Great list! Your top 6 are all games I greatly enjoyed. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is near the top of my backlog. And I've never been a Sonic fan but I'm finding it hard to avoid the pull of Sonic Frontiers..
I might have to get Dome Keeper and Far: Changing Tides in the current Steam sale, both of them look like they'd be up my alley.
And wow, that's a lot of Astroneer! I'm not a big fan of those kinds of crafting-heavy games, but I really like Astroneer's minimalist design. I bought it at some point so maybe I should give it a shot.
Great list, I really enjoyed reading it! Hardspace Shipbreaker is right at the top of my backlog for the new year. Sounds like it's a great mix of clever writing and mechanically satisfying "blue-collar work" as you put it. And my fiance and I are actually finishing up Escape Academy this week; I hadn't even heard of it until recently. It's a pretty good time in multiplayer.
I LOVE War of the Chosen so that's high praise for Chaos Gate! I bought it during the Fall Steam sale so I'm excited to give it a shot as some point in the new year.
I think my Winter break will be very Midnight Suns focused as I'm only about 8 hours in so far. I don't mind the in between missions social stuff as much as you, but the card system and tactical battles are absolutely the stars. It reminds me of Into the Breach more so than anything else with the environmental effects and focus on positioning.
I'm very happy to see Pentiment so high. I'm not a history dork but I was super impressed by the attention to detail and felt like I learned a lot. It's so well written and I loved the characters; plus, there's a solid whodunit mystery behind the themes and setting. Really happy Josh Sawyer and Obsidian got to make that game.
That list was a great read! Psychonauts 2 and Astalon are near the top of my backlog (I played a few hours of Astalon and it seems awesome, but I heard it's pretty long and didn't want to dedicate myself to a 15-20 hour game at the time). I love seeing Wildermyth, that also made my top 10 and I had a great time watching Waypoint play through one of the campaigns.
Unfortunately I was very disappointed with Metroid Dread. It's one of my favorite franchises but I was really butting heads with the controls, and the linearity bothered me. A game like Metroid Fusion is very upfront about how straightforward the world design is, but Dread tries to seem open without actually allowing for much Metroidvania exploration. I got about 5-6 hours into it, maybe I'll try to go back to it soon and give it another shot.
Great list! I've only played the tutorial missions of Desperados III but I really need to sit down and spend some time with it. I'm more of a turn-based strategy guy but it seems like the emphasis on quick saves and queuing up actions provides a good balance.
Great list! Gave you a little shout out on my list because you're absolutely right about Monster Train being the podcast game of the year (side note: I guess I should listen to Flagrant Ones, that clip was hilarious... I love Hollywood Handbook but haven't checked out FO). Yakuza is near the top of my backlog, just barely played the intro in December and need to dedicate some time to it soon.
Great list! Seeing a lot of love for Fire Emblem from the community, I really need to get back to it in 2020. I enjoyed it a lot but just got sidetracked by other stuff. And thank you for including a video to one of the funniest CBB moments ever, I'm going to have the lyrics "human skin truck baby" in my head for the rest of the day.
Fantastic list yet again Zandra, always enjoy reading these every year. Your thoughts on A Short Hike and Sayonara Wild Hearts in particular were really beautiful. And reading about the La-Mulana randomizer encouraged me to install it on my PC and give it another shot. It seems like a special game but I didn't get beyond 10 hours or so, those puzzles can be really obtuse and daunting. Time to break out the notebook and pencil!
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