The hamfisted politics being thrown in randomly continues to really turn me off. PUBG is was a hit because it's almost time for real war and killing in the current political climate... wtf was that Alex?
I am puzzled and kinda tired each time this comes up in one way or another in the podcasts - granted I don't live in the US but the sub-context makes it seem that because the elections didn't turn out as they wanted the end times are near.
Like I accepted a long time ago that I won't agree with the crew on politics the majority of the time, but I'm still able to enjoy some of their political talk. But Brad and Alex in particular get so superlative when they're talking about politics that shows become hard to watch/listen to. Obviously it's their platform so it's their prerogative, but I personally find it really off putting.
The argument for PUBG is really silly. They're arguing it like it's "biggest debut", when it's "best debut". Cuphead didn't necessarily have as huge of an impact as PUBG, but it's actually, you know, a good, complete game.
It feels like they're constantly just putting in because "it's got the industry spinning" etc. which I don't think should really be the point of GOTY, especially on a site like this.
The hamfisted politics being thrown in randomly continues to really turn me off. PUBG is was a hit because it's almost time for real war and killing in the current political climate... wtf was that Alex?
I am 100% with Alex when it comes to the top 3. I haven't played Night in the Woods but if the descriptions within are accurate I'd say it hangs, but I would 1000% put Yakuza 0 over Wolfenstein. In fact, I'm between Yakuza and Nier for winner.
"cultural appropriation" again, without explaining anything? They've brought this up during Best Looking category (along with somemthing concerning Cuphead) and did not bother to actually expand on it - why bring it up at all? I still don't know what this is about and left me confused overall. If their intention is bringing social issues into the spotlight, they're not doing a good job at it.
Also yeah, this category seems like a mess so far, I'm with Jeff on this one.
Completely agree on that. They've brought up that stuff for both of those games and they feel REALLY silly to me. Even though (simply because of different worldviews) I'd still probably disagree with them had they expanded on those points, I feel the lack of explanation severely hurts my view of these deliberations.
Also, I'm not a huge Nier fan but it got completely screwed here. This was like the perfect category for it.
Yeah I realize Im completely in the minority when it comes to Persona, but as a MegaTen fan who can't STAND Persona 3-5, the soundtracks were the only redeeming factors for me (and Persona 3's soundtrack for the most part fits it, Im talking more about the battle themes). But I legitimately cannot understand how people like Persona 5's. I love corny anime ass vocal songs, hell I loved Persona 1 PSP's vocal tracks (outside of the game, FUCK that soundtrack in terms of in game), but the vocal tracks here I actively disliked, and the same goes for pretty much all of the other music. Like what the fuck is that first dungeon music? It's fucking TERRIBLE.
I'm completely on board with Jeff as I'm 24 minutes in. "Best World" to me is mostly "Best Worldbuilding", the game that does the best job at creating a world you're really interested in, regardless of how you're able to interact with it. For example, Freedom Wars would qualify for this IMO even though you dont really interact with the world that much.
And Worldbuilding is NOT story.
Edits: Yakuza 0 getting cut is the HEIST OF THE FUCKING CENTURY. That game built its world (both in terms of 1980s tokyo and osaka and 1980s yakuza) fucking PERFECTLY. Alex really short changed it here, yes they have had Kamurocho throughout the series but it changes RADICALLY throughout the series, and that doesnt even get into how the substories and minigames fucking MAKE it.
At 49 minutes in now and I literally want to murder brad holy shit.
Having finished.
Fucking WOW. Zelda winning to me is so UNBELIEVABLY wrong it's actually insane. For me, pretty much everything they said about it being one of the first games to truly "do" open worlds in an engaging way was how I felt about Horizon. I went into both of those games and went "wow these look like generic cookie cutter ubisoft open worlds". Zelda went a little beyond that for me, but Horizon went WAY beyond it.
