My 2021 Game of The Year List

2021… was supposed to be better than 2020… Maybe it was for some people. For me? In my professional life, it was much worse. With that said, I was able to escape from the stress that work caused me this past year by playing some really great games. The games that made it on to my top ten list did because they gave me a great escape in the evenings.

Interestingly, this was the hardest list, that I can remember, to finalize an order and pick a GOTY. Any game in my top ten could easily be my number one this year, and most gave me moments where I was convinced that it had a chance to be my game of the year while I was playing it. However, in the end, I picked the game that I put the most hours into, and played during the greatest period of stress this year. I would keep myself calm by remembering that I could spend a few hours that evening playing this game.

Another thing to mention before we get to the list, I didn’t play very many games that actually came out in 2021. So, as always, my list is made up of the games that I enjoyed the most this year and played this year for the first time.

With this said, I do have two honorable mentions that I wanted to add. Yes, they didn’t make my top ten, but I still wanted to put them on my list because they both had something special to offer me this year.

List items

• 

  Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights

  Honorable Mention:

  I don’t recall how I heard about this game, but I do remember that I stumbled across it at random. Where Metroid-vania’s are a dime a dozen these days, I passed this game by the first time I heard about it. However, once I heard positive opinions about it a second time, I decided I’d pick it up and give it a try before Metroid Dread came out. I wasn’t disappointed. First, the game is beautiful. The artwork and animation is second to none in the genre. Then you get to experience the tight challenging gameplay and you get pulled in. I played enough of the game to see two of its four possible endings. I recommend this to anyone that lives Metroid-vanias and wants something to fill the void between two large game releases.

• 

  Doom Eternal

  Honorable Mention:

  Yeah, I know, I had this as #6 last year and complained a bit about it not being as good as Doom 2016, and I never finished it. However, this year, I got a PS5 and wanted to test the 60 fps the best way that I could think. So, I downloaded the free PS5 upgrade, turned up my new sound system, and replayed Doom Eternal. I enjoyed it so much more than I did the first time. 60 fps and booming sound really helps this game be more than it was the first time I played it. If I would have played it this way last year, I’m sure it would have been higher on my list. For this year, I add it as an honorable mention.

• 

  Forza Horizon 3

  #10

  You read that correctly - I played #3, not #5. Why? Well, I bought #3 years ago when it originally came out and it sat, sealed, on my pile of shame until this year. I’m glad I got around to playing it though, it is the closest thing to Burnout Paradise that I’ve found, and I really enjoyed it. I do agree with some of the complaints with the Horizon series; the rubberbanding gimmick races against planes and trains is not that fun, although cool looking. However, it was just wandering around the environments picking up random races that I loved the most. Also, this game is incredibly beautiful.

• 

  Ghost of Tsushima

  #9

  Iki Island Expansion

  GoT was my #2 last year. I absolutely loved it. The Iki Island DLC is a wonderful microcosm of what made GoT great. Although the story in the DLC was a bit weak compared to the amazing mainline story of the original game, there were still a few set pieces that I enjoyed. Iki Island provides more of what I loved about the original - sandbox gameplay in feudal Japan! For that alone, this DLC belongs on my top ten list.

• 

  Final Fantasy VII Remake

  #8

  Intergrade Expansion

  Yuffie!!! Yep, I really liked what they did with Yuffie and the DLC adventure that they gave her was a lot of fun. I had heard that this DLC was short, but I felt that it was just right. It took me ~9 hours to complete and I really enjoyed it. The way that the game wove in characters from the original game, and added fun new mechanics like Yuffie’s fighting style and the Fort Condor battle games were really great additions.

• 

  Demon's Souls

  #7

  Oh man, the one that started it all. The first Souls-Borne that I ever played. The game that has the best central hub bastion to help settle your frayed nerves. This is one of the best games ever made, just prettier now. Although I am not a huge Demon Souls enthusiast (I have no idea what the world tendency is or what it does), I still love this game. I just want to go to the Nexus in real life the next time I’m stressed out…

  Why doesn’t this rank higher on my list? Mainly because it is a known quantity to me, and a lot of the fun that I get out of the Souls-Borne games is the mystery of what I will find around the next corner, and the surprise when that thing is something that I could never have imagined. Unfortunately, I remembered Demon Souls well enough to not be surprised too often.

