1179	1	21	2
Forum Posts	Wiki Points	Following	Followers

Tomomb's Miiverse Memorial Game of the Year List 2017

Here is the complete list of the 13 games I played this year released in 2017. I suppose I'm coming to terms with the fact that I don't buy a ton of games in their release year, and that's okay. I just hope I don't miss out on a lot of cool smaller scale games that can slip through the cracks.

I did get around to finally buying Grand Theft Auto V, played half of the story and tried to understand Online for a while. This year was also a dip in the toe for playing console online games. Ontop of GTA a friend and I tried out The Division, Destiny, and Drawn to Death, but ended up playing Battlefront the most.

We also tried a bit of the Mass Effect: Andromeda multiplayer since I downloaded the generous 10 hour long demo. Didn't make it very far in the story. One of my favorite franchises, yet at no point leading up to this year's release did I feel excited for it. Even after playing for three or four hours I can't picture any of the characters from that game.

I also tried the demo for NeiR: Automata since I heard some cool things about it. But the aesthetics and the game play turned me off right away. Maybe one day down the line when it's cheap.

Games I really want to play, but didn't stand a chance because of Nintendo this year were Horizon Zero Dawn, Assassin's Creed: Origins and Wolfenstien II: The New Colossus.

Another game I got around to playing this year was Batman: The Telltale Series. Despite the buggy first impression I enjoyed it and it's I reminder I need to play The Walking Dead Season 3.

Now to Round out the list of 2017 games I'd like to get around to: Metroid : Samus Returns, Steam World Dig 2, and Thimbleweed Park.

EDIT: Thanks to the steam sale I have some late entries. I picked up a few games, but it looks like What Remains of Edith Finch and Night in the Woods are the ones I'll get around to before the new year. Time to find some Miiverse drawings to re-contextualize...

...also I started playing Wolfenstein: The New Colossus before the year ended, but I am happy to say, it was too late to be a contender and I don't have to edit this list anymore.

List items

1. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Zelda is my favorite franchise in games. Breath of the Wild throws away so many of the conventions that I love so much about this series. But it still feels like Zelda!
The Wind Waker had one of my all time favorite combat systems. Enemies could hurt each other. You could be creative and use any of your items. Even pick pockets with the grappling hook. You could pick up an enemy's weapon and throw it at them.
Breath of the Wild builds on this freedom of expression in every aspect of the gameplay. Getting up a steep hill is a common frustration in many open world games. Zelda solves this problem by letting you climb anything!
I thought I was finished with this game, but the DLC is pulling me back in. In ways I wasn't expecting. I had sworn off upgrading any more gear or collecting more koroks, but it's looking like I just needed a little break from that world. I am totally ready to spend many more hours in Hyrule on top of the 150 or so I spent this spring.
2. Super Mario Odyssey

This game is a master class at crafting the collect-athon. The game begins, it's an all you can eat smorgasbord of Power Moons. Everywhere you go you can't help but run into Moons. At this stage you're free to collect as many as you can or keep keep moving on to the next kingdom. Beat each kingdom's boss or not, up to you.
Once you gain the ability to freely travel between kingdoms, you get a whole new batch of Moons to collect! Reason to return to old kingdoms if you cleared them or beat those bosses if you didn't and collect moons until you're ready to move on.
Later in the game moons start to become scarce. But Odyssey does its best to keep you away from the internet guides and keep you in game. If the Uncle Amiibo map locations aren't enough, Talkatoo can tell you the name of the Moon to give you more clues.
Also, coins are more meaningful then they have ever been in a Mario game.
Tip: The best costume is "random"
3. Cuphead

Gorgeous and inspirational! This is what I wanted games to look like back in the SNES days, before 3D was the craze. I wanted to play cartoons. This homage to 1930s cartoons is particularly inspired. It was an era where the artist's imagination ruled and the story was secondary.
I was afraid when I heard this game was going to be difficult. I don't normally seek out hard games. But no matter what I was going to play Cuphead. I appreciate now, more than ever, how satisfying a well fought win is.
However the devil still holds my soul. My greatest moment was when I beat three bosses in a day to complete the second island. This was after a week or so of no progress.
4. Uncharted: The Lost Legacy

Naughty Dog does fantastic work. Great cast, production, and writing. I'd hate to undervalue the work they do by saying it's just more of what made Uncharted 4 good, but it's true. My favorite improvement to the gameplay that game did was allow the stealth combat option and the same is true here.
Uncharted 4 had some open areas, but the goal was still fairly linear. A portion of Lost Legacy bucks this trend by adding a truly open world area with optional objectives. Explore as much or as little as you like.
Chloe and Nadine make a great pairing. Nate can stay at home playing Crash Bandicoot for all I care.
5. Star Wars Battlefront II

