Game Of The Year 2020

Wow, 2020 has been a year to say the least, but hey we’ve got games to play to keep us busy right? So let’s highlight some of my top games from one hell of a year.

Bronze: Superliminal

If nothing else Superliminal is a technical achievement with the it handles physics scaling and transforming objects. The heart of its puzzles is how it plays with perspectives, as an example for some of the basic early puzzles you might need to grab an object and move it close to you at your feet to shrink the object essentially scaling it directly to your perspective. It’s an interesting experiment with the unique experience of games.

I got some additional enjoyment from it as during the brief period where indoor socialising was permitted, got to witness a friend going through it and trying to piece together how the perspective puzzles worked.

Silver: Final Fantasy 7 Remake

Many years after the PS3 tech demo dazzled everybody we have an actual HD Final Fantasy 7. Well kind of it isn’t a remake of the full Final Fantasy 7 instead being a part one focusing on just Midgar. If I’m honest this had me nervous expecting an open world experience with icons vomited over the map but I was pleased to see it was a more linear experience that didn’t feel padded.

It is a game of 2 halves it has some really cool moments and the way it’s adapted the turn based ATB from the original to a more action style is impressive. But on the other side the plot starts to go a bit off the rails later. Clearly, they didn’t want to just directly remake FF7 and wanted to do some of there own stuff, and that includes modern Nomura’s tendency to want to keep setting up stuff that will “definitely” pay off in later games.

Gold: Animal Crossing New Horizons

I feel you’ve got to take the context of the year when considering the game of the year, and well Animal Crossing New Horizons could not have timed it’s release better if Nintendo themselves had engineered the virus.

In a year where we’ve been trapped inside and life has been put on hold for a lot of us it was the perfect, the chance to go out, socialise and work towards goals. On a personal note I’d been planning on house hunting during 2020 and getting my own place which has obviously been paused so decorating rooms has been something I’ve really enjoyed.

Old Game Of The Year 2019

Last week we covered my game of the year for 2019 but being a cheap person most of the games I play end up being from previous years, so today let’s give out the awards for my old game of the year.

Bronze: ZHP Unlosing Ranger vs Darkdeath Evilman

If you want to play a dangerous drinking game go on the Switch eshop and take a drink for every game that describes itself as rogue lite or rogue like. Having tried a few of these I’d come to the decision that they weren’t for me, having to replay the whole of a game and lose all your stat progress when you die ends up being frustrating to me.

But then I played through a game from the backlog ZHP a game with gameplay more in the actual style of Rogue itself and surprisingly really got into it. The advantages this game has over the current crop of indie titles is that a) it is split into multiple separate levels so if you die you only have to redo that level rather than the entirety of the game. The other advantage is that when you die you lose your current level but it also keeps track of all the levels you lost and these permanently affect your base stats and how much they increase when levelling up, so even in death you are still maintaining some of the progress you’ve achieved. Further to this the story ties back into this gameplay loop as the basis over it is persevering through adversity and becoming a better person.

ZHP has basically revitalised some interest in a gameplay style that I thought was dead to me.

Silver: Batman the Enemy Within

The first season of the Telltale Batman game was willing to play things out differently to the established lore of Batman and was interesting. I had thought I’d lost the chance to play through the second season after the Telltale closure but found out it was still on the Playstation store and jumped at the chance to play it.

The big marketing push for season two was the Joker and that can go one of two ways; some of the best regarded Batman stories feature the Joker, but on the flip side due to the characters popularity there’s many stories with him that just end up derivative and forgettable. Thankfully Telltale pulled it off with there own spin on the character that explores the nature or nurture argument that the Joker himself made with the one bad day statement of The Killing Joke.

I’ve kept this deliberately vague since it is a story focused game but if you are a Batman fan this is well worth checking out for an actually unique take on the Joker.

Gold: Undertale

Fandoms on the internet are a tricky thing, Undertale had shall we say some passionate fans that would not shut up about the game and go as far as attacking people streaming or doing a let’s play of the game because they were “playing it wrong”. Ironically these people who love the game turned off myself and many others from the game, but I finally tried this game after a friend’s recommendation and I now get how it generated such a passionate fanbase.

There is so much to love about the game; the shmup/RPG hybrid combat that plays out differently for every battle with extra layers in boss battles, the way it handles the impact of choices and how these choices aren’t just picking from a list of options, the relatable characters personally I could relate to Papyrus pretty much immediately (which might not reflect well on me), the way playthroughs can vary so much and tie back into each other, and of course some excellent music that has caused the creator Toby Fox to go on and produce tracks for Game Freak.

If like me you were put off by the fanbase just try the game and see if it clicks for you, if you don’t like it you’re probably same to have that opinion now years after its originally release.

