2021 Games Sahil
Every Game I played enough of this year to feel like reviewing, ranked
List items
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Truly captures the moment we live in better than any other game I've played. The world's ending, we can't stop it, let's dance in the streets and yell at cops while we still can. Incredible music & vibes, genuinely made me interested in photography for the first time.
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I think this is the only RTS I've ever played enough to have an opinion on. Was really surprised by how layered all the mechanics are and the way the day loop rewards you for methodical play and exploration. Also very cute aesthetically. Looking forward to checking out 2 some day.
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This one's really hard to review because it's had such a huge impact & has a very hyperbolic fanbase but I think it actually stuck the landing despite that. When I started playing & found the aesthetic to be less interesting than SH1 (it did eventually grow on me, but I think between 1 & 2 we crossed a fidelity threshold where I like the look of the game better with the resolution cranked up and all the noise & fog enabled than trying to play at native res) I was putting this at a 3, by the time I got to the last few areas & saw the conclusion to the story it went up to a 4, and now as I'm writing this after sitting with it for a day, it's firmly a 5/5.
A big factor is that I just genuinely enjoyed playing this as a survival horror game. The ammo & health is extremely generous, like the first game, but the act of exploring each location felt really good, I simply love to methodically fill in a map. It's nice that the exploration didn't feel as predictable as 1's 'go to location > nightmare version > leave' structure in favor of a more straightforward, story focused progression. & the ease of killing everything you see in this game without worrying about strategically deploying resources makes for a good loop where most locations involve some tense combat followed by slightly less tense but never quite relaxed exploration.
I got the leave ending & I was surprised how well it actually landed the personal drama - especially for the time, it's much more mature, conceptually, than big budget game stories aim to be. It's a bit strange to reflect on the story in general, but everything that's happening only comes into focus right at the end, so the majority of it is spent in confusion, & you have to reconcile how you feel about it retroactively.
Ppl throw around the phrase "only possible in video games" a lot and I mostly think it's unearned or refers to gimmicks or quirks of the medium in a very literal sense, like branching paths or dialogue choice, and not actual story telling concepts but I think it might actually fit here. The way this game conveys James' interiority through the mundane repetitive actions and structures of video games is really interesting, lacing enemy and world and level design traits into the abstract narrative here is really cool. Obviously a lot of games push their theme through the environment and character design (the same way movies can thru set design) but it feels more intentional here. It gets to really linger in the melancholy tone since it's tied to 1 character for a whole game length, rather than say jumping into other people's brains in Psychonauts. It also feels like the designers planned out that this is what the game should be about, and the game calls attention to it by just having the weird stuff present all the time, with some of it being obvious to the characters' backstory so you can start thinking about what the less obvious stuff could be about. I appreciate that it's not overly literal with the metaphors, there's varying degrees of abstraction and lore behind the images but its rarely "x actually means y" the way a lot of stories that play at symbolism fall into (if you want to talk about something just talk about it. Obscuring the true subject doesn't make your thoughts on it more interesting or deep).
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It's fucking Geometry Wars, dude
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In a year with nier & returnal both heavily using the bullet hell aesthetic, boomerang x ends up feeling like the best 3d translation of that genre. The only game that gives you the same fluidity of movement and freedom to explore in truly 3d worlds as something like geometry wars does in 2d
Excellent little 2-3 hr experience. Constantly adds new layers to the core mechanic & new enemy types that feel genuinely different and really change how you need to approach them, & doesn't last long enough for anything to get stale or the minor annoyances to add up.
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The mad lads actually did it. They really made a new metroid and just stuck to all the things that made the old games good while adding a lot of new movement and combat layers that all actually work.
What a good ass video game. I was real doubtful the first few hours cuz fighting mobs was more involved than in the other games & I don't love the Emmi encounters, especially early on, but by the time I got the tri-beam & morph ball the game really opened up and the pacing of the exploration & boss fights was immaculate from then on. Especially love how the main flow of the game always felt intuitive and even though there's a lot to explore and the map is like 6 different regions, it was generally pretty clear where I needed to go next and I organically moved through the story without needing to look up a guide (which is extremely rare for me in this genre).
Boss fights were really fun & active, felt like classic NES/SNES pattern recognition & execution challenges. I didn't think they were *that* hard, but the amount of time I've spent playing anime fighters probably helped with feeling out the flow of combat & keeping up with all the different movement options.
