It has been well documented on how terrible of a year 2020 has been for many people. But this write up won’t really go into details 2020’s issues to avoid sounding frivolous and I’m going to write of some positive aspects of 2020 for me personally.

I started 2020 with a bang. I got tickets to the Outback Bowl (An NCAA bowl in Tampa, FL) as Christmas gifts for my family to see my brother’s Auburn Tigers take on the Minnesota Golden Gophers right on New Year’s Day. Auburn lost the game but we still had a great time. It was a year where I kept it close with my group of friends and we spent time either via ZOOM calls playing Jackbox games or in person. Also one very exciting thing for me this year is that I got a new used car! I got a 2020 used Kia Optima and it drives like a dream. I even went on a deep sea fishing trip and fought an epic fight to bring a shark to the surface of the water and then let it go. Lemme tell you, catching a shark may be the greatest workout out there. As you can tell I live in FL. That about sums up the exciting moments in 2020 for me.

I spent my free time trying to bond with my friends and family whenever I could as well as use video games and other forms of media to burn off some steam. Although the big gaming phenomenon for me was on the board game side as I played plenty of different board games with my family (yes, I am lucky to see my family since they live very close to me). Had countless nights playing games such as Carcosone, Rummikub and the actual overall Board Game of the Year, Ticket to Ride. A board game that got so addicting within the family that we got 2 versions of the standard game and one European variant. Back to video games, I only got to play 12 2020 game releases, and a little bit of a few old games such as Civ 6 on Switch and Star Wars Episode 1 Racer. Despite my list of 2020 titles being low, I still had an amazing time with most of these games. In fact, a couple of these games I spent over 100 hours playing. While I did get a chance to play some pretty significant games from last year, I also managed to find some lesser-known titles that I feel deserve some great praise. 2 games will simply be honorable mentions because I only played a little bit of those while I played enough of the top 10 for me to rank. Also be warned because this is a long read about my top games (especially the top 3 getting rather lengthy). So without further ado, here are MocBucket62’s favorite games of 2020:

Honorable Mention 1: Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout

I gotta be honest. I played this game super late in the year and it seems…just ok? I understand the appeal of game show battle royale but I just don’t think I’ll be hooked playing this game and will only boot it up on special occasion. Also this is secretly the 2^nd best Mediatonic game of 2020.

Honorable Mention 2: A Total War Saga: Troy

Man I have a strange relationship with TW games. I loved games like Rome and Medieval II and got this for free on EGS. Its not a bad TW game from the little I played and you can improve your heroes XCOM style. But I just felt more obligated to play other games in 2020.

10. XCOM: Chimera Squad

Much like TW Troy, we have an entry to another legacy strategy franchise that I adore but felt alright about the latest game. And that game is XCOM Chimera Squad. XCOM Enemy Unknown is without a doubt one of my favorite games of all time. The journey I took to take down the aliens and leveling up my best units while tragically losing them is an experience I’ll never forget. Then there’s XCOM 2 which for whatever reason I haven’t spent much time on but SERIOUSLY need to get back into because I can tell that game makes some huge strides in gameplay from EU.

I have put some time into XCOM Chimera Squad this year and while I’m not into everything that the gameplay does, I’m glad that an experimental spinoff like Chimera Squad exists. The game takes place after the events of XCOM 2 where you are trying to maintain peace in a city that has humans and various alien species such as Sectoids and Mutons co-existing. You control a squad of super cops ranging from various species and you are tracking down the culprit of a bombing that killed the city’s mayor. As far as the gameplay, it is some classic XCOM gameplay but with some big twists. I started every battle with a breach where you need to place certain units in different entrances that gives them perks and/or disadvantages. If say a door cause a unit to be disarmed after entering, I made my medic Terminal through the disarmed doors because she could just heal surrounding units. But afterwards its back to good ol’ fashinoned XCOM fighting as I took cover and d the percentages of shooting enemies. Though turns are done on an individual unit basis (you and AI) rather than being a side-based turn system. I personally found these new systems interesting at first but wasn’t a huge fan of these as I played more of the game. I prefer the classic side-based turn system where all my units do their actions before the aliens do and set up some big traps for them before they spot my crew. Plus you get established characters into your crew rather than randomly generated soldiers and frankly I found the agnets’ personalities mostly bland and prefer making stories with my own random or created soldiers in battle. Although I love that this game lets you play as different species that were once rivals in a story campaign and I do hope XCOM 3 lets you have playable Sectoids, Mutons, and Snake People in the future. Base building has been simplified to just maintaining order in your city, researching new and leveling up your agents which is a nice change of pace compared to how complex base building got in the past games. Again, I would much rather play XCOM 2 than play Chimera Squad, but I’m glad Firaxis threw some darts and tried to do something different w/ the XCOM formula.

9. Resident Evil 3

I have a confession to make. This is my first ever Resident Evil. I know that Resident Evil is obviously a juggernaut in the horror genre of gaming but I have been so scared to play a horror game because I’ve been such a huge coward for so long. However, I told myself “Hey you’re a grown ass man, why don’t you try out a Resident Evil and see how you handle it.” So I picked up 3Make on a Steam Sale because I heard it was short and wanted to play it as a 2020 game to try. Oh and I picked up RE2 which I seriously need to play and got these games also because a close friend of mine is a huge RE fan so I thought of him when playing 3.

