Posts Tagged ‘goty’

30 Dec

Best of 2024: Top 15 Games

Posted by vagrantesque in Best of 2024, Games, Lists. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , .

Look, I know I tripped over myself to emphasise repeatedly just how good 2023 was as a videogame release year, and I stand by that; it really was an all-timer. However, while that year had a real “something for everyone” vibe going on amongst its treasure trove of big-budget heavy-hitters with huge review scores, 2024 was arguably just as good if viewed through a narrower genre lens. If you’re a fan of RPGs – especially if you partake in the Japanese variety – the sheer onslaught of quality that hurtled past you this year was every bit as crazy as in 2023; maybe even more so. The more mainstream western genres did show up by the end, thanks largely to a resurgent Microsoft/Ubisoft double act (which was nonetheless blunted by the late delays of Avowed and Assassin’s Creed Shadows respectively) and a very important EA release, but the weebs of the world will likely remember this one for a long, long time.

I must also give a shout-out to the general cadence of the releases this year: I wasn’t truly overwhelmed by the volume of releases on my personal hype list at any point throughout the year, but from mid-January to yesterday, I was always playing something good.

Of the fifteen games that make the 2024 list, only a third were developed by Western studios, and only one of those is American. That latter stat may be an all-time low for this website, but not simply due to the Japanese gaming heartland’s banner year: China and Korea also took larger chunks out of my playtime pie chart than ever before, and I certainly wasn’t alone in that experience. We’ve also got two “reimaginings” on the list – otherwise known as re-releases too ambitious for last week’s countdown – and one of the longest honourable mentions sections ever.

What we don’t have, unfortunately, is Dragon’s Dogma II, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Dragon Ball Sparking! Zero (a few dragons going about this year), Another Crab’s Treasure, Visions of Mana, Warhammer: Space Marine II, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Lorelai and the Laser Eyes, Tekken 8, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, UFO 50, Super Monkey Ball: Banana Rumble, Star Wars Outlaws, Marvel Rivals, Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden, The Plucky Squire, Metal Slug Tactics, GranBlue Fantasy: Relink, 1000xRESIST, or Mario & Luigi: Brothership. All of these games were either on my wishlist, briefly owned, or even started by me throughout the year, but fell victim to the relentless passage of time, soft reviews, and/or the always-rolling videogame release calendar, preventing me from reaching the five-hour playtime threshold I use to determine eligible games. There’s also no Palworld or Hades II, because we’re still miles away from a year with a dry enough schedule to convince me to break my personal rule against games with some form of “early access” tag.

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VR BEST OF 2024 DISCLAIMER

This list represents my opinion only. I am not asserting any kind of superiority or self-importance by presenting it as I have. My opinion is not fact. Nobody ever agrees with me 100%. Respectful disagreement is most welcome.

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15. Another Code: Recollection (NS)

Released at precisely the wrong time for a whole community of Nintendo fans reeling from the news there’d be no Switch successor till 2025, Another Code: Recollection was largely dismissed when it squeaked out at the very beginning of 2024. You could argue a slow-paced double-bill adventure game throwback was hardly going to set the charts on fire anyway, but I think it was still rather unlucky, because the striking comic-panel art direction that drives the ground-up reimagining of 2005’s Another Code: Two Memories handily reinvigorates a DS cult classic two decades on, leaving many obtuse quirks behind to ensure the game’s devotion to both atmospheric puzzle-solving and unsettling mystery help it stand out from its fellow Switch exclusives.

The move from snappy stylus controls and once-unprecedented kitchen sink gimmickry to proper third-person 3D exploration and fully-voiced cutscenes means puzzles have been changed and/or completely removed, the time between brain-teasers is noticeably longer, physical layouts have been shaken up, and some of the creepier touches have been sanded down. But the more lively, believable environments in the 2024 release help tie together the game’s overall story in an arguably superior fashion, delivering twists with a pulpy watercolour flair and sticking the landing under a clearly modest budget. As the credits indicate, this is very much a “based on” angle from developer Arc System Works, taking inspiration rather than instruction from the original.

