by shinofkod
Giant Bomb extended the voting for Community Game of the Year, and thus I managed to squeeze another game, a very good one at that, into my gaming year and have thus altered my list. The original post is a bit more editorial in nature and includes some bonus awards. Anyway, on to the reworked list.
Showing 1-10 of 11 items
I'm a running freak. Running has for a long time been my primary method of exercise, and really, the only one I've been able to stick to. Over the last several years I've ran 4-6 miles a day on 3-4 days a week on the regular with some significant periods where I'd do more than that almost daily. Treadmill, outside, often even in brutal winter conditions I'd go running. However, exercise, much like stocks, is something you should diversify. The singular focus on running had me deal with a lot of injuries over the years until I finally figured out how to listen to my body, and even then taking appropriate rest between sessions has been a struggle that has caused me undue anxiety. Early in 2019 I tried to get into weightlifting, but balancing it and running and not having the funds to afford a true fitness professional in my life I found it to easy to injure myself, and much more severely, than I would in running. So I put down the weights after a few months and just went back to running. When this game first appeared on the horizon I took notice, but didn't give it too much mind share since I figured this would be something along the lines of Wii Fit in that it's not a true workout, but as its release approached it sounded more and more like this might be a valid second pillar for my fitness strategy. It'd be something I could do on my recovery days from running. As it turns out this has been an excellent low-impact addition to my fitness plan that I use even on running days. It has allowed me to scale back my running on certain days which has saved me a great deal of physical and mental exhaustion and helped me get a quality workout on areas of my body that running doesn't address. Perhaps more surprising than that is that the game wrapper for this fitness program is really fun. Both the execution and presentation of this game is very strong, and it's that tandem quality that makes it feel less like work and more like a game. Much like a classic JRPG as the game unfolds your experience gains unlock you new skills and powers and you have to start making decisions about your exercises you have equipped at the time and your inventory of potions. Eventually you even unlock a skill tree, and then an expansion of it. The world being so bright and colorful and the music being kind of catchy helps to distract from what would normally be a monotonous inside workout. The game has the good sense to someone provide context clues to your workout if it senses something wrong with your form in both voice and text on the bottom of the screen in-case your listening to a podcast while playing the game. Even the game's goofy story is better than I dared imagine it would be, but honestly the fact that they managed to craft a product that lets me have fun while doing what would normally be an incredibly boring inside workout is an achievement. This could be a one-time thing or it could be the dawn of an era of actually quality fitness games, but no matter what the case, and no matter how much horrifying slash fiction this game's story mode results in, it's certainly my Game of the Year.
One question I've litigated to myself, re-litigated, and litigated again over the years is the question of which Dragon Quest game, 5, 7, or 8 was the greatest in the series? With the release of Dragon Quest 11 S - Definitive Edition that question becomes much easier to answer, because it is not only the best Dragon Quest game I've ever played it's also the best JRPG I've ever played. It plays to the same visual strengths that Dragon Quest 8 had in terms of the world being vibrant and the characters, particularly your cast of heroes and the enemies you face in battle, being full of life and personality. Honestly the strength of these things alone is enough to carry it into the top 4 games in the series, but it does a number of things to separate it from other Dragon Quest games and put itself at the front of the pack. The crafting system in this game is brilliant, particularly here in the definitive edition where you can craft from almost anywhere in the world. It's not just gather a few items and forge an item from that, instead you can craft and or upgrade items playing a mini-game using the forge. As the game moves along you get new skills to make your performance in the forge more consistent. I really enjoyed this and thought it was a fun new pillar to consider when making my equipment decisions in the game. The actual story is so much better than any other Dragon Quest, even VII, which I have a lot of respect for. The start is traditional enough, but the execution is superb and I feel like this game does a better job of raising the stakes than any other game in the series. Where it ends up going genuinely surprised me. They packed more and better adventure into this game than ever bfore, and that's to say nothing of the new material they added to the main story for this definitive edition and the fun subplot of the 8-bit world. The combat system is very traditional Dragon Quest in that it's fast and offers a great deal of variety for approaches to combat. The character skill trees they used for this particular iteration of the game in place of the job system do a quality enough service of giving you some choice throughout much of the game, but are rendered somewhat moot by the true end game as you'll have acquired virtually everything. Even so the characters each have a unique feel to them and you can approach end game situations in any number of ways. In almost any other year this would have been an easy choice for game of the year, but this year saw the release of a product that I think is transformative.
