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oneddashone · 2 years ago

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Games of the Year 2022

***PORTS BUT NOT REMAKES*** Deathsmiles 1+2 NEOGEO POCKET COLOR SELECTION VOL.1 CLASSIC EDITION Capcom Fighting Collection Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Cowabunga Collection Radiant Silvergun NieR:Automata The End of YoRHa Edition No Man's Sky Persona 5 Royal Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration

It was a good year for this type of release on the Switch. Two excellent shmups, four hefty collections, and three of the last PS4 games I bought that all got short-changed by me because I was focusing on the Switch so much. Nier Automata, in particular, got a lot more playtime from me this go-round.

***S-TIER DLC*** Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak Cuphead: Delicious Last Course Mario Kart 8: Booster Course Pass

I feel like it's worth highlighting the games that offered premium new content over the last year, so here we go. Sunbreak kept me playing last year's GOTY well into this one, and encouraged me to try more weapons than I ever have (hello, Great Sword). The shear scope of MK8 is also just wild now—why even make a new Mario Kart when you can just keep adding tracks to a perfect foundation? And Cuphead added a bunch of new bosses with as much care and craft as the near-perfect originals.

***RECOMMENDED*** Windjammers 2 Pokémon Legends: Arceus GetsuFumaDen: Undying Moon Nintendo Switch Sports Mario Strikers: Battle League Shovel Knight Dig Live a Live Cult of the Lamb Dorfromantik Harvestella

These are the 8/10s of the list. They're all mostly great, but each has at least one thing holding it back from perfection. Cult of the Lamb was probably the closest to jumping into the next tier, although it might have been Windjammers 2 if there were ever more than a dozen or so people playing online. Harvestella is quite interesting too, but I just haven't had enough time to determine exactly where it sits for me. I actually really like Mario Strikers, but the fact that you can't do 4v4 online league play was a major disappointment. But all those caveats aside, these games are all definitely worth checking out.

***ESSENTIAL*** OlliOlli World 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim Citizen Sleeper Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Splatoon 3 Rogue Legacy 2 Tactics Ogre: Reborn Inscryption

The best of the year for me, excluding the top two. My favorite of this list might very well be Xenoblade Chronicles 3, which was the first in the series to really click with me. It's big and gorgeous and nuts and I loved it. And it might be recency bias or something, but Rogue Legacy 2, Tactics Ogre, and Inscryption all pretty much make up the sum total of my current game rotation. Tactics Ogre in particular is really sinking its teeth in, which is great considering it's the first of these I've ever played (and not so great, because a new Fire Emblem is right around the corner).

13 Sentinels and Citizen Sleeper are extremely narrative-heavy. A few years ago I might not have even tried either one, but I've really come around on this style of game. The former is as huge and ambitious as the latter is small and measured. Shredder's Revenge continues Dotemu's recent hot streak of making new games in old franchises that feel as good (or better) as you remember them being, and it was a blast to play online with friends.

***RUNNER UP*** Tunic

This was very, very nearly number one. I got excited about Tunic when it was announced years ago, and then it went quiet for awhile. I finally played it when it was first released on Game Pass earlier in the year, and got about a third of the way in. I really liked it, but like so many games on Xbox's service, it got lost amongst the new games that I actually chose to buy on Switch.

Then it came out on Switch, and I bought it there.

Now I was actually invested. I had to start from the beginning, but I wanted to. I needed to find every page of the game manual this time. That goddamn manual—what an excellent mechanic. I don't know the developer's actual intentions, but it can't be a coincidence how much using the Tunic game manual felt like any number of times I've tried to piece together what to do using Japanese Famicom and Super Famicom manuals. The language of Tunic looks like it was born on a planet in the same solar system as the one that birthed out Japan's unique moon rune characters, and there's just enough English and imagery for a non-speaker like myself to get by on. The illustrations are gorgeous, and it was incredible to discover that the maps actually included an icon for the player, updated as you move through the game. The mystery created by strategically-placed missing pages was delightful.

In the end I didn't quite 100% it. No spoilers, but there are multiple layers of things you have to do at the very ending of the game to get that honor. I did a few of them, but when that just peeled back one more layer, I threw in the towel.

But in the end I still absolutely loved it. From the obvious Zelda vibes, to the very Souls-like combat and environment design, and to what felt to me like very Fez-esque flourishes, this touched on a bunch of my favorite games while also absolutely having its own ideas to lean on. Absolutely a masterpiece and I can't wait to see what comes next.

***GOTY*** Elden Ring

No surprises here, I guess, and I'll keep this short. Enough has been said on Elden Ring—it's damn near perfect.

I think my favorite part of Elden Ring was playing the game and discovering a bunch of new things and then seeing friends and strangers online talk about those things and the things they were discovering. It felt like a giant community where everyone was enthusiastically engaged with both the game and each other. And for the most part, I very rarely felt like anything was spoiled for me. A vague, like, "have you gone south from the starting area yet?" would be all it would take to find tons and tons of cool new shit.

I played some online with my friend Chris, and I'll never forget encouraging not discouraging him from opening the chest that took him to "the bad place." Or playing while my daughter watched, and rooting around a weird building in the forest and finding that elevator. Down, and down, and down, and then—all of the stars.

So I can sit here and think about how expertly designed the open world environment is, how clever the map itself is, the weapon design and boss design and on and on and on. But what I really remember and love are the moments this game created. The tweets it inspired. The videos you couldn't believe you just saw. The big tree, that first asshole on the horse, the first time I beat Godrick, teleporting to the bad place, the elevator down, those stars. My god, the stars.

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oneddashone · 3 years ago

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4.0 marks something of a departure from previous major number bumps, and Murray is keen to keep expectations in check. While 2.0 and 3.0 [titled Next and Beyond, respectively] were "huge updates in terms of content", he explains, "that isn't the case, here". Instead, 4.0 brings extensive changes to what Murray calls "the more design-heavy elements" of the game: balance, difficulty, and structure.

