Hey gang!
I hope everyone is well over the course of this year? It's been a wonderful time for me personally. I've moved out, re-invigorated my love of games after 4/5 years of being COMPLETELY disinterested, and made some wonderful new friends thanks to Discord. However, the core tenant of games has been a lovely constant over this year. It's been a great time to play videogames, and like many of you, I enjoyed a LOT of what came out this year, but there was also a lot of less than stellar products. Now, I didn't play a LOT of 2018 games, so some of the lower games on this list, I might not even like that much, but I only really played ten or so games this year, so there's naturally gonna be ten games! So let's get to it! In reverse order:
10) World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth
What a weird time for World of Warcraft. In a time where the MMO is a super esoteric and...almost obsessoinist genre, it took a lot of guts to make a completely revamped expansion for arguably the worlds most famous MMO. I'll be honest, there was a lot to like in the levelling experience of WoW. The quest design is really fun, the areas look gorgeous, the music is fantastic, and the game is more accessible than ever. However, that's not to say that BFA is a particularly good game. The core tenant of an MMO is that it's meant to be played with other people. BFA is NOT that at all. Infact, I'd argue that it's become more of a single player game than ever. There's no more tagging mobs- ANYONE who hits any enemy now gets credit for the kill. Objectively, that's better design, but it's become such a "everyone is rewarded for everything" that it takes a lot out of it. In addition to this, when you do a dungeon, which you'd do to "finish a zone", you'd press a button, join a group of anonymous strangers, not say a WORD to them, and rinse a dungeon in 10 minutes flat. As someone that played in vanilla, extensively, it's a bit of a let down compared to the glory days. Probably good for people with ZERO attention span who like flashy buttons.
***/*****
Shoutout to Dave for the name inspiration
9) Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age
Another entry into the elusive DQ franchise. I think this is the first time I've ever really "got" a Dragon Quest game. I gave the DS and 3DS ones a bloody good go, but always got bored at around the 10 hour mark. I think a lot of what I don't like is that I never really get a sense of progression from these games. At hour 1, I'm doing 20 damage, and at hour 20 I'm doing 50. I know it's an increment, but it doesn't feel enough. It's another game on this list that lives and dies by its aesthetics. The character designs are wonderful, and the enemy design is absolute best in breed, but the part where you actually play the game is kinda boring really. It didn't help that the music was diabolical- often times encroaching on being completely inappropriate for the moment. I didn't finish this game, getting to the gladiator/giant spider plotline, and realising the grind was too much, and I wasn't enjoying it. I don't think I'll bother with another DQ game. Being brought up on Final Fantasy has spoiled me, and I just don't think DQ is for me.
***/*****
8) Ni No Kuni 2: Revenant Kingdom
By now, you've probably noticed that I play a lot of RPG games. This is a trend that will continue as this list develops. My first big JRPG that I played this year is probably my disappointment of the generation. The original NNK was remarkable. Likeable characters, terrific voice acting, indepth and thoughtful gameplay and dripping with Ghibli charm. The sequel didn't have much of that, unfortunately. What we got instead was a by the numbers, boilerplate, generic JRPG that had none of the charm of its charasmatic older brother. Saying that, there is a lot to like about NNK2. The combat was fun, albeit an absolute SLOG to get through all the grinding- with the difficulty spiking insanely over the course of the game. It goes from being a joke, to deceptively hard in the course of one battle. I always felt underlevelled, and the kingdom mechanic straight up stunk. Too much forced grinding. If you like an old fashoined JRPG, you'll probably find a lot to like here, but you could do better.