• 

  Persona 5 Royal

  #6

  I didn’t finish Persona 4, but I really loved it, and respected it for portraying life in small-town Japan very accurately. It took me a few years to get around to 5, but after I got it on sale on the PlayStation sale, I gave it a try. I was not disappointed. This game oozes style and charisma like no other game in history. This game would make my list just on style alone, but for me, it was also the great cast of interesting characters, and the COFFEE SHOP that did it for me. Oh, the coffee shop. At one point during my time playing this game, I seriously looked up how much it would cost to put in a diner seat in place of my dining table at home. I wanted to recreate the atmosphere from the coffee shop that much…

  Sadly, I didn’t finish 5 either… I put in ~70 hours, but never made it to the end… I need to go back and complete it someday…

• 

  Super Mario 3D World

  #5

  Mario 3D World and Bower’s Fury

  I never played 3D World on the Wii U because I never owned a Wii U. So, this game felt new and fresh to me and I loved it. Although I slightly preferred Bower’s Fury for its unique open-world take on Mario, I still loved 3D World. Bowser’s Fury was too short, yes, but what was there was very good. Well curated levels, interesting design choices around the battles with Bowser, and really great, challenging puzzles make for one of the best Mario experiences I’ve had in a long time.

• 

  Metroid Dread

  #4

  When I first saw the trailer for Metroid Dread, I wasn’t impressed. It just didn’t look like the Metroid that I loved (in my mind, Super Metroid is a perfect game). However, after playing the game, I was happy to find out that I was wrong. This game kicked ass, and kicked your ass. It is a very hard game. After cursing the first boss until I beat it, I started to figure out how the game wanted me to play it and from there on, I really loved it. The only thing I missed was the sense of exploration that Super Metroid gives you. This game didn’t really have that as it pushes you down a set path, and only has a few moments in the game where you can reach out and explore the environments. On this note, the beginning of the game is unforgivably terrible… They should go in and fix it. Part of the excitement of playing a Metroid game is visiting new worlds and feeling like you are the explorer. The beginning of the game starts with you already in the new world and already in an encounter with the main antagonist without allowing you to take your first steps on an unknown world, or push your way down an unknown path to that first encounter… A very poor design choice. However, with only this one complaint, I think Metroid Dread may be my third favorite Metroid game behind Super Metroid and Metroid Prime.

• 

  Control

  #3

  I played through Control twice this year. My first playthrough was on a launch PS4. I had heard that the PS4 version didn’t run very well. I noticed this pretty quickly. The frame rate often dipped and the controls got a bit janky from time to time. Also, the PS4 had long load times that became more frustrating towards the end of the game with a checkpoint system that often places you a long way away from a point of death, or there is a cutscene between the checkpoint and point of death. However, I put up with these issues because the story, setting, and characters were incredibly interesting. The atmosphere in the Oldest House is second to none, and the little story snippets that you are constantly picking up kept my attention and interest until the end of the game - normally I skip most written storytelling in games; not here.

  However, it was my second playthrough on the PS5 that I came to better appreciate the gameplay more and came to really enjoy it. Having 60 fps is a must for this game, and with the PS5’s short load times, I wasn’t as frustrated with checkpoint flaws.

  In the end, between the amazing story and setting, and the great gameplay (when it works), this game has gotten me interested in Remedy for the first time ever. I wonder what Alan Wake 2 will be like?

  Also, I must mention that I turned my sounds system up for the Ashtray Maze part. It is without doubt my favorite video game moment of the year. You should play the game just for this sequence - it’s one of the best that I’ve played in years.

