Best Games of 2021 (That I Played)
I played 6 games that came out in 2021. Here is a ranking of them.
List items
-
#6 - World Flipper
I played a new Gacha in 2021 and I liked it enough to make me dig out my old phone JUST to play it on and not drain my personal phone, but not enough that I don't just have every battle on auto.
I love pinball and wish this was a better pinball game.
-
#5 - Mario Party Superstars
I have had 3 people visit in my home since March 2020. One of these days I got to play Mario Party Superstars.
It was chaos. And I miss it.
-
#4 - Ys IX: Monstrum Nox
I have not played enough Ys IX to put it any higher than this, but I have been very impressed by it so far. Sorry Adol, it just seemed like a good time to get way into Yakuza on the PS4 this year instead.
-
#3 - Monster Hunter Rise
The wirebug is the best thing to happen to Monster Hunter.
I may give World the slight edge over Rise (mostly because I think the tower defense stuff sucks in Rise), but being able to use a combination of the wirebug and Gunlance's Blast Dash to rocket myself across the map, slam my lance down on a monsters head, then stick an explosion in its cranium might never be topped in this series.
-
#2 - Dicey Dungeons
Technically this came out on the Switch in December of 2020, but its was so late in the year that I'm going to group it into 2021 anyway.
I was obsessed with this game. I might still be. I had Dicey Dungeon dreams. I still hear the music in my head. I had to 100% the game just so that I could put it down.
-
#1 - Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker
You know that internet argument old as time? The one where someone asks "Which is the best Final Fantasy game?", usually by someone who is there to argue or just likes starting chaos? And once that gasoline trail has been lit, it explodes into usually rational people being at each other's jugular?
Endwalker takes that argument, binds its hands, duct tapes its mouth shut, puts a bag over its head, throws it in the trunk of its car, drives out to the woods, and buries it alive.
There are only two answers to that question now:
"Final Fantasy XIV" and "I haven't played Final Fantasy XIV yet."
Look, Endwalker is an MMORPG. Its basic skeleton, like every MMO of the last two decades, is 80% World of Warcraft. You've seen this game before. And, hell, even this particular flavour of MMO before! Combat, Content, Features, and whatever else mechanical stuff in Endwalker is basically just Shadowbringers 2 (unless you play Summoner or something). The two expansions structures are so close, I knew the basic skeleton of what to expect by the time I was 1/3rd of the way through the story.
But that last word is key: story. It is key to Endwalker sitting in this top spot and key to it holding that spot no matter if I played 6 or 60 or 600 games this year. Endwalker is not "a good MMO story". Endwalker is not "a good video game story". Hell, Endwalker isn't "a good Final Fantasy story".
Endwalker is the best piece of fiction I have experienced during this pandemic, *about* this pandemic. It is an important piece not just in the pantheon of video game storytelling, but in this exact moment to the people living and breathing on this planet.
No, COVID did not spread through Hydaelyn. It's not that literal and hokey.
Endwalker is, however, a game about being surrounded by death at every turn, day after day. It is a game about life losing its way, its normalcy, its joys, and its wonders... and being expected to pick up the pieces and soldier on. It is a game about the importance of knowing that, this too shall pass, that the sun will shine again even if the suffering continues, and that, even though they might be on the other end of a computer screen, there are real people out there who are right behind you.
And as I sit here, huddled in front of my computer, shut in my house for the 23rd month in a row, leaving only to have groceries placed in my car trunk, that is important to me.
And as the COVID cases spike and the people I know are sick or at risk or being treated as expendable by a disturbingly large number of people, businesses, and governments, that is important to me.
And as people I know, people my friends know, people my family know, see a future only filled with more of the same shit we've lived through as we enter year 4 of this pandemic (if you count end of 2019) and decide that, actually, they'd rather just end it now, this is important to me.
It is a game about the importance of knowing that to live is to suffer, that death is inevitable and ever present, and forging ahead anyway.
And that is important to everyone right now.
Load Comments