"For me," he continues, "this update is for if you've said, 'Look, I played No Man's Sky and I wanted to love it, but I bumped off it a bit because it was a bit grindy, [or] if you said 'I want to come back, but it's been ages and there's been so many updates and it feels overwhelming'… You've probably had this experience where you've come to a game where it's been updated a tonne and… sometimes those [elements] don't fit as cohesively as you'd like. We hear this sometimes, and I think it's true… and so what we've done [in 4.0] is we've revisited a bunch of things that are really impactful from the design perspective."

Sounds like this update is exactly for me, then. Genuinely buzzed to play this and Nier: Automata again—two games I loved but fell off of at least partly because they came out right when the Switch started to cannibalize all of my gaming attention. Now, some five and a half years later, both are coming to Switch in the same week.

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oneddashone · 3 years ago

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All of this, fundamentally, is gambling. Ultimate Team is gambling. The only thing that makes it not gambling in the eyes of regulators is that you can't "cash out" - sell the things you've won in-game for real money. I'd argue that makes it worse. Ultimate Team is like a casino where you have a chance to win chips that can only be spent on in-casino prizes, that you can only use to earn more chips, and that you cannot take outside of the casino. Then, next year, all the prizes you won so far get taken away, and you have to pay another entry fee to start from scratch. This is a casino where you can only lose.

I feel like this might be the first time in the almost twenty years since I started playing that I skip out on the latest FIFA game release and just keep playing last year's version. Not just because of my waning interest in Ultimate Team—although that doesn't help—but also because of Game Pass, and EA's involvement in it, and the knowledge that in a few months this game will be effectively "free" to me anyway.

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oneddashone · 3 years ago

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Besides the restaurant and whisky bar, the ground floor of the old office and adjacent new buildings contained two lobbies. The inner one served snacks and cookies, and if your early dinner wasn't quite enough, you could return later in the evening for a course of noodles and other goodies. I borrowed a set of modern hanafuda and flipped through the cards while enjoying a beer. Unlike most typical playing cards, hanafuda are small works of art unto themselves, and simply placing them in front of you on the table evokes a sense of satisfaction.

I really need to spend at least one night at Marufukuro.

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oneddashone · 3 years ago

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Games of the Year 2021

Something like 90% of this was typed up in December, but I only thought to finish and post it now. Oops. Also I bought an Xbox Series S this year (hello Elden Ring!), but late enough that nothing from there really made it onto the list.

***RECENCY BIAS***

Shin Megami Tensei V

Death's Door

Loop Hero

Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon

Forza Horizon 5

Sable

I got these all in the last few weeks, and so while it's too early to properly rank them in a category, I can already tell that they have a lot to offer and, with time, will likely be some of my favorites of the year. SMTV especially *very nearly* qualifies as "Essential," but I really should play it for a bit longer before making that distinction.

***SOME SHMUPS I BOUGHT THIS YEAR***

R-Type Final 2

Raiden IV x Mikado Remix

Mushihimesama

Darius Cozmic Revelation

Cotton Reboot

Espgaluda II

DoDonPachi Resurrection

Deathsmiles 1+2

I'm pretty sure R-Type Final 2 is the only properly "new" game on this list, but all of these shmups came out on Switch this year and I enjoyed my time with all of them. Special shoutout to the M2-helmed Cave ports, which feel perfect to me and are a total blast to play on my rotated monitor (with the 8BitDo arcade stick, of course—who even needs a candy cab these days?).

***RECOMMENDED***

Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury

Ghosts 'n Goblins Resurrection

Bravely Default II

Umurangi Generation

Game Builder Garage

Doki Doki Literature Club Plus

Monster Hunter Stories 2

Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania

Big Brain Academy: Brain vs Brain

Now for the real list. Anything at this tier is absolutely worth your time, in my opinion, starting specifically with the Bowser's Fury expansion to Super Mario 3D World. It felt at the time like Mario's designers dipping their toes into a new-ish, Odyssey-inspired way to design a Mario game, and I hope there's more where that came from because it's tremendous. The new Ghosts 'n Goblins is arguably even more fiendishly difficult than the original, but it's beautiful and still feels modern in all the right places. I hope we see more revivals of dormant franchises of this caliber going into 2022 (looking at you, GetsuFumaDen). Special mention too to Umurangi Generation, a game I knew next to nothing about going into it, and one that continued to surprise me up until the very end.

***ESSENTIAL***

Mario Golf: Super Rush

Axiom Verge 2

Spelunky 2

WarioWare: Get It Together!

Castlevania Advance Collection

Metroid Dread

Disco Elysium: The Final Cut

Mario Party Superstars

A game in this tier is one of my absolute favorites of the year. Mario Golf might seem like a strange choice to some, but I found this game to be absolutely packed with stuff to do. I played through the campaign, played games online against friends, and loved the steady release of new characters and courses throughout the year.

I never quite finished the first game, but I played through and beat Axiom Verge 2 in about a week—which was great (more "short" games, please). I'm not totally sure, but I think the difference might have been the environments—most were way more open than the previous game's mostly tight, closed rooms. I've never quite followed the story in either of these games, but it didn't matter at all—if you like metroidvanias, you'll like this game.

I'm no good at Spelunky 2. Pretty miserable really, just like the first game. But this is perfection on an already nearly-perfect game, so I can't penalize it just because I'm too dumb to resist throwing a rock where I know I shouldn't. I played a lot of this game co-op with my daughter, which I didn't think would work but very much did (see also: WarioWare). Kudos to Derek Yu for sticking to his vision and iterating even further on a game that would probably have seemed "finished" to almost everyone else.

The original WarioWare is one of my favorite games of all time, and Get it Together is an intriguing update to the formula—one that I didn't think would work, at first blush, but one that I am happy to say I was very much wrong about. Another great game to play with a friend, and the unlockables and weekly challenges went a long way towards keeping me playing even after the final credit roll.

