Hi, this is my first list on the site but I felt really motivated at 2 am to write a top ten piece for this year. There's never been a better time to be playing fighting games and my biases probably show through since almost half this list is some sort of fighting game. I left this year feeling surprised with games I never knew about or thought would hit me and disappointed with a couple of the games I had been anticipating since their initial reveal. I hope this list somewhat summarizes the odd year I've had with games and isn't a complete written disaster.
10 - 6. Games Im Gonna Write One Sentence About
10. Into the Breach
Punching a bug never felt so stimulating.
9. Soulcalibur VI
If I didn't put this game on here, Gritty would manifest in my house and kill me.
8. God of War
Winner of top ten games to go from my favorite game of the year to number 8 because of how bad it's final act is.
7. Blazblue Cross Tag Battle
Yu Narukami is a baller and a new game with him in it has to make top ten.
6. Super Smash Bros Ultimate
Fire Emblem characters are good and fun, you guys are just bad at strategy rpgs.
5. Red Dead Redemption 2
I don't like Red Dead Redemption 2. I can't stand playing it, the mission design is drab and uninspired, falling into the same rote archetypes that every Rockstar game has had since GTA 3. Controlling Arthur feels like garbage and the gunplay while passable, can hardly carry itself through the 40ish hours it takes to play the main campaign plus epilogue. But through all that I can't help but be enraptured by this game and its story and characterization, to the point where I spent 3 and a half days locked away this passed week, dedicating myself to finishing it before GOTY deliberations began. Arthur Morgan and the Van Der Lin gang became all I could think about, constantly wondering what could happen next and how it could all go wrong. Red Dead Redemption 2 is not a fun game to play and even if that's the point I can't look past how miserable I felt at times playing it, but the storytelling and character work put in by the team at Rockstar makes me think one day I might just be able to.
4. Tetris Effect
Fuckin Tetris man. I very rarely feel the need to show my parents a game and while they still didn't really get it besides the idea of "oh its tetris but there's weird music that's neat I guess," I couldn't resist showing it to anyone and everyone. Tetris Effect is special in a way few games are or ever will be, sending the player on a spiritual experience and making the perfect game somehow even better. Tetris Effect almost got me to buy a PSVR on Black Friday just to play it and nothing else, and while I didn't the fact that a game can elicit that stupid of purchasing decision in me is truly something special.
3. Marvel's Spider-Man
I can't really say I was surprised at all by Spider-Man. That said it blew every expectation I had of it out of the water. One of the best realized versions of Spider-Man in any medium, with a well written and captivating story to back him up, all wrapped in a fun collection of systems, Spider-Man is truly the new bar for superhero games in the same way Arkham Asylum was a decade ago. I don't think the entire game is perfect however, it slacks when it comes to keeping actual activities in the world engaging, shifting my focus from exploring the open world to just mainlining the story to see the end rather quickly within the time I spent with the game. All that said its hard for me to think of a game I had more of a smile on my face playing, except maybe the next two entries on this list.
2. Deltarune Chapter 1
This was one hell of a surprise. I'm a late bloomer on Undertale, I didn't play it until late last year and regretted putting it off for as long as I did the second after I finished it. In some ways Deltarune is more of the same, but in this case I think its a very good thing. The pacing is tighter and the combat system is more fleshed out all wrapped in the amazing writing one can expect from Toby Fox. I haven't laughed at a game as much as I laughed at Deltarune. Deltarune was all I thought about for a solid two weeks, an amazing bite sized game that I can't wait to get more of.
1. Dragon Ball FighterZ
Fighting games have always been my jam. Ive never been particularly great at them but they remain my passion and my favorite genre to play. DBFZ is one helluva a fighting game. This is the game that took my friends and fgc scene by storm this year and the game I had the most fun playing day in and day out practicing combos, getting bodied, rethinking my team, and getting bodied again. Dragon Ball FighterZ is the perfect encapsulation of what makes fighting games special to me. It's handling of the license also deserves recognition as its nigh unheard of for a property to have such love poured into it like FighterZ did by the devs at ArcSys. Dragon Ball was the first anime I ever saw, and has stuck with me since I was 9 years old and while I hold many anime in higher regard than it now, like many other people it will always have a place in my heart. FighterZ is the perfect amalgamation of two of the most influential things in my life and I couldn't be more happy that it exists
Special Honorable Mention: Persona 3 Dancing in Moonlight/Persona 5 Dancing in Starlight
I haven't played either of these games yet but I have listened to their osts all year so I felt like they needed a shoutout.
And there you have it folks, my tenish favorite games of 2018, hope 2019 only brings better games and better written top ten lists. See you next year!
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