Game Of The Year 2019

Now that 2019 is drawing to a close it is time for the first ever but highly prestigious David E game of the year awards. As with any personal game of the year list there are great games from this year that I will have inevitably missing, but even so I think I have three fantastic games taking the medals, so without further ado let’s give out these prizes.

Bronze: Luigi’s Mansion 3

You find an office chair so you suck it with your vacuum to make it spin and you get rewarded, you see a magic box with a saw in it so you alternate sucking and blowing to cut through it and you get rewarded. These are a couple of examples of what I absolutely loved about Luigi’s Mansion 3; the experience of searching an environment for secrets. This was so much fun especially going through it in co-op with another person we didn’t run into a scenario that had us decrying it as dumb and making no sense, even when they are more hidden there was always a clear line of logic to follow behind the solution that made sense in the levels setting.

The levels themselves provided great variety to this, the game is set in a hotel where each floor has its own distinct theme as a couple of example; one floor had a magician theme an another had a medieval setting, each floor varies a lot as does how they hide the secrets within them. All too often in games the environment is just set dressing or built around combat encounters so it has to be applauded when one comes along that has such deliberate and excellent level design.

Silver: Devil May Cry 5

Devil May Cry is one of those special series to me, after playing the first I spent a lot of time on a Devil May Cry forum in my early teen years and kept the online moniker Nero Angelo for years. However I was one of the few hardcore fans who didn’t hate the DmC reboot, despite that I am so glad I live in the dimension that got Devil May Cry 5 instead of DmC 2.

This was exactly the return to form that fans wanted, we now have 3 playable characters Dante, Nero and V who all feel distinct. Dante is the classic over the top stylish weapon switching combat that the series is known for (though he does have a new feature I won’t spoil). Nero is again a more new player friendly character only having one melee weapon and one gun, though this time he has limited resource breakable robotic arms that add a more controlled level of complexity and variety to his gameplay compared to Dante since they aren’t freely swappable. V is the new character and plays quite differently as most of his damage is done via summoned creatures rather than directly himself. V is probably the weakest gameplay of the three but they have a distinct quality and flair to them.

The game has a bunch of design choices that really charmed me; it is full of so much fan service other than 2 the whole of the series is referenced (even the anime), the taunts are really well done with the highlight being one Nero has where he puts on the hood on his jacket which then stays on until it is knocked off, hell they even add a mechanic for Nero right at the end of the game that is then a new mechanic to consider when replaying on a higher difficulty.

Graphically it is stunning really showing the versatility of the RE7 engine, Devil Trigger is a great song that you should to anyway, and the new female character Nico was great, I had been so disappointed in 4 when Kyrie was just a damsel in distress with no personally so I was thrilled that the new character was a return to form for the series. The short of this is if you were ever a DMC fan you should give 5 a go.

Gold: Astral Chain

It’s funny I wasn’t overly excited for Astral Chain, it looked interesting enough and was by Platinum so I took the chance on preordering it, coincidentally I had a week off work after it came out it sucked me in and I spent most of my week playing and beating it.

For DMC5 I said V’s gameplay was the weakest, well Astral Chain showed how to pull that kind of gameplay to its best. In a very pretentious way I describe characters action games as being a violent game, to stretch that metaphor even further here rather than a solo dance you have a dance partner. You are tethered to a kind of ghost monster called a legion, the legion will attack on its own if near an enemy but you have to control its movement and positioning bearing in mind that is relative to your own due to the chain. That chain itself can be a weapon as well; stretch it out between the two of you when an enemy charges at you and you can slingshot them back or wrap it round an enemy to temporarily bind them. This game feels different to a lot of action games because positioning is so important.

To facilitate having to handle two characters the combat is simplified for each, rather than remembering long combo chains the focus is instead on utilising a range of options. By the end of the game you have 5 different legions you can freely switch between, each of these can be equipped with 2 skills that you control the execution of, as well as a unique ability that combines them with your character, it for the sword legion you perform a Metal Gear Rising style slowed time slash or for the best legion you ride them. The fun of the combat is that you’ll keep between which legion you are using and how you are fighting to add some real variety to the combat.

Astral Chain has another side to it as well; you play as a cop so there is a detective side. This is there to contract with the action heavy segments by providing many quieter sections. It’s strange as on the surface people tend to think that all killer no filler is the best approach but here the contrast from these sections just heightens the feeling of excitement in the action parts, and that is why it managed to snatch the gold medal away from my beloved Devil May Cry series though in retrospect maybe I should have given it a platinum medal

Well that was my 2019 game of the year however as a very cheap person a lot of games I play are from previous years so next week I’ll be giving out the awards for the best old games I’ve played in 2019.