And those drastic changes don’t just serve the first game: the previously Japan/Europe-only Wii release Another Code R not only makes its worldwide debut here, but the story continues unbroken from the Two Memories save file and uses all the same UI elements, producing a near-seamless end result. The second reimagining in the package sacrifices puzzle density for plot even more than its predecessor, but with a cast so large that it feels like Game of Thrones in comparison and some truly heady Black Mirror-esque sci-fi ideas along for the ride, it’s justified in doing so. The fabulously-titled Recollection may be of modest means, but I have never seen anything in the vast realm of videogame revisitations use an approach quite like this, and it deserves a nod at the top of this list.

14. Helldivers II (PS5)

An entire book could be written on the life and times of Helldivers II – and I wouldn’t be shocked if that does actually happen one day – but the occasionally scandalous mismanagement of the game’s trailblazing Steam-on-day-one release strategy, not to mention the odd parasocial relationship built afterwards between players and developers of the game, is not enough to negate the crazy amount of fun I had spreading managed democracy among the fictional planets of Helldivers II in the early part of the year.

Among the legitimately countless tales of failed online multiplayer titles across all of 2024, the fact that one of the only real success stories came from a comparatively small team that made a brutal top-down twin-stick shooter on the PS Vita back in the day just warms my cynical heart. The fact it launched at a significantly lower price point than, I dunno, random example, Concord – with much fewer opportunities for microtransactions to boot – is hilarious. Helldivers II feels magnificent to control, looks far better than its relatively low resolution settings would suggest, and only kicks you down in a way that you quite literally asked for when you knocked that difficulty up a notch.

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30 Dec

Best of 2023: Top 15 Games

Posted by vagrantesque in Best of 2023, Lists. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , .

There hasn’t been a “bad” year for new-release videogames in recent memory, and so many of the darn things are coming out all the time always that it’s hard to see a dud on the horizon as long as civilisation remains intact. And yet, maybe two or three times a decade it still feels like the major hype-magnets clump up together and conspire to form a mega Voltron of a year worth writing into the gaming history books as a truly “great” year for videogames. 2023 was unquestionably one of those, but the plaudits needn’t stop there.

Unfortunately 2023 may have been one of the worst years in history for games industry layoffs, but it was without a shadow of a doubt the best year for game releases since at least 2017.

In my opinion, it was the best of all time.

Throughout the whole year, it felt like every week brought a new game pushing above 85 on Open/Metacritic. Playing Fantasy Critic with friends was an absolute nightmare as hits kept coming from all directions. The pre-release hype-to-quality ratio over the whole year was higher than any I can remember. For the first time ever, all fifteen of the games on my list this year were nominated for at least one category at The Game Awards – and eleven of them were winners.

We’ve already covered the sheer strength of the DLC expansions in 2023, many of which can stand head and shoulders above most full games released in the last few years. But 2023 also gave us quality potential rabbit holes just waiting to ensnare, like Wild Hearts, Diablo IV, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, Like a Dragon: Ishin, Hogwarts Legacy, and Dead Island 2; some of the best “souls-likes” ever in the form of Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, Lies of P, and the reborn Lords of the Fallen; huge online multiplayer offerings like Counter-Strike 2, Remnant II, and The Finals; and great signs for families without Nintendo consoles thanks to Sonic Superstars, Lego 2K Drive and Party Animals. 2023 was also the year that Fortnite completed its fascinating metamorphosis from a game into a game launcher.

The year also brought a deluge of small-budget standouts like Venba, The Talos Principle 2, Jusant, The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood, Darkest Dungeon II, Tchia, Humanity, Blasphemous 2, and A Space for the Unbound, each of which mopped up critical praise like it was going out of style, and none of which deserved to come out in a year this stacked with quality big-budget fare. Of the fifteen games on my list, just two are what I would classify as indie games – and this appals me.

