01] Iconoclasts

It’s hard to overstate how much of my mental real estate this game has taken up this year. I played it so early on and it continues to bounce around in my brain. The world is so beautiful and the events often ugly, hopeful and understanding but also worldly and aware of the crushing structures of power. The characters and motivations at play have an authenticity that touched me in a way I never would have expected from the game where the girl carries the big wrench. The puzzles, levels, and bosses all feel sprung from this whole cloth, no seams, and left an indelible imprint on my year.

02] Return of the Obra Dinn

I can’t really imagine a better detective game than this. Smarter people than me have described how the specific contrivances of the setup allow for more genuine deduction than any Sherlock or L.A. Noire of the world. No witnesses to talk to, no evidence to collect. You’re going purely on what you can see and sometimes hear and just piecing it together in an incredibly satisfying way. Beyond any individual puzzle, just coming up with a structure that facilitates the kind of thinking Obra Dinn demands is an incredible feat.

03] FAR: Lone Sails

There’s a tactile satisfaction to this game that separates it from the Limbos or whatever of the world [also separated by the fact it doesn’t kill you with traps constantly but whatever]. You manually operate all the ship’s systems. You collect fuel and stack it up in a convenient spot. You could just keep spare fuel or other useful things on the hooks in the ship that can hold items; I kept the mailbox from my home and some other baubles from the journey. That was my choice, ultimately meaningless, but personal for me. The ship becomes a friend in a way, as well as a home, and a tool, and I’m the captain.

04] Full Metal Furies

A truly co-operative brawler full of clever ideas, both in terms of combat mechanics and story sort of puzzly bits. I haven’t played this single-player much admittedly, but if you can get even one friend to play through this with you I’d say it would show how impactful a co-op experience the game can be. The classes are well-differentiated and fun, and there’s a whole meta layer to put your heads together on and figure out. Even the devs consider it a failure based on sales, so clearly we are doomed.

05] Octahedron

Just a glorious game to go through, smashing every single light bulb and grabbing every trinket. There’s a fun rave atmosphere with levels that stay smart and fresh the entire time, always making new kinds of demands of you. Once I started this game I didn’t stop till there was nothing left. Well, besides time attack and no death runs. I’m not that crazy.

06] Tetris Effect

It’s hard to even blurb this given Tetris feels like such a known quantity. It’s Tetris but affecting instead of just great and fun. I don’t have access to VR, but I don’t think it’s necessary to be impressed.

07] Hitman 2

It’s interesting to see Hitman without the season structure of the first game. In general having everything available at once made me progress faster and not explore AS much, although they do what they can to suggest you try more kinds of runs and grind the level. It’s still the great new Hitman formula, though. Tons of funny and novel ways to go about the missions with unlocks that expand your possibilities even further. The final level in particular, where the elite of the world gather to figure out protections against the climate change that they caused, is truly spectacular both in terms of concept and design. That’s a literal thing happening right now, if not in as cartoonish fashion at an evil island. But maybe even also at an evil island.

08] Monster Hunter: World

I have tried to get into Monster Hunter before and failed because it was an impossible slog. Even with a friend, it was just a mess in past attempts. They finally made a game I could play, one I found such immense satisfaction in when I finally brought down that damn unicorn motherfucker and could carve it up. Prepping for a hunt, struggling to deal with these behemoths, and coming home with a sack full of horns is a great loop, even if the way they dealt with online is still very stupid.

09] The Messenger

The “twist” of this game seems fairly overblown. The music change is neat in particular but it’s certainly not crazy to me. But it’s such a tight feeling game, one that I ended up getting all the power seals in [are power seals the collectible name? whatever] because it feels so good to just play. Meta game stories can often be abrasive, but this didn’t bother me so, points for that too I guess.

10] The Missing: J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories

Swery has all the heart in the world, and apparently a lot of the insight. The basic gameplay is truly grimmer than most edgelord games would dare to be, yet it’s done for empathetic reasons, a letter of understanding to the struggling. “Did you find what you were looking for?” lingers with me now.

Spoilers for entries 1 and 2, everything else is pretty clean.

01] NieR: Automata

There’s no reason to go on. All your reasons for continuing to fight are gone, outside of petty ideas of revenge for its own sake, and even revenge feels unattainable. Towards the end of this game, as the machines swarm, I can safely say I have never felt more like your game protagonist should just lay down and die. Give up. It’s over. They can have the planet. Maybe they’ll do better. And yet ultimately, there’s warmth. Automata is a game that tells you that no matter how bad things are, how vain the struggle, there’s some sort of value to your doomed existence. The connections you make with people and what you choose to do are what give life meaning, even when there’s no true material gain to be had or objective left to be completed. You cared for people, you made their lives better, you struggled together, and this cold, uncaring universe can’t take that away. It’s a setting that promotes utter nihilism, and there’s a deep, abiding sadness throughout, yet the final message is that our bonds are more powerful than we might think.

