mini documentaries they add throughout the story are neat but way too short. The research essays they wrote on the other hand are tedious and would have benefited from being integrated more seamlessly with the game though documentary or gameplay.
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Switch
A surprisingly fun stylish rhythm game. I didn't get too deep into it but it is fun for what it is.
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Switch
A really fun coop puzzle game. The art style is adorable and it is impossible not to smile as you see their facial expressions.
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PS4
I wasn't a fan of the gameplay or story in the first Injustice but this one was significantly better in both aspects. The facial animations of the characters are really incredible and the story takes you on a fun ride. Being able to play dress up with your characters is a neat idea but the loot box system sucks and I really wish there was an alternative way to get the damn clothing items you want.
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Switch
The first Sonic game I have completed. The checkpointing system lead to a lot of frustration that really soured me on the whole thing. The 3D runner mini game was a lot of fun though as was the two player versus mode.
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PS4
I had way more fun with this than I should have. The game is a repetitive as hell beat 'em up with broken hit boxes but I really like Power Rangers and this was serviceable enough to scratch that Power Rangers itch I had.
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Switch (DX)
I played the hell out of this on the Wii U to 100% completion even getting all the golden stuff and honestly have gotten my fill. No new stages in the Switch version is a bummer as is the prospect of trying to unlock all the kart stuff all over again. I played for a bit and thought "nah I'm good." I have no interest in redoing all the time trials or trying to collect 1000 coins again. Battle mode is neat and what everyone wanted it to be on Wii U but it is too late now and I am sort of done with this game. I still played the occasional match but it didn't recapture my attention like it did on the Wii U.
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Switch
Felt like more Splatoon. The game remains really fun to play. That said, with the novelty worn off I didn't find myself coming back to this as much as I did with the first game.
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Switch
I have never been a big fan of 3D Mario gameplay and this game doesn't do much to change that. That said, I do love being able to customize Mario and the worlds are beautifully designed and fun to explore.
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iPhone SE
This is actually the first Fire Emblem game I have ever played. I had a lot of fun with the bit sized strategy battles here. That said, it is still a gotcha game and eventually you hit a wall. It is a really fun ride up until that point though.
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Switch
I have never really been a fan of futuristic racers like this but it was available at launch and I wanted stuff to play on my shiny new switch so I pretty much bought everything that was available when the system came out. It is pretty fun but not really my cup of tea.
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Switch
It is still glitchy but not anywhere near as bad as Lego Avengers. At this point most people know what Lego games are and this game doesn't really do anything to change the formula. It is a fun game to slowly chip away at in coop.
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A poorly made Flappy Birds clone. I had way more fun with this than I should have. This games placement on this list should give you an idea of what I think of the games below.
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Switch
A point and click adventure game. I am still making my way through it but I am not finding the dialogue and fourth wall breaking as funny as the game seems to think it is.
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Switch
This game is really bad and I struggle to think of any redeeming qualities. They didn't even let me name my custom character. :/
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Switch (Afterbirth +)
I had already spent some time with this on the Vita and I enjoyed my time with it here too. I never got deep enough into it to be able to really tell you what the differences are but it is still a game I enjoyed playing through a handful of times on the Switch.
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Switch
I bought this because I loved One Piece Warriors and Hyrule Warriors and was ready for another one of those. I found this game to be super disappointing. The characters all play the same and the voice acting is painfully terrible. I might go back to it at some point but as someone with no affinity for the Fire Emblem franchise this game did nothing for me.
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Switch
It was neat to see the franchise come back but this game didn't capture me as much as I thought it would. I was never the biggest Bomberman fan but I did have some fun messing around with the versus mode.
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Switch
A 2D sidescroller. I played through a chunk of it in coop with my brother and it was alright. Nothing special. We never went back to it because it was so throughly meh.
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Switch (Treasure Trove Edition)
It was available at the Switch's launch when I pretty much bought everything available for the system and that was my main reason for getting it. Played a bit and thought it was alright. Story seemed fun but the game was hard and seemed like an emotional investment that I was not ready to make.
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Switch
The aesthetic looked cool so I bought it kinda blind. It is a really hard, not very fun roguelike. I played for a bit and never went back to it. I read somewhere that they patched it to be less unforgiving but by that point I had a lot of other shit to play. Not really sure I have any interest to ever go back to it.
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PS4
Got it along with a VR headset. The VR made me nauseous so I put it down pretty early on and never went back to it. I intend to do so at some point, but it just didn't happen this year. I love action Resident Evil and I was super bummed to see them take 7 in the direction they did so I am in no real rush to go through it.
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iPhone SE
Played for a bit because there was an unlockable in the PS4 version if you synched the two versions. Game plays like poop.
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