Five hours of playtime is the minimum requirement for list eligibility (unless the game is shorter, has no perceivable end, or is primarily multiplayer in nature), and that sadly disqualifies Fire Emblem Engage, Mortal Kombat 1, Cassette Beasts, Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince, Wargroove 2, Planet of Lana, Persona 5 Tactica, Pizza Tower, and most upsettingly Oxenfree II: Lost Signals, despite the fact I was having fun with all of them before outside factors (usually other games) interrupted me. Also, I’ll be dead-honest, I have no idea how to classify Theatrhythm: Final Bar Line, but it’s amazing and you should play it if you’re even a little into Square Enix RPG soundtracks.

With that extremely long introduction out of the way, it’s time for my wordiest Game of the Year list ever, so strap in (parentheses indicate where I played each game):

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VR BEST OF 2023 DISCLAIMER

This list represents my opinion only. I am not asserting any kind of superiority or self-importance by presenting it as I have. My opinion is not fact. If you agree with me 100%, go buy a lottery ticket. Respectful disagreement is most welcome.

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15. Street Fighter VI (XSX)

Capcom’s absurd hot-streak of great new videogames is now long enough that the chatter around them centres less around whether a new release will actually be good and more about what will be the first game to break it. And yes, we’ve talked about Exoprimal already, but I maintain that the game is a ton of fun to play, not to mention technically rock-solid, and is just hamstrung by some baffling online multiplayer restrictions. You know what Capcom game doesn’t need a bunch of asterisks when you talk about how good it is? Street Fighter VI.

History is littered with examples of videogame sequels that take the wrong lessons from poorly-received predecessors and over-correct, but the extraordinarily meaty single-player offering that the sixth main SF has to offer is no mere apology for the bare-bones Street Fighter V; it is yet another shrewd utilisation of perhaps gaming’s most impressive publisher-internal game engine. Running around the full 3D environments of Metro City feels so natural you’d swear you were playing a different game at moments during the World Tour campaign.

But even if you don’t want to engage with any of that, Street Fighter VI boasts one of the most in-depth and impressive tutorials I’ve seen in a fighting game; it wants you to feel like you could rise up the ranks and become a genuinely good player, and it works. On top of all of that goodness is the best presentation in SF’s three-dimensional history, bringing together fantastic character art with fluid personality-packed animations, ribbons of colourful paint effects to highlight the benefits of the new Drive System, and a fresh level of commitment to Street Fighter’s, um, fighting on a street aesthetic that enlivens everything else around it.

14. Cocoon (PC/XSS)

Leave it to a bunch of ex-Limbo/Inside developers to make you feel like a genius again and again, even though all you did was follow their brilliantly gentle guidance through visual context clues and a you’re-getting-warmer musical feedback system that works like if the classic Zelda puzzle chime took a month off to study music theory at the most zen retreat ever. Cocoon‘s central premise sounds like it would either break immediately or become untenably complex as soon as you tried to take it beyond its first iteration, but Geometric Interactive turns a wordless adventure where you pick up entire worlds and use them to activate mechanical switches into a taut masterpiece that makes a five-hour run feel like an epic odyssey through cosmic possibilities beyond humanity’s wildest dreams.

Each moment the weird cicada alien thing at your fingertips leaps beyond the boundaries of yet another world to reveal an even bigger one is worth the time Cocoon took to develop all on its own. The bosses are extraordinarily fun to take on with little more than a single contextual gimmick and your wits. The secrets are rewarding and seamlessly integrated into the world(s) around them. The puzzles in the final third of the game are deviously tricky. The minimalist animation work is outstanding. The alternately booming and almost non-existent electronic score is a vibe and a half. Long may Geometric continue on their new development path, because on this form I would eat their next game on day one.

