I played a lot of older games this year, and a lot of the 2017 titles I played were smaller releases that accommodated my low budget.
I still have a couple of 2017 games I'd really like to get around to trying (like Nier Automata, Mario Odyssey, Breath of the Wild), and I have to admit I've spent a heap of time spectating squad-based silliness in PUBG even if I have no intention of playing it myself. Nonetheless these are the 10 titles of 2017 I enjoyed playing the most and that I'd recommend to others.
Showing 1-10 of 10 items
There was roughly a month after I first finished Night in the Woods where I found it hard to stop thinking about what I'd just played. It's one of those flawed sort of games with a few rough edges that you can't help but wish you'd made yourself. Mostly it was the writing and characters that did this for me -- poignant little thoughts about mental health, about feeling directionless in your twenties or about feeling trapped in socioeconomic circumstances you can't do anything about despite your best efforts. Thoughts about queer folk stuck in small conservative towns without the same support as metropolitan areas. Thoughts about the small towns in America's Rustbelt that have been left behind by the rest of the country after the rise of the internet - thoughts I can't relate to firsthand but can now empathise with, all because of this small cast of anthropomorphic animals. I don't think the game is perfect. If you strictly opt for gameplay above all else, you may find the game a little lacking. As good as the writing is overall I also feel like many characters suffer from the same, dry-humoured voice, dotted with sarcastic quips and dad puns. Sometimes the game can feel a little sleepy or uneventful as you lazily jog from one end of the town to the other - though some people argue that this feeling supports the game's themes. In any case Night in the Woods really touched me, and I think the fact it stayed on my mind for so long after I'd stopped playing inherently makes it my Game of the Year by default.
I actually only downloaded this game after seeing it in a number of guest GOTY lists, but I finished it within an afternoon and loved it to bits. Butterfly Soup follows 4 teenage girls from various Asian-American backgrounds as they form friendships and even relationships with each other, told over the course of their childhood and young adulthood. As a straight, white dude in his mid 20s, it's a game that was never really intended for someone like me. I think it's a true testament to the quality of the writing that I was able to empathise with everything so well. All of the characters in the game are written so realistically - but also so hilariously! I lost count how many times this game made me laugh out loud or had me stifling a giggle. I'm so glad game engines are so accessible these days and giving creators like Brianna Lei a voice, because there are a lot of underrepresented audiences out there in dire need of great content like this. Download it here: https://brianna-lei.itch.io/butterfly-soup
I've been looking forward to Persona 5 for many, many years - ever since I finished watching the P4 Endurance run here during my highschool days. When P5 finally released this year, I finished it twice for the Platinum trophy within a month. I was tied to this game. But for a few months afterwards, I debated myself as to how much I actually enjoyed it, and where it stood next to Persona 3 and 4. Soon I'd realise that I'd grown up in some ways but the franchise (and its creators) hadn't. It was another game featuring a douchey dudebro best friend character; another game with pervy swimsuit scenes and attitudes towards gay characters that made me wince. The palace villains (especially Kamoshida) felt really one-dimensional and poorly written as bosses, in contrast to P4's bosses themed around good people facing their flaws. In spite of a bunch of little problems spread across the game like these, I really enjoyed Persona 5 overall. I loved the new toon shaders used for all the demons, a great step up from the PS2 days. As a graphic designer/gamedev I found all the menus and UI nothing short of inspiring compared to the bog standard of clean-and-characterless interfaces today. I thought all of the side-character social links were a huge step up from past games -- all of them were people I genuinely liked and wanted to hang out with, especially the older cast members. I loved the soundtrack, especially the boss themes used as a nod to other SMT titles like Nocturne. Persona 5 is a very good game, and I'm glad I finally got to play it.
While I'd already known about Cuphead for sometime, I didn't buy into the hype immediately. Well-animated platformers can have a tendency to have lacking gameplay if the developers prioritise animation frames over responsive controls and immeditate state changes. So colour me surprised when I finally opened Cuphead up and discovered it was the best of both worlds. Despite my 300+ deaths by the end of the game, I never found myself frustrated when playing Cuphead. Occasionally I took breaks when I felt my skills were starting to slip, but the controls were responsive enough that death never really irked me. My favourite part of the game was pushing further into boss fights and seeing the absurd animations for each of their new attacks and reactions; squashing and stretching and deforming that often had me giggling at its novelty. And the soundtrack while you're dodging the onslaught of enemy attacks is amazing. There were a couple of attack animations I feel like didn't forecast themselves properly, and I wasn't the biggest fan of the run & gun sections, but overall this was a super enjoyable game. Usually I prefer games with a bit more narrative to them, but I can make exceptions when something as expertly-crafted as Cuphead comes along.