I mean, you can imagine why this game was embraced particularly by people who have suffered with severe depression. It dives deep into the despair and hopelessness. It shows you machines who can’t figure out why they should even exist, so they kill themselves. It shows you a world beyond repair. The androids and machines are tortured by the ghost of human culture, something that they can only kind of understand yet are striving to emulate. But it also says, “Hey, everything is fucked up, we can see that, but you’re not nothing. Don't give up."

I could talk about a lot of other things. The incredible soundtrack, all the memorable friends you make during sidequests, the aesthetic, and the Platinum combat. There are tons of pieces to be and that have been written about the specific ways the game executes its narrative aspirations, its take on gender and relationships, etc. but I am far too dumb to articulate those things. Fundamentally, what thrills and haunts me about Automata is the humanity. The simultaneous awe at what we can do and the power we give each other, while acknowledging the uncertainty and despair that comes with living. Glory to mankind.

02] Persona 5

Your enemies in this game feel like a checklist of people in the world you want to say “fuck you” to. The abusive teacher, the legendary creative figure exploiting and holding down the next generation, the criminals who hurt people, the cruel boss, the cops, the fucking president, and finally capitalism itself in the form of a golden idol. You’re the misfit outlaws trying to show the beaten down people of the world that there’s still hope, and that seems relevant right now. It always has been, but especially now.

I think about walking through the streets of Tokyo in the rain often. The music playing, thinking about what good friend I should spend time with today. Just that mental scene soothes me immediately, and it will for a long time.

03] Yakuza 0

I had no idea this game would be this good. Yakuza was one of those series I just kind of wrote off mentally as probably not happening. It didn’t help that the newer entries were up to like 5, and that the first ones were back on the PS2. It just felt like a thing that passed me by, so a prequel like 0 was exactly the kind of opening I needed. This isn’t a full review; I want to do one of those someday. But the sense of place and personality is out of this world. It's so consistently funny and surprising and quirky, but that doesn't hurt the main narrative or all the badass shirt-ripping-off moments one bit. I am going to play all of these now.

P.S. I am also currently in treatment for my addiction to running cabaret clubs.

04] The Evil Within 2

This captures so many of the aspects of old survival horror games that still make them satisfying to this day, while importantly having movement, shooting, and stealth mechanics that AREN’T like those. Getting familiar with an area, scrounging it methodically for items, picking and choosing what resources are worth spending to kill enemies, the feeling that every shot matters. And that, while you have a foothold in this world due to your considered play, that that hold is tenuous. The next boss or area could find you in a pretty different state. The game incorporates the surreal elements of the first, but in a more limited way. It's grounded enough you can feel the satisfaction of progressing toward something or clearing out an area, instead of just randomly passing out and waking up in the next spot, but you know something weird could happen pretty much any time. The story is also a more personal one, using the setting/world of the first game as a setup for something more ambitious.

05] Heat Signature

Probably the most useful way to write about this game is personal experiences. Like the time I was playing as a character whose personal mission was to rescue his son. I board the ship he’s imprisoned on, and start making my way through. There are way too many armored guards for what I had. Too many shields. As I finally get to his room, the guards are on my trail. They saw me sneak by. With nothing else to do, no way to damage them, I blew out the window of the ship with my shotgun sending us all out into space. Remote controlling my pod, I was able to capture myself first, but the kid was still out there, a smaller, harder to land dot on the screen that was rapidly running out of air. Finally with one second left I got him. Both father and son went on to retire as legends. It's just one piece of a grand narrative my various agents and exploits created and one of the most intense experiences I've had all year.

06] Hollow Knight

I threw myself into this full force. It’s unbelievable how many areas there are in this game, how they nest together and how even when you think you’ve seen them all, you’ll find several more. There are so many little touches, minor NPCs that don’t give you upgrades or add anything mechanically but show the game as a labor of love with a world the creators cared about. This game rewards people willing to poke into every corner and explore thoroughly in a way few do. I don't just mean material gains, although those are certainly there. I mean new insight into the world, what made it this way, what's going on with some of the characters. It’s packed with tons of optional bosses and challenges, and a hard to get true ending that I… got most of the way to on my own just by exploring and thinking about the world, which is enough for me even if I never get that ending [I won't].

07] Resident Evil 7: biohazard

I found the demo of this kind of neat when it came out. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the real game, how into it I’d be. It was certainly no P.T., speaking of first person horror demos based on established franchises. But this captures a lot of what I’d want from a thing labeled Resident Evil while also feeling fresh in a way I certainly wouldn’t expect after 6. The crafting/inventory aspect is what makes it feel most in touch with the Playstation roots. It’s streamlined and easy, but you’re deciding what to do with your limited resources in a way that feels right. The focus on the Baker family instead of yet another Umbrella plot is a nice reduction in bullshit, and taking in their estate and learning its ins and outs is as satisfying as any mansion or past location.

