Hey duders! This past weekend I did my part for Extra Life 2019; I’m out of town on the actual game day, so I had to do it a week early. (For anyone interested, my Extra Life page is still up here, and I recorded my stream and uploaded it to YouTube here.) I thought my stream went very well; I for one had a good time and managed to (barely) hit my personal goal. Best of luck to all my Giant Bomb teammates this coming weekend!

Anyway, the game I played all day, for 16+ hours straight (with some short breaks), was Supergiant Games’ latest, Hades. I’ve really liked all of Supergiant’s games, and really like a lot of their design ethos as a studio. I have been eager to check out Hades for a while, but am also someone who tends to wait until games exit early access to check them out. Extra Life seemed like a good place to just dive in fresh, and see what the game was all about. In short, I ended up liking what I played a lot, and find myself thinking about it and wanting to play more; and this is even as someone who generally doesn’t care for “roguelikes.” As such, I thought I would quickly write up some thoughts from my day of playing Hades: here are four rambly bullet points that stood out to me!

1. Good Game is Good

One of the most important things about Hades is that it immediately feels great to play. I feel like this is a pretty hard requirement for a run-based game that is theoretically intended to be played indefinitely, especially a fast-paced action game like Hades. But right out of the gate moving around and attacking feels great. All your actions are responsive with good feedback, and the enemies themselves are generally very easy to read too. Every now and then the screen got way too busy for me to pick out what was happening, but for the most part the combat in Hades is great. That’s almost more impressive since there are (currently) five playable weapons in Hades, and each one is completely distinct. At the start of a run you pick a weapon, and similar to the different ships in FTL or the different squads in Into the Breach, they offer a completely different starting point. Yet each one feels equally great and equally viable, at least in my experience. It’s hard to overstate the importance of great game feel here.

In addition to just feeling great from a tactile standpoint, Hades feels great in its progression. Different roguelikes offer different ways to make different ones feels worthwhile, and in many ways Hades follows a lot of roguelike traditions. But I think there are a number of smart, subtle things around the edges that help it stay fresher than most. For example, in addition to the different weapons, the game also smartly doles out new mechanics and challenges over time, often in surprising ways. I won’t go into detail at the risk of spoiling (and I seriously doubt I’ve unlocked everything myself), but it almost feels like a traditional single player game at times in the way it introduces new mechanics. There’s a proper learning curve here, rather than just throwing you into the thick of it and banking on the player figuring it all out at once. It’s admittedly a fine line, but I think Hades does a good job at being mechanically deep without overwhelming new players. Stuff like that just makes the game feel even smoother at every moment.

2. It’s Still a Roguelike

All of that said, Hades is still a roguelike (at least in the modern parlance of the word): you go on runs through very similar rooms against very similar enemies over and over, with death being swift and permanent. Each run yields random drops and rewards, and as such not all runs are created equal. This, in short, has been my biggest frustration with roguelikes at large. With the amount of randomness in play, some not insignificant part of your success is going to depend on factors outside of your hands. In Hades, this mostly manifests in two ways. First, the normal way: the drops that influence your character build are random. Hades actually gives you optional perks that, if chosen, help you nudge drop chances towards one build over another, which is nice. And being a skill-based action game, you can in theory beat any run without any additional help at all. But there is still randomness, this is a very challenging game, and more than once I found myself heading down one build path only to not get what I needed to finish it later. One of Hades’ strengths is there sheer number of different, interesting, and hopefully viable ways to build out your abilities during a run. But when you get a string of unlucky drops it makes completing the run that much harder.

The second way Hades’ randomness frustrates me is much more specific, and maybe a little spoilery, so I’ll keep it brief. In the game’s fourth and final area, you have to collect a specific item to advance. You have a choice of five rooms to enter, and the item will randomly be in one of them. And these rooms are among the hardest in the game. So, if you get unlucky and have to go through all five rooms until you find it, your run has become way harder than if you found it in the first room. Yes, you do get more rewards by going through more rooms. But I always prefer it if that risk/reward choice is left to the player, not random chance. I personally think roguelikes are at their best when the player is making interesting choices between compelling trade offs and taking risks, and the more luck you introduce, the more you undermine such interesting choices.

3. Keep It Positive

To rebound from my previous point, one of my favorite things about Hades is that nearly every choice you do make is a positive one. Plenty of other roguelikes and run-based games have done this, especially recently, where you choose between compelling positive options. But it’s still worth noting since a big part of the genre has traditionally involved random events where bad things happen and completely screw you over. To reference FTL again, I remember a lot of events where I had a few options to choose from about how to resolve something, and something very good or something very bad could happen as a result. Worse was that the dialogue options almost never gave any indication whether it would lead to a “good” or a “bad” outcome. So I was choosing blind and regularly getting punished for it. Hades has no outright negative event outcomes, at least not that I encountered. It at worst has neutral ones, and even those you know the result of your choice before you choose it.

How does this play out? Every room in Hades offers a reward. Usually you have a choice of which room to go into, and you get to see what the reward is before you choose the room. And then, once you get the reward, you get a choice within that type of reward. For example, one of the rewards is an upgrade to a boon (these are like your powers, both active and passive). These are always strictly positive upgrades, but you will only get to choose among three random equipped boons to upgrade. So you may not see the one you really want, but upgrades are always good regardless. That leads to a feeling of always getting stronger, and that your choices are about what ways you want to get stronger, rather than hoping things fall your way instead of knocking you back down. This is exciting, and encourages you to be curious and try things out, a process I very much enjoyed from start to finish.

4. Story Time

In the long run, I think Hades lasting contribution to the “roguelike” structure may ultimately be in its narrative trappings. Supergiant’s previous games have all been pretty linear, single player, story-driven games. This is compared to roguelikes which are very divergent and often devoid of any meaningful story. And still, they have found a way to work a story I’m genuinely interested in in Hades, via a lot of smart touches around the edges. First of all, the art, music, and voice acting are all top notch as one would expect from Supergiant. They continue to be an artistic powerhouse, and these touches all imbue so much personality and flavor to the word. More importantly, the writing in particular stands out, as it’s easy to quickly pick up on characters’ personalities and goals from a few well-written lines of dialogue. More than that, they use the writing to explain the game’s run-based structure in a way that makes sense, and enables a larger narrative to unfold. I’m still in the middle of this process, and given the game is still in early access, I can’t say where this ends up. So it might be a bust in the end, but I think they have shown great potential for weaving a through-line story into a run-based game. I’m certainly interested in seeing where it goes, and I’ve been delighted multiple times when I’ve gotten new story reveals and advancements after coming back to the hub after another run. And the characters are all fantastic; a personal favorite is the shopkeeper Charon, who has seemingly endless variants of a groan as his only dialogue. It’s good stuff.

One of my favorite little bits of dialogue is how they reference that the game is still in early access: they refer to this as “underworld renovations are still ongoing.'' These kinds of narrative touches are literally everywhere, and show how much care Supergiant has put into this game already. One of my favorite things about them as a studio is nothing in their games feels like it happens by accident, or goes overlooked. They pay extreme attention to detail, and their games feel very complete and intentional as a result, and full of personality to boot. Even in this early access phase it already feels extremely lively, and I can’t wait to see where it goes from here.

What’s Next?

