by tandyq
The Year There Were Too Many Good Games Oh My God So Many Good Games™
This year has been wild (ly bad), and the games that have come out have been pretty wild (ly good). It seems like every other week there was a new release of a game I wanted to play that people were raving about. Gravity Rush 2 came out this year! Nioh came out this year! The .hack//G.U. games got re-released this year! West of Loathing! Finding Paradise! I never got to play any of these!!
So, here's my top 10 list of the games I was actually able to get to. There are games I wish I could have put on here, like Yakuza 0, Sonic Mania, Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, Blue Reflection, Horizon Zero Dawn, Pyre, Prey, Super Mario Odyssey, Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age, and so many more. Sadly, these either didn't make the cut or I wasn't able to get around to putting enough time into them to feel one way or the other. Oh well, I'm sure things will settle down next year and I'll be able to play all of these, right?
...r-right?
Showing 1-10 of 10 items
NieR: Automata is one of those rare games that comes around and completely flips the script on your expectations. Being a big fan of the Drakengard franchise and the original NieR, I've enjoyed Yoko Taro's work for a while now, but even that familiarity with his past games couldn't prepare me for the places this game went. Throughout the 5 core story playthroughs, I was met with confusion followed by sudden elucidation. I was brought to soaring highs that were immediately followed by the lowest of lows, all accompanied by one of the best soundtracks in the history of the medium, finely-tuned to match exactly what the player is currently feeling. The way NieR: Automata plays with the shared language of video games is *astounding*, and even serves to lighten some of its minor stumbles, mostly in its user interface. If I'm being vague here, it is only because I don't want to give away even the slightest of spoilers about the journey the player is taken on in the course of this game. It does so much and tackles so many concepts that it absolutely SHOULDN'T work. And yet it does, resulting in one of the most human stories I've ever seen. My "golden age" of gaming took place decades ago, around the time of the original Pokemon games. I had long given up on a game meaning as much to me as those past treasures, colored by years of nostalgia. That Yoko Taro has, through NieR: Automata, toppled all of those pedastal-seated favorites is an astounding feat. It's rare that I come across a game that I recommend to everyone, regardless of their personal taste. NieR: Automata is one of those games.
Persona 4 is one of my favorite games of all time, a story filled with empathy and all of the Japanese tropes a dumb anime fan could ask for. I've been hotly anticipating the release of Persona 5 for years now, and boy did it deliver. This game has more style oozing out of every menu, cutscene, and interaction than most entire franchises. While I have some quibbles with the ways it stumbles in its addressing its subject matter and feel it doesn't go far enough in its overall themes, it's astounding that a game like this came out of Japan. The fact that it also improves on the already tightly-tuned mechanics of the series is icing on top of a delicious cake.
Butterfly Soup is my favorite heartwarming game of 2017. The writing in this visual novel that explores high school love and friendships between a bunch of gay, Asian girls who love baseball is some of the funniest, human dialogue I've read this year. It's a short time investment, but one that sticks with you long afterwards. Take half an afternoon and experience it for yourself.
I don't know what I could possibly say about this game that a thousand other people haven't already put more eloquently. This game contains probably my favorite open world in the history of video games. Exploring it was truly a joy, full of surprises at the crest of every hill. It's my favorite Zelda game in the history of the franchise, and shows just how much can be accomplished when Nintendo tries its hand at a well-worn genre.
Last year I moved away from the town that I spent much of my life growing up in, and in the middle of playing Night in the Woods I took a trip back there for the holidays. It floored me how similar the two experiences felt, and how much more Night in the Woods connected to me as a result. This was a great year for heartfelt, meaningful writing in games, and Night in the Woods is no exception. The characters and events I experienced throughout my 12 hours with the game are things that truly stick with me.
I love the Danganronpa games. The silly characters, the absurd murder mysteries, the hard swings between juvenile jokes and serious sadness and terror - it all comes together to make an experience quite like anything else in games. While I think this entry in the franchise is, frustratingly, the weakest in terms of overall story and characterization, the ending is one of the highest of the many high points in the series and makes the whole greater than the sum of its parts.
I love the Assassin's Creed series, I really do. I've been through the highs and the lows, and I'm really glad to see that Ubisoft utilized the extra year of development time it gave this game to look back at the core formula of what Assassin's Creed is. All of the changes and additions feel smartly executed on, and I'm probably one of the few who is happy to see a return of a bit more focus on the present-day story thread. Exploring Egypt as Bayek felt similar to my time playing The Witcher 3, and the world presented in this game thankfully rose to that occasion. It's exciting to look in every nook and cranny, and I felt a desire to explore the world in a way that I hadn't felt since Assassin's Creed 2.
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus is a batshit insane game that I can't believe exists. I'm not a huge fan of first-person shooters, but man is it worth it to me to play through the shooty bits to see what new thing the storytellers and gameplay designers are going to throw at me next. In this year filled with highly-visible, shitty fascists and Nazis, this game was a cathartic balm to play. It also helps that it leans even further into its predecessor's desire to explore the limits of what you can do in the first-person shooter genre, from level geometry that shifts on the fly to a complete Gone Home-esque segment that blew my mind.
I love every character in Tacoma. I loved exploring their living spaces, watching their lives play out and finding more about them along the way. I think it's brilliant the way that Fullbright have extended out from Gone Home to this brilliant next step in environmental storytelling in games, and I'm really excited to see where they take it next. However, what I love even more than all of that is the actual location this game takes place in. It's incredible, from the sign language used to interact with interfaces, to the UI presented within the game world, to even the smaller touches, like the plywood walls in your docking craft or the way corridors don't follow a perfect geometry. It all lends itself to feeling like a place that truly feels lived in by live human beings. I could see myself living in this space, no question. It's remarkable, and is a leap forward from the standard science fiction environment design.
This game shouldn't be good. The original Life is Strange was a fantastic, five-part story that began and ended in the most satisfying of ways. After it was over, I was completely in the camp that it should be left alone, untouched. Then Square Enix announced they were making a prequel, and that it would be headed up by a different development team. I bemoaned this, certain that it wouldn't be able to live up to the original work, but decided that I would play it anyway. If Life is Strange is a send-up to Twin Peaks, then Before the Storm is its Fire Walk With Me. It's astounding how much care and reverence the team at Deck Nine used when handling the characters and original story. It acts as an excellent supplement to the original Life is Strange, but is also its own, self-contained tale - full of themes and character developments that set it apart from its predecessor. If you enjoyed the original Life is Strange, then you absolutely must play this game. You won't regret it.