The Castlevania Advance Collection is something I've been asking for for a long time, and this package is just perfect. More like this, please.

Metroid Dread is great, but I think I loved it less than almost anyone else. I was really hyped before release and even replayed Super Metroid in anticipation, but then something happened. It started out incredibly engaging, but fairly early on I became acutely aware of just how dang linear this supposed metroidvania really was. "Wrong" paths secretly close, the supposedly inter-connected map is a lie, and everything's just been so damn designed to move you forward that the whole thing kinda loses it's "metroid-ness." I think the designers probably felt like they *had* to do this in 2021, to not waste anyone's time, but for me it ended up just kind of souring the experience. It's a beautiful looking game, the movement is fluid and graceful, and the boss fights are a spectical—but for me, the experience was a bit less than the sum of its parts.

I think my favorite thing about Disco Elysium is that it taught me about psychic damage and shame. The first time I essentially died of embarrassment was really pretty shocking, looking back on it. From then on, my choices became quite a bit more meaningful and I was completely absorbed in this game's incredibly dense and layered world. Turns out I also really really love dialogue trees and dice checks—who knew? I'm also glad I waited for this version, too, because the voice acting is top notch.

***RUNNER UP***

Dungeon Encounters

This is a tiny bit cheeky, but I'm giving Dungeon Encounters a slight nod over the games in the previous category because it just came out of nowhere and clubbed me over the head with its simplicity. This has got to be one of the most purely designed games I've ever played. Everything is so perfectly tight, so meticulously edited, that it doesn't feel like one pixel could possibly be out of place. This feels like the work of someone who had an uncompromising vision and carried it through every precarious step of the way, start to finish. This is addition-by-subtraction, no frills, Dieter Rams-level stuff.

Oh, and the character portraits all look like they were drawn by Mike Mignola. A+++ from me.

***GOTY***

Monster Hunter: Rise

I can't bring myself to understand the idea that some people apparently have that Monster Hunter Rise is somehow *lacking* content. I fired up the game the other day for the first time in 2-3 months, and had something like two dozen new Event Quests to check out, most with unique rewards (hello, Akuma costume). And that's after I put over one hundred hours into the story, and still haven't beaten the final boss that unlocks at HR100. Not to mention all the time spent with friends on their campaigns. AND my personal side quest of crafting as many different Long Swords as humanly possible. If this isn't enough "stuff," I really don't want to know what is.

But "stuff" only matters if it's good stuff, and yeesh there's a ton of good stuff in this game. Monster Hunter World was already an exercise in cutting some of the crust that had accumulated over the years, and Rise goes even further and better. Getting into the fights is now as frictionless as you want it to be, thanks to the new map and the addition of the dog. The wirebug is the coolest new mechanic the series has added, possibly ever. Not only is it great for traversal, but it opens up an entire tree of combat options. A lot of what I loved about Generations returns here too, especially in those wirebug attacks, albeit less over-stuffed than in that game.

The selection of monsters is generous and varied, the locations are memorable and well-designed, and the armor and weapons are more than up to the series' already sky-high expectations. I've picked Monster Hunter games as my GOTY before, but Rise is easily my favorite Monster Hunter game. And the fact that we're getting a giant expansion/DLC this summer just means I need to find a bit of time between now and then to craft just a few more Long Swords.

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oneddashone · 4 years ago

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Fighting games aren’t for everyone. I understand why some people just aren’t interested in them, for the same reason some people aren’t interested in chess or backgammon. In many ways they’re an anomaly in the modern video game landscape, which is dominated by social games, loot shooters, and single-player narrative experiences in which combat is typically about delivering a power fantasy. Fighting games don’t do that, which is one reason why they’re sometimes misunderstood as being inaccessible. Most fighting games are perfectly accessible to a wide range of players, and you can have a great time just messing around in them with your friends. But to expect that you can pick a game up and understand its systems immediately, much less go toe-to-toe with experts, is simply unrealistic.

Once you realize that, you can give yourself permission to lose. And once you have permission to lose, you can start learning.

Really good articulation of an issue I've been thinking about a bit lately. This really gets at what I like about fighting games (and shmups, and Dark Souls, and Monster Hunter, etc) that's currently at odds with a lot of game design in general. Assuming the game's systems and mechanics are fair, then it's ok—or even expected—that you will fail early. The fun is in getting better through practice, which, duh, is actually just playing.

Or if that's not your bag—and it's totally fine and legitimate if it's not—then the best of these games offer other ways to enjoy them. You don't have to suffer alone in Dark Souls, you can join up with friends and find a fun way to cheese that boss. You don't have to play Smash ultra-competitively; that's just one mode out of seemingly hundreds. You don't have to 1CC MushihimiSama the first time you play it, you can put it on Novice and credit-feed it to death. These are all popular and perfectly fine ways to play these games.

But by giving me the option to bypass the power fantasy and actually feel myself getting more skilled and making better decisions in a game, I personally end up appreciating it that much more. You don't even have to master the game to feel this—hell, I've been playing Third Strike at a weekly local for almost a decade and I still wouldn't stand a chance in any sort of semi-serious tournament—but I'm also a much better player than when I started. And that's why I love it.

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oneddashone · 4 years ago

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In pre-pandemic days, which already feel like years ago, I would host a weekly fighting-game night. People gathered in my garage to run friendly-but-competitive sets, help each other learn games, and just talk about life. Fighting games to us aren't just about competing—they're about community and connecting with people.

For me, there's just no purer gaming experience than playing against another human being. No CPU opponent or single-player narrative can bring that same feeling of give and take, testing your skills and reflexes but also your ability to adapt and dig into the psychology of your opponent.

If you're the better player? It's a chance to teach someone or test ideas against someone more forgiving. The moment when you see them avoid the setup they'd been walking into all night or challenge the move you'd been bullying them with can feel as good as you winning.