I want to play more Hades, but in the interest of tackling some more of 2019’s games before GOTY time, I am putting it on hold again for now. But the itch is there; I find myself thinking about what different builds might be like, where the story might go next, and wanting to try out the fifth weapon that I didn’t get to try this past weekend. And it’s cool to know that there are still more updates to come. I will definitely play more of Hades, if nothing else when it gets out of early access, but almost certainly sooner than that. It’s a cool game, and it may end up being the first “roguelike” I’ve played that I get super into. And it was fun to play it for 16+ hours straight for Extra Life. My particular experience was varied and exciting from start to finish, and even ended in the most dramatic way possible: I had my first victory on my final run, just past midnight. Tasting sweet victory at the end was awesome, and only left me wanting to play more.

Anyway, I should stop my ramblings here- thanks for reading!

Welcome to “Gaming Memories,” a blog series where I reminisce about my favorite video games. I will slowly but surely get to every game on the list, and speak to why each holds a special place in my heart. That not only means I’ll talk about why I think each is a great game that speaks to my tastes, but also where and how it affected me in a larger context. I hope you enjoy, and thanks for reading.

In the summer of 1999, my brother and I went to a week-long programming camp. Every day we had a couple breaks where we could chill out for a bit; get some snacks, go outside, or the most popular pick, play computer games. And there was one game in particular that immediately drew a crowd. My brother and I looked over the shoulders of a group of kids gathered around some computers, screaming with excitement. What we saw on their screens was like nothing I had ever seen before. Large, majestic spaceships battled for control of the airways, hardened soldiers and primal aliens spilled blood below, and large, diverse armies composed of imaginative and just plain wild stuff weaved their way around a large, complex map. My mind raced with possibilities, and thirty minutes later I was shooting zerglings with own marines. The rest, as they say, is history.

StarCraft was a revelation in multiple ways. First, my exposure to strategy games (and PC games in general) was limited at the time, so it was still a fresh genre to me. Second, unlike the few strategy games I had played at that point, StarCraft had three distinct factions with completely different units; it’s hard to fully convey how cool that was. Third, its campaign was an awe-inspiring and epic sci-fi tale that saw you control each of those three factions equally. It was an ambitious game with a scope I wasn’t used to, and that sprawling campaign was precisely what got me on board. To this day, it (combined with its expansion Brood War) remains one of my favorite campaigns in gaming. It stood out for its setting, characters, and writing, all of which were (and in some ways still are) well above your average video game fare. I remember all the big story beats, the characters and their motivations, the betrayals and big political shifts. Things happened in this campaign in a way they didn’t in most games of the era. And by seeing the story through the eyes of each faction, you got a sense that there were no true “good” or “bad” characters. It’s one of the first video game stories I encountered that presented a large ensemble cast in predominantly gray light. That was a clear inflection point in how I viewed the storytelling potential of the medium.

But it wasn’t just the narrative that I loved about StarCraft’s campaign. It looked and sounded great for its time, the map and scenario designs were dynamic and engaging, and most importantly, its fundamental mechanics were rock solid: gathering resources to research technologies and build up large armies felt right. In some ways, compared to other strategy games, StarCraft was a simple one with relatively few pieces. You only had two resources to worry about, and the number of technologies and units per faction was not all that large. But each of those technologies and units had a clear, defined function, and you needed different ones for different goals. These were not linear upgrades that saw early units and technologies become obsolete by the end of a long game. StarCraft had no replaceable units, which meant those starting marines and zealots were very much still viable at the end of a long game. In this way, StarCraft gained a lot of depth out of surprisingly few pieces. Late game armies could look wildly different in their compositions, and that led to all sorts of fascinating strategic options. Then you toss in the fact that all three playable factions had distinct technologies and units, and the possibilities grew exponentially. In this way, StarCraft embodied that “easy to learn, hard to master” dynamic extremely well. The limited resources, technologies, and units made it easy to understand for a newcomer, but the strategic depth created an extremely high ceiling for veterans. It’s a beautiful game.

If it was the campaign that wowed me and pulled me in initially, it was StarCraft’s other features that kept me hooked for the long haul. First, StarCraft remains perhaps the only game to date whose creation tools I got heavily invested in. The scripting options allowed you to create dynamic, story-driven missions, and I spent dozens of hours creating my own custom campaigns. But more long-lasting was StarCraft’s famed multiplayer. I was too young to play competitive games on the internet in the late 1990s, but even just playing LAN games with my brother against the AI was a lot of fun. For as much as I loved engaging with the strategy of StarCraft in the campaign, its depth became infinitely more apparent in a multiplayer setting, especially against other human competition. I did get to experience this years later in college, and trade lurker ambushes and carrier assaults with skilled and unpredictable competitors. It held up, and StarCraft stands tall among my fondest multiplayer experiences. Competition was where the game’s smart design shone brightest, and I have countless wonderful memories battling it out with friends.

StarCraft remains one of the most awe-inspiring games I’ve played. It was one of the first strategy games I played, one of the first sci-fi games I played, one of the first video game narratives I loved, and one of the first multiplayer games I got into. It’s a game that sparked my imagination through its artistic and aesthetic design, and captivated my inner strategist through its smart and balanced game design. I get a little wistful just thinking about it and all the little moments that come with it. It’s hard to fully express how formative StarCraft was, how much joy I derived from playing it, and how much it affected my view of the medium. I can’t imagine life without StarCraft, and I’m so happy I don’t have to.

SPOILER WARNING: This blog speaks at a very high level about mid-to-late game happenings in Fire Emblem: Three Houses. It's stuff that has been covered in other reviews and marketing materials, but I want to mention there are mild spoilers here just in case.

About two-thirds of my way through Fire Emblem: Three Houses, as I walked through the emptier-than-they-used-to-be halls of Garreg Mach Monastery, my mind filled with memories. I passed by Bernadetta’s room, and hoped she was happily eating cake somewhere. I walked into the blue lions’ old classroom, and wondered if Dedue was still happy serving as Dimitri’s retainer, or if Sylvain had ever changed his skirt-chasing ways. I fondly remembered chatting with Ashe, Caspar, Annette, and many other former students of the monastery (but not Hubert, dude has an attitude problem). I reminisced about holidays, events, and how bright the future seemed with so many bright students working and thriving together.

Little did I know, I would soon have to kill them all.

Fire Emblem: Three Houses is a case study on the inevitability of war and human conflict. It follows the citizens of Fodlan, a politically charged continent that is split into the titular three houses: black eagles, blue lions, and golden deer (the latter of which was my chosen house). Each house contains numerous students, and when combined with the other members of the monastery, as well as the many characters throughout Fodlan and its history, there are a lot of people to get to know in Three Houses. And what the game does so well, and so much better than previous Fire Emblem games I’ve played (which is all the ones officially released in the West), is make Fodlan truly feel like a living place full of diverse people with wildly differing beliefs and dreams; a realistic environment that breeds unfortunate but unavoidable conflict. Three Houses creates this environment in numerous ways. First, the characters are simply much more fleshed out than before; gone are the days where most of them are defined by a single, one-dimensional trait. Everyone I encountered in Three Houses has at least one substantial story arc past their initial quirk. And many of them turn out to have complicated thoughts and/or motives that intersect with other characters in fascinating ways. One small example among dozens: Lorenz began the game with the belief that nobles and commoners come from different worlds and cannot truly be friends (much less romantic partners), and he didn’t always treat commoners with proper respect as a result. But Dorothea, a commoner herself, pushed him to question what he had originally accepted as self-evident. By the end they were indeed friends, and Lorenz had a new perspective. I was genuinely surprised more than once at the depths of these characters, and consistently delighted to see them all interact in meaningful ways.