This right here, is an absolute gem of a game. The original Yooka-Laylee was considered to be a spiritual successor to the N64 collectathon era of 3D platforming, and so when I heard this was being made I paid it no mind because that's not the type of game I care about. Little did I know that Team 17's new title was absolutely nothing like that. There's a lot about this game that helps it to stand out from other platformers, the most obvious one being the titular Impossible Lair. Much like in "Breath of the Wild" you can enter this final level at anytime, but the catch is that the more levels you clear and, in some cases, very light puzzles you solve, the more hits you can take before your duo becomes vulnerable to death. The final level is ultra challenging and gave me a feeling I hadn't had since playing Celeste. Finally clearing the last level was an awesome adrenaline rush and one of the highest points of the gaming year for me, maybe the highest. While the Impossible Lair itself is a brilliant splatformer section the rest of the game is very different and feels like an impossibly great version of Donkey Kong Country (speaking only in comparison to the original trilogy as I haven't put enough time into the newer ones) that I didn't think was possible. Much like the original DKC series I feel like the enemy placement in a way works as a canvas of sorts that lets the player play in a fashion that feels almost artistic. The game consistently makes you feel super cool and skilled as you take enemy groupings down and navigate platforming challenges much like those original DKC games did. One thing I find remarkable is that this game doesn't bog you down with collectibles in a way that would slow the game's pace to a crawl. There are few things that turn me off from a game faster than an overload of collectibles. In gameplay terms the collectibles in this game do not have a huge impact on your moment to moment play and I feel like that's a credit to good game design. If it was something you were having to worry about constantly it would drag the game down quite a bit. Each world has 5 large coins in it for you to collect to unlock the various progress gates throughout the game. Normally that type of mechanic would raise a red flag for me, but they keep the prices on the progress gates rather low and so even playing normally you really shouldn't find yourself more than a few short at any point. As you play more and understand the "language" of the game most of the coin positions will become quite obvious as well and will usually be more of either a light puzzle or platforming challenge to reach them. The only other collectable of real note are the tonics spread across the overworld map. You can use the tonics to modify the game's difficulty in certain ways or unlock some miscellaneous effects such as graphic filters. There is some very light puzzle solving in the overhead hub world. Initially I was concerned this was going to pull me out of the game, but it's very light and as you figure out the mechanics of the world itself I actually found myself enjoying it a great deal. If you ever do get stuck the game has numerous signposts willing to provide hints for a fee. I'm not a music person but I thought the soundtrack in this was very good as well. Honestly I'm at a loss to find pretty much anything negative to say about this game. It was damn fun and I look forward to spending a bit more time in it even having finished it.
Ape Out is short. The game takes no more than an hour or two at most to blaze through start to finish, but it's such a visceral experience. I think of the games on this list, this more than anything is on here because of its intertwining of gameplay and music. Playing this game I felt my very being merged with that of the titular ape. My only focus? Survival at all costs. This game is just so intense and certainly had the best "game feel" of any game I played this year. I need to play it again.
Anyone who knows me can testify that I often champion the virtues of Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind as one of the greatest games of all time. It was the first game where I felt a real sense of wonderment at exploring and ever since then it's a high I've been chasing. Cube World? It doesn't quite reach that height, but it offers a ton of adventures to be had across multiple continents in a massive world. Unlike most games of its ilk the mechanics of Cube World ensure that no sooner do you reach the top of the food chain that you find yourself back at the bottom of it. The basic loop of the gameplay is discovering quests and completing them to build your gear up, but no-sooner do you become mighty and solve the mysteries of the area you're in it's time to go to the next area, and aside from certain specially marked items nothing you carry over from that zone you were in to the next has any real power. For some people this is a turn-off, a massive one, but for me it just means the adventure begins anew. This game is freaking awesome and people are sleeping on it.
I respect and love Tetris, and my appreciation of this game and its brilliance has only grown with age. I never imagined that this game would be Nintendo's entry into the Battle Royale field but I've loved every second of playing it. The fairly priced DLC pack adds a suite of single player modes to round out the package that makes this a great product. Also, I can think of no better podcast game released this year. Will definitely be playing a lot of this in 2020, and maybe just maybe I'll finally win a game. Certainly had more than a few heartbreaks at this point.
It's well documented at this point that the interface for level design in Mario Maker 2 isn't quite as smooth and snazzy as that of the original, and that this game is more a half-step than a true sequel, but it' still a lot of fun to make levels and drink of the bottomless content well that this game is. Anyone who knows Mario knows what you're getting with this game, and that's still a great product. Hopefully in the near future Nintendo does something to better serve the game's community, but I'm not gonna hold my breath on that one.
And now for something completely different! Neo Cab was a game that called out to me with it's cyberpunk aesthetic and near-future premise of a world where autonomous driving vehicles have almost completely taken over. The gameplay which is almost entirely having conversations with people riding in your cab, was filled with really interesting, sometimes bizarre exchanges that despite occurring in this cyberpunk future are still relevant in today's society. The overarching main plot, while not as compelling as many of your passengers own tales is interesting enough to drive the game forward. I think it's also worth shouting out the game's graphical style. The camera angles and character art are very well done and definitely memorable. Overall I can recommend Neo Cab as one of the better visual novel type games I've played in recent memory (alongside Doki Doki Literature Club).
I didn't get to play as much of this in multiplayer as I wanted to this year. I just got distracted by other games, but I had a real good with this while I was into it. I enjoyed the story and am excited by the opportunities the ending presents. The actual fighting in this is probably the best it has ever been in the series. I think I could do without the borderline Final Fantasy summon length cut scenes for the desperation attacks at this point, but other than that I think this game felt super solid all around and again, hopefully I find some more time to play it.
These types of games don't really hold my attention very well, but alongside my gaming pal I had a good time with this one. I was a huge fan of Titanfall 2 and this game has its smooth controls and fast moving gameplay. Would I have vastly preferred a Titanfall 3? Yeah, but this is still a fun game. I've long since dropped off, but I do hear generally positive buzz about the new characters that have been added and I still look back fondly on my time playing it. Maybe I'll return to it someday?