Now overall how is 3 as a game for newcomers to the legendary horror franchise? Quite a good first title for some RE Rookie like myself. I really enjoyed the assist mode that this game has as whenever you aim your gun at zombies, it auto aims at their heads and they typically go down in 2-3 shots (I hear they’re more bullet spongey on higher difficulties). Plus the game lets you get an assault rifle first thing which is a really nice perk. Got to mow down more enemies with that thing. Plus I really enjoyed my time playing as the two characters. Of course, playing most of the game as Jill Valentine of RE1 fame and she is trying to escape Raccoon City while also fleeing from the big ugly Nemesis who is oh so obsessed with taking down his favorite “Star”. Plus Jill has all sorts of fun weapons to use from pistols to eventually shotguns and grenade launchers. Then there is Carlos who while I never played the original RE3, I did look up Carlos’ original portrayal and this modern version is way better. Also Carlos is way more attractive than he has any right being, just saying. Though Carlos’ arsenal of weaponry is far more limited than Jill which was a bummer. Again I can’t say that I’m a PS1 RE3 expert but I did research reviews of this remake after I beat it and I did wish Capcom did put more effort into what could have been in this game. As I learned, the Clock Tower portion of the original game is well remembered by fans and that is somehow cut from this game. When Nemesis is chasing you, his presence completely altered how I played since he’ll dash in front of you or just want to show off his gross tentacle. However, it felt like much of Nemesis’ encounters were scripted and I wish there were more time of unscripted Nemy gameplay like Mr. X in RE2make. I didn’t find RE3 all that immensely scary too. I got some scares such as a Gamma Monster pushing on a locked door to try to get Jill but later gave up (I actually yelled seeing that). But the general vibe I got though felt more like the movie “Predator” where it got spooky somewhat but mostly felt like a Macho Bad Ass Action game with lots of cursing. Overall I still really enjoyed my time with RE3 and will forever think of it as my 1^st Resident Evil. Now time to install RE2Make.

8. Murder By Numbers

Now this is a game that has a funny story with my playtime. This was originally my “Play before a big title comes out on March 20” game and while I played more than halfway thru it before March 20, I didn’t touch this game for a long time. Certainly there wasn’t anything horribly wrong with the game itself. It’s just I was so engrossed with that anticipated game that I spent a good chunk of the year solely playing that title (which you’ll see later in the list). However, Murder By Numbers got a 2^nd life this year for my playtime as it became my “cooldown game” after putting in some time with another game that you’ll also see later because the core gameplay loop of Murder By Numbers was a calming contrast to the tense loop of the other title. All that said, I’m very happy I got back to finish Murder By Numbers and see thru this really clever hybrid of genres. And this right here is the real best Mediatonic game of the year.

Murder By Numbers is a mix of both visual novel/Phoenix Wright style detective games with picross puzzle solving. You play as Honor Mizhari, a co-star of a 90’s Detective TV show who after being surprisingly fired from her role, slowly becomes a real detective after she encounters a mysterious floating robot named S.C.O.U.T. Both work as a duo to solve crimes as Honor will ask suspects or witnesses about what they know and get more intel from conversation or showing evidence. In order to obtain that evidence, S.C.O.U.T. will analyze an area and when he finds evidence that becomes a picross puzzle. You are filling in the squares when appropriate to form these images that become clues to the case. One of my favorite incorporations of picross were the hacking mini games where you hack into a computer but for the hacking to succeed, you need to clear a wave of mini picross puzzles within a time limit. I have heard from many picross experts that this game’s puzzles were too easy and there could have been more quality-of-life tools for the picross gameplay. While I do wish the developers added maybe one or two more assist tools, I found the puzzles themselves to have the right amount of challenge where they challenged my mental process and I took the time to understand where to place the squares but never found the puzzles impossible to solve. One touch I like was whenever you correctly fill in a line, S.C.O.U.T. will smile to give you feedback that you did something right.

Also what’s worth mentioning is that this game excels in presentation and characterization. The character designs were done by the same artist as Hatoful Boyfriend as the character designs are clearly very anime but with a 90’s Hollywood coat of paint. It certainly told me it was in the 90’s when the cast name drops Luke Perry and Bette Midler. The music is nice as the composer is Masakazu Sugimori who worked on Ace Attorney, which yeah if the art didn’t give you Phoenix Wright vibes the music will. Murder By Numbers is loaded with all sorts of memorable characters. You have characters such as K.C. who is Honor’s gay, British best friend that is very open about his sexuality and has close ties to the drag community in LA. But it’s never played for laughs and the entire game’s cast accepts K.C. for who he is. You also have Detective Cross who is the hardass, Lt. Gordon look alike detective that gets incredibly annoyed with Honor’s early attempts at crime solving. But he becomes more trusting of Honor overtime and even reveals his past being more connected to Honor’s family than expected. I just wish that this game would at least get some form of voice acting to help make me get more engrossed with the story, or even have some voice samples. Otherwise you’re going to read lots of text w/ bop sounds. Still, Murder By Numbers really surprised me with how well it incorporated Visual Novels with Picross to form a compelling detective mystery game.

7. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2

I never got to play any of the original THPS games myself when I was young. But I did watch my cousins play THPS 2 on the PS1 when I was over at their house and see them pull off tricks with…SPIDERMAN?!?!?! That blew my mind as a kid seeing Spidey do Benihanas. The only form of either game I got to play was the Game Boy Color version of 1. Which mind you aren’t anything like the super well regarded GBA versions done by Vicarious Visions (who also did these remakes) but was an overhead racing game on skateboards that sprinkled in tricks that you can land during your race. So yeah, I never got to play a proper TH game until Underground on the Gamecube yet I was cautiously optimistic about these remakes since Vicarious Visions already nailed it with the Crash N Sane Trilogy and they already worked on THPS before in some capacity. So to very little surprise, they killed it.

Though Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 was something that I needed to get used to at first. When I played the demo of THPS before it released I struggled to get much air or land many combos going at the base speed. Then I forgot that I can hold down the Ollie button to gain more speed and that was already a game changer. The two games are separated as tours where the levels from both games are groups as tours and those are where you can play on those parks and get high combos, collect SKATE letters or do another goal to your pleasing whether its grinding on SFPD cars or collecting subway tickets in New York. The skating has been tremendous as you go around and grind or kickflip to build up meter and then use the special meter to go for all sorts of special moves for higher scores. I’ve lost count of how many 900’s and Darkside grinds I’ve done. Plus this game adds far more to the originals than one would expect. For one, this game has revert which was crucial to THPS3 in helping extend combos and that was a life saver for me for competitions. There is an expanded soundtrack added so you can listen to fitting new songs such as Can I Kick It by A Tribe Called Quest before or after the necessary listen of Superman. The game has all the skaters from the first 2 games back as well as current skaters such as Lizzie Armanto and well, Riley Hawk (one of Tony’s Kids). But for me, I stuck with a couple of ol’ favorites. I beat the THPS 1 tour as the Birdman himself and relied on his big air stats to earn some golds and high scores. For the THPS 2 campaign I used Kareem Campbell whose far different in that his style is more street focused and he was good for grinding as well as getting some Ghetto Birds off a jump.

Now I will say I haven’t dived into the multiplayer of the game and while I still intend to drop in once, I feel I’ve seen what Online Multiplayer for THPS is from that GB playdate where parks rotate and different game modes rotate within that park. I have toyed around in seeing what people have created in custom parks and I’m impressed. Hey somebody made a pretty faithful recreation of Peach’s Castle from Super Mario 64 and the City Escape Level from Sonic Adventure 2 (Crush 40 not amongst the new bands in THPS 1+2’s OST though). I would maybe rank this game higher if I did try out the online multiplayer, felt obligated to create a skater and/or not feeling I had to grind (heh) to clear all the tour goals as one skater just to see their skate tape (I know, I can see those on Youtube). But overall I think it’s safe to say that after the disastrous THPS 5 and those peripheral nightmares, Tony Hawk is back baby!

6. Spiritfarer

Spiritfarer is the coziest game about dying ever made. You play as Stella, a mysterious girl whose accompanied by her pet cat Daffodil to take over the role of the titular Spiritfarer from Charon himself. While the setting may seem grim since you are taking over for the ferryman known for transporting the departed on the haunting River Styx, the world itself is rather nice and colorful. The realm is a very pleasant looking purgatory where you sail across this ocean and embark on multiple islands as if the world was created from Studio Ghibli. On these islands is where you pick up the spirits who are departed humans who aren’t ready to ascend to the afterlife yet. They also take the form of a spirit animal or fungi and you are tasked to do errands for these spirits until they are ready to accept their fate and go to the Everdoor. In my time caring for the spirits I had a variety of activities to do as both to kill time and help manage the passengers. You can go fishing and use fish as one of many key ingredients for cooking food for recipes (and feeding your passengers will be key). You will need to cut wood and forge metal ingots in order to help build both more facilities on your boat as well as temporary homes for the spirits. The boat will start off small but over some hours it’ll transform to a huge ship that will hold all sorts of facilities needed to perform these tasks. There is a whole lot of activities to do to manage your boat itself and the passengers’ happiness. Heck there’s even activities on the water that are triggered by the spirits themselves such as asking you if you want to catch lightning in a bottle or mine ore off sea dragons. Don’t worry, all of this sounds dangerous but none of these obstacles can hurt Stella and most of these were fun diversions that rewarded me with good resources. This game is surprisingly a Metroidvania in some fashion as once you get spirits, you earn their obols and use those to give Stella new traversal skills such as floating and those can be used to go to previously inaccessible parts of isles.

I need to talk more about the presentation of Spiritfarer because it’s one of the best looking 2D games I’ve played with some solid music and narrative to boot. The animation is full of life and I never got tried of seeing Stella anxiously awaited what she cooked or seeing the spirits’ walking animations. For character designs on top of the Grade A Spirits such as Gwen and Gustav (The reindeer in the above picture and the owl w/ the violin respectively), you’ll meet NPC’s that are full of life such as Albert the shark shipwright who’ll tell you Dad Jokes whenever he can and chuckle all day over them. The music itself is very calm which matches the cozy tone of the game as rarely the music gets intense. Unless you are fishing for a large fish like Bluefin Tuna and you get a fast paced fiddle song. But the music will not be afraid to take some somber turns when applicable. Going back to the spirits, you’ll find lots of different personality that are onboard the Spiritfarer’s ship. You will get to know about the spirits from the errands that you do for them and granted you may not like them all as some may come off as abrasive or stuck up. However, everyone felt distinct and the more you help these spirits, the more you learn they were in fact humans who had real life issues. While you may find someone like Uncle Atul being a happy yet active frog who will eat anything you give him, after doing his requests you learn more about his past and let’s say things took a left turn tonally. Being invested in these spirits will come to a halt as they will need to go to the Everdoor, but it is good to know that I at least helped them get some closure on whatever has troubled them before saying goodbye. I was sad saying goodbye to spirits such as Alice, Summer and Stanley personally.

