Best of 2020

Is there even much point doing an intro to describe 2020? Lockdowns, the literal plague and a never before seen level of mismanagement from people that are supposed to make the 'big decisions'?

Because, due to and in spite of this year, I played so many games. So many games. I even had enough to make a top 10 list of not-2020 games (including the great Visual Novel marathon I pulled off somewhere in the middle of it), but for now, here are my faves of the ones that came out in this hell-forsaken year.

The top 3 might as well be interchangeable, given the number of times I kept swapping their positions around between each other right up until posting this, they're all great in very different ways.

Annual “Tales of” mention

We Tales of fans are still waiting for the next mainline game with both excitement and trepidation, thanks to the lack of news lately, but I'd rather they take longer and avoid another Zestiria situation so for now I'm happy to sit around.

In the meantime, we got another gacha mobile title in Tales of Crestoria and oddly enough the setting, characters and story are all pretty great! Interacting with the Tales of Eternia crew even gave me the incentive to finally go finish that game, which still holds up really well.

While it does a good job of being friendly to free players, you hit the below-average gacha game problem that after a certain point it's really easy to burn out. Events never end, and when they do they're immediately replaced with the same kind of event with a new coat of paint. As I only really have time for 1 mobile game at a time, Fire Emblem Heroes still keeps me entertained but I'll come back to Crestoria to check in on the story at some point.

No. 12: XCOM: Chimera Squad

As a fairly casual fan of the previous two modern XCOM games, I was looking forward to Chimera Squad to play a lite version of XCOM without all of the base management that tends to consume and overwhelm the part of my brain that wants to optimise every single facet of it.

I ended up having a fun time, even if it didn't quite grab me as much as I hoped it would. The breach mechanic is a neat addition to the start of combat, giving you even more chances to miss three 90% shots in a row before the enemy rips into you, and the class design works well (at least with the combination of characters I got) enough to let me have a lot of fun using Torque to zip people across the map for whatever reason I needed.

Having set characters and personalities is a big departure from the mainline series, so I was hoping it would give a chance for the writing and plot to shine, but while the overall story is serviceable there's nothing really there that endeared me to the cast or provide any real tension for whichever of the antagonists you're going up against during the three main acts.

That said, I was after a little bit more XCOM and was happy Firaxis could experiment with the formula. I'm looking forward to an XCOM 3 that takes the best of the new bits of Chimera Squad.

Soundtrack highlight:

Final Mission of the Sacred Coil Investigation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azm1fFltHPA (Take Down Sacred Coil)

No. 11: Persona 5: Royal

I don't normally include upgraded versions of games to throw onto my end-of-year list, but considering I decided not only to play through this game despite beating the original version in 2017, I ended up spending 120 hours and Platinum-ed the darn thing so it earned its way into a mention.

P5R is a great game, pretty much improving on every aspect of the original while adding some of my favourite content in a Persona game to date. All of the dungeons have been tweaked, with a shortening of some of the tedious navigation and puzzle sections (looking at you stupid airlock and cruise ship parts), re-balancing of enemies and completely revamping the boss fights to be more involved.

The mechanical additions are all excellent, giving more benefits for Technical knockdowns, making the Baton Pass system more powerful, fusion alarms enabling completely ludicrous set-ups and overall letting you annihilate the game with only a tiny bit of planning.

This does mean the difficulty gets completely tanked, I beat the entire game on Merciless, but as someone who already beat the original this just made my enhanced victory lap fun as hell.

The new story stuff is very well done, even if it's mostly backloaded, and dealt with a much more interesting premise than the eventual finale of the original game, making the last boss a much more satisfying experience. Characters were given a lot more time to breathe throughout the whole game with new dialogue sprinkled in, and there are one or two new scenes in particular in the endgame that make me believe the team still does have the chops to come up with an effective plot, they're very well done.

One absolutely shocking downside to P5R is the soundtrack.

No, it's still amazing and the new dungeon theme is one of my favourites in the series, but they hid an absolute banger of a track behind an optional fight mode so barely anyone will hear it! Come on, it's so good!

