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The Mento Game Awards 2019

By Mento 0 Comments

It's that time of the year again (the end part of it, specifically) where the pageantry of Game of the Year is in full swing and I'm left picking over a depressingly small list of games upon which to bestow accolades.

2019 was a buffer year in many respects; the entire industry and those that cover it have been holding their breath for next year's two new console debuts and any number of currently-secret big-budget projects pertaining to same. That said, I think 2019 will also go down in the history books as a year where the dearth of any major universally adored tentpole releases and a higher than average number of black horse GOTY candidates had players cautiously leaving their comfort zones more than ever before. Sure, a few of the better regarded games this year were remakes (RE2, Modern Warfare) but it also feels like a year where something as niche and thematically strange as Control or Outer Wilds or Death Stranding or Disco Elysium (all new IPs) can get some well-deserved kudos without being overshadowed by the usual franchise suspects hogging the limelight. I think everyone's top ten lists this year will feel a little more varied and personal as a result, and I can't wait to see how the overall community rankings shape up - and the staff's own top tens as well, of course.

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So with all that said, here on the eve of Giant Bomb's opening salvo of GOTY content, it's time to deliver my own approbations:

Best 2018 Game of 2019

Candidates:

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It becomes more of a truism every passing year, but most of the fun I had over the past twelve months came from games released the previous twelve months that had dipped in price to something affordable. 428 continues my education with the best the visual novel genre has to offer, coinciding with a playthrough of Steins;Gate and my return to Ace Attorney (which is more of a VN edge case). The Spyro Reignited Trilogy filled a gap that sorely needed filling for a self-proclaimed 3D platformer collectathon nut. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate rocked me for a month, subsuming me once again into its enormous world of Nintendo nostalgia obscurity. Marvel's Spider-Man is about as solid a superhero open-world game as you're likely to find outside of Rocksteady's Arkham series, and while I had issues with Subnautica, The Room Three, Dandara, Into the Breach, and Chuchel, they were all rewarding demonstrations of the ingenuity and diversity found in the Indie circuit. However, none more so than Return of the Obra Dinn - the Best 2018 Game of 2019 - which offered a truly unique combination of investigative deduction, logic grid ratiocination, and a starkly presented grisly historical drama.

2018 also had the unenviable position of trying to follow 2017, and while the above list of ten can attest to the overall quality of that year the fact that I can make an equally compelling top ten list of 2017 games I caught up with - even though we're two years removed now - is a testament to its lasting legacy. In fact, what the hell, here's my top ten 2017 games played in 2019 in no particular order:

Best 2019 Game of 2020?

Candidates:

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Just me testing the waters a little bit before all the acclaim comes pouring down next week. I suspect these five games released this year will be highlights for next year, or perhaps a year or so after that. AI: The Somnium Files is the new game from the Zero Escape guy, and from what I've heard I've got nothing to worry about as he transitions to a new property. Disco Elysium's text-heavy RPG seems to have captured the imagination in ways the similarly structured Tides of Numenera did not, and that a game so singular and off-beat is able to net awards from a show as mainstream as Keighley's The Game Awards says an awful lot. Luigi's Mansion 3 sounds like the Luigi's Mansion we've all been waiting for, and Sekiro's FromSoftware pedigree makes it something I intend to get into eventually. Ultimately, I think seeing Obsidian revisit Fallout: New Vegas with a new IP strongly mirrors the way they homaged Baldur's Gate with Pillars of Eternity, and I have the utmost faith that they can pull off the same trick a second time - hence why it's my pick for Best 2019 Game of 2020.

Bucket List Tick-Off

Candidates:

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This category, which determines the best game released over ten years ago that I only finally got around to recently, is more stacked than ever specifically due to a monthly blog feature dedicated to "Bucket List" games. I also got into some retro hijinks back in May with an entirely separate '00s CRPG feature, so I had plenty of options to choose from in 2019.

While Shigesato Itoi's Mother 3 (a.k.a. EarthBound 2) was easily my favorite of the shortlist above, since it's the only one where I don't have a single negative thing to say about it, they're all fantastic games I should've played a lot sooner: even if the Sith Lords wasn't fully complete, its vitally irreverent tone was the breath of fresh air and the deflating of Jedi/Sith pomposity that Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi was close to achieving; Banjo-Tooie was a little too convoluted for its own good, but perhaps rewarding in its own way because of all the extra hoops you had to jump through; Kaeru no Tame ni Kane wa Naru sees Nintendo at their most inventive, even if its innovations missed as often as they hit; and the underappreciated Zelda II was one of those games that everyone should feel the urge to play at least once, if only to better understand the roots of one of the most beloved and successful video game franchises of all time.