Spiritfarer is not a game for everyone as the sim/management elements may get too repetitive. I myself eventually grew tired of some of the activities late in the game and there were some late game requests that were optional but asked a lot of the player. I also had moments where the game gave me requests when my ship was to underpowered to access parts of the map. “I know Uncle Atul you want to eat Fried Chicken! Can you wait until my ship can reach the island where I can get the last ingredient?” But if you are looking for a chill sim than Spiritfarer is a high recommend from me. It’s a beautiful and relaxing game that let’s you care for different spirits who want to resolve any issue(s) they may have before properly ascending to the afterlife.

5. Ori and the Will of the Wisps

Going from one the most beautiful 2D games I’ve played to one of the most gorgeous games I’ve played that uses 3D models but is on a 2D plane. I never played Ori and the Blind Forest and certainly aim to rectify that soon. But I picked up Will of the Wisps in December on a Steam sale because I wanted to play one more significant game before the end of the year. Unlike Fall Guys which I got much later in the year, I was hooked on Ori the moment I booted up the game and was in awe of nearly everything I saw.

Will of the Wisps like Blind Forest is a Metroidvania as you explore the land of Niwen which Ori had found himself on after he was on a flight with his friend owlet Ku and a storm separated the two. Once Ori lands on Niwen he is determined to reunite with his lost friend Ku, doing tasks to help the inhabitants of the Niwen and protect the land from an imminent threat known as The Shriek. Once you get exploring, you’ll witness one of the best Metroidvanias out there. The game makes it clear from the get-go that combat will be a big focus. While a temporary torch is the starting weapon, you’ll eventually get your 1^st real weapon soon after. Its literally a light katana that Ori can swipe up to 5 times and it did me wonders in the early game and for boss fights (more on those later). You can get more weapons from discovering ancestral trees or finding the combat expert monkey Opher who will give you new attacks in exchange for spirit light (game’s currency) and then toy around and see which builds you like best. Pro tips, get the hammer and upgrade it so you can use aerial down slams that summon spikes on the ground. Also get an upgraded spirit star so it can pause and land more hits on an enemy for increased damage. Those two were my jam. The sense of exploration feels tremendous as skills are acquired that are helpful for searching every nook and cranny. The Bash is great for reaching higher up platforms after you bash a projectile away. Burrowing also feels so go to use when moving in the sand and even get a speed boast from dashing in or out of the sand. I dug how often Ori rewarded me for my curious exploration from collecting spirit shards (which give you perks like having more health or triple jumps) to combat shrines that if successful let you use more spirit shards. A real sense of increased power and strength came from me navigating the map and finding these new attacks, skills and more health around Niwen. Will of the Wisps does an excellent job dividing the tense moments between chases and boss fights. The chases have now put Uncharted on notice as you have direct control by testing the traversing skills you have obtained as I used bashes or grappling hooks to escape the hazard rather than simply running away or using QTE. The Bosses themselves are the right amount of difficulty where I experimented on which builds work best and I died a plenty, but there’s no lives and the game will quickly load to a checkpoint. And finding the right build on the boss feels oh so satisfying to use.

I can’t just leave this Ori talk without talking about the game’s visual design, music and story. There’s an incredible mystique to how the game looks as the character models are 3D but everyone has a wonderful painted look to them where it really looks like a painting in motion. The models are also companied by the game’s nice and various environments ranging from the bug invested burrows of the Mouldwood Depths to the vibrant and aquatic Luma Pools. The lighting is some of the best I’ve seen in any videogame and compliments the majesty of the strong visuals. Also there will be a handful of moments where you will see The Shriek interact in the background of the level which are simultaneously haunting but a thing of art. The OST is fantastic as the orchestral music perfectly fits the mood of the game and got me to seek out the OST after my playthrough. Dashing and Bashing became a late year song in my rotation. I will not spoil the story, but it took some serious turns that got me emotionally invested in a way I didn’t expect and the ending took me by surprise. It even manages to make you feel sympathetic for the Shriek once you learn her backstory. It made me care for the creatures in danger and read the text of the NPC’s to get more educated on the L-ORI-E. …Sorry…that was terrible.

I’m very thankful I got to beat Ori and the Will of the Wisps before the end of the year. It’s an excellent and gorgeous Metroidvania that is available on any system expect for Sony Hardware. Frankly this game would rank higher if I didn’t play it so late in 2020 and really went for 100% it.