Soundtrack highlights:

FYI There's probably spoilers in the comments for these.

One of the final dungeon themes, chilled out piano

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kexqSlkVTf0 (Gentle Madman)

Velvet Room challenge music, one of those with a long build-up, but such a fun chorus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZBctlmOUZE (Prison Labor)

No. 10: Murder by Numbers

The first 2020 game I played this year, way back in the before-times of March, really tried to be the antithesis of everything going on by being a delightfully zany game about Picross, a jolly robot companion, Picross, an upbeat Masakazu Sugimori soundtrack, a murder mystery visual plot and a lot of Picross.

I love quirky Visual Novels and I love Masakazu Sugimori tracks. On top of that, I love Picross so this one was always going to end up being a good time for my extremely specific tastes.

Murder by Numbers has a likeable cast and a solid story, even with the limited interactivity outside of the puzzles, and overall I had a great time following Honor, SCOUT and a very colourful cast of characters figure out the mystery. There's genuinely some tense moments during the plot and the writing is overall very good, by the end of the game I was definitely invested in what happened to a number of the characters.

The only minor quibble I really have is that there's not a lot of Quality-of-Life features in there if you're using to playing Picross, making it a tiny bit frustrating to recover from mistakes if you screw up - which I did quite a bit.

I also played on normal and avoiding using hints as much as possible because I am a stubborn idiot, so ymmv.

Soundtrack highlights:

"I want to bounce up and down while I play Picross"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=072q39pBToA (Puzzle ~ The Digital Detective)

If Pursuit Cornered was instead a funky character theme

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ygsw_EtH1JU (Becky ~ Center of Attention)

No. 9: Ori and the Will of the Wisps

I only played Ori and the Blind Forest at the very start of this year, partly as I had a month of Game Pass and partly because I missed it the first time around. It's a surprisingly difficult platformer with a very tender story, looks gorgeous and has some of the most beautiful orchestral music tracks I've heard in a game. Seriously, those people complaining it got robbed in this site's Best Music category in 2015 might have a point.

So, following on from that I was excited to play Will of the Wisps pretty much because Gareth Coker would be returning for the soundtrack and knowing very little else.

Turns out they made another difficult platformer with a very tender story, that looks gorgeous and has more beautiful music tracks, which was totally fine by me.

I found the gameplay in Will of the Wisps slightly improved over Blind Forest, giving Ori more combat options to take out the enemies dotted around the levels, which removed one of the main issues I had with the first game where it was sometimes finicky to take out some of the creatures inbetween the platforming itself.

Overall though it's very similar in tone to Blind Forest, with a mix of touching story moments and deceitfully tricky platforming sections, taking some notes from other Metroidvania-style games like Hollow Knight along the way. The movement and flow throughout the map is probably my favourite part, as Ori flies across the screen with a very gratifying sense of fluidity, even before getting the genre-staple double jump upgrade, which is only a testament to how enjoyable it is to move around.

Oh and add it to the list of games that made me tear up this year, I blame the music.

Soundtrack highlights:

The Main Ori theme, utilised as a leitmotif to crushing effect in the previous game

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3qnOh4yOq4 (Main Theme)

This one isn't even from Will of the Wisps, but it's amazing so I'm putting it here anyway

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kN_LvY97Rco (Light of Nibel)

No. 8: Troubleshooter: Abandoned Children

If Chimera Squad was aiming to be a slimmed down version of XCOM, then Troubleshooter is an XCOM core, a cast of over-the-top characters, a story that includes a gang that worships spoons (yes really) that has a charmingly sketchy localisation made by a tiny Korean development team, all surrounded by a quite frankly obscene amount of additional game mechanics to make the management in XCOM look downright mindless in comparison.

At the base level the combat plays like XCOM and other grid-based SRPGs, with characters having skills, percentages to hit and the environment proving terrain advantages plus a cover system. On top of that however, lies the Mastery system, which are effectively talents you can equip to your characters that range from simple bonuses that increase attack power, to allowing you additional attacks when an ally strikes an opponent near you, or even causing status effects on enemies within a certain number of tiles whenever you one-shot somebody.