08] Snake Pass

The control scheme of this game is one of the more ingenious and novel things I've seen. It truly plays like nothing else, and the level design has graceful a rise in the level of difficulty and danger. It gives you the time to take in and understand controlling this thing, and when you do get good, the collectibles demand you prove it. [I did, I got 100%.]

09] Gorogoa

I have waited for this game for years, from that first little demo they put out. It just set my mind alight with possibilities, and the full game certainly doesn't disappoint. It retains that sense of wonder, even as you do more puzzles and start to assemble the sort of internal logic of the game. Even as you start to grasp how some things will work, there's never a pat solution. You're always tinkering and exploring these spaces with that little sense of awe.

10] Prey

I’ve never much been attached to the BioShocks of the world or many games that proclaim to be inspired by that tradition of western RPGs. If I'm to believe Waypoint the proper term is "immersive sim" for these. They can be interesting, with cleverly plotted out ability trees and whatnot, but they don’t work their way into my heart. Something feels a little too detached. Prey is somewhat different. You have more character, emails and voice clips literally from yourself that give you more of a reason to care about what happens here and who you are. And there's a freedom to the play that makes how you get through it more personal. Sometimes I felt like I was breaking the game even though I think everything I did was fully considered. Your toolbox just has a lot of possibilities.

01] Bayonetta 2

In 2010 Platinum released my favorite character action game. I’m not a total connoisseur, but I’ve played my fair share, I’d say, and Bayonetta was kind of a revelation. Great feel to the combat and movement, which is obviously essential, but there was a freedom and joyousness to it that made it special, too. Just, hey now you’re riding a motorcycle up the side of a building because that seems like a cool thing to do. You can wear shotguns on your feet with a katana in your hands and turn into a panther. It knew how to do spectacle in a way that was really like nothing else, with an attitude to it that was fun instead of obnoxious like old DMC Dante.

And now Platinum has made an even better game, and I wouldn’t say that too lightly given how high I was on the first. Despite having the first game to work from, there was a lot of potential for things to go wrong, for it to feel like, well, half a game that got cancelled a while back, touched up, then put in a box. Yet my expectations remained high, my excitement grew, and it didn't disappoint me. It’s hard to be completely sure, but I may have squealed when I held down the attack button with Chernobog and it fired the scythe blades off into the enemy. What I love about those held button attacks is that they don’t break the combo. As long as you hit the next button immediately after it fires, you can continue building. I'm not sure action mechanics get more elegant.

A lot of the weapons have similar combos so you aren't at all starting from scratch when you try something else, but those combos behave differently and have their own quirks depending on the weapon. And weapons that can go on hands or feet obviously behave differently on each. There's a lot of options but it's friendly, not intimidating. You can always practice, in a full-on mode that shows you the combos. You can focus on dodging and not learn any combos at all if you're just trying to make it through. But playing well looks good and feels good, and that's what you want to do.

Many of these things would also be true of Bayonetta 1. The second game just has a better idea of what it's best at. Shorter chapters [or so it feels], making it easier to go for those Platinums. Crazier weapons. Even more diversity in the gameplay and seemingly somehow a greater total amount of spectacle. They also clearly understand how people play these games. After completing the game I unlocked the katana and a set of pistols from the first game, the kind of thing that's easy for them to include but just gives more options to the people looking to change things up on a Third Climax run.

Thanks, Nintendo, for saving us from the dark timeline where this doesn't come out.

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Honorable: Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call [3DS]

I didn't actually play as much of this one as the first because I'm a monster, but it's also clearly an upgrade in every way. A true celebration of a series with some of the best music.

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02] 80 Days

Day 79: Monsieur Fogg and I have four stops to go to reach London. It's not a huge distance geographically, but travel schedules never line up in such a way that making it in time is possible. It just doesn't happen. You typically get to a place and discover the next train leaves tomorrow morning at the EARLIEST; sometimes it's days before the next travel option arrives. Each of these four stops I'm expecting to encounter this, to get to Tangier and discover the next carriage doesn't leave for a week and I'm boned.

But it doesn't. I arrive in Marrakesh and am able to take a carriage the same day to Tangier, paying the driver a decent sum to hurry it up. We stay overnight there and in the morning on day 80 I pay for a private car to pick us up a day earlier than scheduled and take us to Lisbon. At 3:30 PM we arrive and I discover there's an airship leaving at 5:00 for London, if I pay a large amount of money for it to to come a day early. Luckily I have enough because I've been buying stuff and reselling it elsewhere to my advantage. We've accumulated too much luggage, though, and as time ticks down I'm fucking throwing out as much as I can to get the number of bags down. I was shaking while doing this, so anxious about being so close. The mental image of Fogg and Passepartout sprinting to the runway, dropping baggage along the way, is pretty vivid.

We won the wager, 9 PM of day 80, and I loved that experience. It was thrilling. But really, it doesn't even matter. As trite as it is to say, it's in the journey. Failing doesn't invalidate anything. I've read stories online of people running out of money in bad parts of the world and arriving back in London on day 120, ragged and beaten, and you know, that seems like a way an attempted journey around the world could go. You and Fogg having to sleep under a bridge for a month while you try to save enough money to get out of a backwoods town is a great emergent story.