If the tables are turned, and you're the weaker one, it's a chance to learn, and that's much more satisfying when you finally take a match. One night, I ran a first-to-20 against a friend who's a much stronger player than I am; I lost the set 3-20. Those three games I took? Best feeling in the world, even after getting my butt handed to me.

The real joy, though, is when you find an opponent you're roughly equal to. Trading games, constantly pushing yourself to find an advantage, adapting and watching them adapt back, that's when fighting games shine in a way few other games can. Could be a good friend, or a total stranger, but it's like having a conversation in another language.

A year ago, as COVID began to pop up in Los Angeles County, I had to cancel my night. All the other weeklies, the tournaments, friendly sets at your friend's house—they all dried up. Offline fighting games became an endangered species around the world, and the only way to get our fix was to play online.

I miss Thursday nights.

#detroitarcadeclub

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oneddashone · 4 years ago

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Games of the Year 2020

Given that I don't think anyone reads this, especially since I've largely stopped using it for anything other than these lists, it feels silly to write an intro on "what a weird year 2020 was" or whatever. It is worth mentioning, however, that in a "normal" year, it's quite possible that my GotY would have been different.

I think every game on this list was played on the Nintendo Switch, which, aside from FIFA, is really the only device I play games on these days. I've waxed poetic about this in the past, so there's no reason to talk much more about this now. I'm really hoping a "Switch Pro" comes out next year—to me, that's much more interesting and desirable than either a PS5 or X-Box Series Whatever.

Anyway, on to the list.

***RECOMMENDED*** What the Golf Minecraft Dungeons Bubble Bobble 4 Friends Mr Driller DrillLand Carrion Panzer Paladin A Short Hike Part Time UFO Immortals Fenyx Rising

I kept a list of all the games I played this year, and more than half didn't make the cut at all, so the games in this lowest category are all still extremely worthwhile games, in my opinion. What the Golf was originally a mobile game, but I played it on the Switch and had a blast. Very funny and inventive, and more than enough "game" there, in case you were wondering. I played through and beat Minecraft Dungeons with my daughter, which was a blast. She knew all the lore, and I knew the genre, so we were genuinely able to help each other out throughout the game. The new games in the Bubble Bobble and Mr Driller franchises were largely carried by my nostalgia for them—neither was perfect, but absolutely worth the investment if you care about the series. DrillLand in particular had some surprisingly inventive takes on the established formula.

Carrion and Panzer Paladin were nice surprises when they came out. A lot was written about the former when it debuted and I don't have much to add to that conversation, but I didn't see nearly as much love for Panzer Paladin. It's a fun little retro platformer, something like a "12 bit" art style, and you play through levels in any order you want, a la Mega Man. The most interesting part of the game to me is actually the weapon management system—you get a ton of weapons throughout the game, and the real strategy lies in choosing when to break certain ones, maintaining a steady supply of good ones, and even in using them to trigger checkpoints.

I watched my friend Ben stream A Short Hike when it first came out on PC, and I was excited to finally play it myself. It didn't disappoint, and I loved the relative short length, combined with the overall carefree and relaxed vibe. My daughter played through to the end too, which was nice. Another short-ish game this year was Part Time UFO, which, like What the Golf, was a originally a mobile game. Part Time UFO was made by HAL, and it shows throughout—most obviously in that Kirby shows up in the background from time to time, but also in the overall craft and polish.

The last game in this tier is Immortals: Fenix Rising, which nearly ended up being a tier higher, but in the end it just felt better here. This is a great take on an Ubisoft BotW clone (which I mean in the nicest way possible), and the setting is fantastic, but ultimately there are some key flaws that hold it back for me. Ubisoft's seemingly insatiable appetite to Get More Money Out of the Player, even after they've purchased the game, comes to mind immediately. Requiring a login and creation of an Ubisoft account is another. You don't really think about these things when you're playing the actual game, which is great, but it ended up being enough for me to dock it a little bit in the end.

***ESSENTIAL*** Kentucky Route Zero: TV Edition One Step to Eden Streets of Rage 4 Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin

Kentucky Route Zero is another game that I feel like has already been written about and discussed a lot, and I don't know what I have to add to that. I'm so glad it ended up on consoles—it always seemed to me like the kind of game that would be trapped on PCs forever. The one moment that will always stick out for me was when I was playing it in bed one night with the kid. We found something in our inventory that had a phone number written on the back, so, in effort to kind of indulge her and be a little goofy, I decided to actually call it. I don't know what I was expecting, but it sure wasn't the fully realized "Guide to Echo River" (voiced by Will fucking Oldham!) that we got. It was an incredible experience, one of many in this extremely beautiful, thoughtful game.

One Step to Eden introduced me to a game genre I didn't know I needed—basically, "what if deck-based roguelite, but with an action-based real-time dexterity component?" It's all well and good to create a perfect deck in something like Slay the Spire, where any nerd can take as long as they need to run their perfect calculations or whatever during their turn, but it's really something else to try and do it while dodging complex enemy attack patterns at the same time. I feel like I read that this was based off a Mega Man spin-off, but to me it felt like a breath of fresh air in the increasingly oversaturated roguelike genre (oh, but more on that later).

Streets of Rage 4 is the perfection of a genre that I thought I was completely done with, and one that I think a lot of other people were done with too. Belt-scrollers made a certain amount of game design sense when they were first introduced in arcades, what with the goal being to collect as many of your quarters as possible—but the gameplay hook suffers tremendously when there's no tangible cost to failing. And yet the team behind SoR4 breathed new life into the genre, via incredible art, animations, and music. Most importantly of course is how it feels, and the deep combat system allows players of all different skill and interest levels to get exactly as much out of the game as they put into it. A friend played this in a much deeper way than I did, chaining combos across entire levels at times—whereas I just played through twice—and yet we both came away from it completely satisfied. This is a masterpiece of the genre.