Supergiant is yet to make a game I haven't enjoyed. I love the worlds Greg Kasavin writes, that Jen Zee brings to life with her unique painterly art style, backed by the signature Supergiant score Darren Korb always manages to pull out. Pyre was a weird game in many respects -- sportsball vs Oregon Trail vs Visual Novel. In some ways I think the larger cast lacked the same narrative focus of Supergiant's previous games, but they were all written to be so likable that I don't really mind. Compared to Bastion there's a lot of life in each and every character that I think the Visual Novel aspect of the game really helped to bring out. I loved exploring the world of Pyre more than either of Supergiant's past titles, and their reluctance to create sequels makes me really excited for what kind of world they cook up for their next title. Even if it takes another 3 years or more to come out.
I think the combat in this game leaves a bit to be desired, even though it never succumbs to mashy gameplay. Enemy encounters revolve around the same sort of attack-retreat dance you find yourself playing in games like Dark Souls, even if there aren't as many options to be found here. I think what I loved most about Hollow Knight was its oppressive, melancholic atmosphere, along with its commitment to its themes. I love how everything and everyone is bug related - it's a weird thing to compliment but along with the thick-outlined artstyle it just ties everything together neatly.
I follow a lot of indie developers on Twitter, and this was a puzzle platformer I picked up early in the year that I really enjoyed. Really polished pixel art graphics courtesy Andrew Gleeson (artist for Titan Souls), good sound and puzzles. Just a really neat little experience for the low price. You can check it out on itch.io: https://andrio.itch.io/witchway
So, spoilers: I've been a bit torn about this game since I finished it. Spooking the player by using game glitches, fake freezes and reading data outside the game was originally a very novel concept. Popularised by games like Eternal Darkness and MGS and later expanded upon in games like Arkham Asylum and Fallout 3 in different ways, it's always been one of those unique methods videogames can approach horror in a way that films and other mediums just can't, by tricking the player into wondering what's actually real. Ever since the release of Undertale in 2015, I've noticed this trope become even more prevalent in independent titles such as Pony Island, and now DDLC. And since I develop my own games in my spare time, I've become pretty aware of what's possible within the confines of an engine and what the usual tricks may entail. It makes me a little worried about this type of horror, and whether it's starting to become worn out from overuse. Despite all these concerns, I have to say I enjoyed the presentation of DDLC's story and its almost Groundhog-day narrative. I'm a little disappointed that the steam page almost goes out of its way to spoil the horror nature of the game as if not confident enough the game will sell otherwise on word-of-mouth. Nonetheless it's still a very enjoyable and unique experience, easily worth the free download.
I really enjoyed Super Meat Boy when it came out, and Edmund McMillen's latest venture is an action platformer of similar nature. Some of the controls don't sit with me quite as well as Meat Boy's intuitive wall jump, but the level design and obstacles manage to push a lot further and do more interesting things than SMB's ubiquitous saw blade hazards. I admit I'm not the biggest proponent for Edmund's crude toilet humour and sickly flash artstyle, however I did enjoy a lot of the themes and worlds for the game. The music was a bit of a let down after Meat Boy, though - Danny Baranowsky's score made its way onto my iPod in 2010, whereas TEiN's soundtrack of vaguely remixed public domain songs like "In The Hall of the Mountain King" among others are difficult to associate with the underlying game. I haven't finished the game yet, and I've had to take a few breaks after some levels left me with sore fingers out of sheer difficulty. Considering the short development time, the number of levels and content is nothing short of commendable, so I hope I can see it all with time.
The original Emily is Away was a poignant tale of highschool friends drifting apart in the early 2000s, told across a number of months using an all-too-familiar AOL interface. After you got past the nostalgia of oldschool computer sounds, profile pictures and personal messages, it was still a deeply relateable story. I don't think I'll remember the sequel's story quite as fondly and I feel like the ending can be a bit of a cop out depending on your choices, but I still enjoyed some of the unique mechanics that tied into its narrative.