What a season, what a season. 2017 was a fantastic year for video games. One might argue it's been the best year for video games since 1998. Regardless, while I enjoyed a lot more than 7 games this year, only these 7 affected me in such a way that I wanted to write what I felt about them. This is is not ordered up until the final 3, which is ranked from third favourite game to most favourite game.
A game that I've been summarizing as "What if you mixed the movie Big Fish with the song 'Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm' by Crash Test Dummies?" Turns out, you get a game of tall tales about a cursed Pacific Northwest family that is truly captivating. As the sole surviving member of the Finch clan, Edith Finch, you explore the remains of the old family home while encountering vignettes of how each family member met their unfortunate end. As tragic and depressing as that may seem, each of these vignettes also exudes whimsy and charm for days. They are so beautifully handcrafted that they feel like actual familial stores passed down generations upon generations. It's only 2 hours long, but it never wastes a single, bittersweet second.
The New Colossus builds on the foundation its predecessor, Wolfenstein: The New Order, laid down. Set in an alternate universe where Nazis won World War 2, you control series mainstay and OG FPS protagonist BJ Blazkowicz as he leads a ragtag resistance group to infiltrate a Nazi occupied America. You have crazy, over-the-top, jaw-dropping moments. You have BJ silently contemplating about the atrocities and horrors the Nazis are committing. You have a supporting cast of characters that are diverse and and have amazing backstories. Not only that, but it deftly weaves those personal, emotional stories with dumb-ass shit with style and aplomb. You also have the ability to dual-wield any weapon in the entire game.
All these points are great on their own. However, and I cannot stress this enough, what makes The New Colossus stand out is that it’s game, let alone any piece of media released this year, that is unrepentantly about killing Nazis. In any year besides this one, it would just be par for the course with the Wolfenstein franchise. Since its inception, Wolfenstein was always a game about killing Nazis. Unfortunately, not only was this the year that we saw literal Nazis and white supremacists openly marching in the streets of Virginia, there was also people hemming and hawing about the morality of taking a zero-tolerance policy against fascism.
Fuck that.
Fuck all of that.
Fuck Nazis and fuck anyone who defends them.
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus is the game we both needed and deserved this year.
Unlike the other games I've discussed and will discuss later, PUBG didn't resonate with me emotionally that much. What really made PUBG resonate is how well it combines minute details of its mechanics to create one of the most tense games I've ever played:
- 100 players parachute onto an island with nothing and have to find guns and equipment
- A safe zone is marked, and slowly shrinks as the match progresses, forcing everyone together at some point
- All doors start out closed, which indicates if other players have been to a location already or not
- Spectacular sound design, like how each gun sounds unique and how positional audio is used to pinpoint where firefights are happening
- In squad and duo games, having the DBNO state indicate if the player you are shooting at still has a team or is alone.
- No matter how decked out you are or what attachments you found for your weapons, that literally 1 bullet can take you out.
I could go on and on about the cool little details in PUBG's design, but I won't. My point is that all these design elements come together in such a way that makes PUBG feel like a horror game more than a action game. I have felt no greater panic while playing a video game than when someone starts shooting at me when I wasn't expecting it. This, conversely, also makes winning a game feel like the biggest accomplishment since beating a Dark Souls boss for the first time. Nothing will ever take away that momentous feeling I felt when I and 2 others banded together and won us that chicken dinner.
We feasting. PUBG is feasting.
Now, I'll be honest, a large part of why I love Odyssey is because it invokes nostalgia for Super Mario 64 (in more ways than one). But to say that's the only reason would be selling it short. Mario Odyssey builds on what Super Mario 64 started in smart and inventive ways that, while not being a complete reinvention of the Mario wheel, makes it one of the best Mario games ever released.
The biggest reason is that the way Mario moves around feels refined to the point that the simple act of playing that game a pure joy. The new movement options Mario comes equipped with in Odyssey, like the butt-stomp jump or the hat dive, breathe new life into how you traverse worlds in mario games. On top of that, the capture mechanic adds variety to the mix. Each enemy/creature Mario captures has cool traversal mechanics unique to the creature you're capturing. The puzzles in each world use those unique mechanics in cool ways and never wear out their welcome. Also, the 2D sections are cool retro twists on Odyssey's style of play. Suffice to say, I collected all 880 moons and I still wanted to play more because of how well it played. I wept for there were no more worlds to conquer.