Second, you are exposed to Fodlan’s extensive history and geopolitical structure more than the comparable locations of previous games. Right from the start, you can peruse the monastery’s library to learn about a wide array of historical topics: the forming of the Church of Seiros, which is the continent’s central guiding religion (and borderline oligarchy); the conflicts that led to the formation of the titular three houses; an ancient, bloody war between Seiros and a bandit named Nemesis; Fodlan’s various noble houses and their leaders; how certain individuals are born with crests that enable them to wield powerful relics (which ties into Foldan’s power structure); and on and on. More importantly, all of these topics and then some are further expounded upon throughout the course of the game. They are revealed naturally through your interactions with other characters, and just how many details you are exposed to varies wildly depending on which house you choose to join, and which characters you choose to spend your time with. This isn’t a game that delivers every bit of information to you by its end, regardless of context. It understands that the world is a big, complicated place, and that no one person will see every angle of it. As such, every character is shaped drastically by what knowledge and experiences they are exposed to, and that importantly includes you. There are secrets, struggles, and relationships I never encountered in my playthrough, and that’s OK. It made the ones I did encounter feel more real, just as everyone’s limited experiences in our world shape them in very real ways. You experience a lot in a single playthrough of Three Houses, yet it is still but a single view of life in Fodlan.

Three Houses doesn’t shy away from complicated and worldly topics either, very real ones that lead to conflicts including racism, the inequality of class, or the church’s abuse of knowledge and power. And unlike most video games, it presents actual conversations around these topics where the characters involved have things to say and actions to take. They have firmly rooted beliefs formed through their life experiences and the powerful cultural dynamics in play. As the game goes on, and various characters have their beliefs and trust challenged, they decide to act, which naturally causes conflict. The detail in its characters and world make it impossible to avoid the parallels to our actual, real world history, and that’s precisely why these conflicts feel wholly believable. Three Houses is not about black and white “good guys vs. bad guys,” in the way that some Fire Emblem games have (somewhat cartoonishly) been. Rather, Three Houses operates in perpetual gray, showing how people from different walks of life clash in very much the same ways they always have. The (usually strong) writing helps a lot here, which consistently caught me off guard in the way it develops intrigue and reveals poignant information. It’s a game that knows what it’s doing, and likes to constantly remind you as much in clever ways. One of my favorite examples: everyone’s starting class is mechanically identical, but is called either “Noble” or “Commoner” depending on their social standing. It’s subtle, but it absolutely means something.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Three Houses’ new structure does wonders for its narrative trappings. Fire Emblem has always provided great tactical battles, and has always had endearing characters (and sometimes interesting plots too). Yet I never became invested in the narrative like I did here. This is a long game, but that length feels necessary to flesh out a world as complex as this: spending time every month roaming the monastery gives the narrative breathing room to develop. I got to know the characters better as they reacted to every mission. The plot could slowly but steadily build in a way that neither too rushed nor too lingering. How you choose to spend your limited time each month imparts a real weight on the actions you do take. It also allowed for the feeling that time was passing, which in subtle but important ways made me feel like I was part of this world. I became more invested mechanically too, in the way I could manually instruct students and guide their growth in the game’s many skills and classes. Three Houses is much more divergent and hands on than any previous Fire Emblem game, and over time that created a real sense of pride in the students I had recruited and trained. Rather than everyone being hardened veterans at the start, who follow predetermined upgrade paths, we spent months honing our skills and improving. I watched these students grow, both on and off the battlefield, and the effect was powerful. Three Houses took a big risk by adding so much time spent outside of the series’ famous tactical battles (which are still great by the way). But the result is one of my favorite hubs in any game I’ve played; within the large, complex, and sometimes frighteningly overwhelming land of Fodlan, Garreg Mach Monastery came to feel like home to me. I cherish my time there greatly, and thinking back to the early hours of my game is now almost nostalgic.

That nostalgia is perhaps Fire Emblem: Three Houses’ greatest gift and its most wrenching curse, as well as its most profound artistic achievement. As I walked through the halls of Garreg Mach Monastery one last time, and think of all those happy early memories, I can’t escape the sad memories that follow; its halls now entomb stolen time more than anything. The edge of dawn only brought pain and sorrow, as the memories of war and bloodshed tainted the peace we once had. But the lesson is that it always does, and among the characters and history of Fodlan, it finally felt all too real.

Welcome to “Gaming Memories,” a blog series where I reminisce about my favorite video games. I will slowly but surely get to every game on the list, and speak to why each holds a special place in my heart. That not only means I’ll talk about why I think each is a great game that speaks to my tastes, but also where and how it affected me in a larger context. I hope you enjoy, and thanks for reading.

What do you mean my experience points are also my currency, called “souls”? And I lose it all when I die? Which is autosaved immediately, with no option to create or load a manual save? What are these messages on the ground with incorrect grammar? Who wrote these? Why do all the NPCs act as if they know something I don’t, and then laugh about it? And apparently I can kill them permanently too? There are no tutorials, no waypoints, enemies respawn when I die or rest, and I can’t pause the game? What if I have to step away for a minute? What do I do? What is up with these crystal lizards??

What. Is. This. Game.

Demon’s Souls was weird. It can be a little difficult to remember just how weird it was now, in 2019, as we’ve seen so many similar games in the decade since. But in 2009 there was nothing like Demon’s Souls. It took all of the widely accepted design lessons of the previous decade and chucked them right out the window. It came out of absolutely nowhere too. In one of the boldest moves for a AAA studio, much less for a Japanese game trying to make an impact in the west, Demon’s Souls had no marketing behind it whatsoever. Nobody had any clue what this thing was until we were playing it for ourselves, and the fervor slowly built after launch as we all collectively tried to figure it out. Genuine surprise and mystery almost never happen to that degree in video games anymore, which made Demon’s Souls one of the most memorable and affecting gaming experiences I’ve had. The game was littered with moments, both big and small, unlike anything I had encountered in a game before: a dragon swooping down and setting an entire bridge worth of soldiers on fire, a seemingly friendly thief stabbing me in the back after I gave him my trust, another human player invading my world as a required boss fight, or simply trying to swing a sword in a tight corridor, only to have it bounce off the wall in futility. Demon’s Souls made its own rules, which made for a true and special vision.

More than its uniqueness, however, Demon’s Souls quickly became known for being “that hard game”. Where most games of the time strived to protect players from themselves as much as possible, Demon’s Souls let players screw up, often, and punished them when they did. You couldn’t take anything for granted here; all of your actions counted, and there was no getting around it. You lost your experience points and currency when you died, you couldn’t save scum, you could accidentally kill important NPCs, there was nothing telling you where to go or what to do, and you couldn’t even pause the game. Most importantly, levels and enemies were designed just so to make you consider every step and every swing you took. But those opportunities for failure were also opportunities for thoughtful, engaging play, and I might argue you can’t have one without the other. There was an intentionality to everything Demon’s Souls did, which encouraged you to pay attention and consider your actions every step of the way. And if you got a little careless? Yeah, you’d suffer some setbacks. But you could also go back and give it another shot with a different approach. Demon’s Souls demonstrated the value of letting players define their own victories as well as their own failures, and overcoming its challenges were infinitely more rewarding thanks to such intentional and thoughtful design.