It's hard to understate the sheer amount of crazy customisation and builds you can create. Even laying out the main types of systems involved would take forever but just for some scope here, there are over 500 masteries when I last checked and that's not even all. Specific combinations of masteries will give additional boosts, there's a crafting system to make them, you can raise Pets (with their own masteries), build and level-up Robots (that have their own masteries), there's a relationship system and even a 'city status' overview that you need to keep an eye on. Oh and each character has 2 classes which have completely different uses!

Calling it ambitious is probably the understatement of the year, as there's a whole load of small nitpicks. The localisation definitely needs a few touch ups (which is being helped by their community) and the levels can be long - taking upwards of 45 mins a time.

But even with all the finicky parts and varying quality of systems, there's a real charm to the ridiculous story and the experience overall. It helps that the devs are constantly on the steam forums reading pretty much every single comment from what I can tell, and come across extremely likeable and wholesome, even offering in-game compensation for things way out of their control despite their community protesting that they don't need to do so. It's telling when the community complains that there's too much free DLC and not enough paid content, because they want to support the studio.

I've spent hours and hours playing with character builds and running through the story - I even started doing a mission every other day on my lunch breaks from work. Steam says I've put in 65 hours and I'm honestly not surprised - it turns out when you mix OTT strategy with OTT storylines, especially on top of a upbeat, bombastic soundtrack, I like that very much.

Soundtrack highlights:

Trumpets, Guitars and then a Violin lead? Hype.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=245qAOIPQvs (We are 'Troubleshooter')

Let's have the Guitarist take the lead this time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cd9Z0QtP3Nc (Remember Me)

No. 7: Final Fantasy VII Remake

I have a confession to make.

I have never owned a PS1, and in fact, didn't even play Final Fantasy VII until somewhere at the start of '08 when I eventually picked up a PS2 and decided I should probably give it a go. In the end, I got right up to the final Sephiroth battle and...never actually finished the game. I can't even remember why I stopped, because I was having a lot of fun, but if I had to guess I'd blame Persona 3 coming out.

Anyway. The condensed version of that preamble is that I guess I'm in the camp of playing through the FF:VII Remake with all the awareness and appreciation of the original as a JRPG, but without any real specific nostalgia for it.

With all that in mind, I still can't believe this game came out and managed not only to avoid being crushed by the weight of expectations, but come out the other side with a really impressive showing.

Sure, looking at it critically it has some obvious downsides, such as the claustrophobic map design and silly amount of squeezing-between-walls sections that seem to punctuate most encounters (I reckon I spent about half an hour in this game climbing ladders and squeezing through things alone), but overall this game wins out thanks to its core systems, engaging combat and an honestly spectacular amount of effort taken into fleshing out even such a small part of the original.

I still don't know how they did it, it's like they tapped into the combined fanbase's hopes, dreams and fanfiction to not only expand the personalities and motivations of its cast, but the entire city of Midgar itself with an absolute laser-focused dedication.

I mean, we not only got the scene with Cloud in a dress, but it became an exorbitant dancing sequence complete with the customary FFVII minigame attached.

I can't say it was my top JRPG of the year but from the soundtrack, to environments, to characters I was constantly in awe that they managed to not just make a pretty remake of VII, but a remake that makes you feel how I reckon everyone imagined VII to be way back in 1997, and that deserves a lot of credit.

As a final note, I loved the implications of the ending and honestly have no idea what the heck they're going to do to figure out the next part, but I'm very much looking forward to that in 2030.

Soundtrack highlights:

The soundtrack is 7 discs or something, there's a lot, but it's pretty great all over, especially the variants of 'Let the Battles Begin!'