Seeing that Persona 5 was in the top 3, before I finish watching this I have to say that The only thing I liked about Persona 3 and 4 were their soundtracks, and I didn't even like that about Persona 5. Its soundtrack SUCKED (except for being able to use SMT If...'s battle theme, but that's DLC)
Edits:
The argument that the Zelda OST is bad because it's different then previous games is really dumb.
The Yakuza 0 "Waluigi music" they linked was not the proper one they referred to as waluigi music in Beast in the East, the proper one is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U63dnNFG1TU. Also anyone who would not listen to Justice -Shinpan- on its own (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLDo-jHcvAQ) is WRONG.
Going to their Persona 5 discussions: As I said before, the soundtracks were pretty much the only things I liked about 3 and 4. When it comes to the vocals however, that's something I only think worked in 4 in the game (since 4 had this really lighthearted (even more lighthearted than 3 or 5) atmosphere) in terms of fitting with the game. With Persona 3 things like Mass Destruction and Burn My Dread Final Battle "work" in the same way koi no yokushiryoku worked for me in MGS: Peace Walker, where it's so ridiculous and out of place that I'm ok with it, but whereas koi no yokushiryoku was that for one moment at the end of the game, Persona 3 has that the ENTIRE game so that excuse wears thin. Also saying you're killing God at the end of Persona 5 does a huge disservice to the end of SMT2 where you LITERALLY KILL THE GOD.
I definitely agree with Abby when it comes to Nier vs Cuphead. Nier has some fucking kickass songs, but I feel like cuphead was such a perfect soundtrack, as in every track fits the style of the game perfectly, every track fits its context perfectly, and every track is AWESOME.
What I've seen of Life is Strange has been laughably bad (though, to be fair, I can say the same about the original, though I would say this seems worse).
I feel like cuphead should be included, yes it was announced beforehand but it had very little press up until this year.
As a side note, double A is not really a new term, like I'd use that to describe the majority of Japanese devs.
Also PUBG being allowed for not only best surprise but also best multiplayer and (presumably) GOTY but not Fire Pro is fucking RIDICULOUS, especially seeing as Fire Pro was less "early access" at its initial early access launch than PUBG is TODAY. And the argument against it ("we consider the full bredth of the game's history") made absolutely no sense, seeing as that "consideration of history" is more to do with the initial expectations being very different than what came this year, not it being surprising then and coming out this year being what was expected from that surprise.
And how did they like Sonic Colors but not Generations?
For me PUBG doesn't really belong (ignoring the early access stuff), when it came out I saw it as pretty much another "meme game" (along with things like dead by daylight, H1Z1 (at least the battle royale thing, which always confused me because I didn't pay any attention to H1Z1 outside its announcement and associate it more with the original DayZ clone, sort of like what's going on with Fortnite) etc.), and while it is undeniably huge, it really does not stray far from those other similar games (especially H1Z1), besides the magnitude of its success. Like, H1Z1 was (from what I can tell with my purposefully limited exposure to these types of games) pretty big, especially among streamers, which is also where a lot of PUBG's success comes from. If you told me at the beginning of the year "An 'experimental and emergent' early access game got really popular on steam and was giant on twitch" I wouldn't bat an eye. Unless there is something big in terms of gameplay I'm missing (which there very well could be seeing as I haven't played it), I don't see how this even makes the shortlist, let alone win.
Ultimately I feel like this category should be split into Biggest Surprise and Best Surprise (or Biggest Surprise should replace it). They're pretty separate things imo. To me, "biggest surprise" is the gap between expectations and reality, whereas Best Surprise is the best of the things where that gap meets some sort of minimum requirement to be considered "surprising". For example, for me Breath of The Wild was probably my Biggest Surprise given that I have never liked Zelda games and this looked like an even worse Zelda game, but it ended up being the first Zelda I enjoyed, despite not being one of my favorite games of the year. On the other hand my Best Surprise would've been Everybody's Golf, seeing as I had no idea that was coming out and absolutely loved it.
P.S. How can you not look at RE7 and have it scream "classic RE"? It's pretty much RE1 with a different perspective/gameplay.
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