4. Animal Crossing: New Horizons

So this is the game that I spent a good chunk of the year playing while delaying my time w/ games like Murder By Numbers. Like for many people, Animal Crossing came out in the right time once the pandemic really hit overseas. It’s a game that broke records for my personal playtime as I spent a hefty 250 hours playing it. Much of that time I spent playing ACNH was decorating my island named Nuthatch (named after the bird) much like as if it was my house. Very early on I stacked a bunch of fish and bugs outside the eventual museum before it properly opened, but once I started building bridges and getting access to different areas of my island, I went to town (literally) designing stuff on my island. I made a Football Field with non-other than the face of video game football in the center, John Madden. I built an outdoor pizzeria and BBQ restaurant to give the residents of Nuthatch some fine and various cuisine to munch on. I was also determined to collect and buy any instrument I found to make a megaton music stage that would cater to anyone’s taste in music. Also for months I got into two things that are key to any Animal Crossing enjoyment: Fishing and catching bugs. I’d check out a list of fish and bugs that were going away at the end of a month and what was going to appear the following month. I’d always donate a bug, fish and fossils too to Blathers 1st to make sure the museum has its fill of many key attractions. But I caught multiples of a rare creature to get models of those bugs and fish from my pals Flick and C.J. to help decorate my museum entrance with exhibit statues as well as make some bank off of other captures. June is also the best month for fishing because of all the sharks, arapaima and dorado to catch. That’s fact. Not to mention the amount of positivity I got from seeing my residents. Started off with some all timers having Phoebe the Sisterly Ostrich and Rod the Jock Mouse as the 2 OG’s. But soon I got a few more residents that were great such as Margie, Deli and my cranky duo of Octavian and Admiral. Usually made sure to at least speak with them once a day or give them gifts. Animal Crossing was a burst of sunshine and calming gameplay that I surely needed and got my money’s worth playing as it broke my Switch hour count record at 250 hours total.

…SO HOW IS THIS NOT GAME OF THE YEAR? LET ALONE JUST NUMBER 4?!?!?! Well, like most people who played Animal Crossing I eventually dropped of the game around mid August. I felt pretty satisfied with the personal construction/decoration projects I had for Nuthatch Island and had no desire to make anything new. While I was for a time on full on hunting mode for those bugs and fish, I eventually burned out on those daily activities. Plus things got worse when even I who tends to have a patience for tedious activities even grew tired of constantly crafting bait to try and catch fish that I never caught. Sunfish were apparently common according to AC Twitter but those suckers were elusive as hell in the Nuthatch waters. I also never caught a Hercules Beetle, the rarest bug in the game. Plus the whole act of crafting eventually got on me as I do wish Nintendo would let players craft more than 1 piece of an item at a time. I felt like the game did a poor job handling the random visitors when maybe they could have given weekly spots to others. Considering how big of an update the art wing was, it felt bizarre to reserve Redd as a special visitor who may or may not show up in a week when I’d wait months to see him again. With my patience for Redd running out and eventually dropping the game, my Art wing remains rather puny. Finally, while I enjoyed how kind the villagers were eventually they kept saying the same thing over and over and that got tiresome. Sure they may say something new for a seasonal event but sorry Phoebe, I don’t need to hear your dinosaur mortgager dream for the 1000^th time.

But despite my complaints on Animal Crossing and how my playtime waned overtime, I can’t deny that this game played a huge role in my gaming play time in 2020. The appeal of building my island the way I intended to felt amazing and my fruits of labor eventually paid off big time. I got the Fossil Wing in my museum completed from both my own digging and from the help of other AC Island Reps. Seeing my island transform from a camp tent isle covered in weeds and your base fruit (mine were oranges) to a flourishing town with infrastructure of my making is incredibly special. Not to mention paying off Mr. Nook’s debts to get the biggest house possible sure was nice. To be fair this game has had some nice updates ranging from diving in the ocean to collect deep sea fish to using your custom designs as fireworks. ACNH has also brought some of the most joy I’ve had playing with my brother online. Going to other people’s islands for Turnip sales was a nightmare, but either visiting my brother’s island or letting him come over was so much fun as we either did fishing contests, exchanged DIY cards or furniture and showed off our island attractions. This probably would be my GOTY if I never dropped it but I still believe ACNH deserves a high rating on my personal GOTY list. Also let it be known that the Island of Nuthatch is the AC capital of Ska:

So what beat out Tom Nook and Isabelle?

3. Them’s Fightin’ Herds

What might be the biggest surprise of 2020 for me, we have a fighting game that stars ungulate animals that was in early access since 2018 but reached 1.0 on April of this year. TFH started life as a My Little Pony fan fighting game that got some traction in 2012-2013 from competitive fighting players but got cease and desisted by Hasbro. Lauren Faust who created the Friendship is Magic iteration for MLP helped the team afterwards by making original character designs. Then the team even launched a successful crowdfunding campaign that gave the project life. Typically, I play at least 1 fighting game a year and took this on a sale after seeing Ben practice for it for EVO. If you can look past the origins of the game, its art style and the small roster of characters, Them’s Fightin’ Herds is an incredible fighting game that should be set as a model for what an ideal modern fighting game should be. Its also become my new favorite fighting game out there, to my surprise.