The stories that arise from your interaction with the travel mechanics give context to the written parts. You spent too much time at the market and missed your train, and now your best travel option is a boat headed somewhere else entirely. It's a safe bet some rad stuff will happen on that boat, too, that you wouldn't have seen if your plan worked out. My mad dash to victory was possible because of a thousand decisions I made before it, ones that helped and ones that hurt, ones in the text parts and decisions about whether or not to buy that coat.

I feel like I haven’t talked up the writing enough, even though that’s like the majority of the game, but I also feel like I’m pushing the bounds of acceptable length already. I was going to say there’s a positive tone, light-hearted adventure, and while that’s true I don’t think it’s completely accurate. There are melancholy, bad situations you try to make the best of or accept that you can’t fix. It's not naive nor cynical. More than anything I’d say it’s compassionate.

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Honorable: The Wolf Among Us [PS4]

Honestly wasn't sure what to expect from this, knowing so little about Fables, but I thought it was compelling set of episodes. It also proved to me I'm not tired of Telltale's formula yet.

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03] Transistor

I loved piecing this game together. Starting from this place of knowing nothing about the beautiful, strange world Supergiant has created and over time assembling what it is and what happened, both through overt narrative and reading about the functions. Some stuff I didn't fully get until completing the NG+, which is fine because playing it again was exactly what I wanted to do already. This was my first platinum trophy; I enjoyed it enough to want to do absolutely everything. It helps that the trophy design isn't tedious, of course.

The Function system is so smart and dynamic. It feels a lot fresher and more rewarding than Bastion's systems to me, even though I like that game a lot. An ability that you've been using as a primary attack may serve just as well nested into another function, augmenting it, or as a passive boost. There are tons of possibilities here, and the game encourages you to explore them by having character information unlock as you put functions into different roles. That's the kind of stuff that really connects with me, all these interlocking elements. As you explore the combat you're also exploring the characters and by extension the world.

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Honorable: Velocity 2X [PS4]

This mish-mash of genres works together surprisingly well. When you hit the gold time in particular it's thrilling, because that means you were going non-stop. Never stop. Get a perfect every time. Do it.

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04] Shovel Knight

It's a little ridiculous how good Shovel Knight is. The levels are fun and fair and rich. The soundtrack is some of the best 8-bit style stuff I've ever heard, and I've definitely heard my share. The controls are spot on; you can always do what you want to do and it feels great. The tone is exactly right, just this cute, simple sincerity rather than a lot of wink-wink references to it being like a NES game. It's DuckTales meets Mega Man, and I have a hard time imagining anyone doing it better. I feel like I'm giving this game some sort of short shrift by not having a longer write-up but seriously, just play it. It's amazing.

I will say that the fight with Mr. Hat is one of my highlights of the year, the pure joy of stumbling upon that.

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Honorable: Pix the Cat [PS4]

Ladybot, I'm sorry. We had some good times and will have more, but there just wasn't room.

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05] Dark Souls II

"Bearer of the curse. I will always be at your side. Until hope has fully withered."

I can hear the words right now. Man, this is a game. Okay, that might be the least useful statement ever but definitely my first reaction was and is awe. It's a game of massive ambition; I don't at all buy the idea FromSoft was phoning it in to focus on Bloodborne. Taken as a percentage the amount of quality content would be a lower than the first, some bosses or areas that don't amount to much, but the highs are similarly high. Even all these months later I can recall pretty specifically my path through this sprawling world. The first parts are good, interesting areas with great final bosses [I want to go fight The Lost Sinner again right now], but you still haven't seen the atmosphere, grandiosity, and scale achieved later on. It builds very well. The pacing slows down toward the very end but in a way I find to be pretty cool. It's a bit limp, but it fits the story and rewards you for paying attention throughout the game.

There are changes to the combat from 1 that I don't really think are better or worse, just different. Healing takes longer to pop so you have to be more careful, but there are now more traditional healing items instead of only having Estus. A lot of stuff like that, fairly lateral moves that are reasonable and still require you to play well. Pyromancy is now just a type of Magic instead of being its own category, which is a nice simplification. It's good stuff.

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Honorable: Metro 2033 Redux [PS4]

A shooter with a lot of novel survival mechanics and a strong sense of place, propelled along by a story that hits strange notes I absolutely did not expect.

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06] Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

I'm not sure I have that much to say about this one, maybe because I feel like it's already been said. The Nemesis system is all it's cracked up to be, giving personality and a story to enemies that could have become repetitive fodder. Besides just the grudge aspect of wanting to take out guys who have killed you, the options you get for manipulating the uruk hierarchy are pretty rich, starting feuds and getting your own agents as bodyguards for a warchief. They really breathe new life into the second half of the game.

