Another year has come and gone, and I don’t know about you, but this one went by pretty quickly. Between my blog posts, GoNintendo, GamingTrend, and other misadventures, I wrote nearly 40 articles this past year. Plus, I have a pretty demanding actual job that I need to live!
There’s no time to rest, though. As always, I have a list of games that I must share in order to continue my writing licensure. I should mention, however, that things this year aren’t quite that simple.
Last year I put forth the idea that it was fine to have thirteen games on a Game of the Year list instead of ten. I was wrong. Apparently if you list more than ten games, the rest are supposed to be “honorable mentions.” I don’t see how that makes a difference, you’re still adding more than ten games to a top ten list, but I’ve been told this distinction matters. The authorities informed me shortly afterwards that I was in violation of the unspoken agreement between video game listers and, long story short, my video game writing license is currently on probation. As a result, I have to compensate for my overreach by only listing 7 games this year so that things are even. I apologize to everyone for my past transgression.
7. Air Twister
Space Harrier and touch controls may be a match made in hell, or at least hell for your thumbs. Air Twister itself, however, works surprisingly well despite the finger gymnastics – you could argue they’re even part of the fun. Speaking of the afterlife, though, the game’s amazing soundtrack by Valensia allows it to transcend to an almost ethereal experience. Much like the fantasy zone of Space Harrier, Air Twister follows its own logic rather anything the human mind can fully comprehend (although there is a strangely large amount of lore to read if you want to try). That abstractness allows Air Twister to haunt your consciousness long after reaching the end.
Side-scrolling beat em ups and the TMNT share an iconic relationship because the genre fits so well with the TMNT as a concept. Unfortunately, these once close partners became estranged over the years. Shredder’s Revenge finally brings them back together with a modern reincarnation of Konami’s TMNT and stretches that concept about as far as it can go.
This isn’t exactly a Streets of Rage 4 situation, where the game goes above and beyond my expectations. Instead, I’d say Shredder’s Revenge meets them exactly. It looks great, feels great, and has more than enough content to make up for the time it took for something like this to exist. Shredder’s Revenge is a worthy follow-up to Konami’s time with the series and I’m glad something like this can be still be made today.
5. Sonic Frontiers
I always worry about Sonic. Not for the stereotypical reasons, I usually find things I enjoy about every game, but because he’s very impressionable. Everyone wants to give Sonic advice and his tendency to take it has stifled his games for the past decade. Sonic Frontiers breaks free from many of his recent self-imposed restrictions and delivers on satisfying new take on the series. It doesn’t kick every bad habit and I would have preferred for Frontiers to wipe the slate completely clean from what past titles established, but it marks an important first step towards the future.
That a Sonic game can release and actually feel like Sonic, rather than an idealized throwback version of Sonic, means a lot to me. It’s nice to see Sonic running in the right direction again.
4. Pocky & Rocky Reshrined
In a world where remakes run rampant, no one does a better job than developer Tengo Project. Their previous work with Wild Guns and The Ninja Warriors specialized in recreating the core games while also elevating them with tasteful new content. Pocky & Rocky Reshrined continues their excellent streak: part remake and part sequel, this game delivers the definitive take on the series. It represents the perfect middle ground that few remakes attempt by prioritizing the original experience first, and then faithfully building off of it in compelling ways.
3. Freedom Planet 2
Freedom Planet 2 took a shockingly long time to release, but the end result was worth the wait. The original game showed little restraint; level after level it raised the stakes with crazier levels and bosses. It was a very full game. Freedom Planet 2 pushes things even further with a staggering amount of levels and new ideas. The characters have been thoughtfully reworked, the levels constantly throw in new curveballs to the core experience, and the hub areas flesh out the world well.
While there’s certainly room for another sequel, this is one of the few games this year that I felt completely satisfied with what I got. I genuinely find it hard to imagine what the third game can do to top this one.
2. Azure Striker Gunvolt 3
Although Gunvolt resembles Mega Man, they differ in many ways, and perhaps the most prominent way is Gunvolt’s consistent willingness to reinvent itself. Gunvolt 3 marks the most dramatic shake-up yet and I think the gamble paid off. Gunvolt 3 recontextualizes the core idea of tagging enemies from a relatively passive mechanic into something much more in your face and action-packed. This take feels fresh yet retains the principles that make Gunvolt unique from its peers. It’s cool and satisfying to play, which is everything you could hope for from a new direction.
Everything from the game design to the art to the soundtrack oozes quality – this is easily the most premium-feeling Inti Creates game. My only complaint about the initial release was that the ending felt a little undercooked, but even that has been addressed in post-launch updates and DLC, culminating with an entire epilogue featuring a new playable character. Gunvolt 3 consistently kept me playing since its release, and it has since swiftly risen to the top of the series as my favorite Gunvolt game.
1. Neon White
Neon White shows no fear. It blends an interesting puzzle-solving s card system with blisteringly fast first person speed running in a way that never feels clumsy or awkward. It uses relatively simple visuals elegantly to keep the game easily readable while stylishly distinct. The narrative tells an endearingly sweet story but doesn’t shy away from being crude, dumb, and goofy when a fun opportunity arises.
Neon White feels like it was made by someone who knew exactly what they wanted and they weren’t afraid to put everything about themselves into it. That’s my favorite kind of game. When I do these game of the year things, I try to give the top spot to the game that connects with me the most, the kind of game I’m most likely to keep in the back of my mind going forward. This year, Neon White fit that bill perfectly. It’s an incredibly clever game that I enjoyed on every level.
Somehow an entire year has passed since I wrote my game of the year list for 2020, which means that I have to write a new one or else I will lose my writing-about-video-games license. As always, if you disagree with me I implore you to cut that out.
You may notice that there are thirteen games sitting on this list. Why thirteen instead of ten? I ask instead, why ten instead of thirteen? Go into the mountains and meditate on this for ten days and thirteen nights. Return here when you are done and share your answer in the comments section. Only then will we be able to reach true enlightenment.