***/*****
7) Octopath Traveller
Another totally weird game. At its outset, and from the original E3 demo, I knew I was all in on this game. The super interesting artstyle hooked me immediately, and the breathtaking soundtrack really helps to sell this games bespoke roots. The aesthetics in this game are through the roof, and it shows that a lot of thought and care went into it. It helps that it marries this with some of the best JRPG combat in the last ten years. Forcing you to pick a diverse party, complete with both varied magic and alternative weapons really helps you flesh out the depth that this game so eloquently displays. However, this doesn't mean it's perfect. I know from experience that JRPG games often feature a certain level of grind. I felt like Octopath was the most gulity of this in 2018. Your characters who aren't in the battle don't get EXP, which sounds like a smart idea at first, because it forces you to experiment with different characters, and encourages a mixed party. What doesn't help is the fact that your quest may be a recommended level of 25, but that specific character might only be level 8, due to underuse. Having to grind out several classes for several hours felt like a bit of a chore to me personally, and I fell off at about chapter 3. The game doesn't help itself by having wildly disjointed character development. Some characters, like Cyrus, felt very fleshed out, and like an actual person. Compare that to H'annit or Tressa, who felt very one dimensional, and you had a kind of "This character only exists in their own story" ethos. As someone who comes to JRPG games for party interaction and story development, I felt this was the weakest part of Octopath. I only hope that in their next game, they focus a little more on a cohesive story, rather than spread themselves too thin on individual character tales.
***/*****
6) Donut County
I played through Donut County in one sitting, after hearing about it on Giant Bomb, and seeing how utterly charming it looked. What you get is a tight, 2 hour game that compounds on one brilliant idea, and continues to experiment with that idea for around 15 missions, ending with a wonderfully written and very heartfelt story. There isn't much to this game outside of a simple core mechanic and very twee writing, but it's easy to recommend.
****/*****
5) Monster Hunter: World
Now, I've played a lot of the MH franchise over the years. I've gone from claw handing on the PSP, bashing my head against the wall with 3's underwater Lagiacrus fight, struggling to engage with 4's difficult new weapon, and finally, rested on World. Now, at the time of writing, I've still a long ways to go. Infact, I only did the first Zorah Magdaros fight, and maybe 2/3 of the fights after that, but everytime I jumped into a hunt, I was overjoyed at how much I was enjoying this game. Whether it was hunting solo with my trusty hammer, to hunting with a friend with a LBG, everything in MH:W just kind of...clicks. The quality of life changes may upset the vocal minority, who might argue for the "Casualisation" of the series, but for a casual fan, it did everything right for me. The changes made were really smart, and really helped me enjoy the 10/15 hours I played so far. I hope to finish this off as we lead into 2019, and I look forward to their continued support with the fantastic third party support they're adding.
****/*****
4) Red Dead Redemption 2
This should go without saying, but RDR2 is a stunning game. Infact, if you've been on the forums at all this year, you may have noticed me asking sporadically about 4K televisions, and the PS4 Pro. I'm happy to say that I DID upgrade to a 4K tv this year, and I upgraded my PS4 to a Pro JUST for Red Dead 2. And what a way to start looking at 4K gaming. The game itself is just staggering to look at. From an artistic standpoint, I've not been this impressed since Horizon: Zero Dawn of last year. I didn't think games COULD look this good. Now, the actual part where you play the game might be divisive for some people. I know a lot of people might not care for the overly long animations on certain things, or the fact that it takes forever to get somewhere, or the overzealous nature of the sheriffs. There's a lot about this game that I don't agree with, but in the 10 or so hours that I've played. I've been absolutely hooked every minute I play. Any time I head out in the world, it's a constant game of "Oh what's that, Oh look a deer, Oh look a moose, I want to hunt that. Look, a bandit camp, how can I approach this" and an untold amount of other various little moments that just exist in that world. Unfortunately, due to a busy work/life balance, I haven't been able to dedicate as much time to this as I would have liked, but I have the entirety of next week, with the exception of New Years Day dedicated to playing Red Dead Redemption 2. It comes across as that sort of game where it almost feels sacreligous to only play for 30/45 minutes at a time, instead encouraging you to just sit down, and wonder "Why is the sun coming up", and realising you've been playing till 9am in the morning. No game this year, save for my number 1, has had me thinking about how I want to play than RDR2, and how I'm going to enjoy continuing to play.