Clubhouse Games is a sequel of sorts to the DS game of the same name. The first thing I think of when recalling this game is just the incredible amount of craft that clearly went into making it. From the heavy thud of the Hanafuda cards being forcefully plopped down to the sound of marbles jostling in Mancala, every little detail of this game has been thoughtfully executed. Sure, there's a few games I played once and never wanted to play again, but mostly this collection is just an outstanding bang for your buck. It also succeeds as a kind of virtual history lesson/tour of the best and most-loved tabletop games from around the world; and, especially during a pandemic, who could say no to that?

Sakuna snuck up on me towards the end of the year. Apparently it was first announced as a PS4 exclusive, but Nintendo saw it and rightfully made a big effort to get it on its platform as well. The gameplay mostly consists of an incredibly satisfying loop of starting the day by tending to your rice field, in full 3D life sim style, and then going out and exploring levels in fairly fast-paced 2D action/platforming levels. During the 2D parts, you'll find supplies that help your rice field, and by completing tasks there you'll unlock better equipment and weapons for the platforming levels. On top of all of that, there's a night/day cycle as well as a seasonal one, which vastly changes the type and amount of work you need to do in the field each day. That might sound like a lot, but it all snaps together wonderfully, leading me to quite a few "well I'll just play one more day" long nights. Oh and I haven't even mentioned the clear reverence shown towards the surprisingly complicated act of actually growing rice—every step of the way is a different kind of mini-game, essentially, and I ended up taking a lot of pride in making the best rice that I could. This is one I'll definitely still be playing into the new year.

***RUNNER UP*** Hades

Everyone's favorite horned-up mythological roguelike ensnared me pretty deeply when the full version was released on Switch this year. I had seen snippets of it on Early Access, which was enough to pique my interest, but I was still caught pretty off-guard by just how incredible this game actually turned out to be.

I haven't talked much about story in these write-ups so far, but it's clearly the first place to start with Hades. If I had to pick one thing to set it apart from similar games, it would be how perfectly the notion of dying and restarting is to the central story of Zagreus. Every time you die in an unsuccessful run, which will be a lot early on, you're encouraged by NPCs to try again—and not only that, it makes thematic sense with—and in fact is central to—the story of the game. This completely removes the sting of feeling underpowered and kind of helpless in your early runs, and to keep playing and powering through it.

The pantheon of gods in this game will show up and offer to help by way of boons. These grant you temporary new abilities, which not only vary depending on which weapon you've picked, but will also combine with and modify other boons that you pick up in the run—not unlike the weapon synergy of Binding of Isaac, for example. The gods have their own agenda, of course, but with some experience you'll start to favor certain builds over others, and to try to and build towards a fully-optimized set of skills to tackle the underworld. Then again, sometimes you'll get something you've never seen before, and change up your tactics on the fly. It's all very rewarding and incredibly replayable.

As with a lot of roguelikes, you do carry some things forward from run to run. As you unlock all of the weapons, purchase upgrades and new abilities, and naturally start to learn how the game works and improve your own strategy, you slowly begin to feel much stronger and eventually, well, god-like. The near-perfect difficulty curve gives players of all skill levels complete control over how hard or easy to make the game for themselves. This carries over perfectly into the "Pact of Punishment" system that's unlocked after your first successful run, which lets you dial up the difficulty to frankly fiendish levels in order to, first and foremost, keep skilled players engaged, but also to provide a ton of "end-game" content for those that want to keep playing.

And really, you'll want to keep playing. The first ending is just the beginning, as the story compels you to keep playing and see how everyone's stories pan out. The NPCs are incredibly well-written and the voice-acting more than lives up to the lines they're given. I was completely invested in these characters and the fates they would have to reckon with by the end.

I got my tenth clear—the first one to roll credits—fittingly enough on attempt #69 (nice). This seemed like where the game naturally "ended," and I put it down—even though there's still a ton of previously mentioned end-game stuff I could do in the game if I wanted. But the end of Zag's main story felt so pitch-perfect, and so earned by the experience with the game overall, that I decided to leave it on that perfect high note.

***GOTY*** Animal Crossing: New Horizons

This wasn't my first Animal Crossing game (it was, I think, my...fourth?), but it was the first Animal Crossing game that a lot of my friends played, and that alone made for a different experience than I've had with the series before. In the early days of quarantine, we were visiting each other's islands every day, trading items, sharing insider tips on the Stalk Market, and just generally enjoying the game in a social way that was suddenly not allowed in day to day real life.

For the most part, that lasted for about a month. Maybe two. But I kept playing, every day, for a few reasons. First was that I have a lot of time with this series, and more or less knew what to expect going in. I didn't get disappointed when Nook's Shop was mostly just stocking items I already had, for instance. But more importantly, I knew not to burn myself out on it early on. And look, I know there's no "right" or "wrong" way to play a game, but Animal Crossing (at least to me) seems unique in that the gameplay is so clearly designed to be enjoyed in 20-30 minute, daily chunks. There's just not that much to *do* after a half hour or so, but I was seeing friends' hours totals in triple digits after just a few weeks.

Two other things unique to this entry helped keep it persistent for me, I think. One, Nintendo committed to and delivered on a regular update schedule, which kept things fresh (and safe from the naughty time travelers of the world, even). Pretty much every month, something brand new happened, and it was enough to keep my interest even after I'd donated every fossil to Blathers.

The second, and much bigger thing by far, was that my daughter started playing. She named our island ("Turtlerock") and moved in on day one. We'd talk about villagers—which ones were our favorites, which ones we wouldn't mind seeing move away—and collaborated on the city-planning of our island. I played first, and was therefor the "primary resident" or whatever it's called, but I never made a big decision without checking in with her first. We're both invested in it, and it's been a fun experience to share together over the course of the year. Hell, we even counted down the last seconds of 2020 together in local co-op.