13. Elec Head
Players often hold the concept of “immersion” in high regard, essentially putting forth the idea that the games should strive to avoid making you think about the fact that they are games while playing them. Personally I’ve never found this idea to be that important. If anything, pursuing immersion too heavily results in missing out on key advantages that only the awareness of the fact you’re playing a game can provide.
Elec Head serves as an extreme example. You can’t ignore that Elec Head is a game; if you do, you simply won’t be able to progress. Elec Head forces the player to rethink the more abstract components of game design by turning them into essential pieces of puzzles. Over its short duration, the game packs in so many clever ideas and scenarios that it could stand out for how tightly designed it is alone.
12. Resident Evil Village
Both the biggest blessing and curse of the Resident Evil series lies in its nature to be consistently inconsistent. The balancing act between action and horror ebbs back and forth in nearly every game, and I believe that’s largely by design – when you’re a mainstream series like Resident Evil, you can’t survive this long by being just one thing forever.
Resident Evil VII surprised me with its reinvention of the series’ horror roots that had decayed over the decade prior to its release, but it was inevitable that the pendulum would swing back to action eventually. Village doesn’t fully abandon horror, though, it instead injects small doses of it in between more action-packed firefights with werewolves, vampires, and all kinds of creatures of the night. Village offers such an over-the-top sampling of scenarios and creatures that I can’t help but be enthralled by how far it goes in executing every outlandish idea it has.
I had a lot of fun with Village, but it may be the series at its most eclectic. Similar to any a-little-bit-of-everything blockbuster, I’m not sure I can appreciate it as much as something more focused like Resident Evil VII. As far as AAA blockbusters go, however, no one does it better than Capcom and Village offers up just about everything you could want from a horror-themed rollercoaster ride.
11. Steel Assault
William Shakespeare once wrote that “brevity is the soul of wit,” and although this quote is often cited from his work on Hamlet, it’s a little known fact that he originally wrote it when talking about how cool video games will be in around 400 years.
Arcade design endures to this day because although it often crams in a lot of mechanics and scenarios to master, the breezy game lengths ease the chances of a player growing too overwhelmed as well as their pain in making mistakes. The end goal of playing these games may be perfection, but until then, each playthrough builds upon the next by adding just a little more experience to your arsenal. As long as you keep trying, the rapid accumulation of experience gradually imbues your soul with enough wit to get the coveted 1CC. Shakespeare truly was ahead of his time.
Steel Assault executes on this concept flawlessly. The game echoes the formula of run and gun classics like Contra, but offers mechanical depth with its grapple line mechanic which allows for tactics that may not be immediately obvious without the experimentation multiple playthroughs allow for. I completed Steel Assault about five times in a row the first day I tried it, and while that might seem like a lot, it only clocks in to be a little over two hours. That’s the power of witty brevity. Steel Assault shines as a brilliant beacon for the merits of arcade action and design.
10. Splitgate
Splitgate emerged from the shadows (possibly via portal) as a surprise last-minute entry into the the running. These days I don’t expect to get into multiplayer shooters too much. Despite that, Splitgate has managed to pull me in for the past month. This year Splitgate left early access to enter, uh, indefinite beta, but frankly it holds up in a shockingly less Early Access state than its most direct inspiration.
Yeah Halo might be back, but just between you and me, I don’t know if Halo Infinite’s multiplayer does much of anything I didn’t like more in Halo 3 over a decade ago. It actually does a lot of things worse; I’m pretty sure I could just play any mode I wanted to play in Halo 3 for starters. Splitgate on the other hand competently carries over a lot of what I enjoy in Halo while adding in the strategic portal element. The portals don’t fundamentally alter the game, but they introduce a fresh consideration that consistently captures my imagination for coming up with new approaches and strategies. Halo fans have been beaten down by 343’s previous efforts and may be desperate to latch onto Infinite, but as it stands Splitgate may be more worth their time and attention.
AMBUSHED! Video Game Premonitions for 2022
Watch out, your arbitrary video game ranking list has been arbitrarily invaded by a random encounter! Can you defeat this trash mob of premonitions and emerge from 2022 unscathed?
Square Enix announces their intent to implement NFTs into Marvel’s Avengers somehow.
At least one iconic Nintendo character farts on screen in the Super Mario movie.
Microsoft neither implements nor outlines a coherent plan to expand upon Halo Infinite’s campaign mode in 2022.
Konami announces a new Castlevania that basically looks like a budget Dark Souls game.
The Pokemon Company announces their intent to implement NFTs into an upcoming generation of Pokemon somehow. By the way, there’s a new generation of Pokemon and it’s coming out at the end of this year. What, a new game is supposed to release this month? Whatever, that’s old news!
Gex returns and in a bid to make him more relevant to modern audiences, this time he is being voiced by Youtuber Videogamedunkey.
Capcom announces more Resident Evil projects than Mega Man or Ace Attorney combined.
Sony prevents the Apes from Escaping once again.
The new Zelda game (Obelisk of Shadow) is just ok.
That was pretty scary, huh? Anyway, you know what else is scary:
9. Tormented Souls
No genre of game suffers more from discourse about “evolution” than horror games. So many people talk about old school survival horror games as if the developers had absolutely no idea what they were doing. Why didn’t all of those legendary game developers realize they were making their massively budgeted and successful games “wrong” when they implemented fixed camera angles and tank controls?
Of course in reality, many of these so-called outdated techniques are perfect for horror while many modern conventions are almost antithetical to it. Fixed cameras lock you into perspectives that give each room a distinct feeling or personality, while the free moving perspective of over-the-shoulder or first person games often make things easy to ignore or blend areas together indistinctly. Tank controls might have a small learning curve, but they make perfect sense in a world where you don’t know what exactly to expect when you head off-screen.