Probably my favourite version of the above

https://soundcloud.com/kakyoin-dies-566727774/ff7-remake-ost-let-the-1 (Let The Battles Begin! - A Merc's Job)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnSBqSp0iKg (Colosseum Death Match)

No. 6: Paradise Killer

Some games invoke strong feelings and memories whenever I think about them, and as I sat down to write about this game I'd not even finished this sentence before I had the soundtrack booming along in the back of my mind and the bizarre scenes of Paradise Island all come flooding back to me.

The reason it comes back to me so clearly, probably more than any other game this year, is that my god does Paradise Killer have a vibe. Everything including the Island architechture, character designs, the glorious Synthwave soundtrack and audio cues all fit together perfectly making the game just...flow. Although wildly different in terms of being a game, it reminds me of Hotline Miami, though not just because of the 80s stylings, but of how well you deposit yourself into the groove of playing.

Precise, urgent murder execution in Hotline and chilled exploring in Paradise Killer.

I also got extreme Danganronpa 2 flashbacks, doing my first person head-bobbing around the island to chill beats, which was a very good feeling to have.

I found the murder mystery really enjoyable particurly as the initial crime spirals into multiple incidents, leaving me to sort out which are actually relevant (or even important at all), characters with contradicting alibis, personal and petty squabbles and, because the game will never give you confirmation whether your theory is correct, keeping my own personal biases from condeming Yuri Night to death on the spot just because the guy is an infuriating dickhead.

Probably because of the overall tone of the game I had the most fun in those investgiation sections and exploring the island, and my hatred of Yuri Night just shows how well-written the characters are, without even bringing up their wildly impressive art design. The voice acting is decent overall but has some great standouts and gets eternal props for including a vareity of accents - Doctor Doom Jazz alone might win the award for most perfect character:

Cool name? Check. He's called Doctor Doom Jazz.

Accent? Check. Scottish

Design? CHECK. I mean just look at this guy...

The trial in the finale didn't quite live up to my expectations, which to be fair had grown very highly the more I played, but by the end of the game I left the Island satisfied I had figured out the truth of everything that went on and everyone got what they deserved.

Checking in with a friend who also played the game had us pretty much aligned.

The other downside I had with the game is that I want more backstory! The whole concept of that world is extremely interesting, with the idea of Gods & immortality, how they're all absolutely terrible beings and the intermission-like bar scenes on a different island being really intriguing.

Ultimately with the game never confirming or denying your reasoning, your satisfaction on solving the mystery will come down to you, but I came out of it having really enjoyed flexing my brain on a well-crafted mystery and another great soundtrack to add to the rotation.

Soundtrack highlights:

I could list the entire soundtrack here honestly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHnJEsNkUbQ (Knife & Crystal)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xfgbb0uXH4s (House of Bliss)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5TyfId_hSI (Breeze With U)

No. 5: Eiyuu Densetsu: Zero no Kiseki / Trails from Zero

Those who remember last year's list will see I am on my bullshit again by including an old game - This time it's a 2010 Japan-only PSP release!

Second only to the Tales of series, one of my favourite set of games is everything in the Trails universe, and it just so happened that early this year Trails from Zero received an exceptional fan translation that brought it to the west in the most polished state it was likely to get. https://geofront.esterior.net/

Without deep diving too hard, the Trails games currently have 3 major story arcs in the released games (Sky, Zero+Azure, Cold Steel) but they all share a massively fleshed out universe where character storylines from one might even conclude in a game from a separate story arc.

Trails from Zero released in Japan between Sky and Cold Steel, those two having both been released in English, and the character crossover is immense, particularly in the latter Cold Steel games. I actually held off on playing the last two Cold Steel titles just so I could play this first and I'm so glad I did.

There's also not much point only commenting on Trails from Zero without it's direct sequel Trails to Azure, so I'm overall going to include them as one entity, and despite the fact the polished translation of Azure isn't out yet, the one kicking around did the job well enough to make consider that these 2 might actually one of my favourites in the series.