Best New Character

Candidates:

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This felt like a strong year for characters, with more narrative-heavy games in the running for Best Game than usual. Control has the edge here for its live performances, which can add so much more to a character than just voice acting and facial animations alone, and none shined brighter than Matthew Porreta's avuncular Head of Research at the Bureau of Control. The game made sure early on to present both sides of this beleaguered scientist: the jovial and enthusiastic talking head that provides a lot of the game's exposition via pre-recorded company PSAs, and the nervous wreck that he becomes in video diary entries once the inter-dimensional antagonists have their foothold. Both are equally compelling performances.

Of the rest, Ajna reminds me a lot of Trails in the Sky's impulsive heroine Estelle, where their tendency to act first and think later can be both beneficial and detrimental to their fortunes. Kiki the Cat is a lovably realistic feline protagonist who can't speak, despite being intelligent enough to drive a mech, but isn't lacking in ways to express herself. Horace and the way his journey shapes him is one of the most compelling bildungsroman characters I've seen in a while, though his inherent goodness and compassion are the few traits that remain with him throughout the many tragedies he suffers.

Finally, I gotta pour one out for the best of Bloodstained's familiars, Carabosse, who not only heals you in times of woe and points out secret walls to appease my OCD brain, but has a number of delightful quirks like the way she sits on Miriam's shoulders whenever the latter takes a break or when she accompanies Miriam's piano with her singing. I never found much use for the more aggressive familiars like the Silver Knight or the Bloodbringer, who all did chip damage at best unless I wanted to spend hours levelling them up, and the extra design work put into Carabosse's personality confirms the notion in my mind that she's canon.

Weirdest F'n Game

Candidates:

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This was a good year for weird games, and I'm only sorry I didn't have the time and cash to explore all of them. It feels like if you were going to play Death Stranding at all, it'd be to see Kojima play in a brand new world of bizarre ideas, oddly-named characters, and game mechanics that seemed designed to be as counter to user-friendliness as possible. A compelling slog, is the kindest way I've heard it put. Disco Elysium uses character interiority to explore depths never before seen, and if the decaying post-communist world wasn't weird enough for you living inside the protagonist's fractured psyche should suffice. Bloodstained is a little goofier than any previous Igavania, partly due to Kickstarter additions like people in bad vampire costumes rendered as paintings in Old Master styles or the demonic sentient living heads of beloved pets brought terrifyingly to life. The way the game can be broken six ways from Sunday is a little unusual also, if maybe not for Igarashi's works then at least for RPGs in general. Horace's story goes places I don't think anyone could reasonably predict, and that made it a delight throughout. Control is the least accessible and explicable of Remedy's many thematic genre explorations, from crime noir to horror to time travel, but that also makes it the most compelling world they've ever created.

It feels like a cheat to give it to Death Stranding, because I've yet to play it and probably never will, but learning more about this deeply strange game was a recurring theme throughout 2019 as more and more details emerged closer to its release date. If you aren't awarding "weirdest game" to one built entirely around courier deliveries filled with characters called "Fragile" and "Die-Hardman" where success was contingent on keeping your balance while carrying a 20ft stack of boxes while ensuring the happiness of an expressive fetus floating around in a jar of amniotic fluid you keep on your person at all times to avoid sludge ghosts, then why even have the category?

Best Indie Game of the Week

Candidates:

  • Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (2019)
  • Gorogoa (2017)
  • Life is Strange: Before the Storm (2017)
  • Return of the Obra Dinn (2018)
  • What Remains of Edith Finch (2017)
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Indie Game of the Week is probably the only remaining "regular" feature I have, and it's about to finish its third successive year with next week's 150th entry. That means I had another fifty games to pare down to the five candidates above, and from there down to my absolute favorite Indie game I've covered for this feature in 2019. Return of the Obra Dinn cinches it for me purely on the basis of it being something I've never seen before, but the overall list is compelling evidence (if I needed it) that there's so much more out there in the Indie market that I've yet to tap into.

Here's a few close runners-up to give you an idea of how tough it was to narrow this list down: Indivisible (2019), Tacoma (2017), Strikey Sisters (2017), West of Loathing (2017), Dex (2015), Dandara (2018), Environmental Station Alpha (2015), Victor Vran (2015), Glass Masquerade II (2019), and Gato Roboto (2019).

Best Soundtrack

Candidates:

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In my heart of hearts, I know that Ys IX: Monstrum Nox had the best soundtrack this year, but I can't give it the credit because the localization is still months (or possibly years) away. I'll give it a spot on my subsequent category for individual tracks, but picking from games that actually released in the west in 2019 I'll have to give it to Control for the way that soundtrack was used in-game, especially the Finnish heavy metal track "Take Control" and how well it scored the chaotic Ashtray Maze sequence. Outside of that, it has this wonderfully eerie soundtrack occasionally interrupted by something incongruously cheerful (like the Threshold Kids theme playing in an adjacent room) that works perfectly with the disjointed tone and spooky aesthetic of the game.