I worry people aren’t ready for the truth – technical limitations or not, early horror games had an amazingly strong grasp on horror techniques and how they should work in a game, often a better grasp than most modern horror games do. Perspective and player control are indescribably important when it comes to horror. The more control you have over your actions and what you see, the more difficult it becomes to build up moods or tension. I’m not saying that horror is impossible in other perspectives, simply that this old style is hardly outdated and it’s an enormous shame that games made this way died off in the post-Resident Evil 4 world.
In this bleak world, Tormented Souls highlights this genre’s long-forgotten strengths. Everything you could hope for shows up – a grueling atmosphere, bizarre enemies and camera angles, puzzles you actually have to think about for more than a second, and item management that keeps you on your toes. The game borrows more than a few ideas from older survival horror games, but not at the cost of its own identity. In many ways, Tormented Souls pushes boundaries that its more mainstream inspirations would never have dared. Tormented Souls admirably reignites the torch of survival horror and I can only hope more games follow in its stead to keep the fire alive.
8. Balan Wonderworld
Balan Wonderworld presents a message about how our lives require a balance of both positivity and negativity to find meaning, and that regardless of what we struggle with at any given moment, kindness and imagination can push you through; so I suppose it is only appropriate that the game was relentlessly mocked to the point it unceremoniously tanked, dragging down the developers who worked on it in the process.
I get it, despite a lot of the clamor for these kinds of games to come back, collectathon-focused platformers aren’t actually that popular. At best, most will just ask why the game doesn’t play like Mario. Personally, I appreciate the laid-back lock-and-key style exploration Balan offers and playing the game to full completion remains a big highlight of this year. The excellent design work from Naoto Ohshima elevates the game further, making each level, creature, and costume powerup endearing with a style that I sorely miss seeing in a post-Dreamcast world. It’s a shame how Balan was received, but it was also easy to see coming. My guess: the world will grow much kinder to Balan in the long run.
7. Metroid Dread
Metroid and I have settled our differences and come to an agreement. She can keep the action focus and flashy cinematics, while I get a competently made map that’s fun to navigate and a story that doesn’t make me want to die.
A decade ago, I may have been more excited about Dread, but in retrospect I can only think “man I’m glad they’re finally on the right track.” Don’t misunderstand, I enjoyed the game a lot, but I can’t say it tops my list of favorite Metroid games or fully brought me back to pre-2010 levels of Metroid fandom. I’m just glad Metroid is safe and doing well and it’s not like I like her or anything b-baka.
6. Psychonauts 2
Only Psychonauts 2 gave Metroid Dread a run for its money in how concerned I was about how it would end up. I love Psychonauts, but I have not loved a Double Fine game since, well, Psychonauts. Okay, I liked Brutal Legend more than most, but I don’t know if I love it. The point being, as far as decade+-late sequels go, I felt all bets were off with this one. I didn’t even back it on their weird Kickstarter investing Ponzi-scheme setup because I had so little faith in the project. A truly great Psychonauts 2 would require Tim Schafer and company to somehow channel themselves from 2005 to make it work.
Well, call me a psychic but that appears to be what happened. Barring a few aspects, Psychonauts 2 follows up on the original like no time passed at all, in-game or otherwise. Every character arc and plot reveal logically and amusingly follows from the original and the game answers just about every question you could have about the world of Psychonauts. Game-wise the controls and level design have been streamlined, but the game remains fun and varied throughout. It’s just a nice, pleasant experience that I couldn’t have imagined coming from this company 16 years after the fact.
The only thing I can really complain about is the complete erosion of trust between Double Fine and their audience. Whereas the original may have left some things unsaid or hidden particularly dark parts of character backstories as secrets, this time around the writing doesn’t want you to miss a thing. There’s almost no reason to break open those memory vault slideshows because the game will just tell you exactly what happened anyway. You’re going to have everything about this character, their life, and their psychological hang-ups spelled out for you, sometimes from multiple perspectives, and you’re going to like it, you idiot.
Overall, though, I’m impressed. Double Fine put together a worthwhile sequel to one of my favorite games and it only required them to tank the whole company and get bought out by Microsoft to do it.
5. Fantasian
Final Fantasy marches on without creator Hironobu Sakaguchi’s involvement, but the games labeled Final Fantasy today exist as undeniably different beasts from the initial run of games he worked on. Even the throwback-style RPGs that attempt to capture the spirit of those original games never really do, and I believe it’s exactly because they are deliberate imitations that they end up missing some of the appeal.
Fantasian doesn’t feel like it’s trying to recapture anything, it just effortlessly embodies the spirit of Final Fantasy. The handmade environments suck you into a world crafted with just as much charming simplicity as the game’s aesthetic. Fantasian does not revolutionize any RPG mechanics, but it doesn’t need or want to – it has enough smaller ideas to keep the battles engaging and the exploration interesting regardless. There will always be new Final Fantasy games on the horizon, but in many ways Mistwalker’s RPGs are the real Final Fantasy continuations to me, and Fantasian is perhaps the greatest testament to that so far.
4. Ys IX: Monstrum Nox
One of my favorite things about the Ys series is the variety it presents to the player in terms of the adventures themselves and varying game styles. At a time where the party member system of recent games may be wearing thin, the developers at Falcom found interesting and economical ways to do something different.
Despite the many shared elements, Ys IX stands as an almost polar opposite to Ys VIII. VIII pushed the boundaries of the series to its most expansive point yet, while IX quietly introspects about Adol and the nature of his adventures. That’s not to say it’s unambitious, as it aims to be the most consistent and strongly themed game in the series. Every element of the game builds on the concepts it explores and it results in a very different experience from what came before. While I’m sure Ys IX can be enjoyed by newcomers, it culminates the series up to this point in such a smart and meaningful way that I can’t help but feel being a long-time fan is a prerequisite to truly connecting with and loving this game.