Demon’s Souls’ design was not just to make it different and difficult either; this was also a very smart and forward-thinking game in a number of subtle but striking ways. It was a robust, exciting, and just plain good action RPG across the board. Its open-ended character creation and stat growth allowed for seemingly limitless, creative builds that felt meaningful. Combat was precise, yet varied dramatically depending on what weapons and spells you used. Every level was cleverly designed to incorporate the environment, and each felt aesthetically and mechanically distinct. The enemy variety was equally dynamic, including some awesome boss fights. Those enemies were subject to the same rules you were too, an important part of the game’s philosophy. Boletaria's atmosphere was thick and effective, and the pacing was just right. Demon’s Souls' biggest innovations, however, may have come in its online features. While it was predominantly a single player outing, you were anything but alone when connected online. First, players could leave (potentially) helpful messages on the ground just about anywhere, which added a communal feel to deciphering the game’s cryptic nature. Second, you could see the bloodstains of fallen players, which gave warnings of impending danger. Finally, players could join each others’ worlds as willing assistants in a tough fight, or devious invaders looking to steal your souls. Demon’s Souls cultivated a sense of camaraderie among its players, and let us experience the adventure, in all its ups and downs, together.

In 2009, there was nothing like Demon’s Souls. It came out of nowhere to turn the industry on its head, and presented an entirely new way of thinking about video games. It feels rarer than it should, but that kind of genuine surprise is one of my favorite things about this entire medium. Playing Demon’s Souls in 2009 was like venturing into the great unknown, a messy and mysterious and perilous quest where no prior gaming knowledge could help you. It was a singular artistic vision I’ll never forget, and remains one of my most personally transformative gaming experiences. I’m not sure the world was ready for Demon’s Souls, and we ended up all the better for it.

Welcome to “Gaming Memories,” a blog series where I reminisce about my favorite video games. I will slowly but surely get to every game on the list, and speak to why each holds a special place in my heart. That not only means I’ll talk about why I think each is a great game that speaks to my tastes, but also where and how it affected me in a larger context. I hope you enjoy, and thanks for reading.

So, what if, Mario and Link fought each other? Who would win? Mario can jump super high and shoot fireballs out of his hands, while Link has all sorts of tools like a bow and arrow, a boomerang, bombs, and a sword. It’s easy to imagine them bouncing around, dodging each other, trying to figure out how to land that critical blow. They are both crafty characters too, so it would be a tactical fight as much as a physical one. But maybe we’ll never know who would win. Nintendo would surely never answer the question themselves, nor make a crossover game where they fight each other. Or would they?

Fans of video games, movies, TV shows, comics, etc., love to toss around these kinds of hypothetical showdowns between their favorite characters from different properties, and debate who would win. In 1999, Nintendo capitalized on the idea when they released the original Super Smash Bros. for the Nintendo 64. Part fighting game, part party game, part pure fan service, and part self-tribute, it was a rare successful mashup; not many video game companies had the breadth of popular properties or the licensing clout to pull off such a game at that time. And when they did, such as Marvel vs. Capcom, they almost never stuck solely to video game characters. Nintendo, however, was unique. They had created numerous successful and influential games in a relatively short time span, which bred a surprisingly large stable of their own iconic video game characters. The likes of Mario, Link, Donkey Kong, Samus, Kirby, and more were already established, highly recognizable, and well-loved characters by 1999. Super Smash Bros. tossed them all together, and let players fight it out among them. It was totally weird and unexpected. And it was totally awesome.

But it also wasn’t perfect: the controls were rough, the roster was limited, and the technology of the Nintendo 64 seemed to hold it back. Fortunately for Nintendo, their next console, the GameCube, debuted two short years later. With it came a sequel in Super Smash Bros. Melee, and those two years and new hardware made a world of difference. The original Super Smash Bros. remains one of my most nostalgic gaming experiences; there was a magic to seeing all of those beloved characters duking it out in the same game for the first time. As a Nintendo kid, I obsessed over Super Smash Bros., and played it endlessly. Yet while it holds a very special place in my heart, it’s impossible to deny how much of a step up Melee was. First and foremost, it was a much bigger game across the board: it boasted double the characters, triple the stages, and a host of exciting new modes such as Adventure mode, All-Star mode, Event challenges, Home-Run Contest, and a slew of Multi-Man minigames. Second, Melee was a huge technical step up from the original. Perhaps not all that surprising given it was on new hardware, but it made a big difference in how the game looked, sounded, and ran (read: much more smoothly). Finally, it was simply a more competent fighting game. The controls, physics, moves, abilities, and so on were more confident and well-considered, and it was here that Super Smash Bros.’s unique brand of fighting really found its footing. Melee was drastically more enjoyable to play in its moment to moment action; there’s a reason it’s still widely played today, in 2019.

Much of this we expect in sequels to successful games, but in the case of Super Smash Bros. Melee, it felt like making good on that tantalizing promise of the original; this felt like Nintendo throwing the party they wanted to throw two years earlier, but couldn’t. But just as important as being bigger and better in its raw execution, Melee retained the heart and energy of its predecessor, that same reverie of all things Nintendo that made it so exciting for fans. In fact, it may have been more tangible than ever. The new characters were more surprising than before, and included both fan favorites (like Bowser, Sheik, and Mewtwo) as well as surprise throwbacks (like Mr. Game & Watch, Ice Climbers, and Marth). Adventure and event modes toyed with Nintendo history in playful ways, while countless collectible trophies contained even more references. Home-run and multi-man modes provided a variety of different challenges, adding a lot to an already robust package. And new, remixed music came from all corners of the Nintendo universe to keep everything lively with a heavy Nintendo vibe. There was a special feeling to those early days of Super Smash Bros., a certain je ne sais quoi that I feel has been lost in the later sequels, even as they’ve continued to add more characters, more stages, and more songs. Super Smash Bros. Melee, then, stands as my personal sweet spot for the franchise: it produced the refinement needed over the original, while retaining a magic I feel its sequels lost.

Super Smash Bros. Melee brought together a large roster of loveably weird Nintendo characters, built a rambunctiously fun fighting game around them, added countless activities around the periphery, and tied it together with boundless heart and personality. It was a broad, joyful celebration of all things Nintendo, and there aren’t many games I’ve spent as much time with as this; it defined countless weekends and late nights for a substantial period of my life. In 2001, Nintendo threw one hell of a party in honor of themselves. It’s one I’ll never forget.

Welcome to “Gaming Memories,” a blog series where I reminisce about my favorite video games. I will slowly but surely get to every game on the list, and speak to why each holds a special place in my heart. That not only means I’ll talk about why I think each is a great game that speaks to my tastes, but also where and how it affected me in a larger context. I hope you enjoy, and thanks for reading.

One of my favorite levels in Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest is called Bramble Blast. Set in a seemingly endless maze of thorny brambles that are deadly to the touch, you must navigate the level via a network of barrels that launch you through the air, rather than by traditional platforming. It’s a fresh twist, formed from simple mechanics that are explored thoroughly enough to become complex and interesting by the end. It’s a shining example of the kind of creativity that the best platforming levels have.

Also, it has this music.