Also love that there's just some wild evil villain plot stuff dropped right at the end, it feels so much like old NES castlevania games, the same level of goofiness but paired with a much higher budget.
Metroid: Dread is just pure, concentrated Video Games injected into my veins and I loved it.
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Just nails the joy of moving up & down a ramp. Been my go to "I need to chill out for 10 minutes" game all year
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very satisfying to put things places. the small story being told is nice, not given a ton of focus but there's a few strong moments conveyed through the game design. I was concerned it would be too twee or saccharine, but it's pretty hands off and works all the way through.
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Bought a 6-fret guitar & played it in Clone Hero, since the actual game is unplayable now. The 6 fret style making you actually think about finger placement combined with a throwback to GH 1-3's high score focus works really well, it's just a shame that, like, everything else about this game is the way it is.
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Simplifies the joy of offroad racing to a top down, less technical view that still captures the weird zen of sending it up a mountain pass & hoping you don't die.
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Idk what to put here, picross 3d is a perfect game, only reason this isnt higher is cuz im dumb and some of the puzzles stumped me for a long time (and it took like 3 years for me to finally beat it)
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What an experience, just maximal sensory overload for the full hour. It's doing everything that every other shmup does, at the same time, all the time, & louder. Really hard, because you constantly have to keep track of both macro & micro positioning, but the bomb/burst system and the unlimited continues mitigates that. There were a handful of moments in this latest playthrough that felt like I'd entered the matrix, where I could perceive and react to everything that was happening and perfectly weave through a crazy stream of bullets. Definitely gonna replay this just to try and recapture that feeling for longer stretches.
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Maximalist fighting game design (6 attack buttons, tags, any move can be an assist, variable team size, hard combo execution) but it all works, i just wish id given it a real chance sooner & that ppl actually played it at locals
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Super tight and focused. The lock on mechanic is very clever, forcing you to engage enemies head on rather than staying back and dodging. The military aesthetic was well done but I'm only moderately into that style. Still excellent for the low price and short playtime tho.
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Never really gave it a shot in the like decade that I've owned it but now that I'm trying to actually get into shmups it's probably the best onramp i can imagine. The progression thru difficulty levels is really smart and constantly unlocking interesting ships or weapons is a good carrot to keep failed runs from bring totally demotivating. Still not the biggest fan of the steampunk thing but the art is executed incredibly well and the bosses are all really fun designs. The screen width might be an issue for the hardest difficulty tho, it's hard to keep track of the chaos when it's coming from small enemies that are so far away. Maybe the progression makes it feel less "pure" than other shmups but I'm not sure far down the rabbit hole that that bothers me yet
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I like a lot about it and it gets a big boost from being the game that everyone's playing this year but i still have some issues with the design decisions and input handling. I wish fighting games would allow complexoty to arise from a higher skill/execution ceiling rather than making things like meaty timing super restrictive.
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I've tried playing this a few times in the past and usually got bored with the puzzles or annoyed at the unintuitive defensive systems but for some reason everything kinda clicked this time. Have the style switcher helped a lot, bit i didn't even end up using the Dodge style much because the jump-to-dodge system finally clicked for me. I really like most of the bosses, and the general enemies are fun enough to beat up on until the last third of the game where they started to take annoyingly long to kill. The story is a hot nothing. I don't understand why anyone has any attachment to this version of Dante; it's sick when he's doing the stunts but everytime he talks is painfully awkward. Biggest problem i have aside from that is the puzzles still being pretty confusing and the game goes on for like 3 hours longer than it really should. I wish there was a way to remove weapons from your quick switch menu, I'd love to switch between the sword and fists mid combo, but when i have to tap thru 4 things in between them it really kills the flow.
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Havent played it a ton yet but it really pulls the best of 3&4 and has a better map than both of those.
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Really fun once i figured out that the game built now around the devil trigger meter than the stylish back and slash combos the series and genre is known for now. The navigation is still more confusing than i want from this kind of thing, but it's way more straight forward than resident evil (tho the mission structure adds to the initial confusion). Although wtf is up with the like 3 shitty first person swimming sections lol.
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What a goofy fun time
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Some obviously old school design holds it back a bit, but i love how expansive this feels to explore while also being extremely easy to pick up and have fun with.