*****/*****
3) Marvel's Spider-Man
A good superhero game! Spider-Man did a lot right that I think hasn't been captured in a power fantasy game since Arkham Asylum. It's an easy game to recommend to people. An open world that's actually a delight to explore, a great looking game, magnificent character models, and believable voice acting. Every minute you're playing this game, you're in constant awe of "What's the next cool thing that's going to happen?"
There isn't much I can add to what's already been said about the new crown jewel in the BatHam style of games, but I will say that there were certainly things that disappointed me a little. The sequences where you DON'T play as Spider-Man are dreadful. They're not fun, and really take you out of the game. There's one section that sticks out where you play as MJ investigating Osborn's apartment at the end that goes on for 45+ minutes, and I was so bored I just stopped playing after it. In addition to this, I wasn't overly keen on the boss fights. With one exception, it kinda just devolved to "Dodge their attacks, web them up and then wail on them with melee. Repeat until dead". The most frustrating part however, was when you wanted to move in a small direction somewhere. Like, say you were on a building, and wanted to climb up a very short ledge to get a backpack. It's very difficult and annoying to manage then. I think the game is so insistent on making everything you do look "super cool and fluid" that you end up doing stuff you don't want to do.
A remarkable game that anyone who likes action games could easily enjoy.
****/*****
2) Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
I didn't think I'd have a fighting game on my top 10 list, never mind actually playing one. I last PROPERLY played Smash on the Gamecube, aswell as a minor foray into the terrible 3DS version. What I've found with ultimate is a rewarding, challenging, and down right fun game to play solo, or with friends. The newcomers are hit and miss (Mostly hit), and the sheer breadth of things to do is fantastic. Now, I say this not having touched "Spirits mode" yet, despite hearing it's very fun, and really encourages you to think about what you're doing. Most of my time has been spent either unlocking the characters (Which by the way, was extremely challenging, as some of the unlock fights were brutal, particularly Lucario), or playing with my discord pals in multiplayer. I've already kind of settled on a few specific characters as ones I like the best, and I want to keep getting better with them. Let your online fears be asuaged too, as the wifi play is brilliant. We played last night as 4 people from all over Europe, all on WiFi, and had zero lag, disconnections or problems online.
Now if only I could work out how to be good as Little Mac...
*****/*****
1) Divinity: Original Sin 2: Enhanced Edition
I know this might be a cop-out, putting what is technically a 2017 game as my number 1. But what a game. WHAT A GAME. To give a little backstory, I was kind of raised on RPG games. Final Fantasy games were my bread and butter growing up, often spending 100 hours on one, then IMMEDIATELY starting again the same day, then moving onto the next one when it came out. Admittedly, I don't think I've ever really sank serious time into CRPG games before. I tried all the main D&D ones when I was a younger man, but none of them really "stuck" with me. Infact, I didn't know how people could understand such complex mechanics like spellcasting, armor class and the dreaded THAC0 (Good riddance). It wasn't really until Divinity 2 that I "got it". An absolute harmonious collaboration of spectacular design, intriguing characters, dense, exciting mechanics and a lore heavy world that I so desperately seek in games.
Now, I wasn't really enjoying it at first. I had a tank, a healer/summoner, an archer and a 2H melee guy. I was finding the combat too tough. After consulting with a friend, he encouraged me to respec in a few smart ways, and I'll be damned if the game didn't completely open up for me again. Utilising smart crowd control, status effects, and my favourite of all- polymorph. Shoutout to Angus and the horns!
I've still got about 20 hours to go (I just hit the Nameless Isle and have that and Arx to go I hear), and I'm desperate to carry on. I'll admit that the story hasn't quite enraptured me, but the character stories are mature and interesting, and seeing how the story will culminate has got me eager to sink another bunch of hours into this game. Adding in FANTASTIC workshop support only adds to this games rich, diverse combat, and can keep you coming back for hundreds of hours.
Game of the Year.
*****/*****
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