But here’s Donkey Kong Country 2’s magical secret: it’s full of Bramble Blasts. This level is not a rare treat, impossible heights that the game never reaches elsewhere. Almost every level in Donkey Kong Country 2 stands out as something equally unique and special. Mechanically, most levels look to build upon the game’s tight and responsive core platforming controls to do something more. In some levels you bounce on moving cannon balls to cross large gaps. In others you ride dangerous roller coasters as they collapse underneath you. On rare occasions you need to carefully buoy yourself with flame vents as you ride a hot air balloon across a pit of lava. You may climb rigging on a pirate ship, scale directly up flat walls with the help of extremely sticky honey, or mount any number of animal companions that all have different navigational abilities. Running and jumping in Donkey Kong Country 2 certainly feels great, and there are still plenty of awesome traditional platforming challenges here. But it primarily uses that as a solid foundation to build upon, and explore a variety of other exciting ideas that are just as well-crafted as the core platforming. It makes for a game that is constantly experimenting and teaching, which in turn makes for a game that is constantly engaging.

Aesthetically, Donkey Kong Country 2 may be even better. The original Donkey Kong Country made waves with its pre-rendered 3D graphics. Not only does its sequel use the same technology to look just as good, but it gets substantially more ambitious in its artistic variety. Extending beyond the central jungle island theme of the first game, Donkey Kong Country 2 sees you explore pirate ships, lava caverns, oversized hornet nests, abandoned theme parks, ice caverns and more, all of which have an impressive visual flair. And then there is the music. Simply put, Donkey Kong Country 2’s soundtrack is as dear to me as any game’s; I legitimately have a hard time thinking of one I like more. Just like the game’s mechanics and visuals, its music also gets a ton of mileage out of its variety. In addition to Stickerbush Symphony posted above (a fan favorite), I can easily rattle off half a dozen genuine classics originating from Donkey Kong Country 2: Jib Jig, Lockjaw’s Saga, Hot-Head Bop, Mining Melancholy, Flight of the Zinger, and In a Snow-Bound Land. Each of these has a very distinct sound that perfectly captures the vibe of the level(s) they appear in. It’s difficult to describe just how much these songs contribute to the game’s effective atmosphere, and their different styles further bring a fresh, creative energy to every moment. It’s also just extremely well-composed music that still holds up today; I’ve listened to it countless times over the years.

I keep using the word “variety,” as that’s the main word that comes to mind when I think back on Donkey Kong Country 2. The best platformers have largely been defined by their variety, and this one is no exception. That variety impressively exists in every facet of its design too: the level design, traversal options, enemies and companions, art style, and music work in tandem to create a large and diverse suite of high quality platforming levels that most platformers don’t come close to matching (including the other Donkey Kong Country games, all of which I love, yet don’t quite reach the heights of this second outing). Finally, Donkey Kong Country 2 stands out to me as one of the first games I played that implemented collectibles well. Collectibles, when used poorly, can be maddening. But the ones here offer completely optional challenges that require both exploration and platforming prowess. They serve as a meaningful avenue for more skilled players to push themselves and be rewarded with even tougher bonus levels, without shaming the rest of us. It’s a smart and thoughtful way to accommodate varying skill levels, and something I always remember this series for. Donkey Kong Country 2 did it as well as any.

When Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest was released in 1995, the industry was undergoing a massive shift from 2D to 3D. The kinds of 2D platformers that dominated the 8 and 16-bit eras seemed destined to fade in favor of flashier 3D games, but Donkey Kong Country 2 served as a final, powerful reminder of just how good the genre had become. By combining mechanical and aesthetic variety into a cohesive whole that was satisfying on all fronts (did I mention its soundtrack is one of my favorites?), it represented the genre at the peak of its craft, and ended up being one of the last great games of its era. It’s an era that was very special and formative for me, and Donkey Kong Country 2 was one of the biggest reasons why.

Welcome to “Gaming Memories,” a blog series where I reminisce about my favorite video games. I will slowly but surely get to every game on the list, and speak to why each holds a special place in my heart. That not only means I’ll talk about why I think each is a great game that speaks to my tastes, but also where and how it affected me in a larger context. I hope you enjoy, and thanks for reading.

In one of my first games of Sid Meier’s Civilization IV, my citizens were constantly unhappy. My cities were too crowded, they were working too hard, they wanted more luxuries, and I guess they didn’t like that we went to war that one time (the other guy started it, I swear). I did everything I could to appease them, because I needed them to harvest crops to feed our people, build structures of science and art and faith, construct inspiring wonders, and produce profitable goods; all to keep our civilization thriving and healthy. But no matter how many colosseums and theaters I built, they were still unhappy. It was then that I questioned my choices as a leader.

Civilization is, at its core, a game that constantly presents you with choices. Meaningful choices that ripple through the ages to define your civilization at large. Sometimes these choices are blunt: do you declare war on your encroaching neighbor, or instead work to establish a mutually beneficial relationship? Either could easily lead to large geopolitical shifts in the game’s world. But the decisions you face can also be much more subtle. In the above example, my early game choices to prioritize population growth seemed like a purely good thing. But it happened through a series of smaller choices, each of which had balancing trade-offs. Stack them up over time, and my civilization thrived in some ways (sheer size), and suffered in others (unhappiness). That’s the magic of Civilization: seemingly small choices add up to larger ones, with wide-ranging ramifications throughout your civilization. And the way you’re able to see those ramifications play out over time is precisely what makes them important. Zoom out from your in-the-moment decision making to see the impressive scope of a full game, and those choices shape the nature of history itself. Or at least, your own personal version of it.

Which leads us to another one of Civilization’s defining charms: this is a series about human history as much as anything. All of our culture, our technology, and even our conflict is captured here. On a surface level, I enjoy learning more about history, and Civilization provides countless opportunities for just that, which is routinely inspiring. But even more meaningfully, as a video game, Civilization does an amazing job at letting me live that history. All of these choices are not solely about min-maxing numbers on a spreadsheet, but also about forming your own version of human history. Are you going to focus more on art or science? Expansionist or isolationist? Democratic or communist? Peace or war? Civilization is a great, well-designed game that constantly presents the player with interesting choices from a mechanical perspective, and it would undoubtedly be a great game for that alone. But the fact that it sets those choices in what’s essentially a human history simulator makes them infinitely more poignant. It’s so easy for me to get wrapped up in the details of the moment, struggling to keep my civilization afloat against any number of challenges. Yet after making my choices, I often sit back and think, how did I get to this point? Did I do the right thing? What if I was wrong? Going back to my original example, did my focus on growth create a perpetually unhappy society? Was I treating my citizens poorly? Is this indicative of breakdowns in our own society? Civilization has regularly led me to moments of genuine reflection, and that it all comes about through my own play is one of the most powerful aspects of this entire medium.

This is all true of any Civilization game, and Civilization IV remains one of the best. It was not my first Civilization game, but it was the one that made me fall in love with the series. First, while it’s always been a fairly complex series, Civilization IV made it much more accessible without losing any depth. This was mostly achieved through slicker UI, which presented information much more clearly. But I also feel like Civilization IV cut out a lot of tedium to put the focus more squarely on those big picture decisions. I spent less time deciphering information and micromanaging rote actions, and more time deciding how I wanted to shape my civilization at large. In addition to better usability, Civilization IV added some really neat ideas, such as religion and civics, which fleshed out the game in positive ways, both mechanical and thematic. It also rebalanced a lot of aspects that needed rebalancing, most notably improving the AI and adding checks to dissuade constant expansion. Finally, Civilization IV was a huge step up from an audiovisual standpoint. The new 3D engine (a series first) was gorgeous, and the soundtrack was a wonderful and worldly collection of music (see: Baba Yetu). This laundry list of tweaks is, in some ways, exactly what you’d expect from any sequel. But in the case of Civilization, these were the exact kind of improvements that helped it reach its full potential. Civilization IV was Civilization in peak form, fully delivering on the promise that was always so obvious in the series.