Trails of Cold Steel III is (as far as I'm aware) the only Falcom Sound Team JDK soundtrack released this year, excepting the above Ys IX, and so it automatically gets a spot on my list (I mean, I did listen to it and it deserves to be there, but sometimes you can take these things on faith). Electronic Super Joy II is pure EDM nirvana with a licensed soundtrack that combines three or four of the most talented mixers out there. Bloodstained sought to recreate every one of Symphony of the Night's strengths, including its alternately gothic and jazzy soundtrack (always a highlight of any Castlevania), and I'd argue it pulled it off as well as anything it was looking to homage. Cadence of Hyrule is, well, Zelda music done in the NecroDancer style and just about tops the remixed Link's Awakening soundtrack.

Best Original Tracks

Candidates:

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Great tracks here, though I'm sure I've missed plenty. Check out MajorMitch's Best Music blog for even more Spotify playlist inspiration.

Giant Bomb's Best Feature of 2019

Candidates:

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I dunno, I didn't find myself resonating with a lot of what Giant Bomb put out in 2019. While no specific person's fault, there just didn't seem to be a lot of the elaborate set-up through which Giant Bomb features thrive. 80% of this year's premium content involved someone just bringing a game in and playing it while everyone else talked around it about whatever. Dan Ryckert, usually the site's secret weapon for high-concept ideas, hit a rough patch with the tumultuous Burgle My Bananas which was only saved by the unintentional way it imploded with the rampant misuse of its "wheel of fortune" component. That was a huge bummer for me, as someone who loved the thematically similar Steal My Sunshine and the way it brought everyone together through its (only occasionally busted) challenges.

There were still plenty of standouts though, certainly more than enough to justify an annual premium subscription were I to ever stop being a cheapskate moderator and pay for one: Mass Alex 2 was as great as the first, with Mass Effect 2 and its better writing, less micromanagement, and character-focal arcs giving Alex more to react to and affectionately critique. Jeff's love and mastery of the THPS franchise shone through with his Pro Skater series, which kickflipped along at a steady pace as he quickly conquered each level's list of challenges while discussing nu metal, bail videos, and other skating-related ephemera of the early '00s. Vinny had a bit more difficulty with Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, but he reached that point (as all of us who played it did) where the near-limitless potential for breaking the game became apparent. After that, it was fun to watch him stomp every battle with his turbo-speed Rhava Velar and steady supply of magic chisels. The Worst Songs of the '80s, both as a standalone feature and as a recurring bit in a number of Bombcasts, was an intriguing look into the musical tastes of Giant Bomb West and the community, and the quest to find the worst song of the 1980s will forever be an elusive one.

The standout video feature for me this year, though, was the unexpected camaraderie formed by Giant Bomb East's Giant Bomb Crime Crew: not in the sense of the team working together seamlessly to pull off a series of daring heists, but in the united front they put up against the rigours of the hopelessly broken GTA Online. Expertly edited together from four separate perspectives by Vinny and Abby, each episode was a gruelling endurance test of groaning through terrible dialogue, surviving a disastrous cornucopia of game bugs and server issues, bouncing back after the derailing antisocial antics of certain users on the service (resident trickster spirit Dan most of all), and the oft-alluded to challenges involved in editing down hours of unusuable technical turmoil and online griefer fuckery into a neatly packaged 90-or-so-minute episode of workable video content. I give it the award of Most Entertaining Giant Bomb Feature of 2019 partly because it was evident how much work was put into salvaging all that footage. They suffered through GTA Online so we never have to.

Best Game of 2019

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  1. Control
  2. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
  3. Kingdom Hearts III
  4. Baba is You
  5. Horace
  6. Indivisible
  7. Shovel Knight: King of Cards
  8. Electronic Super Joy II
  9. Glass Masquerade 2: Illusions
  10. Gato Roboto

I played... a sufficient number of 2019 games to put together a top ten list without any clunkers, but that was about all I managed. I'm sure my top ten for 2019 will look very different this time next year once I've done some catch-up gaming, and more so in 2021 and beyond, but I can't say you should be too disappointed in any of the above if you decide to pick them up in the January sales (or just download ESJ2 now, since it's free). I created a separate and much more verbose list of this top ten over here somewhere, so please feel free to read it for any further elaborations or justifications.

That's going to do this for this year's awards, and my thanks as always to this site's staff and its amazing community for making me feel welcome for another year despite all my terrible puns, chickenscratch comics, and old man kvetching. Truly, you have the patience of saints. Good Holiday Times to you all and here's hoping 2020 doesn't suck balls.

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