• 

  Halo Infinite

  #2

  As I’ve stated in the past, I came to Halo late. I played the original trilogy just before Halo 4 came out. I absolutely love the original trilogy and I think they are some of the best sci-fi or fps games of all time. Also, I enjoyed Halo 4. I did not like Halo 5. Actually I actively disliked 5 and never played it again after that first playthrough of the campaign. On that note, other than a very brief session on Halo 4, I’ve never played any Halo multiplayer… Yeah, I’m one of those unicorns that only plays the Halo campaign. With that said, I only had a small desire to play Halo Infinite. The bad taste that Halo 5 left kept me from being too excited about playing Infinite. Also, I haven’t been able to buy a Series X yet, and I had mistakenly thought that you could only play Infinite on the Series machines. When I found out that you could still play Infinite on the Xbox One, and that it was getting good reviews, I decided to give it a try. I was not disappointed. Although the narrative was a bit confusing at times (I can’t remember much about Halo 5, and I never played the Halo Wars games), it wasn’t confusing enough to prevent me from getting an idea of what was going on and enjoying the larger, sweeping story. Although the story trailer gave the impression that the dialogue was written by a two-year-old, once you put those lines into the context of the game, they sounded fine in the moment. They really did a poor job on that trailer… As for the new characters, I grew to like the new Cortana, but I never really liked the pilot - far too whiny. However, these are only minor gripes for a game that shined in the combat, gameplay, level design, and open-world areas (I know that I’m in a minority opinion on some of these). 343 Studios took some great notes from both Skyrim and Breath of the Wild, and found a way to fit in Halo’s sandbox gameplay and combat into an open-world environment that constantly drove me to explore each corner of the map, each mountain in view, and many hidden caverns and hidden areas. I had so much fun playing this game. Of all the games on this list, this one felt the best while I was playing it. The cherry on top of the gameplay sundae was the grappling hook. It is the best addition to Master Chief’s arsenal since… Well, ever! I never even used any of the other special powers that you could swap in for the grappling hook. I don’t know why anyone would. It was so much fun to grapple around the environments, hook into an enemy and bash them with a melee hit, pick up an explosive on the ground and throw it at an enemy, or use it to swing around behind an enemy to catch them from their blind side. Oh, I just want to go back and play through the campaign again. It feels so good!

• 

  Nioh 2

  #1

  The only way that I can explain what Nioh 2 means to me is to have you imagine a scene from one of your favorite movies. It should be a triumphant scene with triumphant music playing, where the hero, although seemingly defeated, now grits their teeth and rises again against the antagonist. This is how I feel when I think of Nioh 2. Although the story provided in the game is throw-away at best, it was the gameplay and the custom character creation that helped me imagine my own scenes of overcoming an antagonist that existed in my stressed out mind. For a period of time this year, I would come home from work stressed out and just want to sit down and play Nioh 2 as the lady character that I had created, and imagine my own narratives of the exploits and heroic deeds that she would do in an evil world. I made my own story for the character and co-oped Nioh 2’s amazing gameplay, art, and characters to fulfill that story.

  I never intended to play Nioh 2. Although I love the Soul-Borne games from From Soft, I didn’t particularly enjoy the original Nioh. I thought that the main character was lame, the story was lame, and although the world and enemies were great, the gameplay didn’t pull me in. However, when I saw that Nioh 2 was on sale, I decided to pick it up and give it a try. I’m incredibly glad that I did. Although Nioh 2 isn’t a large departure from the original game, it did feel like they improved everything from the first game The gameplay was tighter, the new enemies were great, the bosses were challenging and interesting, the level design was a great improvement, the artwork was more colorful and vibrant, and, most importantly, Nioh 2 allowed me to make my own character instead of pushing some lame Japanese interpretation of Western masculinity on me. Now before you think I’m nobile for this view, I should admit that the character I created was the most beautiful Japanese girl that I could come up with in the game’s character creation engine. Don’t judge me, that’s what I needed at the time. That is the image that I wanted for the hero story that I wanted to tell myself in my own mind…

  I don’t know how the general public accepted Nioh 2, but I know it was perfect for me and just the right time.