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Had a really good time with it but I couldn't help but think about what it would be like to play with Motion controls, the way the game was clearly intended. The Analog stick simply moves the cursor too slowly and imprecisely, especially for the purple bullets which require more precise aim than the big reticule implies.
Love the style of the music and visuals, the frequent use of the term "Euphoria" is very apt. & I just love to dive through a dark & neon tron-esque interpretation of the inside of a computer, or in this case, the Internet, it's like top 5 aesthetics imo.
Really wish it was possible to get a VR version of this like with Rez, because that extra immersion and control fidelity would probably make this a 5/5 for me. Tetsuya Mizuguchi remains undefeated.
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Combat (especially mob fights, bosses are a bit more underwhelming) is incredible but everything surrounding it ranges from underwhelming to straight up annoying. Stopped a little over half way through because i just don't have the patience for it.
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Incredible sense of speed and scale. I think The scifi riff on Journey losses more than it gains in terms thematic content and message but the scale and spectacle and feeling of momentum is incredible.
I admire wanting to be scaled down and avoid tutorials, but the water mechanics could have been more clearly explained visually.
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Fun little game. Love the Highway levels. The 'Horror' elements aren't actually scary but they added a nice little bit of extra flavor to the otherwise very cute & charming platforming.
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mostly watched, would be lower if I actually had to play it all myself, but god what a goofy weird thing to experience in 2021. More games could use Sonic Adventure 2s stupid energy.
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Appreciate that it leans into making you dance the way only the best beatsaber custom tracks do. Havent played a ton but im gonna be going bqck to it for a long time i think.
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Not much to say that doesnt also apply to the first game. A little bit more ornate and a crazier story
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slowdown was a bit excessive (might just be the version of MAME I was on) but dang the pixel art in this game holds up so well. Minimally frustrating to play as well, because of the slowdown helping & most projectiles being very visible against the more muted character & background art. Idk that I would replay it for 1CCs or anything but it was very fun & breezy to blow through on Co-op with infinite credits.
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Love the characters, there's some stuff in the story about Miles' belief in the justice system and the weirdness of the avengers existing alongside this version of spiderman, but for the most part I really loved the story, too. The few fights towards the end where the characters are having emotional arguments are super well done, just peak super hero/anime shit. I love Phin & Miles & Miles' interactions with Peter & his uncle.
The combat is improved from the previous game too, on account of Miles' powers breaking through a lot of the most annoying enemy behaviors, but it's still that same basic thing, not quite as rhythmic as I want and not enough leeway to be freeform and enjoy the full moveset. Just a few tweaks to the animation priority and mechanical design would make it incredible but it is what it is. Swinging feels the same as the previous one, but Miles' animations are a lot more expressive and fun & a bunch of his suits look dope swinging thru the city.
The stories in the side missions are great in this one, tho the actual gameplay there is kinda tedious. Idk if I have the patience for another one of these that's as long as the first game unless they change up the structure a lot...
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Gunplay feels incredible but while I love the way it's playing with & riffing on old school level design & some of the levels have some really great moments that play with your expectations or just do something totally wild it does end up recreating the feeling I've had in those old games of killing everything and then spending 15 minutes searching for where I actually need to go next.
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Final trial was a bit underwhelming but the world building and style as you're uncovering the mystery is extremely fucking cool.
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Spent about a week absolutely entranced by the progression loop here, maybe ill go back to beat it some day.
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Shorter than I expected but very cute and chill. Mostly played with the 'simple' fishing cuz the 'challenging' option was too much for the chill vibes of the rest of the game. Doesn't get too saccharine or hit you hard with sad twists or anything, it's just... nice. Writing was a bit awkward but not enough to reduce the experience, really.
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They did hotshots golf on the telephone
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Better than I expected! The map isn't as interconnected as Fusion, but there are also less 'wtf where do I go, time to bomb every pixel' moments. The forced stealth segment was kinda lame but it was shorter than I expected and the rest of the game was pretty frictionless, given it's an NES remake.