BONUS STAGE – Miscellaneous 2021 Thoughts
Wow, you managed to enter the secret bonus stage! How did you even do that, you’re just sitting and reading a web page!? Anyway, here are some brief 2021-specific thoughts:
DLC
As you may know, in the year 2021 a game releasing doesn’t mean it ever has to stop releasing. I spent a good amount of time on add-ons and expansions this year, so I thought I would highlight a few that stuck with me in particular:
Streets of Rage 4 – Mr. X Nightmare
I know what you’re thinking: I, too, was hoping for a way that Streets of Rage 4 could win Game of the Year two years in a row. This will have to do.
Mr. X Nightmare perfects Streets of Rage 4. I mean it was already pretty perfect but I guess it is more perfect now. They sure showed me. Not only does the expansion add more characters to enjoy and experiment with, it also adds new moves to every existing character. The survival mode, while perhaps more limited in what it offers than you might expect, allows the game to go as wild as possible in often zany, overwhelming ways. It serves as a nice diversion to replaying the main game, at any rate.
Streets of Rage 4 already existed as one of the most comprehensive packages in the genre, but Mr X Nightmare adds so many reasons to continue to replay the game that it’s hard to wrap your head around it. I know game design isn’t about content alone, but I just can’t see any game topping Streets of Rage 4 on its own terms now. It’s over. Perfect game.
Streets Fighter V – Final Season
I realize you’re not supposed to say this out loud, but Street Fighter V has been my favorite fighting game this past console generation by far. I’ve enjoyed the game for pretty much its entire run, and I couldn’t ask for a better send off than this final season of characters. Oro in particular sat on my list of dream characters for a long time, and I’m exceedingly happy to see him finally show up in a new game. While I’m interested to see where Street Fighter 6 goes from here, until it materializes I am more than satisfied with Street Fighter V.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Fighters Pass 2
Around the same time as Street Fighter V, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate also came to an end this year. While I generally enjoyed the characters in the second fighters pass, I can’t say any of the picks got me overly excited. They are well made and interesting to play as, but the first pass did a lot more for me until the Byleth reveal set our reality onto the alternate timeline. I’m happy to see Sora managed to cut past all the legal red tape at any rate.
I’m a little surprised Nintendo chose to end things here to be honest. I understand that working on the game requires a lot of time and money, but the ever looming Smash reveals offered so many benefits outside of simply collecting DLC money that it seems insane to end the potential for more without some kind of follow-up on the immediate horizon. That’s the other problem – Smash Ultimate undoubtedly poses one of the toughest acts to follow of all time. It makes no sense to completely reboot the series with different mechanics as that would no longer be Super Smash Bros., but the disappointment of a roster downgrade will also be difficult to swallow.
As things stand, I only see two ways forward: (1) they re-release the game on the next Nintendo console with more characters then restart the DLC cycle all over again, or (2) they give Smash a long break and return with some kind of weird service game that lives on the unstated promise that eventually the roster may grow back to Ultimate’s size. Either way, Smash will eventually need to face up to the existential crisis created by Ultimate, and it may not be pretty.
Skullgirls Returns from the Dead (Again)
Perhaps appropriately, Skullgirls fades in and out of undeath. It seems like just yesterday that Squiggly miraculously joined the roster, only for that to open the door for even more characters, only for future updates to be unceremoniously shelved in favor of Indivisible. Now the tables have turned and Indivisible has been unceremoniously shelved while Skullgirls reigns supreme. As it should, if you ask me.
It does seem strange to me that two of the most key people involved with the inception of Skullgirls are now off the project for various reasons, but I’m not dissatisfied with the work Future Club has done without them. I can only hope to one day see Minette and Panzerfaust to complete this unlikely Skullgirls fever-dream purgatory extravaganza.
Fan Games
Just as the indie side of the game development grows in power, so too does the unofficial fangame scene. I briefly considered putting two particular efforts onto the official game of the year list, but since both projects are technically ongoing, I opted instead to highlight them here:
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles X Justice League Turbo
I know I said I’m enjoying the new updates to Street Fighter V and Skullgirls a lot, but TMNT X Justice League Turbo might be the actual coolest thing going on in fighting games right now. This game aims to be the unofficial sequel to both TMNT Tournament Fighters and Justice League Task Force on the Super Nintendo, but in reality it far surpasses both. Not only did News Team 6 faithfully transfer both games into a more universal and fun fighting system, but they executed it with a polish on the level of an official product.
The number of professionals working on the game far surpasses what you might expect – former SNK staff contributed art and music, a former Konami developer who worked on the original Tournament Fighters returned to make additions to the characters he worked on, April’s original voice actor from the SNES game reprised her role, and more. The core team working on the game have done such a great job with the fighting mechanics and story content that even if they lack the professional background, they might as well be pros in their own right.
Version 1.0 released this past December, but apparently development will continue into 2022. Frankly, I’m amazed with how much is already in the game. TMNT X Justice League presents a staggering picture of just far fan efforts can go.
Sonic P-06
If there’s one thing that virtually everyone can agree on when it comes to Sonic, it’s that the 2006 entry needed more time in the oven. Project 06 not only ports the 2006 game to PC, but it goes the extra mile and actively seeks to improve it. Developer ChaosX adds a layer of polish that the team at Sega lacked the opportunity to apply while also implementing unused ideas and dialogue. As of the time of writing, both Sonic and Shadow’s campaigns have been completed with Silver actively in development.
Contrary to its reputation, Sonic 06 had merits, but they were buried under an avalanche of problems stemming from the condition of the company and development team implosion happening at the time. As things stand, we’re lucky when Sega officially acknowledges Sonic 06; I don’t expect them to ever rerelease it or properly fix it. They want it buried. Project 06 digs the game out from the rubble while carefully recreating it with a love that only someone who truly appreciates what the game should have been could provide.
The Metaverse and NFTs
If ham-fisted corporate messaging is any indication, the big trend for the upcoming decade appears to be detaching humanity from reality as much as possible. Why attend a meeting for your job when you can attend a meeting for your job where everyone looks like an early CG cartoon? Why actually own things when you can own this license to a thing or something? Monkeys? Hello?