What do I mean for an ideal fighting game? For one, this game has one of the greatest tutorials in a fighting game out there. The tutorial is divided up into 4 sections which are basic maneuvers, advance techniques, the systems within the game and Combos. It excels with easy-to-follow instructions for both veteran and causal FG players on how each character plays, how to use magic which can be used for counters and enhanced moves and even gets meta and breaks down the game’s frame data. You even get some rather hilarious commentary from your tutorial teacher/playable ungulate Oleander. What also makes this game so solid is that it has one of the most inventive story modes for a fighting game out there. Though it isn’t finished as only 1 chapter is out there and more chapters will be added for free when ready. But in that one chapter you play as Arizona the calf who becomes “Champeen of the Prairie” and vouches to take down these shadowy predators that threaten all ungulates. Oh and Ari is my overall main because she’s a good beginner character who can lasso similar to Scorpion's harpoons in MK and can cause earthquakes by stomping. From there you explore a 16-bit RPG like overworld where you can talk to NPC’s but also do platforming challenges that test Arizona’s mobility options such as super jumps and dashes. There’s also dungeons infested with predators where the mode teaches you how to counter these predators’ fighting styles (wolves for instance specializing in aerial pounces and you using anti-air attacks). You can even Paper Mario hammer the enemies by stomping near them and fight them while they are stunned. The boss fights also go beyond what you’d expect a fighting game to do as they range from Giant Cobras who fight in the background to other playable characters that use techniques that they can’t do in a regular match. One of them was Velvet the Reindeer who in her final form summons a blizzard she hides in and launches icicles. Jerk. Oh and Velvet will laugh at your corpse after an icicle hits. The story chapter was an amusing breath of fresh air for the genre and I would take it any day over something like the DBFZ story mode which not even the charm of the DB cast could save its easy slog.

What I talked about was mainly where TFH shines in Single Player content, but what kept me coming back for more was its wonderful online play. There are classic lobbies and private match options in the game, but much of my time spent online was joining the Pixel Lobbies. You have a sprite avatar of one of the 6 playable characters and there’s surprisingly amount to do in these lobbies. You can choose to fight someone causally or do shrine fights which is basically “last person who wins is the champ and lets see if the next person in line can win”. Also in the Pixel Lobby you can acquire salt from finding salt chests (which can be fought for) and use that salt to buy cosmetics from vendors Cashmere and Cap. Currently I have a Cardinal on top of Arizona so I’m “The Arizona Cardinals”. Although another way to get salt is thru a mode hidden within pixels lobbies called The Salt Mines. Players explore a mine to collect salt but also fend off waves of predators from story mode that increase in difficulty as more players clear waves. After 15 minutes the game tallies who collected the most salt and whoever does transforms into a heavily armored grappler Bear. Its designed for the Bear to be OP and chases down the remaining players, but the Bear is beatable. I managed to beat the Bear once and it was exhilarating to land the final blow.

But going back to where I had the most fun, it came from simply finding someone to fight causally which the netcode is GGPO that made for some amazingly smooth online fighting that more fighting games need to implement. Now I am not this top competitive TFH player and still need to master some harder techniques with Arizona. But I still have a great time playing this game on a weekly basis. Sometimes I’ll fight against someone who is on my level by hour count but also fight against somebody who has put far more time into the game. I had sessions where I’d lose to these more experiences players over and over while watching their advanced combos wreck me. But somehow I used the tech I knew and soon broke those streaks and won. Those moments were consistently electrifying. There is so many stories I can pull from my time playing TFH online. One time I nullified an Oleander super by doing a light stomp and then proceeded to beat that Ollie with Ari’s rushdown combos. There was one moment where my XBOX 360 controller died (I don’t use that anymore) and was up against a Tianhuo player whose aerial attacks are bad news for Ari’s ground game. But I resorted to the keyboard and somehow after I landed a lucky air grab I managed to finish that Tianhuo on the ground. Now I’m discovering winning techniques with Paprika, an Alpaca whose way too loving and will launch broccoli at you. Haven’t touched Pom much since she’s the game’s most complex character, but I salute those who have mastered the serious arts of puppies. BTW Pom is a scared lamb who summons dogs to fight. There were some many thrilling moments of me playing this game online which made for frankly some of my favorite online gaming experiences…ever. That’s saying something as both someone who will causally play 1 fighting game a year and for a genre where online has been mostly miss because they use delayed based netcode which is prone to lag (I had little to no lag when playing this GGPO fighter).

Them’s Fightin’ Herds is a prime example of not judging a book by its cover. The origins and cutesy exterior may be a turn off for many, but deep down is a triumph in the fighting game genre with easy to learn gameplay that’s hard to master combined with excellent netcode that deserves more love out there. Oh and go listen to the OST by Stuart Ferguson and Whitetail. It slaps.

2. Hades

I have never played a Supergiant game until this year. Believe it or not, I never checked out any of Supergiant’s past work and wish I could have but never found the time to do so. I also like Roguelikes alright but have varying opinions of some. I thought Wizard of Legend was sort of a slog to play even though I hear it got seriously improved, I liked Dead Cells a lot but never loved it and thought Into the Breach was both an excellent roguelike and turn based strategy title. I also never touched Hades in its Early Access form on the EGS so I entered Hades fresh on Switch. That said, I can safely say that Hades not only stands as one of the greatest Roguelikes I’ve played, but also one of the best indie games I’ve played period.

As the son of the titular God Hades named Zagreus, he is determined as hell to escape his home of the Greek Underworld. The controls for this dungeon crawling roguelike were tight as I was able to slay enemies in large sums while also dodging their attacks. There’s a good enough variety in the weapons for people to play with and see which runs you are most successful with those weapons. For me the Heart-Seeking Bow was my favorite with the Stygius Blade, The Shield of Chaos and Twin Fists in the next highest tier. In the escapes the Olympian Gods assist Zag who want him to join them on Mount Olympus. Their assistance is a huge game changer as they will give you boons that provide the attacks, dodges and Zagreus himself perks that can add to some very devastating builds to crush Hades’ security. I like so many people loved getting the Divine Dash from Athena but also An Artemis attack on the bow made for some long distance crit work of foes. Appropriate for the Godness of the Hunt. With this game being a roguelike no room is the same in a run and they’ll always be a different collection of enemies, different mini bosses or sometimes different forms of bosses in the middle and end of one of the Underworld floors.