Sid Meier once defined a game as “a series of meaningful choices.” Civilization is full of choices, but more importantly, they are meaningful in ways that few games are. They are implicit in your play, and they directly shape your story in both mechanical and thematic aspects; no two games are the same thanks to the choices you make and the stories they create. Civilization IV is the entry that delivered on that potential for me, and had me obsessing over and reflecting on my choices. It stands as a shining example of the power of interactivity, the kind of thoughtful design that leads to thoughtful, engaging play. That’s what I love most about this entire medium, and I’m not sure many games have done it better than Civilization IV.

Welcome to “Gaming Memories,” a blog series where I reminisce about my favorite video games. I will slowly but surely get to every game on the list, and speak to why each holds a special place in my heart. That not only means I’ll talk about why I think each is a great game that speaks to my tastes, but also where and how it affected me in a larger context. I hope you enjoy, and thanks for reading.

SPOILER WARNING: This blog contains spoilers for Final Fantasy VII.

Midgar seemed huge. I spent hours in this city, becoming familiar with its inhabitants, its politics, its neon signs, its grungy back-alley streets. We went on bombing missions, evaded the Turks, and infiltrated the Shinra headquarters. Important people died, and shocking revelations occurred. And yet, after all those hours in Midgar, and all those twists and turns already, it felt like I had only scratched the surface of this massive city. There was a lot left to see, and a lot of questions left to answer. But while this was just the beginning of Final Fantasy VII, the rest of it would not take place in Midgar.

One of my most distinct memories from Final Fantasy VII is that very moment when I left Midgar for the first time. I was, perhaps naively, convinced that the entire game took place there. It seemed so impossibly large, and I had already spent close to the length of some entire games there, that I couldn’t imagine a larger world outside. So when I finally stepped foot into that larger world, and realized just how small Midgar was in the grand scheme of things, I knew I was in for something special. Final Fantasy VII’s opening act remains one of my favorites I’ve experienced in a game. It set up the world, let you explore a contained space, experiment with the mechanics, learn the characters and what the story is about. And then, once you had settled in and had a firm grasp of the basics, it took off the training wheels, both mechanically and narratively. It revealed that the area you’d been free to roam in thus far was but a small piece of a much larger game, one that only continued to become more impressive and daring as it expanded its scope.

What followed Midgar’s opening act was a globe-trotting adventure punctuated by some of the most brazen and powerful moments of any game I’ve played. When I think back to Final Fantasy VII, I primarily think of it as a series of bombastic set pieces and insane story revelations, dramatic moments that landed hard time and again. Every time I thought it couldn’t possibly up the ante any more, it did. When Shinra was murdered by Sephiroth, a legendary soldier everyone thought was dead. The emotional death of Aerith, and the unexpected loss of a beloved party member. Learning about Jenova, an alien life form whose cells were used to create Sephiroth. When Cloud discovered that all his memories in SOLDIER were fake, and had to piece together his past. We traveled into outer space, fought giant robots that rose out of the ocean, and conjured ancient magic to stop meteors from crashing into the earth. It was a pretty weird tale about politics, the environment, science, the concept of self, and all sorts of other ideas jumbled together in ways that didn’t always make coherent sense; not to mention the spotty translation of the original US PlayStation version. But it was exciting. Final Fantasy VII’s story was a ride, and while it could be too grandiose for its own good sometimes, it was an incredibly memorable one with numerous moments that stick with me to this day.

Almost as critically, that story and its pivotal moments were drastically more cinematic in their presentation than anything I had seen at that time. For as dated as Final Fantasy VII looks now, it had a bold, striking look in 1997 that was impressive. No such concessions need to be made for its music, however. The Final Fantasy series has a legacy of amazing music, and this one’s score ranks among my clear favorites. Final Fantasy VII was a tight, well-playing JRPG too, a fact that is often overlooked in favor of everything else it did. Its “active time battle” system was en vogue during the 1990s, and this one executed it as well as any. I particularly liked the simple customization of the materia system. It was intuitive and easy to grasp, but allowed for all sorts of creativity; you could build some pretty awesome combos with it. The encounter design was solid, and the game was paced extremely well and full of fun side content. I did essentially everything there was to do in Final Fantasy VII, and it never dragged or overstayed its welcome, despite being a sizable game. And then, when I finally finished, it gave me one final moment. I remember sitting there with my brother, who more or less played through it with me, staring at the post-credits screen for a good long while. We had just completed one of the most bizarre and impactful journeys we had ever been on, and I let it wash over me. Where would, or could, games go from here? I had no idea, so I did the only thing I could. I started up a new game all over again.

In a way, it can be hard to have a measured conversation about Final Fantasy VII anymore. It was such a cultural phenomenon that it garners extreme reactions in every possible direction. But I prefer to look back on Final Fantasy VII much more simply: it was a very well-made game that came at the right time and place for a lot of people, myself included. It was one of the first RPGs I played, one of the first 3D games I played, and easily the most ambitious one I had played from a narrative and cinematic standpoint at that time. But the thing I always think about most when it comes to Final Fantasy VII is its countless hard-hitting and unforgettable moments. Most games would give anything to have a single moment so powerful, but Final Fantasy VII pulled them off like it was nothing. Few games have wowed me quite like this.

I recently posted my top 10 list for 2018, which is one of my favorite community exercises every year here on Giant Bomb. But like most years, I also played well more than those 10 games. What about the rest? Where do they stand? Because as nice as it to distill it all down to a set of 10, there are always many more than 10 games that color my year. This, then, is my chance to speak to those as well. This list is a “rough” ranking of every game I played from 2018. Don’t put too much stock in the exact order, but it’s in the ballpark. I also can’t play everything of course, but I did a pretty good job of prioritizing this year. I can’t think of many games I really missed out on (save maybe a couple giant RPGs like Dragon Quest XI and Pillars of Eternity II that I simply don’t have time for). At any rate, I enjoy doing this. Thanks for reading, and have a great day!

As a side note, if you read my top 10 list, I expressed sentiments there about not getting into a lot of “big” games this year. I think you’ll see what I mean here, with a lot of big budget games listed, and some repeated sentiments from me in their descriptions; I was mixed on a lot of games in general this year. I guess that’s where I was at mentally, or maybe it was the games themselves. Who knows. And it ultimately doesn’t really matter, just a trend I noticed. And with that, away we go!

1-10. See my GOTY 2018 list.

11. God of War. The popular pick for 2018 is a very mixed bag for me. I primarily like the narrative trappings: the characters, tone, and story are engaging (despite some rough spots), I think the new setting is the perfect direction for the series, and the game looks and sounds incredible. But while I think throwing the Leviathan Axe is rad as hell, most of my time spent playing the game is mixed at best. The combat is serviceable but not amazing, the armor leveling system is broken and meaningless, and the game is paced too slowly and is too long for the ground it covers, both mechanically and narratively; I legitimately almost stopped halfway through out of boredom. I’m glad I finally did see it through, and I do really like some things about it. But God of War has one too many issues to crack my top 10.

