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Honorable Mentions: The Studio Goya Sudoku Apps Yes, seriously. I got deep into watching Cracking the Cryptic on youtube this year, and they released some sudoku apps full of hand-crafted puzzles, and they're really great. Astroneer This game technically released out of Early Access either last year or in 2018, but I played it this year and had a lot of fun. Risk of Rain 2 Risk of Rain was an incredible game that I played a ton of, both by myself and with my friends. I played a little bit of this game, and while I don't know if it will ever hold the same place in my heart as the first game, I did really enjoy the time I played this game, and hope I can play more with friends soon! The List 10. Dragon Quest Builders 2 This game came out in December of 2019, but I don't care. It was a lot of fun learning to build in the Dragon Quest universe. I need to get back to this game, everything about it was full of charm. 9. Shantae and the Seven Sirens Shantae is a really interesting sort of Metroidvania, and this one hews closer to the formula than most. What's better is it allows you to transform into other forms for quick actions, which really increased the pace of the game. That being said, it had extremely long loading times on Switch (where I played it) and it didn't do a great job of informing the player where the collectibles are. This is a problem that Super Metroid solved in the 90s, there's no excuse for a modern Metroidvania to not indicate on the map where items are. 8. Ghost of Tsushima This game should be much higher on this list, and yet here it is. This is a Samurai game that's gorgeous, a ton of fun to play, even the dumb open world stuff is fun to engage with. You can pet the foxes. That being said, the story in this game is an absolute trainwreck, and that drags it down immensely. If the story was good, or even just moderately bad, this would easily be a top 5 game. 7. Spider-Man: Miles Morales It's more Spider-Man, and Miles Morales is better than Peter Parker. That being said, the ending to the story doesn't really sit right with me. It uses tropes that it shouldn't, and if you want to include a Black Lives Matter card, maybe Black Lives should actually Matter in your loving video game. 6. Ori and the Will of the Wisps Ori and the Blind Forest was a great Metroidvania, and this improves on it in every way. It's just as gorgeous as it was before, it excised the terrible combat system in favor of a weirdly deep system with a lot of short and long range attacks you can do, and it never prevents you from backtracking. The new NPCs are great, and while it wears its Hollow Knight inspirations on its sleeves through the NPC hub and charms systems, they work extremely well with what Ori is trying to accomplish. 5. Maneater This is an arcadey game where you play as a shark and eat everything that moves, from other fish to human beings to boat parts. You evolve mutations that let you survive on land for long periods of time and you can evolve lightning powers and external bones. This game doesn't take itself even remotely seriously and it rules. 4. Deadly Premonition 2 It feels really weird including this game on this list. It's an extremely janky sequel to an extremely janky game, and it doesn't have all of the charm of its predecessor. That being said, it still had a lot of charm, significantly more than the vast majority of games that get released, and I really like the story that it told. I just wish the writing was a little tighter and the game didn't have a story mission that required me to wait a full in-game week to accomplish. 3. Monster Hunter World: Iceborne It's hard to believe that this expansion came out this year, and further that it would get me to finally finish Monster Hunter World. And to a degree, that's because technically, this game was released on console in 2019. However, I played it on PC, and it was released there in 2020. I really love a lot of what Iceborne brought to the game, a lot of the new monsters are a ton of fun to hunt, and the way it mixed up older hunts for Master Rank was really fantastic. 2. Trails of Cold Steel 4 I have a lot of thoughts about this game, especially considering I finally played Cold Steel 3 about a month before this released. Suffice to say, while I have some issues with the game, the vast majority of them are relatively minor. This game went to a lot of places, and as the conclusion to an enormous, 9-game long story, it was surprisingly satisfying. Hopefully future releases in the Trails series are better paced, because Cold Steel as a subseries should have been three titles at most. I'm gonna miss some of these guys, but at the same time, after this game and Hajimari, I look forward to a totally new cast. 1. Yakuza: Like a Dragon I love the Yakuza games, they're really something special. I'm not really a big fan of crime stories, but the RGG studio titles - including Judgment - all manage to make it work for me in a way that nothing else really does. Yakuza: Like a Dragon is a very different sort of story, and it is in those ways that it is at its strongest. It transitions from a fantastic brawler series to a really good JRPG system, and while the system has some real flaws to it, I love it for what it is. I'm always really happy to see a JRPG with a job system, and this was better than most, because the jobs were interesting; instead of the usual staples you basically had real jobs or lifestyles, from Homeless Guy to Hostess to Bodyguard, and that was really neat. I also particularly love how much of the story revolves around a man hitting rock bottom and getting his life together with his friends by going to a temp agency. I particularly love how it handled social issues, where it was probably the only game I've ever seen treat homelessness and sex work seriously and with respect to the societal conditions that lead people to be in those places. That being said, the game also severely undermines itself when it reveals that the homeless man that did such a good job explaining the plight of the unhoused...wasn't actually homeless. While the positions it argues were handled well, it completely loses its bite, because it's one outsider telling off another. This, combined with some weird plotting near the middle of the game, really stops it from reaching its full potential, but that doesn't mean it's not still the game of the year. No game is without flaws, and Yakuza: Like a Dragon was a fantastic experience that I wholeheartedly recommend to everyone else. King of Solomon fucked around with this message at 03:29 on Dec 28, 2020 |
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ketchup vs catsup posted:9 games of story concluding? StrixNebulosa has the links for you, but it's worth mentioning that each of the relevant substories (Sky, Zero/Azure, and Cold Steel) takes place in a separate country and has a mostly self-contained story. That being said, Sky leaves you wanting for some stuff that happens in Zero/Azure and sets up Cold Steel, and Cold Steel (especially CS3/4) pays off those stories that start in Trails in the Sky. If you start FC now and play these games at a reasonable pace, Azure should be out by the time you're ready to start worrying about it. ketchup vs catsup posted:amazing, thanks fo this very handy list. Almost certainly not.