Not sure how much this applies since this is a remake, but it's interesting that the arc of the games, aesthetically, goes from "Creepy but fairly original space aesthetic" in Zero Mission to "It's just Alien" in Super Metroid and then back to "creepy & original but with a doppleganger" in Fusion
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Definetely the best campaign so far. Bungie really nailed pretty much everything they'd done in the previous campaigns, with minimal frustrations. The story was more cohesive too, but it's a bummer that they had to get rid of all the interesting weird space religion stuff and do a standard military thing instead, to get there.
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I was put off by the story focus and lemmings type stuff (still think the ui could be better for that part) but ive since got used to that and generally enjoy all the missions ive played.
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Great little arcadey single screen roguelike, but i chafe at the amount of deck building and strategy required to get past ~150 with most characters. Almost feels too designed for the mindless way i wanted to play it, id prefer if it was easier to break, but that gets in the way of the puure experience its going for
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gunplay & movement is really good but I'm more than halfway through and the story hasn't done anything for me so I'm gonna drop it for now.
Came back, ended up liking the story a little bit more but a lot of the interesting stuff happens right near the end & was honestly pretty boilerplate animated-movie stuff, which is fine, but the whole vibe feels different from the older games, the sense of humor has changed a lot & it kinda carries over into the gameplay, too. Everything feels very polished & tuned but the jagged edges were the thing that made the old games interesting. I went back & looked at the weapons in the old games and it's interesting how much bigger & weirder they all felt. A lot of those same weapons are in this game, but they feel more refined in a way that makes them blend together. Even the interesting weapons with cool "elemental" effects all boil down to stunlocking an enemy for a few seconds in actual application. It's impressive how good it looks & how many things can be happening at the same time but it feels soulless & really just makes me wish I could play the ps3 games in any sort of convenient, proper way in 2021...
Also I love the platforming sequences but they're so so short. I would genuinely love a full length prince of persia style game with this set of movement options, but the longest sequences here feel like teases rather than actual full levels.
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Fun little interlude before the sequel. The different perspective stuff was neat but barely fleshed out because of the short runtime & adventure game style, but the short runtime works well for the story. It's a nice way to dip back into this world & these characters before diving into the full new game.
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It's no doom but the movement and combat is very satisfying. The Nine Inch Nails style is charming but generally less interesting than doom and modern takes on boomer-shooters like Dusk.
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Original mode feels like it's for people who play puppet characters in fighting games, I couldn't get into it cuz there's just too much going on between keeping track of where the gunner is shooting and trying to dodge & also the colors & art style made it kinda hard to judge where I was, which made switching from macro to micro hard.
Overpower mode was a lot better, having dual analog control feels much more natural. But, things felt too easy in that mode because of the bullet-killing projectile you get and how easy it is to aim. Basically made it so I only rarely had to think about dodging, & only in situations with weird patterns or enemies coming from the back, which made for a low but very spikey difficulty curve.
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Story was worse than i expected, but the night mission vibe was a neat change of pace and the combat was pretty breezy and fun.
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I wanted to RP Guts Berserk but this one doesn't have poise so heavy weapons suck in a lot of cases.
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Strong weird ps1 horror vibes, but didn't pull me in enough to do more than a couple of the endings.
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I really lost steam going into tne last 3 endings. Maybe if i enjoyed the combat more I'd have appreciated what it was trying to say about repetition (i was having a good time farming materials and stuff in route A, but I guess i got my fill of that too soon) but by that point i was just trying to get through every encounter as quickly as possible. Overall i like the characters a lot but the world and vibe didn't grab me as much as Automata did. The fishing quests line was incredible though.
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Dropped after beating the first biome. Startup time on runs is just too long and most of the run is spent gathering items which stops being interesting exploration after the first time you see any given room. I'm sure I'd enjoy it if i had the time to put in to get to the latter areas but there's so much else I'd rather be doing than grinding thru that. Also, even compared to Hades, which i didn't like as much as most ppl because of the general samey-ness of runs, the items here feel so inconsequential to changing the gameplay experience. The vibes are pretty cool, but even there the game pushes me away a bit since the serious scifi horror tone isn't very inviting for the repetitive arcade gameplay here.
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Great premise and there's stuff about the gameplay I like but it's so aggressive about never letting you really enjoy the flow of what you're doing. The challenge of it makes for a brief moment of achievement when you get through a hard room but the pace & slight clunkiness & unintuitive enemy design makes the time leading up to that so messy and frustrating that I don't care enough to push through it.
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