12. Marvel's Spider-Man. Not too dissimilar from my thoughts on God of War above, Spider-Man is a mixed bag for me. Once again, my favorite parts are narrative related. I think the story arc is solid, with strong acting and writing sustained the whole way; it’s surprisingly good at portraying the relationships between its characters. The game also looks and sounds like money. What I don’t like about it is that, design-wise, it feels like an extremely generic, and sometimes dated open world game. Yes, the swinging is very fun. But everything else is standard and serviceable without being great. It’s a straightforward checklist style open world game, a style which has worn out its welcome with me. I got bored with it halfway through, before powering through the story out of a need to see the end. Also, those stealth missions, huh?

13. Valkyria Chronicles 4. A number of games on this list will be sequels I like, but also ones that don’t do enough different or new to stand out to me in a meaningful way. Valkyria Chronicles 4 is that in a nutshell; this seems like a very well-executed, but very similar version of the original Valkyria Chronicles. I liked that game a lot, and it has been nearly a decade since I played it. I also like this game so far, and while I’m still in the middle of it (meaning it could move up or down as I play more), my main takeaway right now is that it needs something more to differentiate and elevate itself for 2018. Still, if that’s what you’re looking for (and you could do much worse), this seems really solid.

14. Forza Horizon 4. Another straightforward sequel, this game is extremely well-made, but also extremely similar to the previous game(s) in the series. I had fun with the 15 or so hours I put into it, but don’t know that I came away with much that I didn’t get from the previous game. Other than I think it’s the right direction for this to become more of a live game. So Forza Horizon 4 is a still good time. And still one of the best driving series we have today. But it’s one too familiar for me to place any higher than this.

15. Dead Cells. This is a game I would like a lot more if it wasn’t run-based. I don’t think it controls as perfectly as most seem to think; it’s a bit too loose and slippery to me, and close combat in the late game is so punishing that traps feel overly incentivised. But the combat is still generally fun, and I like a lot of the upgrades. I mainly got really tired of playing through 30 minutes of early levels I had mastered just to have a chance at later levels I hadn’t. That always wears on me, and I don’t think any level in Dead Cells remains interesting after a handful of runs. That led to me inevitably feeling like it was a waste of my time, and I put it down before I finished. Which is the fate of most otherwise good run-based games for me.

16. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Oh hey, another sequel that doesn’t change much. As someone who has played every iteration of Smash, this feels very similar to previous games (especially the Wii U version). That said, this probably is the “best” version of Smash yet, and to people deep down that rabbit hole, the minor changes it does make are probably meaningful. But to me this is just more Smash. And while I’ve loved Smash before, and I do still enjoy a good round of Smash here and there, it’s been diminishing returns for a long time. This series has been around almost 20 years, and Smash Ultimate doesn’t do nearly enough to reignite that flame. Also, the process to unlock and play with all the characters is abysmal.

17. Onrush. This is a really cool idea, and a great take on multiplayer driving games that deviates from pure racing; it’s nice to play a game where you can do well in different ways. I also like the focus and reward for driving fast and recklessly, and the team dynamic is a lot of fun. It controls well too, and is enjoyable to play. All that said, this is a very slight game, which is a pretty large drawback and exactly what holds it back. There’s just not a lot here. But what is here is a good time while it lasts.

18. Frostpunk. I want to like Frostpunk a lot more than I do, because it has some great ideas. I just don’t think it’s a very balanced game. It’s one of extreme positive feedback loops: if you are doing well, things become easier, and if you are doing poorly, things become harder. My first game, where I didn’t know what I was doing, went bad real fast. Then I started over with what I learned from my mistakes, and cruised through the game without a single hiccup. That 12 hour victorious playthrough ended up being real boring down the stretch as a result, as I simply fast-forwarded with excess stockpiled resources. This game would be great if it could find a better balance to make the choices meaningful throughout its lengthy scenarios, and my experience was far from that.

19. The Messenger. This is another game I really want to like more than I do, and is one that I should theoretically love. But that’s why execution is so important; a good idea isn’t worth much if it’s not done well. And The Messenger does have its good parts: the music is incredible, and it controls super well. It falls apart for me in its larger structure, pacing, and level/enemy design. It’s primarily too big and repetitive, with the same handful of enemies populating every level in the entire game. You also eventually have to re-traverse all the levels in a less than interesting way, and it all goes on way too long for the mechanics on offer. I also don’t like the story and writing at all. Your mileage may vary on all of this, but for me I became less enamored with it the more it dragged on. I ended up not finishing it as a result.

20. Minit. This is one I enjoyed for the most part, but it’s simultaneously very short and often tedious. There’s a cool puzzle nature to figuring out how to progress that is usually fun, and it often rewards smart, efficient exploration. Except for when it doesn’t, and becomes less intuitive than it needs to be. I spent a good chunk of my time with Minit kind of ramming my head at various walls until I found one that broke down, which wasn’t as satisfying in the long run. It has great style though, and I enjoyed it just fine for what it was.

21. Florence. This does a surprisingly good job at translating the feelings portrayed in its story to simple touch-based actions on a phone. It’s extremely short, and extremely simple, but Florence finds a way to be effective within its limitations. One moment in particular was among the most powerful I encountered all year. It’s a good story overall too. If only there was more to it, it would be higher.

22. Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight / Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight. These games are basically overpriced song packs for Persona 4: Dancing All Night. They just have music from, well, Persona 3 and Persona 5 instead. It turns out all of these games have truly great music, and that by itself makes these pretty enjoyable for me. I wish the core rhythm mechanics had been improved, and that they didn’t cost so much for how many songs they come with. But if you’re like me and have an appreciation for Persona music and rhythm games, you could do worse.

23. FAR: Lone Sails. This is a short game with wonderful atmosphere, and I think some really interesting themes to consider. I just didn’t enjoy the act of playing it. Managing your vehicle is a fun loop for a bit, but once I realized the game never evolves from there it got old. I also think the “puzzles” are rote and repetitive. But as a short game with a good aesthetic wrapper, it’s kind of neat.

24. The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit. A short and sweet story that’s executed pretty well. It’s a bit of a cliched story though, and I think I’m getting a bit tired of this style of, um, “gameplay.” A couple sections in particular were not intuitive at all. But a good story is still worth celebrating here. One moment in particular got me real good, and the way the kid’s imagination plays into things is endearing.

25. Yoku's Island Express. This game made me realize that I simply don’t like pinball. At all. I enjoyed things about Yoku’s Island Express: I like the tone and atmosphere, especially the art and music. I also think it’s a generally well-designed world that is fun to explore. But I only got more and more exasperated every time a “pinball” section appeared. After a couple hours I didn’t want to do any more pinball. I did finish this one, but by the end it was almost begrudgingly so.

26. Overcooked! 2. Back to more sequels that don’t change much: this is more or less a level pack for the original Overcooked. Which isn’t terrible, as Overcooked is still fun, and I enjoyed my time playing this with a friend. I just wish it had done something new, or at the very least improved the feel and preciseness of the controls. Maybe it’s meant to feel like a sloppy mess though, who knows.