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Dec 28, 2020 02:21
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Regy Rusty posted:Those are not part of this story. Right, but as I understand it Hajimari is an epilogue and the next subseries should be the start of a new meta arc, or however you want to define the story that started with Sky and ended with 4/Hajimari. ketchup vs catsup posted:awesome, thanks for the information. It's a patch, but the Geofront should have instructions for how to buy the game legally through whatever Chinese seller has it.
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Dec 28, 2020 02:24
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Looper posted:this is one of the reasons i was drawn to tokyo xanadu; all your favorite bits of falcom but in one completely standalone package Ys is slightly less standalone, but it's also really good for that. Plus, Ys is just generally a really good action RPG series.
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Dec 28, 2020 03:21
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punk rebel ecks posted:I actually really dislike when games focused on exploration tell you exactly where to find something. Kind of goes against the point IMO. I'm not really asking for precision, just the Metroid thing where they have an open dot if there's something in there and a closed dot if you've collected it. It makes endgame cleanup a lot more straightforward.
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Dec 28, 2020 04:58
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punk rebel ecks posted:I can't imagine playing Yakuza in English. The game defaults to it and I immediately restarted it and changed the settings. That wasn't to say it was bad but just like...the game takes place in modern Japan and is Japanese as poo poo. Them speaking English takes me out of it. Likewise. When given the option to switch to Japanese upon starting the game, I immediately switched over. It's nice to hear the English dub is great, but this is not a game series that I ever want to hear in anything other than the original Japanese. I normally like dubs, but not for RGG Studio games.
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Jan 3, 2021 10:04
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I'm just happy the list included Threes.Zaggitz posted:Just wanted to chime in and say that since posting my list I have played and 100% both The Pathless and Bugsnax And drat those two games would have definitely made my list if I had played them on time. I'm going to second The Pathless. I played through the game at the same time as Zaggitz here, and while I wish there was a little more going on, it was a gorgeous, the movement was a blast, everything that was there was great. Plus, not only can you pet the eagle, petting the eagle is an important mechanic to getting through the game.
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Jan 6, 2021 07:36
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Regy Rusty posted:The peoples still love Uchikoshi in 2020. As they should! 
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Jan 10, 2021 00:54
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I look forward to eventually playing CK3. Eventually. E: Oh poo poo Streets of Rage 4. I need to play that ASAP.
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Jan 10, 2021 01:11
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Holy gently caress that's low on the list.
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Jan 10, 2021 01:16
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Regy Rusty posted:PS5 havers deserve no higher  Eyyyyy, Iceborne!
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Jan 10, 2021 01:17
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Regy Rusty posted:Was Iceborne another PC release? Yes.
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Jan 10, 2021 01:18
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BeanpolePeckerwood posted:if you mean the Serious Handler then i'm with you They're both good.
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Jan 10, 2021 01:25
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I did like Persona 5 a lot. Once I feel like I have enough distance from that game I'll definitely check in on Royal, it sounds like it has some good stuff (and some good fixes specifically) in it.
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Jan 10, 2021 01:51
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VideoGames posted:Only 10 to go. I am extremely excited. Let's goooo!
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Jan 10, 2021 01:53
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Well, this part is absolutely true.
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Jan 10, 2021 01:58
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wuggles posted:Unionize! 
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Jan 10, 2021 01:58
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VideoGames posted:
100% deserved, an absolute gem of a game.
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Jan 10, 2021 01:59
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Zaggitz posted:Only hot bangers left. As if Disco Elysium isn't the hottest banger.
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Jan 10, 2021 02:01
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Hahah, I had that at #8. I was so close to the actual result!
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Jan 10, 2021 02:02
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VideoGames posted:
Love that game, can't wait for the next expac to launch!
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Jan 10, 2021 02:05
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Jay Rust posted:Oof, mmorpgs I'm not really a fan of MMORPGs generally, but FF14 is just really good!
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Jan 10, 2021 02:06
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Jan 10, 2021 02:11
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cheetah7071 posted:I can only think of two games that haven't shown up yet so I'm definitely forgetting something I can think of exactly three, and I'm worried as hell about the order. 
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Jan 10, 2021 02:17
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VideoGames posted:TAKING THE NUMBER THREE SPOT! YEP, THIS IS TOO LOW.
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Jan 10, 2021 02:19
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FlowerRhythmREMIX posted:I am the contrarian gamer. The #1 GotY was absent from my list. It was only on my list because I didn't play very many games this year.
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Jan 10, 2021 02:23
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I can't say I'm surprised. I didn't click with it the way a lot of goons did (I got the credits and stopped playing shortly after), but Hades was a pretty cool game.
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Jan 10, 2021 02:27
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Great work VG!
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Jan 10, 2021 02:35
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