GOTY 2021

It's been a year, folks. In the midst of COVID and working from home, the years are starting to blend together, but there has been some gaming in there to help pass the time.

10. Psychonauts 2

Aside from the occasional Mario jaunt, I don't spend much time with 3D platformers any more. The genre that defined a lot of my youth has largely fallen by the wayside for me even in spite of attempts to revitalize the genre.

However, with disregard for my waning interest in the genre, I still gave Psychonatus 2 a shot due to the convenience of Game Pass and curiosity about what a sequel 15 years in the making would end up being. I ended up enjoying it a lot.

While the gameplay itself (especially the combat) does show some age, the creativity, artistic vision, and sharp writing on display bring an undeniable charm to this game.

9. Shin Megami Tensei V

God is dead and all that's left is a hellscape of demons fighting over the last scraps of human existence. But hey, enough about the news, Shin Megami Tensei V is yet another great entry in the combat and exploration focused Persona progenitor.

While the core of the experience is still much the same, the open environments and quality of life updates in SMTV stood in stark contrast to the claustrophobic corridors and borderline unfair gameplay of Nocturne (which had its own low-effort remaster released this year).

My only major complaint with SMTV is that the Switch can barely handle running it. The character models and environments are all well done, but it can be hard to appreciate them when the game is struggling to run in the 20 fps range at very low resolution.

8. Unpacking

I didn't expect that taking things out of boxes could make for such fantastic storytelling, but Unpacking managed to deliver one of the best narratives of the year. What is on the surface just a chill vibes game about the zen of placing knick-knacks also ends up telling an emotional story that's very easy to connect with.

Moving is hard. Not just in the sense that it's back-breaking manual labor, but also because it's often associated with a major life change. Unpacking nails that emotional journey in a way that was a really nice surprise.

7. Inscryption

I really like deckbuilders, but the genre has started to become very well-trodden territory in recent years. So, when a game manages to do something that feels truly new with the genre comes around, I think that's worth celebrating.

While I do think this game gets a little bogged down in its second act, the amazing presentation and atmosphere of everything else are incredibly well done. I haven't tried the new infinite mode DLC, but the card game itself seems well constructed enough to hold up to more extended play.

I'm also going to throw some honorable mentions here to other solid 2021 deckbuilders:

• Fights in Tight Spaces - Really well done, but it's lacking that extra something to make it stand out among such a crowded field.
• Griftlands - The incredibly high degree of polish that we've come to expect from Klei, but the roguelike structure of this game seems to be at odds with a lot of other aspects of the game's structure.
• Roguebook - It's pretty good but feels similar enough to Slay the Spire and Monster Train to just make me want to play more of those.

6. Jupiter Hell

Nearly 20 years ago, and several years before creating Spelunky, Derek Yu dipped his toe into roguelikes by doing art for a roguelike version of Doom. That game, now open-source and known as D**m the Roguelike or DRL due to a cease and desist from Zenimax, was a really great twist on familiar concepts from Doom and was one of the best pure roguelikes I recall playing before the "roguelite" renaissance we're living in now.

Jupiter Hell builds upon that DoomRL foundation in a legally distinct way that delivers great classic roguelike gameplay just like the fangame. With so many games now integrating roguelike elements with bigger progression systems, it's nice to occasionally go back to something like Jupiter Hell that strips away all of that extra cruft and focuses on the roots of the genre.

5. Guardians of the Galaxy

While Avengers was largely a disaster, there were moments during its incredibly brief main campaign that you could see the tiniest glimmer of a good game. Kamala Khan and her super-fan interactions with the Avengers mainstays had some charm, but those moments were buried under a mountain of lackluster combat and awful live-service mission structure.

By dropping the live-service junk in favor of the more traditional AAA action game blueprint and focusing on characters and dialogue, Guardians of the Galaxy manages to be a fantastic game. From a narrative perspective, the story here is on par or better than most of what I've seen from the MCU movies, but it's the smaller character moments and banter that really make the game. This game also looks fantastic and features some very cool environments. The combat has a little jank, but it's still far better than the mess it was in the Avengers and doesn't detract from the overall experience.

4. Astalon: Tears of the Earth

The "search action", "exploration platformer" genre is a crowded one, but Astalon: Tears of the Earth really managed to stand out to me among the heap, even in a year anchored by an actual Metroid game.

In many ways, Astalon wears the Metroidvania influences on its sleeve. There's a guy with a whip, some suspiciously familiar looking jellyfish, and the standard map screen. These standards of the genre are all well executed and come across well as homage, but where the game distinguishes itself is with its multiple characters and roguelike elements.

It's a staple of the genre to have access to areas limited by new abilities, but in Astalon, these abilities are associated with one of multiple characters in your party, starting with three and then growing over the course of the game. Each character feels distinct with their own weapon (bow, sword, magic, etc.) and movement abilities, and the tiny bits of interaction at fires where the party takes a rest (and initially the only place you can switch characters) gives them the tiniest bit of characterization and personality.

Along the way, you're also buying roguelite style upgrades to upgrade your stats and unlock new abilities. There are also enough shortcuts in the map to make dying and returning the start not as tedious as you initially expect it may be.

I didn't expect much from this game but it overdelivered in pretty much every way, and I feel like it's earned a spot in my personal Metroidvania pantheon.

3. Forza Horizon 5

Yo, they did the Forza Horizon thing again but with some better overall progression. You can still put anime liveries on your cars. A+. 10/10.

I do miss the larger variety in the seasons in Forza Horizon 4, but aside from that, I'm still really enjoying this game and continue to dip in weekly to do the seasonal challenges.

2. Wildermyth

It took a while for me to convince myself to play Wildermyth. I had heard good things about it, but there is just something about the art style that is off-putting. Once I got over that hump though, what I found was one of the most unique and effective approaches to RPG character building and storytelling that I've seen in a long time.

No game is ever going to have the flexibility to capture the magic of a great DM in a tabletop RPG, but Wildermyth does a great job at giving you a taste of it. Seeing your characters grow and change over time as they fight, fall in love, have families, and pass on leaving their adventures for their children to continue works so incredibly well. The campaigns and character scenarios are all very well crafted to make you attached to your randomly generated characters in a way that I really didn't think it could.

1. Metroid Dread

Samus is finally back, and Metroid Dread does in fact slap. It slaps hard.

I think in some ways this is the least Metroidvania-like of the Metroid games. Speedrunner sequence breaking aside, this game really pushes you forward through a bit more of a corridor than most the previous Metroid game. There is still some exploration to be had, but it's much more optional and the intended main path is typically laid bare.

The action and movement in Dread are arguably the best they've ever been. This game just feels great to play, and while the controls can be a bit to initially get to grips with, it's very satisfying getting to a point where you nail a boss fight without getting hit after many failed attempts.