I enjoy that the uruks just continue doing their thing regardless of whether you're around, infighting and hunting, and feasting. One time while I was just running around I got a random slow-mo pan to a captain getting eaten by a caragor he pissed off, totally unrelated to my actions. You're a huge factor in the Mordor machine. You are death incarnate. But it's nice to track a guy you wrote off as lame rising through the ranks independently. You not being the instigator for every change makes everything feel much more dynamic. Well, I guess I had more to say than I thought.

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Honorable: Ditto [PC]

Clever, cute, foreboding, and just wonderful.

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07] The Banner Saga

I didn't have much of an idea of what this game was going in. I knew a strategy game with nice art, and that's about it. What I didn't expect was the sort of Choose Your Own Adventure elements, in the larger story and the little vignettes, and managing the supplies of the caravan. The management isn't very granular, but the condition of your caravan plays into the combat and it adds to the overall feel of the game. You're leading. You have to feed these people. I'm a sucker for stuff like this, I'm finding out: little branching written scenarios that integrate with more traditional mechanics. [Someday I will figure you out, King of Dragon Pass.]

What I find most interesting in the strategy RPG aspect of the game is the use of health as strength for the units. Most games don't take health into account when calculating damage, the notion of the unit getting worn down. Your heavy getting his strength sapped early on is going to force substantial strategy changes. There's no healing and no adding new units once the battle starts. Armor break and some special abilities aren't hurt by low health so you end up often just trying to get some use out of injured units before they're cut down, which seems more appropriate for the bleak tone than a daring rescue. I was excited to hear the next game is set to release in 2015, assuming it's ready.

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Honorable: The Evil Within [PS4]

The story is off the rails from the beginning, which I'm in favor of. Not so much because the plot actually makes itself into anything but it allows for some really incredible surreal imagery. That and the fairly relentless pacing make for a bizarre and stressful trip, in a way I enjoyed. It commits a lot of sins, some lack of mechanical consistency and clarity, a couple of bad late-game chapters, but I think it's oddly endearing for all that.

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08] Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes

I only decided to put Ground Zeroes on this list literally right now. I still feel kind of weird about the game, about Konami's palpable desperation for there to be a Metal Gear game on shelves in 2014 and about how the shred of story that is included isn't good. But I just like playing it so much. It is MGS: Arcade for me, replaying missions both to optimize performance and just because I want to play more. Part of what was novel about Peace Walker was having bite-sized missions in a Metal Gear game instead of a constantly flowing campaign, and there's a similar thing going on here, except it controls even better.

The large base allows for a lot of creativity. Putting targets in a truck and driving them out to your helicopter that's blasting anime music is a pretty hot move. You can complete an assassination mission incredibly quickly if you find the right spot to snipe from and account for bullet drop. At that point it's like a fusion of Hitman and MGS and needless to say I'm into it. Phantom Pain may allow for the same type of quick play in more diverse locations and make this feel totally obsolete, but I am writing this in 2014 so.

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Honorable: P.T. [PS4]

Might as well include the other Kojima-linked game here. It is kind of ridiculous how effective this thing is. I'm into horror games and am frequently interested in games that use limited play space effectively, that make you feel intimately connected to an area instead of bored of being in the same place. So the repeating hallway of terror that is P.T. being here feels a bit inevitable, but that doesn't make it any less deserving.

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09] The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth

If you had told me earlier in the year the poop-pee-blood-tears game I didn't like very much the first time it was released would be in my top 10, well, I would have been a little bit skeptical. But I was definitely willing to give it a try, and Rebirth has its hooks in me firmly. The systems in play allow for such interesting risk/reward opportunities. The various types of hearts are a prime example. They all provide health but they behave differently, have different value depending on the situation. There's thoughtful core mechanics that work well with the randomized elements, and it makes for something pretty special. Also it plays well now.

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Honorable: Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments [PS4]

LONG LIVE THE DETECTIVE GAME. I felt pretty Sherlocky in this, legit detective. I like how much of the deducing goes on in your head and is only for you. There's not a post-case wrap up where they recap every detail and clue and what it meant. You already know that stuff because you are Sherlock.

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10] Hitman Go

Why aren't there more stages? I say this as if it didn't start with a ton and add way more. I have completed every objective in every stage, all the DLC, but I want more. It just kind of blows me away, this kind of adaptation of the franchise onto mobile platforms. The choice of board game aesthetic, reducing people literally down to objects you have to account for is so appropriate for your character and role, the cold strategery of a hitman. I enjoy the loop of playing a level for the first time and just figuring out the theme and layout, then going back in for sometimes pretty tough optional objectives. A specific goal may make an enemy that was kind of irrelevant your primary antagonist and force you to look at what's available to you in a totally different way.

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Honorable: Monument Valley [iOS]

I'm sorry. I love you. You are ethereal and beautiful and great, but I had to go with my gut.