I knew I wanted to play this because it's the first AAA Star Wars story game in years. It may be short, but I enjoyed playing in this Star Wars play ground. Shriv, a rebel Duros, is the breakout character. He's like the Alex Navarro of a Galaxy Far Far away.
Dice is releasing the story in chunks for free. As of my writing I've only played the first pack and it looks like there's more to come. The initial story felt oddly cut off not knowing more was to come and this one ended just as I was getting into it. I feel like this would be much more satisfying experience once it is all released.
I also hoped I might convince a friend to play online with me. But, to my surprise, I played quite a bit of this game online by myself. Not something I do often. I was motivated by trying to unlock all of the Characters.
I did get a glimpse of why people can really get into games like this. It was about finding opportunities in the chaos. When you do great, it's a blast, but when you can't get a break it's a grind. Getting lucky by flanking a bunch of troopers in one match and ended up at the top of the leader board one match was a highlight.
I loved seeing the variety of environments Dice lovingly crafted in tribute to Star Wars. I don't like not having a choice over what map I play, but I can't suggest a better way to do it. It was annoying when I only got Jakku over and over. When I thought I'd seen them all I played Kashyyyk and thought it was one of the most beautiful maps in the game.
6. What Remains of Edith Finch

To know certain members of your family only by the stories told about them is something I deeply identify with. What Remains of Edith Finch is terribly tragic as somberly deals with death in the family. But it also celebrates imagination as it tells these stories in a beautifully entertaining and humorous way.
I don't want to reveal too much, but the variety and creativity of the ways these stories is delivered ranges from charming to profoundly inventive. There's a lot more game here than I could have expected to play in only three hours. But it never felt rushed, it's paced impossibly well.
7. Snake Pass

A fantastically unique traversal mechanic applied to the classic 3D platforming structure. I had a lot of fun slithering around and collecting all the things to collect in this game. It scratched all the itches one of those jumping games should, only without the jumping. Looks damn good too.
8. Night in the Woods

At the time of writing I have not yet completed Night in the Woods.
Probably the main reason I wanted to play this game is because I love the character designs. I was put off initially because the bulk of the game is written dialogue. Now that I've played for a few hours I get a kick out of the writing enough to want to talk to every side-character, every day. But it is wearing thin, I feel like it's gone a bit long and I'm not sure where it's going.
In someways I identify with Mae, the protagonist, in others she's much more proactively childish than I was even as a kid. So many people were pressuring me to find a job I thought it was an option in the game to choose between smashing light bulbs with your friends or doing the responsible thing...
I may be rambling at this point, but I feel the the game is doing the same thing. It's suddenly turned into a mystery ghost story out of the blue, but I'll reserve judgement for when I see where it wraps up.
9. Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle

I finally snagged a Switch in anticipation for Odyssey in early September. I got Zelda on the Wii U and the rest of the Switch's library was dominated by multiplayer games. Mario + Rabbids was the only game I saw myself picking up at the time. If I had known Picross S was coming soon I might have saved myself the $90.
Not saying I didn't enjoy Mario + Rabbids, I just didn't get very far. I love the presentation of this game and it's wonderful Ubisoft made this bizarre collaboration.
This is not a genre that I'm super familiar with. Once the difficulty ramped up I bowed out. After hearing how many of the Giant Bomb crew stopped playing in world 3 I decided to try and make it that far. The first fight in world 3 did me in.
10. Picross S

I love Picross and this is more Picross.
I played every game on the 3DS. The new look on the Switch is welcome, but ultimately there's not much more to offer here but some quality time wasting on the train.
After playing Picross 3D: Round 2 last year, this feels a bit dull in comparison. I bought Picross 3D this year too, on the Wii U, but I would have preferred to play that on a portable system.
11. The Disney Afternoon Collection

Some of my earliest video game memories included playing the Chip 'n Dale NES game at my day care. I picked this up to flesh out some of those vague memories. It was fun trivializing any challenges I faced by A) not being a dumb kid anymore and B) using the rewind feature to beat the game in minutes.
It was fun looking back at some of the other games in this collection unsure if I played them or not at the time. It ultimately didn't hold my interest long enough to finish all of the games in the collection.
12. Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp

The main loop of this game is to buy/craft furniture to impress your animal friends. This puts the creativity and ownership of your camp at odds with progression.
I found out how easy it is to feed right into that loop. I needed that KK Slider chair, so I had to obsessively give gifts to all the animals I could! Animal Crossing is traditionally more chill and gives the player more agency over how they want to play.
I think I'm done with this game... but that tree house would be pretty cool...
13. Drawn to Death

This was complimentary on PlayStation Plus. As a doodler myself I appreciated the concept. But nothing about the execution made me want to play it a second time.