Though Hades is a game that starts off as challenging and as expected, I died a lot early in the game. However, death isn’t treated as a negative as each run (failed or successful) adds to the overarching story of the game. Papa Hades will always scold Zagreus after he dies but you’ll get supportive conversations from folks such as Achilles and Nyx and if you happen to have nectar on you, give it to those in the House of Hades to build up relationships. Cerberus will usually be there to see you and one of his heads will take head rubs despite Hades’ insistence to “Cease coddling the dog!” The further I got into a run the more I learned about the story and learn why Zagreus wants to leave his father’s domain and got more educated about the Gods (Chthonic and Olympian) and the overall cast. It felt nice that even failed runs had economic value as I got to complete many housing projects using the resources I collected from my runs. My housing projects ranged from reopening the House of Hades’ eating quarters to building beneficial stations that can be found in a run to even giving Nyx flowers. All the darkness I collected was essential in making Zagreus himself strong before starting a new run. You bet I stocked up on Death Defiances.

Hades is also a technical marvel for an indie game. The dungeons have gorgeous hand drawn backgrounds that give ancient Greek mythology some major pa-zazz in style. While the levels are 2D Zag, enemies and NPC’s are all 3D yet their polygons fit the 2D environments perfectly. You’ll see hand drawn portraits of the cast when you speak to them and get ready because many of these characters are, so, freaking, hot. The voice acting is also amazing as you get some great performances from the whole cast of characters from Logan Cunningham’s various performances of scathing (the narrator) and boastful (Posiedon) characters, the bitter badass-ery of Megarea (Avalon Penrose) and the NYC goon like voice of my favorite training partner Skelly (who is also voiced by Darren Korb the voice of Zagreus boyo). Speaking of Korb, he killed it with the OST. This isn’t Korb’s 1^st rodeo with a Supergiant OST obviously, but I was really enamored with the tracks that combined Greek instruments with metal rock as well as some excellent vocals from Ashely Barrett. I spent a good 15-20 minutes for the 1^st time staying in Eurydice’s home hearing her sing and unlocked a few songs for my man Orpheus to play.

I was hooked to this game for weeks and loved my time with it but had some doubts if I was ever gonna clear a run. I had lots of trouble with the Elysium boss(es) early on and when I reached the final boss I thought I couldn’t succeed. But by finding the right builds I defeated the Elysium boss(es) regularly and it felt wonderful to finally take down the last challenger and escape the Underworld. As I finally cleared a run, I felt gratified that I reached Greece but learned quickly that I couldn’t put down Hades just yet. I knew I had to clear more runs and test out other builds that would help me reach the surface again. One of my favorite builds was using the Aspect of Demeter for the fists and using the drunken attack killed foes swiftly on top of the special which lets you multiply 3X the special effects after landing 12 punches (Ares’ Doom was handy here). I did switch to God Mode temporarily since I wanted to see the main story but returned to standard mode after gaining confidence that I can do normal runs. It was all worth it to finally reach a satisfying conclusion to what was a great tale that smartly connects the gameplay with the overall plot. Hades is a phenomenal, if not dang near perfect video game. It is probably the best designed game on my list, but funny enough it’s is not my GOTY. No that honor goes to a game that’s a sequel to a series that debuted in the late PS3/360 era where America’s future ain’t great but you’re doing the best you can.

1. Cook, Serve, Delicious 3?!

Heh, made you think it was something else huh? The 3rd installment of the Cook, Serve, Delicious franchise take the high pressure cooking gameplay on the road as you cook from a Foodtruck after Terragon Tower from CSD2 got bombarded by artillery, which was where your restaurant was. Sure this game was officially released last year in October in a 1.0 state, but it was in early access starting in late January. Also perhaps you didn’t notice, but a fun fact about my top 3 games are that they all entered an early access state before launching in 1.0 in 2020. Quickly I saw that CSD3 was a tough but addicting game. While I never got to play the previous CSD games, I know those had a different format where you cooked meals for customers while working a long shift. Here in CSD3, the food truck format takes you onto set levels across the USA and each level is separated in stops. The player can cook a certain number of foods in holding stations based on the customers’ demand before arriving as well as cooking some special order foods in prep stations to keep you busy if the HS foods are cooking/done. Get ready to serve that food quickly and exactly how the customer wants it too. When they ask for a Torta and ask for G. Meat, Avocadoes and Tomatoes, don’t accidently press the button for Beans (B) which is close to Avocadoes (V). America isn’t looking so good in 2042 as certain states have either become nuclear warzones from the series’ Blue War (CA, NY, MN and LA) while some have flooded (OR, VA and FL which brings me fear of staying in FL in 2042). You the chef is cooking in a food truck not only because of their restaurant being annihilated but because a couple of Androids named Whisk and Cleaver see that the chef is still alive and convinces them to build a business on the road. Whisk also finds an invitation to the Iron Cook Speedway and that’s when you decide you and your team should head over to the nation’s new capital of Nashville, TN to prove that the CSD truck is the best food truck out there.

