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MrSlapHappy

Working on GOTY...updating my status to get rid of my last status from years ago..

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GOTY 2019

Thanks to Humble Bundle and Game Pass on PC, I have managed to play at least 25 games from this year. I'm not sure I have ever had to spend so much time cutting down a list. Usually, I'm scrambling to even make it to 10 games.

Like most years, the holiday sale season has given me the opportunity to do a bit of catch up before finalizing a list. Unlike most years though, the games I am only now getting to are not easy to slot into my list with only a few hours into each. The late additions of Sekiro, Outer Wilds, and Disco Elysium are difficult to line up between them, let alone in the greater list. Games like Monster Hunter: World, Opus Magnum, Total War: Warhammer II, were late additions that found a place on the list pretty easily. I think, this list will be a work in progress for a bit while I sort through these big hitters.

List items

  • Slay the Spire is really good. I was pre-conditioned to like Slay the Spire from countless podcasts while it was in early access. Despite all the talk, when I finally got hands on, it really was as good as all the talk.

    Run based games are tough for me. Usually I fall off somewhere between the introductory runs and just before the unlocks really start to open up the possibility space. I start to tire of the base mechanics before it really starts to get interesting and then I move on before I've even hit the actual stride of the game.

    With Slay the Spire, I had barely gotten a handle on the Ironclad when the Silent was unlocked. By the time I had had a halfway decent run with the Silent, the Defect unlocked. The Defect is a little different than the other two classes. Each of them has complexity that unravels as you get more cards and get deeper into a run. The Defect starts weird and gets weirder the more cards you get. It has orbs and orb slots, they rotate, they change, something happens every turn whether you do something or not. It was intimidating, but also a puzzle to unpick completely separate from the progression of the game.

    That was when I started taking turns with my wife. She only plays a few games a year and generally focuses on games that are mechanics heavy. A hundred hours later she has turned her Stardew farm into a economy crushing wine manufacturing facility (RIP Pam), a self-sufficient Dwarf colony, an impenetrable RimWorld compound, etc. She had to understand how these damn orbs work.

    No small amount of this game's pleasure came from being able to discuss tactics with my wife. Doing runs, comparing notes, and refining play were all exciting and added so much to an already great game. The game play itself is meditative and engaging, but not overwhelming. Each hand of cards has an optimal sequence and then its time for the next one. Much like a single turn of Into the Breach, its just hard enough to make it interesting, but not so stressful to cause paralysis. Death can come fast, but its never that disappointing to lose. Another start means a new relic and a new combination of puzzles to start working through one at a time.

  • Outer Wilds makes exploring feel good. It is a game about exploring a place and picking apart smaller systems on each new planet. Each planet has a mystery that sheds light on the greater mystery of the game. In the process you discover an interesting story and great characters. It is a beautiful clockwork masterpiece that blends great storytelling with fun mechanics. Playing Outer Wilds this year was some of the most fun and interesting time I have had all year.

    Despite that previous statement, there were also some moments where I just didn't want to play it anymore. High highs and low lows, I guess. As things start to narrow down and the mystery was nearly completely revealed I started to feel more and more lost. "Alright, that's what's going on here, what now?" Or at least that's what I would have asked my monitor at that point had I not resorted to reading a guide an hour or so before.

    When I started hitting roadblocks where cycle after cycle wouldn't result in much progress I gave up and started reading a few articles to answer my question. In most cases my question was basically "Do I really have to get through here or am I looking at this wrong?" I was so sick of falling to my death only to try it again in a couple minutes.

    I really liked most of what I played except for the few parts that I didn't and ended up stepping through with some assistance. I'll say it was worth seeing it to the end. I even exclaimed to my monitor during the finale. My monitor cut to black and then started scrolling credits.

  • I am a sorry cop that over-analyzes the smallest details and has only barely managed to hide my recent incompetence from my superiors and people of importance in the immediate area. My partner on the other hand is disappointed that I am such a screw-up.