So, with all that background information done, Zero+Azure carry on from Trails in the Sky by being a slow-paced JRPG with a ludicrous amount of world building and character dialogue. I sometimes remember more about side characters and NPCs in these games than actual main characters in other RPGs, there's that much personality to them. After even minor storyline events, characters will move around and have new dialogue, giving them their actual own lives to lead. It all sounds like a very basic thing, but it made me keep checking in on them to see how they were doing.

The main cast this time is focused on a small group, unlike the framerate-dropping amount of party characters in Cold Steel, which gave me a lot of opportunity to get attached to them and their struggles to provide some legitimacy of their operation to help the public.

Another of the Trails' series strengths is the political backdrop to the world in-game, and Zero+Azure play with this well by showing a small city thriving as a trade hub + technological powerhouse, but caught inbetween a power struggle of 2 giant nations.

Like the Sky games, the story takes its time setting the scene with the overall plot very slowly building up in the background until all hell breaks loose and it's 3am and I just need to know what will happen next.

Zero+Azure are slow, wordy, slightly clunky jrpgs that you really shouldn't play without at least playing 2 of the previous entries in the series but I absolutely love them. They deal with political themes and keep them interesting, have some intense set pieces (including still the most shocking one I've seen in Trails to date), throw in an amazing late-game twist that genuninely blew my mind and also made me tear up at least twice.

I haven't even mentioned that Falcom make probably my overall favourite game music?

This series rules.

Soundtrack Highlights:

The "they're throwing everything they have at us and we need to make it through" boss music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XUzvISRwUQ (Inevitable Struggle)

Seriously their battle themes are so good, and the remixed version for a final fight in Azure is even better

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-azjB3lsUTU (Get Over The Barrier!)

Even their dungeon themes are great

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERABt0Qx0ss (A Light Illuminating The Depths)

No. 4: The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV

Ahaha you thought I was done, but they released Trails of Cold Steel IV this year.

The 4th game in the Cold Steel storyline, and the 9th release in the Trails universe, that ties the main story arcs all together in a series I have literally put over 600 hours into before this point (I counted...). The only reason I didn't make this number 1 is because I try to have at least some semblency of professionalism in this list, you know?

The short summary of Cold Steel IV is that it's the Avengers: Endgame of the series.

You have a plotline that's been building over multiple games with characters showing up from all the previous entries, who all come together for one big bombastic finale after literal years of run-up. The Japanese subtitle for this game is "End of Saga" and it's very much that.

So after eight games and the giant what-the-fuck cliffhanger ending of Cold Steel III, do they manage to pull off a good finale? Despite it probably being impossible to satisfy all the fans out there, I think they managed it, delivering in equal parts storytelling and flamboyant fan references alike.

Of course, all of this is me through a lens of putting days of my life into a story and their characters. Despite some of the obvious faults regarding the pacing, some more egregious fan service moments and the absolute inability of Falcom to kill off characters and make them stay dead, there are some truely stellar moments, fights and callbacks which left me grinning like an idiot whenever they happened.

The small touches and callbacks are so good - During your team's assault on a specific fortress partway through the game, the background music blasts out an orchestral remix of the track used in the Prologue of the very first Cold Steel game, which your team attacked this exact same fortress.

Continuing on with the music theme, there's a very late-game boss fight against one of the most feared members of the antagonist organisation, Ouroboros, who usually has the "this fight is tough as hell" battle theme. After games of build up and actual apprehension every time you have to take on the guy, when you finally fight him at his full power you instead get this incredible remix of the Ouroboros theme that comes from way back in Sky's second game in 2006!

Did I already mention Falcom's music is great?

Another part I loved is that there's also an NPC that has appeared in every single game so far, a hopeless romantic that has been wandering through the continent with his best friend looking for love, who I genuinely cheered out loud for when he showed up in this one. Bless you Anton, you deserve it.

It's not just the fan references and callbacks though, Juna was one of my favourite characters introduced in the latter games and Altina went from a fairly boring character to maybe having the most development across the entire Cold Steel series.

By the time the final credits rolled, complete with montage of all the characters and emotional vocal track kicking out, I was both happy and sad that this wild ride was at an end.

Then they did that epilogue scene.