I’ve already talked a bit about the format of how CSD is formatted. However, there is so much more to this game that frankly never has a dull moment and manages to think of fresh challenges for you as you progress. Again you can select levels where they are set in days in American towns and each day has a set number of stops. But there is a wide variety of food to make as well as each level having its own themes for you to cook. Unlike CSD2 though where working shifts at other restaurants give you a set menu, you can choose which food you want to cook. Say you have a level where its theme is “The Leaning Tower” which has Italian and French food. Early on I opted to go for Ratatouille and Lasagna because I love making those but wasn’t ready for Cannolis yet and went with Spaghetti instead. Another factor that will spice up the gameplay are food truck attacks where establishments from CSD2 have their own vehicles and will do anything to make your day worse while Cleaver fights back. Food Trucks attack once per level and some early FT attacks are The Deep which will gun down a HS Mad Max style. Later trucks get real nasty as a truck like Firekickers will hit you sideways and empty out all your HS food after working so hard to get that food ready. F Firekickers BTW. Even though CSD3 is accurately categorized as an arcade sim, it surprisingly feels like the greatest food truck RPG ever made. After beating a series of levels, you may earn a medal based on how well you did (Bronze, Silver or Gold) and will be rewarded with crumb coins and improvement parts as you level up. Crumb coins are used to customize how the interior of the food truck looks and buy new foods to add to the menu which you can practice before buying. The more expensive the food the more complicated it is to make but also the more rewarding since getting higher level food right gives you more money and experience. The improvement parts give you a great sense of progression as you can use these parts to acquire new tech such as more Holding and Prep Stations, cooking more food in a HS and even cancel those pesky FT attacks.

My journey to Nashville was accompanied by a great presentation package, which yes I know I’ve done lots of presentation paragraphs in this blog but CSD3 deserves one too. The music was outright some of the catchiest OST’s I’ve listened to all year by Jonathon Geer. He had a great selection of tunes that were pleasant but peppy tunes using Ciphered Spanish lyrics to start your day cooking such as Chakalaka. But whenever you reach the final stop a more intense song such as The Poutine Prince play to match the tone of nearly completing the day while facing some hectic adversity. While CSD3 isn’t the most technically advanced looking game, the art direction was enjoyable. From the character designs and interior truck art to the scrumptious food I made this game has some great 2D art. You even get some solid writing from looking at the bio of the foods which while not always accurate to that food’s history are still chuckle-inducing reads. In between levels you even get some deep lore about the world of CSD and Whisk and Cleaver and learn that they’re more than just simply your assistants.

This game’s campaign and me approaching it are some of my favorite playthroughs I’ve even had. CSD3 has the single greatest button input of the year where on PC you tap the CTRL Key to autoserve any ready meal and a waterfall of smiley faces will roll down on the left side of the screen. Though not every food is like that as I made no-autoserve foods that require a 2^nd step of completion. These were foods that I got overwhelmed making at first as foods like Hot Dogs and Eggs Benedict have these ingredients I needed to type correctly and serve while other customers waited and lost patience. Though this is where CSD’s Chill Mode came in handy as even though this mode won’t reward you gold medals, customers have infinite patience and I took my time to slowly practice getting better at cooking no-autoserves. After doing chill mode, I found that when getting deeper into the game I was starting to get enough practice and cook some of those no autoserve more efficiently. There were times where I told myself “I’m getting gold here in Texas using the King Potato!” which are giant baked potatoes that are some of the hardest foods and after a few tries, I got that gold medal. By challenging myself I found that I was mastering the harder foods and soon foods like King Taters, Sushi, Hamburgers, Pho, Deluxe Nachos, Ramen, Roulade, Calzones and Gazpacho became regular choices for my menus. I got really hooked on this game so much so that I saw through the ending getting to the Iron Cook Speedway. The ICS is a worthy last destination as those levels have special orders come in blistering fast in your Prep Stations and the game will launch multiple FT attacks without any defense. But after a certain amount of tries, I managed to collect gold in most of those levels. I felt an amazing sense of accomplishment getting the gold medal on the final level which was an accumulation of me simply getting better by challenging myself to cook foods I once relied on Chill Mode for and thinking of strategies of making those dishes quicker.

But on top of how much of an amazing game CSD3 is and how I saw through that campaign, CSD3 has an undisputable argument on why it should be my GOTY. It’s a rare argument that any video game can have, but it’s also my GOTY because it rejuvenated my interest in cooking by seeking out recipes for foods I never made/heard of before. I mentioned earlier that CSD3 has a vast selection of cuisine and many of these foods were international meals I just learned about thru it. It also encouraged me to cook these foods in real life. In this year where we had a pandemic that altered the restaurant industry, cooking food at home become more important. I made food such as Ayam Goreng, Croque Monsuir, Kachumbari, Rote Grutze, Japanese Crepes, Chakalaka, Khachapuri and so on for myself and my family. Nearly all of them had delicious results! I have a whole twitter thread that recaps what I’ve cooked from the CSD menu this year.

Anyways if it isn’t obvious, I absolutely love Cook, Serve, Delicious 3 and its without a doubt my Top Game of 2020. It was an incredibly addicting experience and something that inspired me to practice an essential life skill.