01] The Last Guardian

One of the more fascinating things to me about The Last Guardian is how it doesn’t show the scars of a prolonged development other games have. Specifically I mean it doesn’t feel like some stitched together Frankenstein, where you can see the seams where vast redesigns took place or large chunks were cut out when they couldn’t be finished. Duke Nukem Forever is one of my favorite examples of this, where you could tell almost certainly tell when a level was made because it corresponded to some design trope that was popular years ago. That’s not to say at all that there aren’t problems with The Last Guardian, just that ultimately I think they managed to complete the original vision instead of changing the vision ten times.

Reading interviews, it’s frankly astounding that Team Ico felt like this game wouldn’t be too crazy to make. They felt like it was combining ICO and SotC, games they’d already done, so doing a mashup seemed reasonable to them or at least Ueda himself thought it was practical. Now think about the fact that you’re designing huge, complex environments and puzzles that have to be traversable for both a human-sized character and a gigantic beast, and at any given time the boy COULD be riding Trico but who knows, he certainly doesn’t have to be. It’s a staggering problem, and yet they manage to do it. It just took a decade.

But away from the feat that just completing the game is. The top 10s on Giant Bomb from developers that describe it as an inspiration during their own troubled projects will be way better at that. Let’s talk about Trico. Trico is… a force. He’s my good friend, but he’s still an animal. I go to feed him a barrel and he doesn't quite get it and knocks it out of my hands. I try to throw it to him and he's not ready and it just whacks him in the face. I walk into a new area and he comes charging by and bumps me into the wall, because as anyone who has had a big dog knows, animals really don't understand their size and how it might impact humans as they gallop about. Trico mostly follows you around but occasionally he will just want to sniff stuff or bay at the imposing tower that serves as your constant, distant North Star. These touches make Trico someone you work with and work around, a legitimate entity, not your cool trained pet.

Over the journey you learn Trico’s ticks, things you can do that make him more likely to listen, to read the body language that says “I’m getting ready to jump” so you stop issuing commands that may confuse him. Getting used to each other in that way feels thematically appropriate. Some of these “rough edges” to the AI are intentional, based on interviews, to make Trico more beastial and lend the character weight, but there are limits to that. There were a couple of instances my first playthrough where just... it’s clear the game is not parsing what I said correctly or at all, due to some aspect of positioning or who knows what. And moments like that, along with the camera, are reasons I can’t be upset with people more critical of the game.

Griffin McElroy mentioned he tends to favor games that “earn nostalgia” on his Game of the Year lists, referring to a game that, even in the year you play it, you can tell it will stick with you and that you'll probably play it every few years at least. When you finish it you have a premature nostalgia, because you can tell it's going to be one of Those Games and not just something you think was "fun for its time" etc. a decade from now. The Last Guardian feels like that for me. When I initially played ICO I struggled with my feelings on it because I knew I loved it but also understood it has profound issues and to some degree felt like I needed to hold those against it even though they weren’t hurting my affection. I still wanted to play it once a year. This time I think I’ll skip the agonizing over whether I should care more about the problems and embrace this game that has worked its way into my heart. Sense of place, atmosphere, mechanics that strengthen the narrative, and an emotional core... also you can ride the birddog, 10/10.

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Honorable mention: SUPERHOT

SUPER.HOT.SUPER.HOT.SUPER.HOT.SUPER.HOT.SUPER.HOT.SUPER.HOT.

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02] Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE

The Wii U continues it’s streak of having some of the best exclusives around, few as they may be, although compared to Super Mario Maker or even Bayonetta 2, no one seems to care. Well, I do. Tokyo Mirage Sessions captures a kind of bold pageantry and embrace of the ridiculous that I don’t think I’ve ever seen and assume I won’t see again, certainly not with this kind of pop focus. It’s just goddamn fun. Any time you get a new outfit it’s exciting, or some new attack with great orchestration and a whole routine behind it. The rare, full-on animated cutscenes are an extra-special treat.

There’s not a cynical undercurrent here. There’s not an in-joke that pop shit is absurd and stupid. It’s a joyous game. There’s a clearly stated, optimistic view about the motivation for creative works. Characters write a new hit song or land a major acting role because they’ve managed to convey a feeling, a part of themselves. They want everyone to be able to understand a lesson they’ve learned about themselves or about life. It’s so pure, and I need that right now. I don’t think I actually want to take the space to talk about how mechanically tuned it is to support its premise, how spending time with characters and getting them on the same page in the story segments then plays into them improving in the “performance” that is battling. Just understand, this game exists and is very good. Hard to believe, I know.

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Honorable mention: Bound

One thing that stands out to me about Bound, besides the obvious fantastic aesthetic, is that I moved consciously like a dancer. It wasn’t required. I wasn’t being graded. A lot of the time I was actually moving slower. And yet, I wanted it to look good, like a routine, changing up my speed and the types of steps, throwing in unnecessary flourishes. It just felt like the right thing to do.