27. Guacamelee! 2. More straightforward sequels! I really enjoyed the first Guacamelee, but this sequel was really disappointing to me. It’s hard to place exactly why too, because in some ways it’s a tighter, more confident Guacamelee. It’s not a bad game by any stretch, but it’s also very similar to Guacamelee, and perhaps games have evolved too much (especially in the space where this game lives) over the past 5 years for this to cut it without doing something new for 2018. Guacamelee! 2 feels like it’s gotten left in the dust by the many more exciting games around it.

28. Donut County. This one gets by on its charm and style. The actual game of moving a hole around to have everyone’s crap fall into it is very straightforward, and pretty uninteresting. For all its comparisons to Katamari Damacy, these levels are too small and too simple to measure up; I didn't enjoy playing it. And while the writing and characters are funny in spots, it didn’t stick with me for long. It’s a short game that I got tired of before I even finished it.

29. We Were Here Too. Asymmetrical co-op games don’t get made that often, so it’s noteworthy when they do come around. Which makes it a shame when the ones that do come out aren’t all that polished. This one has some clever ideas, and I enjoyed solving some of these puzzles with a friend. It’s all about communicating what you see to your partner, and that’s a generally solid idea. But I think the game could do better with it. Despite its short length, it uses a lot of the same tricks as the previous game, has some puzzles I think are pretty bad, and is also surprisingly buggy. There’s a lot of room for improvement.

30. Mario Tennis Aces. Mario Tennis has been a pretty consistently unrewarding series to me since the Game Boy Color one, and nothing about Aces changes that trajectory. To be fair, they tried to spice it up with all the power meter stuff, which almost makes it more of a fighting game than a tennis game. But I personally don’t think that mode works well, and the classic way is still too bare bones to be interesting. There have always been better tennis games than Mario Tennis. Just because they stopped making those other games doesn’t make this one any better. It just makes me sad.

31. A Way Out. Man. I don’t feel like I often play games that I consider outright bad. Yet here we are: I think A Way Out is a bad video game. But kind of hilariously bad? I honestly did not hate playing through this, as my brother and I got some laughs from it. But it’s impossible for me to look at it and say it does anything well. Everything here is either extremely rote or poorly executed (or boring), the writing is completely terrible (hence the laughs), and the ideas it’s going for, both narratively and mechanically, are too basic to be interesting in the first place. I routinely could not believe what I was seeing as we played this, and it’s been a long time since I’ve personally played a game this bad. The world desperately needs more good co-op games, and unfortunately A Way Out doesn’t help that in the slightest.

Say what you will about the games themselves, but I think 2018 has been a genuinely incredible year for video game music. It’s great to see developers experiment with all sorts of fresh styles, and the form is becoming so much more diverse and artful than I could have ever imagined. And it’s just high quality stuff across the board, in ways that elevate and empower the games we play. Even within my own tastes, I find myself looking at this list and marveling at the diversity and quality of sounds on display. Music is making video games better no matter your preferences.

So as a fan of video game music, I’d like to honor the medium by sharing my 10 favorite soundtracks among games I played from 2018. It’s one of my favorite personal traditions every year, and 2018 has plenty of great music to go around. I narrowed it down to 10 games, and picked a representative song from each of them. They are ordered by original US release date, not by preference. I hope you enjoy listening, and please share some of your own favorites too!

Also, a quick shout out to Octopath Traveler, which by all accounts has great music from what I’ve heard. I simply have not played it, and I only include games I’ve played. Sorry!

Celeste

Featured Track: Confronting Myself (by Lena Raine)

One of the reasons Celeste is such a wonderful game is that it’s able to express its themes on multiple fronts, music included. As your emotions shift up and down, so too does the soundtrack, which produces tension, joy, relief, frustration, sadness, panic, elation, acceptance, and more. This game was a remarkable journey, and its music made its important moments land that much harder.

Into the Breach

Featured Track: Old War Machines (by Ben Prunty)

I spent a lot of time (too much?) playing Into the Breach this year, and I’m still not tired of this soundtrack. In true Ben Prunty fashion, it combines mystery, whimsy, action, and determination into a magical cocktail that pulls me right in every time. It fits the tone of the game so well, and kind of became the soundtrack of my year. That’s only partially because Into the Breach became my year. The rest is because Ben Prunty makes great music.

God of War

Featured Track: God of War (by Bear McCreary)

The original God of War games had awesome, epic soundtracks, and this soft reboot does too. But what I appreciate about it most is how it’s different. It retains the bombast that defined those games, but shifts the style perfectly from Greek to Norse themed. It also has more quiet, moody sections that impart gravity on the game’s more serious moments. It’s the subtle things that work best here.

Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon

Featured Track: Defiler of Taboos (by Michiru Yamane)

Perhaps nowhere is it easier to see the Castlevania in Bloodstained’s veins than in its soundtrack. Castlevania has some of the most iconic and awesome music in video game history, and for my money, Bloodstained matches it note for note. These are some rocking tunes with catchy melodies that I’m nowhere near tired of listening to. Like, seriously. Listen to this shit.

The Banner Saga 3

Featured Track: Only We Few Remember It Now (by Austin Wintory)

Each chapter of The Banner Saga has had incredible music, and the third and final entry is as good as any of them. While there’s a lot of overlap with the previous games’ scores, this one ratchets up the tension and drama to match the increased level of desperation of the game’s events. And in the end, even a little acceptance. Plus, it’s still just great music.

Dead Cells

Featured Track: ClockTower (by Yoann Laulan)

There is a focus and intensity to a good run in Dead Cells that is expertly captured in its soundtrack. Better yet, the instrumentation has an exotic feel to it that matches each of the game’s varied, exotic levels. It knows when to cool down between levels, and ramp up for boss fights too, making this a well-rounded soundtrack with some great songs.

The Messenger

Featured Track: Hills of Destiny (by Rainbowdragoneyes)

The Messenger pays homage to gaming’s evolution through the 8 and 16-bit eras in many ways, but to me the music stands out more than anything else. It has some incredibly catchy and awesome tunes in both 8 and 16-bit styles that capture what made those eras great. And then the way it transitions between them really elevates it to something special. It’s rad.

Return of the Obra Dinn

Featured Track: Main Theme (by Lucas Pope)

Lucas Pope seems to enjoy life off the beaten path, his music included. Less a full musical score than masterfully timed instrumentation, Return of the Obra Dinn really captures the feel of its mystery through it’s ominous and dissonant strings, horns, and drums. Some of these riffs are downright chilling, perfectly capturing the dread of the Obra Dinn’s grizzly fate. I love it.

Tetris Effect

Featured Track: Always Been, But Never Dreamed (by Hydelic)

I never knew I could have an emotional reaction to playing Tetris, but that’s exactly what this soundtrack did for me. Not only is it a lengthy list of incredible songs that cover a wide variety of musical styles, but the way it all reacts to your every move makes the music an integral part of your play. It’s kind of magical, and ranks among the most impactful musical experiences I’ve ever had in a game.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

Featured Track: Bloody Tears/Monster Dance (by Michiko Naruke)

Super Smash Bros. has always done a wonderful job at taking large swaths of gaming’s most iconic songs, and adapting them to the rambunctious nature of Smash. And while most of Ultimate’s 800+ songs (!) are recycled from previous Smash games, there are just enough new bangers to stand out. This series remains the biggest celebration of video game music out there.

Bonus - Burnout Paradise Remastered

Featured Track: Girlfriend (by Avril Lavigne)

HEY HEY YOU YOU I DON’T LIKE YOUR GIRLFRIEND