I can’t say if these concepts will actually catch on or not, my guess would be not for a while and probably not in the form they are currently being marketed as. In any case, however, I expect these to be AAA video game buzzwords for the foreseeable future, becoming the new GAAS, lootboxes, online passes or whatever your contentiously dirty business practice of choice may be. Ubisoft and Square Enix CEO messaging definitely implies they won’t be going away without a fight, so get used to seeing these terms pop up. Rest assured, if it wasn’t this they would be pushing something equally as stupid in an attempt to gouge you. That’s just how this works. In the meantime, get your NFT apes primed for the next generation of Ape Fighting.
That was fun, right? I tried to ease you into it with that last paragraph, so let’s head back to harsh reality:
3. The Good Life
Swery’s work in games strives to be atypical, but in a way that has almost typecast him into delivering certain things that people expect. The Good Life delivers on his tropes on some level, but it also doesn’t execute them in the usual ways. The Good Life promises mystery, animal transformation action, and compelling characters, but overall its strengths lie more in its life sim elements to convey a vibe, a feeling of appreciating life in any circumstances.
The protagonist, Naomi, thrives in cynicism and the town she visits for a big scoop sometimes feels as if it exists purely to annoy her. You, as the player, have to be willing to play along or else you’re likely to become just as frustrated as Naomi. Many people in town are clearly manipulating you for their own gain, but there’s fun and charm to be found in between the lines of the over-the-top cynicism. Finding joy in the tedious and absurd situations summarizes what the game is truly about. In that way, The Good Life may be the most accurate life simulator to ever exist.
2. No More Heroes III
In 2019, Travis Strikes Again proposed a new hypothesis for Travis Touchdown and No More Heroes, one that could only emerge from time away to reflect, and No More Heroes III finishes that thought. Like Travis Strikes Again, No More Heroes III may not fit neatly in line with what people were expecting from a new entry, but it smartly builds upon the prior games all the same with a revamped combat system and deftly mixing elements that worked from each prior installment.
It seems unlikely to me that Travis Touchdown fades away never to be seen again after this, but No More Heroes III absolutely marks the end of No More Heroes. Travis and Suda have left the bleak and cynical attitudes of the originals behind and matured to greater heights.
What, there are no heroes in this world? Oh, but there totally are!
1. Blaster Master Zero 3
Blaster Master Zero 3 concludes a love story not only about the game’s protagonists, but about each generation of video game developers and players connecting to the next. From the very beginning Blaster Master Zero has been about linking a classic game to a new generation while satisfying fans of the old. Zero 3 finally brings that theme full circle in surprising ways, leading to a truly epic finale that punches far above the weight level the game’s looks may imply. Much like your battle tank’s cannon, everything in this game fires on all cylinders: the difficulty has been raised, the stakes are at their highest, and the emotions are at their strongest.
When I sat down to think about which game satisfied me the most this year, the choice was actually pretty easy. There were many great games this year, but by the time I completed Zero 3, it had left a remarkably powerful impression on me. This game, and this series, encapsulate everything I love about games and wraps it all up in the nicest, most endearing package possible.
Ok, first of all I want to make it clear that this is MY list so if anyone dares disagree with me they better not leave a comment saying so because it will almost certainly help my metrics in some way and thus not actually hurt me. Just some free advice, KIDDOS!!!
But seriously it’s all for fun anyway and this is mostly a writing exercise for me. The concept of a game of the year list remains pretty arbitrary, so for me these are really just a bunch of games that I thought were great and perhaps more importantly are games that were doing interesting things that I’ll continue to think about well past 2020.
It’s not an all-encompassing list, of course. I played a lot of releases from 2020 but shockingly I didn’t get to play everything. I skipped playing some stuff like Last of Us 2 and Ori 2 because I didn’t enjoy the first entries much, while others I just didn’t get to yet. For those that I missed, if I have enough to say I will certainly write about them later on down the line! For those that I did play but didn’t make it on the list, get rekt I guess.
10. Animal Crossing: New Horizons
I feel a little conflicted putting New Horizons on this list because it’s not like Nintendo had to do much to Animal Crossing for it to continue to be a great game. Still though, New Horizons contains plenty of interesting ideas and it’s going to remembered by me and most others who played it for a long time. The events of this year certainly helped that, but I also believe that its design goals were aiming for a comparable effect anyway.
Despite most previous entries in the series having an online mode, this is the first Animal Crossing that was truly perfect for the age of social media. The greater degrees of customization and easy social media integration for posting pictures and videos makes for an experience that’s easy to share and discuss. This deeper connection to the online watercooler would have been big for the series in any context, but in 2020 it made New Horizons blow up in a more spectacular fashion.
Probably the least unique observation you’ll ever hear about this game, but the close timing of the game’s release with the start of the pandemic certainly accelerated just how all-encompassing New Horizons became. I found myself reconnecting with people I hadn’t really talked to for over a year or more simply because everyone was getting into Animal Crossing at the same time. It was an interesting experience that could only happen in the real world context we got.
Unfortunately Nintendo themselves seemed only partially aware of how their game could connect people, as there’s plenty in the online experience that remains a decade or two behind its contemporaries. It’s disappointing, but yelling at Nintendo for it is the equivalent of yelling at an old dog. They’re too far stuck in their ways, they already know everyone loves them, and it’s not like they can actually understand a word you say anyway. All you can really do is hold out hope that at some point they’ll do just enough to ensure their continued survival.
At the very least New Horizon takes many positive steps forward too. The crafting adds new dynamics and incentives to collecting items. The greater degree of control over your town lets you heavily reshape the world as you see fit. The sheer content that’s in the game and continues to be added ensures that those dedicated enough will have things to look forward to for a long time.