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03] The Witness

We can internalize systems and gain mastery of mechanics in games that at first seem overwhelming or even impossible. I'm not sure that's ever been more true than The Witness. At the very start I thought I understood what the game was going to be like, then was quickly made aware of my ignorance. At it's most very basic it's easy to understand, but the complexity grows and the parameters change depending on the area, and you're soon having to challenge whatever ideas you had about what matters for a puzzle. By the end of the game I was doing things that were literally unimaginable at the beginning, both that the game would ask it of me and that I'd be able to figure it out and accomplish it. The fact that this is possible isn't due to my own intelligence; it's design. Rather than brutalizing you, there's a ramp up to put you in the right headspace. I don't want to actually talk more about the game, really. It should unfold for you in the moment, not spoiled by me blathering about my experiences with some area or puzzle type. Let's not forget, though, it is beautiful.

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Honorable mention: Imbroglio

I'm not sure I've ever been so concerned with WHERE I kill an enemy as opposed to if I can kill it at all. The weapon grid your character traverses as a board is a very clever mechanism. You're not only concerned with the type of damage a weapon does and how much, but you may want certain weapons to get kills to power them up. Or not get any kills since that de-powers them, as the case may be. You're also playing the positioning game with enemies, trying to avoid damage and getting cornered with some shitty weapon.

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04] Dark Souls III

Sequels are a complicated force in entertainment. Even when a sequel does some new things or makes improvements on a past idea, the overwhelming feeling can still be one of stagnation, that it may be good but you've seen it before and it's starting to wear thin. Sometimes the changes and iterations are more transformative and fun. But what really interests me with respect to Dark Souls III is how a sequel can use a preexisting relationship with its audience.

Playing the first two games isn't somehow necessary to enjoying the third, but there's a lot built in to enhance the experience of those that have. There's an area you come back to from the first game, and where a bridge used to be there's nothing. It's some jagged rocks and then a steep drop, but that bridge used to go someplace important. If you're insane enough, you might discover there's an invisible path where that bridge used to be, but the only reason you'd ever even consider that is knowledge of the first game. There are places you visit and things that you find that are rewarding on their own but feel much weightier if you know the history.

And in that vein, the NPCs in DS3 have some of the best storylines so far. Part of that is just more interesting branches, but they also play on what you expect from the earlier games. There are characters you could easily cast as "this game's ____," where you assume someone will basically fill a past role because there's a general mold similarity. Sometimes you're right and it results in some self-congratulation at being ahead of the game, but more often you're wrong and your ideas of those people were pretty off-base. In general, there's a lot of stuff going on in DS3 that is aimed at paralleling the past games, just in a house of mirrors way. It's a game that people who played a ton of and internalized Dark Souls 1 will get the most out of, which is apparently me.

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Honorable mention: The Final Station

I really love the structure of this game. Riding with passengers and helping them, keeping the train going, learning about the world as you go. Then comes the stop, where you inevitably need to go investigate for a code because the person who's supposed to tell you it is probably dead, where you get to see what your passengers have been dealing with for yourself. Combat is pretty rudimentary, but fine for what you're asked to do. There is such a feeling of blight to this world, a feeling of decay and big-picture helplessness that some characters are aware of and some aren't, but I certainly was.

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05] Hitman

Hitman: Absolution was a decent enough game, but it didn't leave me excited for the future of the franchise. It didn't seem to understand when the series is most fun, and made it into a linear action-adventure game with dress-up elements. The 2016 Hitman was initially announced as a traditional boxed game, with no mention of an episodic structure. When it was later revealed to be split up, it felt more like they were just desperate to get something out rather than this being a structure they believed in.

Needless to say, I didn't expect this game to turn out to be Hitman as it really should be. Blood Money has great levels, and a lot of them, but the DENSITY of the levels in 2016's game is so exponentially higher. Useful items and ways to take out guards or distract people are everywhere, pathways and buildings stitch together intricately so you can move through with a variety of costumes or none at all, methods of assassinating your main targets are constantly revealing themselves through ambient dialogue or items. You would want to play the levels again even if nothing unlocked just to try out some of the stuff you saw or heard about the first go-round, but the extensive series of unlocks that might allow you to, say, bring a sniper rifle this time just spurs you on even more. Bring on season two.

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Honorable mention: Pocket Card Jockey

Are there even words for this game? The odds I would have predicted a solitaire game would be on this list at the beginning of the year would be just about zero. The combination of the horse breeding, racing, and trying to do well at the actual solitaire so you're strong down the homestretch is unexpectedly addicting, although I think it would be fair to say most stuff about this game is unexpected. There's some killer music here, also.

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06] Hyper Light Drifter

What a gorgeous game. Maybe that's shallow to start with, but it captures this kind of gorgeous ethereality that I immediately find appealing. That setting and aesthetic combined with this feeling of dread from the sickness your character is shown to have make for an interesting place to start a game from. There's a real slickness to the gameplay here. You're a blur as you slice and dice the enemies, bouncing bullets back, and generally being a terror, albeit a glass one just waiting to be shattered. The dash is kind of the crux of the game, your multi-use tool for getting around and avoiding enemy attacks. It can be weaponized or turned into a shield. Chaindashing provides invincibility if you time it right, which is used to great effect for some mandatory and a lot of optional challenges, so the dash and I became even better friends as I went digging for the secrets the game is absolutely oozing with, rewarding you for poking in every corner.