I'm pretty sure I shouted out "Whaaaaaaatttt?!"

Oh and there's another game coming out that acts as an expanded epilogue to all the previous games....

This series rules.

Laura is still the best.

Soundtrack Highlights:

"I know, what if we go a bit Touhou with the boss music?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nomkiBN3Y2k (Seductive Shudder)

Where the heck did this electronica come from?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfnuvsJBfB8 (Synchronicity #23)

The usual music for the Antagonist fight I mentioned

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkjFKwZ1WQs (Deep Carnival)

The aforementioned Ourboros Remix for his full power fight

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tnu-mwwTE1c (The Enforcers)

No. 3: Yakuza: Like a Dragon

Not many studios would be partway through development of a 7th game in their long-running adored series, show an April Fools joke video with a totally different battle system for shits and giggles, then be like

"Haha just kidding...unless?"

Those crazy people at Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio made Yakuza a turn-based RPG. A series where you fight in real time with all sorts of punches, kicks, combo attacks, stances and literally grabbing items off the street.

Then they not only made it turn-based, but also wrote the fact that it is turn-based into the story in a way that's believable (or at least within the constraints of this series' beliavability) and you know what? It's my favourite JRPG this year.

I'm going to need to be upfront here, because if my Final Fantasy VII confession didn't raise any eyebrows this one probably will. Yes, yes, revoke my gaming license, send me off to the purist gallows, prescribe me 5,000 hours community service for crimes against authenticity - I chose the dub.

I remember finishing up their previous title, Judgment, and thinking the English localisation was exceptional in both the translation and voice acting. Honestly, I love how Sega are approaching the localisation of these games and the effort they put into them, there's so much more to an effective localisation than straight up translation and I kinda wanted to acknowledge that by playing Like a Dragon in English.

That being said, I kept myself completely spoiler free so if I'd known about some serious cameos from previous games beforehand that decision would've been a lot harder, but overall the English dub is very good and I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it.

It definitely helps that Kaiji Tang utterly nails it as Ichiban, drawing out the absolute Big-Dumb-Goku energy of the character when necessary but also having the range to carry a lot of the touching moments of the story.

One of the final scenes had me bawling my eyes out, largely in part due to his delivery, carrying on the fine tradition of these games emotionally gut punching me. Robbie Daymond also shows his range as Zhao - I can't even describe what he does with his voice, some kind of combination of smooth + sinister that suits that character perfectly.

Despite the massive shift in style the battle system translates surprisingly well into the regular Yakuza world, though some may feel a little iffy about the character movement and almost randomness of the positioning, and after a little while it all clicked for me in a way where I could set up my area/range attacks to hit whoever I was intending to. That movement and knockdown system also kept the combat ever so slightly more dynamic, as rather than characters standing still and just going through the regular motions of Dragon Quest, I found myself always keeping an eye out for slight changes in enemy formation for the opportune time to just swing a baseball bat really, really hard.

I found other systems meshed really well with the usual Yakuza world too, like Ichiban's personality traits, where the usual list of in-game accomplishments gained a lot of value by boosting those stats, and the party confidant system gave some specific story focus between Ichiban and the rest of the team, fleshing them and their backstories out a little more.

Like a Dragon also finds time to fit in the series staples including things like the surprisingly addictive Mario Kart mini-game, business side activity (of course I'm putting the chicken on my board of directors), bonkers side quests and a main story that has twists, turns, genuinely intimidating villains and as many "hell yeah" moments as it does "oh shit" ones.

Considering this is their first crack at a JRPG, it's an amazing effort.

There's a few niggles here and there regarding the game balance, where they expect you to run an optional dungeon to boost your stats immediately after it opens, lest you be 10 levels below the upcoming boss fight, and small quality-of-life issues like areas with long stretches between save points, plus needing to travel all the way to a specific place to change jobs.

Though even then I suppose when you're idolising Dragon Quest you could say they got it spot on in that regard...