That’s all cool, but I mostly enjoy Animal Crossing as a game to chill out with. I’m past the point of working too hard to get the best turnip prices, trading for the best items, or conquering the economy as quickly as I can. My ideal experience consists of just turning the game on, doing a few chores, checking in with my townspeople, and maybe doing one of the holiday events. All of the new stuff New Horizons provides is great, but I’m glad that the Animal Crossing experience I enjoy most remains intact too. I don’t know if I could say it’s my favorite entry, the Gamecube original still appeals to me as a more closed off experience, but as a social game this is easily the best the series has ever been.
9. No Straight Roads
No Straight Roads channels energy from a lot of what I enjoy most in games – interesting mechanics, cool designs, and a great soundtrack. Ambition and creativity ooze from every direction here, from the strong art direction in the world and bosses to the unusual mix of game mechanics on display . No Straight Roads takes ideas from rhythm games, platformers, and beat-em-ups like they’re from a grab bag, asking you to complete platforming challenges while timing your attacks to a rhythm. It’s not always completely intuitive, but when it works it’s great and even the weakest parts of the game manage to be entertaining in their execution.
Mayday and Zuke’s No More Heroes-esque journey to conquer the music industry has remained with me in large part due to how well realized it is. I like how strongly themed everything is. Every district in the city ties so deeply into each boss that you can tell a lot about them just by glancing around. Each victory builds into more and more momentum as you recruit fans and NPCs that flesh out the world. The bosses and their lairs share mechanical similarities but are distinct in their execution.
I was also impressed by the well done characters and story. Beneath the flashy designs and carefree attitude the game exudes, No Straight Roads has some genuinely interesting things to say about creators, fans, relationships, and commercialized industries at large. Perhaps more importantly it manages to do it all without falling into the easy cynical traps you might expect from how things are initially presented.
In many ways No Straight Roads feels like playing some long-lost Dreamcast or PS2 game from the early 2000s that just happened to fly under the radar. It’s something I would expect from a studio like Double Fine in their heyday, but in reality it’s the product of a small Malaysian studio that consists mostly of newcomers to the industry. Like many of those unique kinds of games there’s some rough edges, but its strengths punch well above its weight class.
8. Astro’s Playroom
While it’s always frustrating to see how little the current leadership of Sony cares for their backlog of games, to some extent it’s understandable when you realize the only time they tried to celebrate that legacy was a dud like Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale. Astro’s Playroom wisely steps over that corpse and its unique position as a pack-in game for the Playstation 5 makes it a celebration not only of Sony’s past in video games, but also its future.
I don’t know if the DualSense controller really has that much of a future, but at least it’s cool in this game. Every area feels (in most cases literally) different thanks to the amazing sound design and haptic feedback provided by the controller. There’s no way to accurately convey in words just how different of a sensation Astro’s Playroom provides for essentially its entire run time. From skating across ice to getting caught in a rainstorm to flying a spaceship, Astro runs the gauntlet of tech demo experiences to sell you on the controller.
Littered throughout these experiences are a treasure trove of references to Playstation history, and not just Sony’s. Look it’s Dante! Hey it’s Ape Escape, they should really make a new one of those! Hey, is that the strand from Death Stranding!? Between the cameos and all of the wacky Playstation peripherals you can collect Astro’s Playroom doubles as a fun virtual museum of Playstation lore.
More important than any of that, Astro’s Playroom is simply a great platformer. The level design dumps a smorgasbord of ideas out and basically all of it works. There are a few levels that lean more heavily on gimmicks that I wasn’t initially a big fan of, but I even warmed up to those after mastering them in the speedrun mode. Don’t even get me started on the speedrun mode. It’s too good, it’s too powerful, and I will never play it again. Unless someone I know beats my score.
Probably my biggest issue with Astro’s Playroom lies in how much I wish there was more of it. That’s a great problem to have of course, but due to its nature as a smaller pack-in title I feel that pain more strongly. These developers are simply too talented to be limited to bite-sized pack-ins. I certainly hope I get to play another one of Team Asobi’s games in the future, preferably without a VR headset.
7. Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2
Of course my guys at Inti Creates have to be on the list, but when they’re making stuff like Curse of the Moon 2 who could possibly argue they don’t deserve it! I enjoyed the original Curse of the Moon, but I’d say it was about one step shy from me really loving it. It had great elements including the cool bosses and an interesting evolution of the character switching mechanic from Castlevania 3, but it also felt like it was playing things just a little too safe in its level design and strict adherence to the Castlevania 3 mold.
Curse of the Moon 2 takes that necessary step and then sprints an extra mile for good measure. What felt like novel ideas in the original game are now pushed to their limits in the sequel. Aside from Zangetsu, the entire cast has been swapped with new characters that have unique abilities unlike anything from previous Castlevania games. These characters complement each other more strongly, allowing for many interesting synergies to discover. The level design embodies a similar philosophy by emphasizing those character synergies as being much more crucial, raising the difficulty much higher than the previous game, and providing more interesting stage gimmicks.
These base improvements help the game to strike out on its own, but Curse of the Moon 2 goes even further beyond. Like the previous entry, once you’ve completed it you unlock another run through the game that heightens the difficulty of the levels and the bosses. But wait! This time there’s another mode that brings back the cast of the original game too. But wait! If you do all of that stuff you unlock another route that marries the game’s levels to the structure of a Mega Man game culminating in a final showdown where you can recruit all 7 characters for an entirely new area. But wait! I haven’t even gotten to the boss rush, the mode that limits you to a single character, the unlockable special Zangetsu, the co-op, or the even higher difficulty mode!
There’s a lot to dig into here and I haven’t even touched upon the smaller things I enjoy like the expanded emphasis on character interactions. It’s easy to think though, does all of it really matter? Less and less people will play each threshold of all this content or notice all the small things.
Inti Creates’ greatest strength is that not only do they make great games, they also make their games with people who really love playing them in mind. I suspect that this is because the developers themselves love to play their own games. That passion burns through strongly in Curse of the Moon 2, and it results in not just a great follow-up to the original, but also a great follow-up to the Castlevania legacy.
6. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2
Video game releases in 2020 ran the gamut of just about every conceivable type of remake there could be of a game, from simple graphics swaps to entirely different games that just happen to share the same marketable name as the original. In my view, one remake soared above them all like a Tony.
As the title suggests developer Vicarious Visions remade the first two Tony Hawk games with modern technology, but they also did more than that. By adding in mechanics and ideas from subsequent games they breathed new life into the old, creating something that feels just as new as it does a faithful remake. The balancing act needed to pull off this feat really can’t be understated in an era where so many projects go all in on one extreme direction or the other. Instead the game captures the core appeal of Tony Hawk’s mechanically dense score attack nature while also being perhaps the best entry the series has ever gotten.
1+2’s identity as a new game permeates through more than just the mechanics. The skaters have all been scanned into game as they are now, older but still ready to shred. The locations you skate around in convey the sense of age, and some even have subtle hints that the game itself takes place in the year 2020. These details mixed with modernized progression systems and online modes go the extra mile to feel not just like a remake, but a new beginning.
Part of why this remake stands out to me is just how dire the situation for this series was. Not many game series fizzle out into a catastrophe, get a revival years later with a brand new sequel that also implodes, only to years more later get one almost certainly final chance. Right on death row Tony managed to nail the 72,000,000° Axe Dodge and fly straight up to the moon. I couldn’t be happier for him and am excited to meet him in space for Tony Hawk 6.
5. One Step From Eden
Ever since it released early into 2020, One Step From Eden has kind of been my “background game” that I go to once every couple of weeks when I’m not in the middle of something else. I get a few good runs in, always die near the end, and eventually call it a day until next time. It might be flippant to summarize it that way but the important thing is that I do keep coming back, and there are a lot of reasons why.
One Step From Eden initially sold itself on Kickstarter as combining the mechanics of Mega Man Battle Network with the roguelike genre. That comparison is apt, but it pushes those Battle Network ideas to such extremes that it ends up feeling like something else entirely. Everything moves so fast, the cards you obtain are so varied, and the benefits of all the subsystems so complex that I needed multiple runs just to get my bearings.
There are so many choices available and the overall goal is so clear that any time you get a “bad run” it feels like it was entirely your own fault. After a few runs you will be aware of the enemies and bosses to expect, and from there knowledge of the game’s systems becomes the key to success. Ideas like the focus system allow you to manipulate what cards you can get, the branching paths let you decide what benefits you can pull from and which bosses to take care of first, and there’s so much more beyond that. With unlocks mostly being tied to new cards that are unlikely to be the deciding factor in your run, it’s less about grinding attempts so much as simply learning the game.
Although the core gameplay takes cues from Battle Network, the aspect of those games that I think One Step From Eden truly captures are the aesthetic appeals. All of the characters have such distinct designs and mechanics tied to them that it perfectly encapsulates the appeal of Battle Network’s Net Navis. Like the gameplay, the soundtrack uses Battle Network’s chiptunes as a launching point for a unique and catchy soundtrack that fills each area with character. While generally sparse on actual story, there’s just enough going on to suggest an interesting world ripe for expansion. I would absolutely be down with other games that take place in this setting or star these characters.
Games that structure themselves after roguelikes have always been a tough to sell to me, but One Step From Eden appeals to me enough that I keep coming back no matter how many times it kills me. It’s a game that I see myself continuing to attempt well into 2021, and a very promising start to developer Thomas Moon Kang’s career in games.
4. Mad Rat Dead
My favorite aspect of rhythm games growing up was just how varied they could be in their approach to combining music and games, from Rez’s synesthesia railshooting to Gitaroo Man’s narrative-driven music battles. As an adult it feels like releases with similar creative sparks have slowed down considerably, so when I see something like Mad Rat Dead I can’t help but treasure it. Saying something has heart can be cliché, but in this case it feels completely appropriate.
Mad Rat Dead mashes up platforming with rhythm gameplay by tying inputs to the Mad Rat’s heartbeat. His heart also somehow seems to be playing an awesomely varied soundtrack that changes the pace of the beats you’re platforming to, but we don’t ask too many questions around here. Playing the result can initially feel like patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time, but that just makes it all the more impressive once you get the hang of it and the platforming starts to flow naturally to the music.
One of the most interesting aspects of the game’s design comes from the unique challenges it presents. There’s plenty of the normal hazards you’d expect from platformers: bottomless pits, disappearing platforms, spiky enemies, and boss battles. Navigating those in a rhythm context would be neat on its own, but in some ways the rhythm can be its own obstacle. Since Mad Rat’s actions are tied to the heart’s beat, you actually have to pay attention how it’s beating. Parts that would be a cinch at normal speed can force you to pick your moves carefully when the song slows down, and the way the game plays with ideas like this truly take advantage of its premise.
Mad Rat’s heart is also apparent in his story. Don’t let the playful graffiti art style fool you, it’s a pretty morbid narrative that asks tough questions about what’s important in life. no matter what the scope of that life may be. The soundtrack further enhances each story beat by perfectly capturing the emotions of the characters in each level. By the end it all feels well executed and surprisingly sweet despite the subject matter.
Every other game on this list took me at least a few days to get through, but I shotgunned through Mad Rat Dead in a single evening. Part of that is just lucky timing, but I was also just so thoroughly hooked by the music, mechanics, and story that I had to see it through to the end as soon as I could. It’s a great little game, and I’ve gone back to it multiple times since to complete each level with an S+ Rank. It’s something I’d like to 100% in 2021, and I think I’ll be listening to the soundtrack long after that.
3. 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim
Scope and ambition define 13 Sentinels. These elements shine in its narrative, its structure, its art, and just about every other aspect of the game while we’re at it. The fact that 13 Sentinels is a game is the key to whole reason it’s on this list. While you could say it’s mostly a visual novel and thus, well, a novel, its status as a game is integral to what makes it so impressive.