Sure, my house is paid off, I have two million bells in the bank, and my museum is roughly 95% filled out—but I still play this pretty much every day. It's become a ritual. Usually right after work, which happens to be the best light on the island; sometimes later at night, especially during a meteor shower; and on the weekends frequently in the morning—but no matter when I'm playing, the remarkable thing to me is that here we are, nine months later—still in quarantine, and still playing Animal Crossing.

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oneddashone · 5 years ago

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Most games of this type ask you to choose a character class in the first moments of the game, and you’re out of luck if you end up disliking your selection. But Minecraft Dungeons never forces that sort of do-or-die character building decision on the player.

Despite all the simplification of character builds, it was joyful to watch my children learning the basics of dungeon-crawlers, like strategies about crowd control and area-of-effect attacks. I don’t often have the chance to play games for the whole family that also give me an excuse to explain “kiting” to my children, but here we are. This is the best kind of elegance. The design doesn’t just make for a fun game; it prepares players for more complex ideas from other games in the genre.

This, right here, is exactly what makes Minecraft Dungeons such a treat for me to play right now. The veneer of Minecraft is what got my 9 year old in, but the elegant design is what’s opening her up to a whole new genre of video games.

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oneddashone · 5 years ago

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Games of the Year 2019

GOOD

Wargroove

Yoshi's Crafted World

Nintendo Labo Toy-Con 04: VR Kit

Boxboy + Boxgirl

Puyo Puyo Champions

Dragon Quest Builders 2

Daemon X Machina

Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening

Killer Queen Black

Luigi's Mansion 3

Pokemon: Sword & Shield

The games in this part of the list are in a weird kind of neutral zone—way too good to be left off the overall list, but not wholeheartedly recommended without at least one caveat. All are good, and most are probably worth your time, but each is missing a certain something to justifiably slot them into the upper echelons.

The one standout here is Link's Awakening—I couldn't justify moving it to the next tier up, as it's really just a straight remake of a decades-old Game Boy game—but good lord, what a remake it is. The original was my all-time favorite game until Breath of the Wild came out two years ago, and I played and beat this remake in less than a week. Seeing map areas and locales that I knew like the back of my hand remade in gorgeous tilt-shift HD was a real highlight this year.

RECOMMENDED

Tetris 99

Ape Out

Baba is You

Gato Roboto

Slay the Spire

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

Wilmot's Warehouse

Untitled Goose Game

Sayonara Wild Hearts

These are all fantastic games that I wouldn't hesitate to recommend to anyone. Tetris 99 came out of nowhere and sounded like a joke at first—Tetris but...battle royale?—but it just completely works, and the special events on various weekends this year always drew me back in.

None of the rest of the list was developed or published by Nintendo, but all appeared on the Switch—so much for the idea that Nintendo doesn't know how to work with third parties. Ape Out's core gameplay, visual aesthetic, and killer interactive soundtrack made for a great experience the first time, and an even better one on NG+. Baba is You took a very simple genre, made one slight tweak, and nourished that idea into 200+ levels of mind-bending puzzles. Wilmot's Warehouse used a similar push-block mechanic, but instead used it to create a game about organizing things—and for the right kind of weird person, of which I am one, this is an incredible game experience. Gato Roboto and Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night each successfully riffed on the Metroidvania genre in different ways, but with similarly fantastic results (although to be fair, the latter needed a late patch to justify its inclusion on this list).

Slay the Spire was a hands-down favorite. Deck-building games are a genre I've wanted to get into but never quite have—until now. Spire checked the same boxes in my brain that last year's Into the Breach did—your enemies show their intentions ahead of time, giving you as much time as you need to plot your strategy; and yet, one slightly undercooked move later and it all falls apart. I've been coming back to this one all year and, as someone who regularly undercooks their own moves, will likely continue to do into next year.

Untitled Goose Game was arguably more popular as a meme than as a game, but the relatively simple gameplay was buoyed by some of the most genuinely hilarious interactions I've ever experienced in a game. My 8 year old is still hiding behind corners, waiting to spring an unexpected HONK on her poor old dad.

Another game that succeeded almost despite its gameplay was Sayonara Wild Hearts. It's hard to describe this game—it's almost a rhythm game, but not really; it has a story, but it's ambiguous and none of the characters are even named; there's not much gameplay, but I wouldn't want to watch it passively as a movie—needless to say it's unlike anything I've ever played before. I finished it in two sessions back to back, and was completely enthralled by the colors, environments, the aforementioned ambiguous narrative—but mostly it was the music. Because make no mistake, this game has a goddamned tremendous soundtrack, and it carries through the whole experience. Actually, maybe I do know what kind of game this is—a video game LP.

ESSENTIAL

Mario Maker 2

Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Dragon Quest XI S: Definitive Edition

A big update, released a few months after it came out, single-handedly moved Mario Maker 2 up a tier. The game was already great—proving that even though the Wii U gamepad was the impetus for Mario Maker’s creation, it was not required for it to be fun—but the addition of online multiplayer firmly established that this was a must-have for the platform. Yes, building courses is still great, playing a seemingly infinite amount of user-made courses is great, and yeah, Nintendo even included about 100 of their own courses in a single player "story" mode this time—but it all pales in comparison to competitive, multiplayer Mario. I've referred to the mechanics of 2D Mario as a language one might learn to speak, and it's one that I'm personally fluent in; but now, for the first time, it's a language that I can converse in online with my friends.

We devoted an entire podcast episode to Fire Emblem: Three Houses for a good reason—for the first time, at least in the US, this entry in the Fire Emblem series can comfortably stand toe-to-toe with any other major first-party Nintendo release. Having been largely relegated to handhelds in the past, this entry finally matches the scope, production value, and polish of any other "big budget" Nintendo game on the Switch. Combat remains mostly unchanged, which is fine, but there are two main things that set this entry apart compared to its past. First, the setting of the school, with your character as the teacher, sets up a monthly calendar-based schedule of training students and then taking them onto the battlefield. This loop is addictive and lends itself to the second major change—the cast, namely your students, are some of the most fully fleshed out (and therefore the most agonizing to protect from permadeath) characters the series has ever seen—and this is a series with a tremendous backlog of great characters. I cared about every student in my class and was deeply invested in getting the best out of each and every one of them. That there are four story paths amongst the titular three houses adds a ton of replay value, and when all was said and done this missed out on GOTY by a hair.