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Honorable mention: BOXBOXBOY!

I'm not quite sure why this one didn't stick with me as much as BOXBOY! did last year. It's not as much of a grand surprise, I suppose, but this game is still fantastic. The puzzles retain that charming simplicity, even with being able to have two boxes out at once now. Your tools are largely the same but you're working with them differently because the game is asking different stuff of you, and it's still very fun. There are also some special challenge rooms where your abilities are different than normal that I dug a lot.

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07] Tharsis

Maybe masochism runs deeper in me than I even knew. Tharsis WILL fuck you. It's a game based on literal dice rolls, and even aside from that sometimes the types of events or the turn they happen will just create hopeless situations. The strategic decisions you have to make to deal with the hardships, though, are just so compelling and the level of satisfaction from lasting even a turn longer than you have before is very high. The special abilities of the crew and the rooms, storing dice or re-rolling them, checking the room hazards to know if that re-roll you want to do is even worth the risk, deciding if that one last die should be put directly toward solving a current problem or invested in Research where it could bail you out later. The challenges and unlockable crew members kept me coming back long after I finished the game for the first time. Also I love the look and sound of the dice rolling around and smacking into each other because I'm a big dork.

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Honorable mention: Starbound

It's strange how many of my hopes for No Man's Sky were actually fulfilled by Starbound. The ability to just go to any planet on a huge grid and fuck around. Discover things, gather resources, see interesting sights and if there are aliens there, learn about cultures. Except in Starbound I actually felt encouraged and able to do that exploration. I crafted a million cool items and turned my ship into a dungeon. I played a violin at the bottom of the ocean. I don't think I need to say more.

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08] Oxenfree

What stands out to me most about Oxenfree is that it has probably the best naturalistic dialogue I've seen in a game, the actual words used but also how the system works, how two characters will go on having a conversation if you don't speak up during a choice opportunity and it's not a big deal. You just didn't have anything to say, and the conversation moves on. When there's something for you to say it doesn't feel like the world stops for you while you decide or that your words have any more particular weight than anyone else's. The flow is right. That's not even getting into the actual plot, the characters, and the way it uses game mechanics to accentuate those things, although suffice to say I think they're strong. There's some very nice NG+ stuff going on too.

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Honorable mention: Severed

The richest swiping action around. It's a game that keeps giving you new tools and either entirely new enemies or in new combinations so you have to reassess your priorities, when to pop that ability and on which enemy. Using the limbs that you cut off for upgrading is just incredibly satisfying. The art and setting are also just gorgeous and memorable, with neat secrets hiding in every dungeon.

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09] Furi

I hadn't even heard of this game until it was announced as coming soon to PS+. I had no particular expectations and didn't realize how into it I'd be. Love the twitch action and almost bullet-hell aspects of it, combined with the round-based fighting. The rounds really make each fight a kind of epic slugfest boxing match, a cumulative tally of points to crown the champ. The structure makes for heartbreak when you almost deplete a health bar and fail, only to see them regain it all, but those same stakes make for the most intense clashes and the relief when you eek it out. It also makes huge comebacks possible. Even on your last health bar, you have a realistic chance to take down an enemy with a lot more pips left because every round you win you'll get refilled. The boss fights themselves aren't always perfect; a couple I can think of have attacks that are frankly unfair no matter how well-practiced you are, but generally the patterns and design are a lot of fun.

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Honorable mention: Pokémon Sun/Moon

This game definitely got me more excited about Pokemon than I've been since I was a kid. The ride pokemon, trials, Alola variants for old pokemon, and the general tone. There is just a lot going on here that makes the experience feel more fresh than my more recent attempts at getting back into the series, and I'm interested to see what's next.

P.S. Hi Mimikyu

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10] Dishonored 2

The first Dishonored was fresh and clever, but it didn't quite strike the chord with me that I know it did for others. The sequel feels like the kind of spin on it that I wanted, for a variety of reasons. While not a monopolizing force, the story leans more into the murky supernatural elements via hella witches, with an antagonist that has no redeeming qualities but manages to remain an interesting force. New and different powers for the two characters give you unique strategies depending on who you're playing as, and the level design feels like it rewards exploration more than the first. I don't know how true the exploration thing is in terms of tangible rewards like materials, but it certainly feels like you get more flavor and more information necessary to take down a target nonlethally. It has refinements one might expect from a sequel while also tilting the themes and ideas a few more degrees in my direction.

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Honorable mention: DOOM

I am a person with absolutely no old PC shooter nostalgia. Until the indie surge in the late 2000s, the extent of my PC game playing period was like Q*bert and Carmen Sandiego. But DOOM doesn't require prior knowledge or affection, it's just this hectic, satisfying blur of smashing demon skulls and cocking shotguns, swapping weapons in a frenzy as I dig for my go-to guns for the various enemies and praying I had the ammo.