Besides the immaculate controls, Mario Odyssey is just gorgeous to look at. The design of each kingdom is impeccable, from the Wooded Kingdom's mixture of nature and machine, to the vibrant colour palette of the Luncheon Kingdom. It was the first time I heavily used a photo mode in a game, as each kingdom was brimming with personality. And the music, THE MUSIC! Not just the main soundtrack of the game (the jam that plays in the Wooded Kingdom has been stuck in my head since October 27th and I don't ever want it to leave), but not since NieR:Automata does a game effortlessly transition between regular tracks and 8-bit version of said tracks. I cannot wait until the full soundtrack is released. Shut up and take my money, Nintendo.
Mario games have always been a good time. But, given how rough this year has been, it was refreshing to have a game this year that just made me feel happy.
There are so many great things to talk about with Breath of the Wild. Like how all the shrines are varied and never feel rote or tedious, or how the game is set up for you experiment solutions to puzzles and never chastises you for coming up with unconventional solutions. However, instead of just listing bullet point after bullet point of amazing design details in Breath of the Wild, let me just tell you a story.
I was still early on in my first playthrough, having only uncovered the 2 regions east of the great plateau (West and East Necluda). At some point, when exploring West Necluda, I came across a pretty sizable lake (Lake Hylia, as I learned later when uncovering the map) with a bridge over it leading south to an area I had not explored yet. Halfway through crossing, I encountered a group of lizalfos. I quickly dispatched of them and started comparing the loot they just dropped to my stuff. Pretty standard fare for the game so far.
As I'm doing all that, I see out of the corner of my eye, in the western part of the lake, a giant yellow spike poking out of the surface of the water. As I start to fully focus on the spike, it reveals itself to be a giant electrified dragon/serpent, pouring its massive self into the midnight sky above the lake. My jaw was agape, marveling in the spectacle I was witnessing. It was like something out of Shadow of the Colossus. The electric creature just slowly lumbered about the area, never becoming hostile and attacking me. Eventually, it just moved on to another part of the map, disappearing from my line of sight. No reward was given, beyond the memory of what just happened.
This was my first encounter with one of the 3 elemental dragons in the game, Farosh. I was already enjoying what I've played so far, but that moment opened up a world of possibilities about what could be found around every corner in Hyrule. It made me feel like a kid again playing the first Legend of Zelda for the first time, and reminded me why I love playing video games.
(P.S.: As an aside, what a stellar year it has been for Nintendo. Launching their best system since the Super Nintendo, and releasing what could be argued as the best entries in their 2 longest running franchises. Truly, never bet against Nintendo.)
Night in the Woods is a game about many things. It's a game about Mae, a 20-year-old dropout dealing with mental illness. It's a game about urban decay and how the residents of Mae's hometown, Possum Springs, cope with it. It's even a game about how fun committing petty crimes with your friends is. But most importantly, Night in the Woods is a game about relationships. Due to its strong writing and natural sounding dialogue, I cared more about the individual characters and their stories than the main plot.
Granted, I enjoyed the story in Night in the Woods, even if I was a little disappointing with some aspects of the ending. However, that was not what kept me coming back to that game after I completed my first, second, or even third playthrough. All I wanted to do when Mae woke up every morning was hang out with her friends: Gregg, Bea, and Angus. Whether it was getting into knife fights with Gregg in the woods, or hanging out at the old Fort Lucenne Mall with Bea, or even the rare occasions that you could hang out with Angus, I just wanted to lose myself in their companionship because they felt like real people, which allows the relationships between each of them to feel real too. Everyone knows a Gregg, or a Bea, or an Angus. The authenticity of these characters allows you to invest yourself in caring about their arcs in a way that video games rarely let you. Basically, what I'm saying is that if you preferred Gregg's route over Bea's, your opinion is factually wrong. Gregg rulz, but Bea is bae (come at me).
There's also the side characters, the residents of Possum Springs, who have moments that range from little conversational moments to full blown hangout sessions that feel just as fleshed out as the main cast stories. There's Lori Meyers, who likes horror movies and lying down by the train tracks. There's Germ, who hangs out with crust punks and explores sewers and abandoned parking lots. There's Selmers, who writes rad poetry. I could go on, but half the fun is exploring and meeting these people. All these characters and stories work together to make a believable, lived-in world.