Vanilla Dragon Quest XI came out on PS4 last year, but true heads knew that this was the version to wait for. The story goes that Satoru Iwata, before the Switch was even named the Switch, personally reached out to Square Enix and made one final request before passing away—release this game on our new console. For me, Dragon Quest (Dragon Warrior) and Nintendo go hand in hand, and this "S: Definitive Edition" was well worth the wait. The story is typical Dragon Quest—all charm and polish, not a ton of surprise or deep substance—but this Switch edition added to the base story, introduced a new mode where you visit each of the ten locales from previous games in the series, updated the much-maligned music from the original to a new fully-orchestrated score, and imported the Japanese-only 3DS's "2D Mode." It's a lot of game in one package, and I'm still working my way through the back-half of the game, but every hour I continue to spend with this game is a treat. You won’t play a more charming game all year.

Any of these, in a different year, could have been my GOTY.

GOTY

Super Smash Bros Ultimate

Alright let's get this out of the way first—technically this game came out in December of last year. It even made my "Essential" list last year. Here's what I said about it: "SSB Ultimate came on late but hit hard—I played it with friends every night for weeks after release. This one is gonna last well into next year and beyond."

Well that was an understatement. Well over 250 in-game hours later, no other game defined my 2019 like Super Smash Bros Ultimate. I continued playing this game online with friends nearly every night for roughly the first half of the year, and it's still not really out of the rotation. Part of that is due to just how much *game* is here—we mostly played it competitively, which is to say, no items, 1v1, etc. But there's also a robust single player mode, in-game events, balancing options that allow me to play it relatively competitively with my 8 year old, and of course we always have the option to turn everything on and go full-on party mode. Then throw in a new character roughly every other month (s/o to Hero and Terry, two of my favorites to play currently) plus a robust online community generating dialogue, gifs, and highlight videos on a nearly daily basis (s/o YEET Smash), and you have the recipe for a game that's going to hold my attention for the foreseeable future.

I could go on and on about the fan service, or about the impossibly good job Sakurai and co are doing balancing 80ish characters (plus item interactions), or about Nintendo finally starting to get serious about supporting a tournament community, but ultimately the decision to rank this one first comes down to this—2019 was a difficult year for me personally, but when I look back on it, the absolute fondest memories I have of playing games this year were playing Smash with my friends. It was true of Bloodborne in 2015, and it's true of Smash now.

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oneddashone · 6 years ago

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It was impossible to pull just one quote from this to use as the link, so here:

Red Dead Redemption 2: six months later

Don’t let the title fool you—this is really about game design in general, good vs bad, with Read Dead Redemption 2 being a thoroughly useful example of the latter. I haven’t played it, but it’s not required to enjoy what is easily my favorite piece of games writing this year.

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oneddashone · 6 years ago

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Takahashi says that he has often been approached by newer Nintendo employees who enjoyed the games he worked on 10 or 15 years ago. “Not every younger employee is like, sir, I want to follow in your footsteps, please tell me what I should do – that’s never the case!” laughs Takahashi. “Right now, because people of different generations are now working together, they’re always coming up with different ideas about how best to provide a meaningful surprise to players. And I think our job is combining these different ideas to create brand new ways of entertaining people. If we notice that only the senior male employees are gathering together to discuss an idea, one of us will say: we need to get some different perspectives on this.”

Lots of good stuff in this Guardian story on Nintendo turning 130 years old, but this is the quote that will stick with me.

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oneddashone · 6 years ago

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As a devotee of the classics, I wouldn't go as far as to say Devil Engine looks better than them - just that it feels like they share that vision, and have been ushered to life with the help of a little more grunt. It's as if someone just discovered an unreleased Saturn shooter, developed by some of the finest minds at Irem and Konami in the 90s, and just ported it to Switch.

And:

I really didn't expect a game about an ape dashing people's skulls against the wall to turn out to be a meditation on jazz as a medium yet here we are, and the effect is quite brilliant.

We’re two months into 2019 and there’s already a healthy amount of good new games out there. Wargroove belongs in this tier as well.

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oneddashone · 6 years ago

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The ability to easily download maps and campaigns my friends have made all over the world, challenging them or dissecting the terrain and placements on my own time, is sublime. It remains to be seen how effective the curation and sharing will be once servers are live and everyone’s piled in, but right now, it has the potential to be the Super Mario Maker of Advance Wars.

Wargroove is the first game of 2019 that I’m genuinely psyched for, especially if the community that develops around the Map Editor is as robust and creative as I think it might be.

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oneddashone · 6 years ago

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Iteration has a bad rap among a certain corner of the video game audience, the word conjuring retail shelves full of countless sequels to Call of Duty and Assassin’s Creed. But New Super Mario Bros. U’s ability to successfully mine a formula that’s inspired 17 sequels over 30 years is an astonishing reminder that video games have a unique and appealing relationship with the iterative process.

Iteration in video games, done well, borders on the spiritual. Here we see creators build a world and watch how hundreds, thousands, sometimes millions of people inhabit that space. Then, we see them use that lesson to build a new world for us, one that improves upon the initial creation, or subverts it or critiques it or decimates it altogether for something formally new, but built from the wreckage of its visuals and systems.

Iteration at its best isn’t merely refinement or polish; it’s a game in conversation with all of its predecessors, and through these games, a dialogue between the creators and players. It is the culmination and collaboration all at once. New Super Mario Bros. U may not be everyone’s No. 1 Mario game of all time, but I have no doubt it will remind every fan of what makes their favorite special.