    Disco Elysium is pretty great. I haven't finished yet so I am not sure where it will finally rank in my list. I have really enjoyed the writing and the characters so far so I am comfortable with its current place for now.

    It is a master class in making a world feel like a real place that has tons of detail everywhere. Its not all relevant details, but that's not a problem. I get excited every time my character gets a new thought bubble or some part of my psyche chimes in on a conversation. I just want to poke at this system and just keep digging deeper.

    I get the same feeling of uncovering a mystery and piecing something together as I do while playing the Outer Wilds. But with Disco Elysium, I just double-click to run over to the mailbox and then click through dialogue to find out what my brain thinks about the mail service. It's much more chill as it were. More chill than piloting a space ship past asshole space fish...much more chill.

  • This will be the first Fire Emblem that I have sunk significant time into. I burned out after the time jump. 50 hours-ish in, telling myself that I needed to see what everyone looked like after that event. One mission of grinning and fist-pumping later, I just...didn't keep going. I want to see it to the end, I need to see how it plays out. Black Eagles took a mighty blow and I need to hear why from those responsible, in their own words. Probably before I put a sword through their heart...

    Anyways, murder fantasies aside, the students are the stars here. Every single one of them is a cookie cutter copy of each of several very specific cliched characters. Except they aren't that once you start increasing relationship levels. They start out as boring reruns of the same damn characters as always and they are gradually fleshed out into fascinating and unique individuals.

    I'm not sure there has ever been a game where I have gone from liking bare-faced generic caricatures out of irony to honestly loving them after they had developed a bit.

    The rest of the mechanics are fine, fetch missions in the monastery and passable tactical combat. It's not especially difficult and I found that I could control the difficulty by bringing in more or less low leveled characters. It all serves to give me more time with my lovely students.

  • I get really sweaty playing Ring Fit. I don't play it for very long and yet there I am, sweaty. Sweaty means that I am getting a good workout, right? That I am getting better at being more fit?

    I want to exercise more and the ring thing that makes me do stupid looking moves sure makes it seem like that is what I am doing. More importantly, I keep coming back. Except last week...Mr. Ring, please don't be mad at me. I had a bunch of errands and then I really need to take care of some bills and...I'll go change into shorts, I can probably fit in a 10 minute thing real quick.

  • I audibly gasped when I saw the first trailer for Satisfactory. "First person Factorio! I love Factorio!" You know what? It's kinda like first person Factorio. Except those stupid space dogs... they can kindly go to hell.

    It is just so satisfying to build a system that just keeps going without my input. I want to build it a little bigger...But, what if I made my copper more efficient? Then, this could split and feed both of those. More resources, more inputs, more outputs, more resources and so on. Make it bigger, make it better, then do it again.

    My brother-in-Law, a mostly shooters gamer asked me "Ok, but what's the point?" I said it was to unlock more resources to build more factory. He asked if that was it. "Yeah, but check out how this truck rams into this wall to deliver my coal and then awkwardly turns around to go get more." He laughed and then I laughed, then we played Smash Brothers.

  • Sekiro is my favorite take on Souls' combat. It makes me feel like a badass way more often than any other Souls game before (No PS4, thus no Bloodborne). I was able to narrow it down to one simple mechanic that makes all the difference: The same button you use to block is the button you use to parry.

    If you miss a parry, you will probably block instead. If you miss a parry, you aren't probably going to die. If you block an attack and don't die, you get another chance to parry again. Next time, you might parry.

    If you finally get that parry, it's glorious. Boom. Now in the moment after the parry but before your counterattack, you float in the bliss of mastery...or luck. Or you can scream obscenities and smash the attack button to end that poor bastard's life once and for all. I live for that moment. Also, the Mikiri counter is possibly the most badass thing to ever be able to pull off. With a button press. Just press and then your ninja just says "Fuck, your, spear!"

    I also really enjoy exploring the world. I feel like a ninja sneaking around and