To be honest, Mae, her friends, Possum Springs, its residents, all of it reminded me of myself when I was around Mae's age. Dropped out of college, no job, no prospects, hung out with friends, smoked copious amounts of weed, and did dumb shit around town, because fuck if I knew what I wanted to do with my life. Night in the Woods got its hooks into me because of how personal it gets with its characters. It allowed me to relate to them on a fundamental level that its hard not seeing myself or my friends in them at times. It didn't feel like I was hanging out with Mae's friends, it felt like I was hanging out with my friends.
It's really hard to talk about what makes NieR:Automata so special without spoiling major plot points and revelations. So I won't do that, or at least try not to. Instead I'll just describe my journey in experiencing it. I'm not kidding when I say it will be long, so if you want to stop reading here, just know this: you should 100% check out NieR:Automata and play until the end of route E. Trust me, you will not be disappointed.
My history with Yoko Taro games is practically nonexistent. I rented the first Drakengard game from Rogers Video back when it came out, before I even knew who Yoko Taro was. I got bored of it within an hour and returned it as soon as I could, never thinking of it again. In 2010, when the first NieR came out, I remember being intrigued due to the hype I saw online about the story. However, hearing about how the gameplay was lackluster, even from fans, ultimately dissuaded me from checking it out. Fast forward to 2015, to the Square Enix E3 press conference. I wasn't into anything SE showed so far until this bug-eyed, moon-faced man comes on stage. That was my introduction to Yoko Taro, and immediately I was into his whole shtick. Hearing him talk combined with the fact Platinum Games would be working on this new NieR project they just announced got me hooked. When the demo came out, I was into the mix of character action and shoot-em-up mechanics. When the PC version was available for preorder, I bought it as soon as I could. I could not wait to play NieR:Automata.
Release day arrives, and resolution hacks aside, I was into most of what was being presented so far. 2B and 9S were fascinating characters, and their relationship was something I wanted to explore further. The narrative was presented in a intriguing enough way that I wanted to uncover what mysteries the game had. I liked how hollow the world was. I absolutely loved the music (bought the soundtrack as soon as I could). I adored the cute, rusty, trash-can-looking machine lifeforms, and enjoyed any interaction with them outside the combat. Speaking of which, I was not into the combat at all. There was obviously depth in how you could customize your weapon and chip loadout, but the enemy encounters combined with the long timing window on your dodge never made it hard enough to warrant that experimentation. To see Platinum falter with the combat design was a let down. I got to the forest kingdom before putting NieR:Automata down, as I became more interested in playing other games that were out at the time.
3 months go by, I finish my time with other, more preoccupying games, and I was looking for a new game to fill my time. During those months, the buzz for NieR:Automata continued to grow everywhere I looked. Seeing the way people talked about NieR:Automata, especially route E, made me want to go back to it. So I decided to bump the difficulty down to easy, equip all the auto-playing chips and just experience the story. I blasted through what I had remaining of route A, liking what I saw but knew I didn't see what made the story special yet. I immediately start route B, and was thrown for a loop. The first 5 minutes of route B made me afraid. Not in a "horror movie scared" way, but in an "I feel like I'm about to be emotionally fucked with" kind of way. Man, was I not wrong. Route B is mostly a replay of route A, but from a different character's perspective. The new context of this different perspective adds a seriously depressing element to all the moments in route A. I finished route B, but the emotional cost wore on me. But none of that could have prepared me for route C.
Route C (and D, technically) took any happiness, any joyous moment, any good feeling I had possibly remaining for the characters and story and browbeat me into submission. Route C/D is a cavalcade of emotionally devastating moment after emotionally devastating moment, each one worse than the last. By the time I got to the end of route C/D, I wondered if any of it was worth it. What was the point of any of that if everything is going to suffer in an endless cycle of violence. Maybe that's the point, that existence is pain. As emotionally drained as I was, I was still glad to have played NieR:Automata. The metanarrative of the game set a very high bar for how stories are told in video games. As the credits rolled for a 4th time, something new happens that, depending on your choice, will trigger the start of route E. Route E is what I can only describe as the most emotionally uplifting climax I have experienced since the true pacifist ending of Undertale. If route C/D makes it seem hopeless, route E presents a glimmer of hope. That no matter how bad things get, no matter how beat down you get, there is always hope.
On July 1st, 2017, I completed NieR:Automata. I put my controller down, and pontificated on so many things. Mostly existential things, nothing that hasn't been pontificated on since time immemorial and by smarter people. NieR:Automata fundamentally changed how I thought I viewed life and existence. I have not stopped thinking about NieR:Automata, its story, or its characters since I finished it, and will probably never forget it. So thank you, Yoko Taro, for making this game.
