There's an entire blog entry about this list here, so I won't be going into much detail. Suffice to say that blog also contains some minor awards as well as the inverse of this list, the ten most disappointing and/or most baddest of the games I played in 2021.
Ignore numbers, this list runs in ascending order.
Just a very well done port of an arcade game with a competent, challenging antagonist. Bluto feels like the smartest video game foe the Famicom had for the first years of its life.
Not actually good, perhaps, but stylish as hell and dripping in mysterious import jogo goodness.
The game I played to keep myself from buying Metroid Dread, and I'm glad I did.
This spot is officially shared with Links 2004 as a joint "pour one out for XBN" slot on the list. RalliSport Challenge 2 still looks incredible, and has soundtrack support so you can play it with Sega Rally Championship music if you're a child of god.
An adventurous early PS1 platformer that made me appreciate just how experimental the PlayStation could get, as well as Sony's nearly dead now no for real PSOne Classics line.
You can make a Gilius Thunderhead nonogram ten out of ten.
Even if I've slightly cooled on the game since making this list, I'll still leave it here for posterity. Taking a rider on this one on the advice of a friend was a good idea. Terrible, terrible maps though.
The only game from the first year of the Off the Deep End show to make the list, but the best one as well. Joyous late 90's/early aughts anime RPG romp which put my modded Dreamcast to great use. Some truly delicious belly laughs to be had, both on its own merits and at its expense.
As I post this list I've been spending a lot of time with my 3DS, cherishing its last few months as a "whole" system with a functional store. WarioWare Gold was a fine farewell to the system, and a damn sight better than the WarioWare game we actually got in 2021.
An incredible hybrid of genuine masterpiece and sneer quotes "masterpiece". Walks such a fine line of being very good, being blissfully unaware of how bad it is, and sometimes looking right at the camera and winking at you when The Bad Things happen. It's great!