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oneddashone · 6 years ago

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Games of the Year 2018

2018 was, for me, when I finally escaped the zeitgeist of well-reviewed, non-Nintendo, big-budget AAA games. Red Dead 2, Spider-Man, God of War—in previous years, the collective siren song of each of these games' Recommended or Essential tags on Eurogamer would have been too much for me to resist, but not this year—the Nintendo Switch almost completely cannibalized my game time in 2018.

It's an object that brings me joy in a way the PS4 and Xbox could never hope to achieve. Sure, part of it is just a victory lap for a Nintendo fanboy that rarely gets them anymore, and part of it is certainly the added flexibility of the handheld/console duality at the heart of its design. But it's also something more than that. Something I've struggled to define.

Nintendo's release calendar in 2018 was, in my eyes at least, as near-perfect as you can get when dealing with something as volatile as game development. Every month there was a new and interesting big box release, a few interesting digital-only games, and probably a patch to one of your favorite games from 2017 that made it a blast to play all over again. I know that it's been criticized, and that Nintendo's stock was even down at one point because of a perceived negative reaction to the games they put out this year, but I just can't comprehend that—to me it felt perfect.

Anyways, on to the list.

(Side bar: some have already scoffed at some of the inclusions here due to strict Gregorian merit. I quite like how Polygon worded their policy on their list:

You may notice the inclusion of games that were either fully released or made available in Early Access prior to 2018. Because many games change from update to update, let alone year to year, we will include previously available games that receive a significant update within the year or become available on a platform that substantially impacts how that game is experienced.

End side bar)

RECOMMENDED

Night in the Woods

Danmaku Unlimited 3

Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon

Yoku’s Island Express

Mario Tennis Aces

Octopath Traveler

The Messenger

Valkyria Chronicles 4

Dragon Ball FighterZ

Mega Man 11

Forza Horizon 4

Dark Souls Remastered

Diablo III: Eternal Collection

Civilization VI

Tetris Effect

Gris

I'm really happy with the diversity of games in this part of the list. From Dark Souls to Gris, there was truly something for almost any type of video game fan this year. I still think about the music from Night in the Woods, the characters from Valkyria Chronicles, and the stages from Mega Man 11. Octopath Traveler perfectly scratched the JRPG itch (even if I still have over half the game to go), and Mario Tennis Aces was the most competitive I've been in an online game since probably Arms. Danmaku Unlimited 3 is wholly underrated as a modern shmup, and regardless of how you feel about racing games, you owe it to yourself to experience the fields of rural England flying by in Forza Horizon 4—one of only two games in this list that I didn't play on Switch, actually.

ESSENTIAL

Celeste

Hollow Knight

Dead Cells

Into the Breach

Pokemon: Let's Go Eeevee

Super Smash Bros Ultimate

This part of the list is just bonkers. I feel like there have been past years where literally all of these could have finished #1.

Celeste touched me with its story—not something I've said about many games, especially those that are most well-known for their precision and difficulty. Hollow Knight was a complete joy when it landed on Switch this Spring. I immediately put dozens of hours into it and played it exclusively for weeks, and I still have more to find. Dead Cells quickly replaced all the other roguelikes I was regularly dipping into, and still hasn't given up its roost there. Into the Breach was the exact strategy game I needed to get back into that genre, at a time when I desperately wanted to get back into that genre. Pokemon Let's Go Eevee was *the* father/daughter game this year—we've played it together, sure, but we've also bonded in discussions about elemental strengths and weaknesses, correct support character strategy, the merits of grinding, etc etc etc (I’ve also started my own save file—it’s that good). And SSB Ultimate came on late but hit hard—I played it with friends every night for weeks after release. This one is gonna last well into next year and beyond.

Hollow Knight, Dead Cells, and Into the Breach were also all games that my PC friends were playing and that I knew I'd probably be into, but doubted I'd ever get the chance to experience myself. That they all made their console debut on the Switch in the same calendar year speaks to how strong that calendar was for Nintendo, I'd say.

GOTY

Monster Hunter World (and Generations Ultimate)

For all the Nintendo love on this list—and yes I realize I'm cheating by also sneaking Gen Ultimate on here—it's one of the only games I played on PS4 that takes the top spot.

2018 was the year of Monster Hunter for me. I had played multiple games in the series up to this point, but the two that came out this year completely nailed what makes these games great—and they're two totally, completely different (but equally wonderful) games.

Generations Ultimate technically came out later in the West, but it's also clearly the older game. The 'ultimate' in the title isn't marketing happenstance—this is a huge, over-stuffed collection of the 'best of' MonHun's first four mainline and spin-off games. Everything good about MonHun before 2018 is in this game, and it's as bloated as you'd expect. I played with a multitude of weapons, styles, and arts, and still didn't come close to scratching the surface of the vast amount of stuff in this game. I'm still playing it and plan to continue for some time.

Monster Hunter World, on the other hand, came out all the way back in January but is almost a completely new game. A lot of the dumb cruft from 10+ years of game history has been whittled down into one of the most intensely satisfying experiences I had this year. I played around 90 hours—some alone, some with my trusted hunting buddy Tommy, and some with a full group of hunters from Detroit Arcade Club—and I never felt like I wasted a minute. I love that they've added some light MMO elements (in the form of daily and weekly bonuses, mostly). I love that the maps are one coherent place now, and that monsters attack each other in unscripted encounters. I love that whetstones are infinite and you don't stop and cycle through an animation every time you pick a flower. There was just so much to love in this game, and it sets the table beautifully for the next ten years of Monster Hunter.

It was a good year in games. Maybe not as stuffed as last year, and certainly not quite hitting its extreme highs (I couldn't even write about Breath of the Wild last year, it was too good), but on the whole it was steady in quality and refreshingly varied in its executions. Here's to another year in games like this one.

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