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30 Dec

Best of 2021: Top 15 Games

Posted by vagrantesque in Best of 2021, Games, Lists. Tagged: , , , , , , , , .

You can try to tell me 2021 was a bad year for good videogames. Tell that to my backlog. Look it in the eyes and tell it.

Don’t get me wrong: 2021 definitely was, without a shadow of a doubt, a slow-starting year for videogames; maybe even the slowest since I started writing these lists. It was also a bit light on Playstation exclusives thanks to development delays. But this was also the first full year of a brand-new console generation out in the wild; the year League of Legends finally began to make good on its promise to expand into other genres (and a Netflix show too); the year Apple Arcade finally drew some attention from core gaming audiences with a suite of nostalgic releases and the exclusive new Mistwalker RPG Fantasian; the year the whole Pokemon Unite thing happened; the year Microsoft’s XCloud mobile streaming service expanded to PC, Xbox consoles themselves – and Australia.

There was real, exciting movement in the games industry throughout 2021, and the big games – eventually – followed suit. When they did arrive they were continuously scoring over 80 on review aggregate sites, leaving September in particular packed with games lining up to try and distract from one another. More than half of this list’s games come from the release window starting late August and going through October – and only one from traditional powerhouse November. A weird year indeed.

But a good one: I always set a five-hour playtime minimum for a game to qualify for this list, yet I’ve actually finished 12 out of the 15 games on this 2021 list (and two out of the remaining three are JRPGs). Any of my friends will tell you that’s a sky-high conversion rate for me. Quarantines will do that, but so will great videogames. It’s hard to believe I had no room this year for Hitman III, Scarlet Nexus, Returnal, Mario Party Superstars, Monster Hunter Rise, Monster Hunter Stories 2 or Deathloop – into which I put a combined 60+ hours, and all of which I enjoyed. I’ve never actually been in that kind of a position before.

If you don’t see a 2021 game on this page, I didn’t play it enough to qualify. Parentheses indicate on what platform(s) I played each game.

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VR BEST OF 2021 DISCLAIMER

This list represents my opinion only. I am not asserting any kind of superiority or self-importance by presenting it as I have. My opinion is not fact. To agree with me 100% is beyond unlikely. Respectful disagreement is most welcome.

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15. New Pokemon Snap (NS)

Over the two decades since the original Pokemon Snap came out, the idea of a sequel has naturally been thrown around all kinds of Pokemon fan circles; what most nostalgia-seeped memories tend to forget, however (mine included), is just how short the original game was. Pretty much accidentally designed for the repeatable game rental market, you could see all the game’s content in an afternoon if you knew what you were doing. Knowing this Bandai Namco concocted the clever New Pokemon Snap, which is not only the sequel we’ve been asking for, but the significantly more substantial sequel we didn’t know we wanted.

Carrying many more areas stuffed with randomly-shifting occurences, stacked with secrets, and teeming with Pokemon hiding four different scoring poses each, the completionist player has a ton to do in New Pokemon Snap – even before the chunky free content update released months after launch. The week of near-day-long sessions I played with my siblings passing the controller around was an absolute blast.

14. Shin Megami Tensei V (NS)

As a “JRPG guy” without the time or attention span for the truly unforgiving genre entries these days, the entire mainline Shin Megami Tensei series has mostly passed me by. That finally changed with the long-awaited open-world-ish fifth entry, a truly ambitious shift for both the series and Nintendo – who slapped their publishing label on the game and gave it their main first-party slot right in the middle of November (knowing Pokemon was coming out the following week to clean house, sure, but it was still a big deal).

SMT V may not care all that much about its story or supporting human characters, but it stands as a shining testament to the merits of a rock-solid battle system using a crisp UI – especially when paired with deep team customisation mechanics built to last. Boasting a stunning main character design and truly rewarding nook-and-cranny exploration, this is a game I suspect I’ll be playing for a long time yet.

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