Discussing any individual aspect of the narrative feels akin to navigating a minefield as the story shrouds itself in so many layers of twists and turns that any hint has an equal chance to spoil everything as it does to come across as total nonsense. That’s what makes 13 Sentinels so interesting; you can come across the various truths that make up its labyrinthine story in almost any order across its 13 scenarios. Other mediums simply can’t tell stories this way, and in a sense the true game manifests as the process of putting all this information together.
The RTS battle sections didn’t engage me as much the rest of the package, but I wouldn’t say that they are a flaw either. I had actually become pretty invested in my sentinels by the end through the added depth the customization options provide. The narrative simply engrosses you so much that the battles come across like a commercial break from the truly great stuff. There are a handful of moments that wouldn’t work in the narrative style of the rest of game, so I’d say the battles earn their keep just for that.
I finished 13 Sentinels the most recently of everything on this list so I can’t say my thoughts on it are fully formed, but I continue to be impressed by how tightly constructed it is. That shouldn’t be the case with how open-ended it lets players approach it, but there’s just enough threads in just enough places that anyone should be able to start making connections no matter which directions they go in. It all leads to an extremely satisfying conclusion both as a story and as a complex mystery. George Kamitani and his team at Vanillaware have taught a masterclass in nontraditional storytelling methods that only a game could provide.
2. Deadly Premonition 2: A Blessing in Disguise
While I already wrote a bit about Deadly Premonition 2 when it came out, I still feel just as strongly about it half a year later. In the context of a game of the year list there’s maybe not much more to add than that, but at the very least I’ll give a brief summary of why this one stands out to me.
Deadly Premonition 2 embraces all the little aspects of humanity that most other games, movies, or stories in general skip over to get to “the point.” In Deadly Premonition 2 those gaps are “the point.” The plot weaves together a small group of people and their relationships into a narrative that can be both horrifying and touching. While many games would focus entirely on uncovering that narrative, you’ll regularly find yourself hoofing it around town, ensuring good hygiene, going to bed, and learning about those around you just because you can. In that way both the story and gameplay aim to speak to the human experience. Swery portrays it all with a deep kindness and empathy that makes it all ring truer than one might expect from a game can come across as deficient or unintuitive in other ways.
I suppose the other reason Deadly Premonition 2 has stuck with me is that, yeah, from a technical perspective it can be a disappointment. Thankfully patches have been released to help clean that up to an extent. I certainly wouldn’t say no to playing the game on something other than the Switch that might be able to handle it better, but the question I keep coming back to is how much it really matters.
If someone has a really great idea but doesn’t have the time, money, or skill to execute on it in the best possible way, should they really be beat over the head for all the problems that come from trying anyway? Those kinds of issues are worth bringing up if they truly hamper playing the game and what it set out to do, but I’m not convinced that was the case here. The kneejerk reaction to a game’s quality as a whole seems to be so strong when it comes to technical problems that it’s enough for many to dismiss it out of hand. To me Deadly Premonition is so good at what it does that it challenges assumptions about what may be truly necessary for a game to succeed, and that may be the second most important legacy it leaves behind.
1. Streets of Rage 4
Streets of Rage 4 might be perfect.
Okay, I have a few nitpicks about the scoring system and how an enemy type works but that’s what they are, nitpicks that don’t even come close to taking away a single thing the game accomplishes. They’re the kind of nitpicks that can only come from when you enjoy a game so much that you’ve played through it over a dozen times and start hyper-focusing on extremely minor things that aren’t even necessarily bad but you would have done differently. If that isn’t a testament to how much I enjoyed the game then I don’t know what could be.
The fact that it exists at all is a bit of a miracle. While not as highly publicized as something like a Shenmue or a Mega Man Legends 3, a “Streets of Rage 4” had long been one of those sequels lying on the cutting room floor of history. This incarnation’s announcement came seemingly out of nowhere as one of the most pleasant surprises possible for a longtime Sega fan like myself.
Dotemu, Lizardcube, and Guard Crush Games accomplished a lot more than just releasing a game called Streets of Rage 4, however. They took that core beat-em-up gameplay and evolved it by transplanting ideas from fighting games as well as some completely original ones to make a game that aims much higher than living up to a legacy. The combo mechanics feel so good, the health gambling system is so smart, the enemies are so well designed, and the level ideas are so cleverly woven into the gameplay that I’d say this isn’t just the best Streets of Rage game, it’s the best beat-em-up game period.
The attention paid to the aesthetics of Streets of Rage impresses me just as much. In some cases adherence to classic looks and sounds are definitely the way to go, but for Sega games that doesn’t fit quite right to me. What set Sega in their prime apart from the rest of the crowd is that they never rested on their laurels and were always trying to reinvent themselves. That’s part of why Streets of Rage stuck with people in the first place, between the setting, designs, and Yuzo Koshiro’s soundtracks they felt more contemporary to their era than other games.
Streets of Rage 4 perfectly channels that spirit of classic Sega by paying tribute to the past when appropriate but not being afraid to be itself too. The hand-drawn art with updated designs and animation look great while also being unlike anything the series has seen before. While Mr. Koshiro coming back to do a few tracks for the soundtrack is appreciated, the fact that Olivier Deriviere takes up the helm of the compositions helps the game forge an identity of its own. So much of this game feels like the best case scenario of what we could have gotten that it only makes the context of how it came to be that much more impressive.
Sega still makes great games, but the industry has changed enough that they can’t possibly ensure that all their franchises get the love and care they deserve. Sega’s solution being to open up their properties to smaller developers has to be one of the coolest things going on in the industry right now. Not only do we get modern classics like Streets of Rage 4 that continue great legacies, but projects like these also serve as great launching points for talented developers too. I know I’m excited to see what the teams behind this game all do next, regardless of whether it is tied to a classic Sega franchise. This unique synergy between independent studios and big corporations has had some fantastic results so far and it blazes the trail for exciting opportunities in the game industry as a whole.
Fish Tank 