If they wanted to keep the mainline Yakuza games as turn-based, and Judgment as the action series then I would be more than happy with that. I just want to keep playing more with these characters in this world. It's a game with a lot of heart, and I like it a whole bunch.

Oh, and not to mention it wins the "Most Conveniently-Placed Tensabarriers in a Video Game" award hands-down.

Soundtrack highlights:

I wrote all that and didn't even touch the soundtrack, which is easily my favourite in the entire series. Pretty much all the battle themes in the game are fantastic and the heavy guitar/dubstep/synth/electronic/dance combination of whatever the heck they're doing makes it an absolute crime there's no way to buy the OST currently.

Spoilers in there for certain characters appearing in the game from previous entries.

Even the standard battle theme slaps

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHuRaPrFozc (Yokohama Battle Theme)

Special battles get this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Chd-oN7g7Hs (Scenario Battle Theme)

Have a dungeon theme just to mix it up a bit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Yl9kpnQGNY (Milennium Tower Dungeon)

And the violins kick in for one of the more emotional fights in the game

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIkQ6yAfVgg ([spoiler] Theme)

Actually screw it, the whole soundtrack is great.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqB3HAKIygF4691GMMzeqL0aHY1fJxiMu

No. 2: Hades

Supergiant might actually be my favourite developer for a whole host of reasons, not just the fact that I've enjoyed every single game they've put out, so when Hades was announced as Early Access I was surprised (as this was coming from a studio that made very story-driven, complete games) but was fairly confident they'd make it work.

Turns out they not only managed to hit my expectations, but blow all other roguelikes completely out of the water and then some. I adore Bastion and loved the narrative & characters in Pyre, but Hades combines those strengths with an exceptionally fun combat system and a downright ingenious use of the roguelike genre itself.

It's easily their best title so far.

Roguelikes aren't usually my jam. Not so much that I dislike the cyclical format of repeating runs, but it's because whenever I beat the final boss for the first time in these games I lose all incentive to ever play again, if I haven't burnt out and got bored before then by feeling a lack of progression.

Hades basically straight up removes my entire issue with the genre, by making the repeated runs part of the story in a way that makes sense for the core narrative and from a mechanical sense. It also helps that the story is absurdly compelling - every time I died I was racing to go back and try to get further, sharing in Zagreus' stubborn determination.

The way plot elements are meted out through character moments, short cutscenes and boss dialogue every time you return to the house keeps the motivation going to learn more, and anticipation for the final boss only gets higher and higher the more you have to deal with your big grumpy dad.

Then you beat the final boss, return to the house and...immediately set off back through hell again because oh man that's a clever way to keep things moving the first time you complete a run.

It's a Supergiant game, so alongside the writing being top notch you also get spectacular art design and it's another thing that Hades lends itself so well to. While the environments, animations and overall style are great as is, the character designs (especially the Olympians) are amazing - there's no wonder I've seen more fan art for this game than pretty much anything else on my list.

They just evoke so much style, from Dusa being a loveable, nervous wreck to Astreus having possibly the most punchable 2D face in history. Oh and as much as I love Meg (in many ways...), I was never more happy than when Artemis showed up.

Like the art design, spending less than 3 paragraphs gushing about the music feels far too short for any game Darren Korb composes and Hades is another soundtrack where I slam the purchase button the second I feel I've played enough of the game to listen to it.

Once again it's an overall fantastic soundtrack, though on a personal note I love the metal influences that came to the front on this one, with one particular track taking that to such a ludicrous extreme I must have had it on repeat for days afterwards.

This blurb is already so long and I haven't even talked about the most improved thing compared to their back catalogue, which is that the combat is fun as hell. It's sharp, snappy and people can do a better explanation of it than I can, but it's yet another incentive to keep playing as when certain things click, wow do they click.

The really impressive thing, and I mean the really, really impressive thing about Hades isn't just the sum of all the parts, but the amount of care and cohesiveness put into every facet of the game.

Everything is tied into everything, thought out fully and polished to an extreme. Such small, but clever touches include things like:

• Characters not only commenting on specific things that happened during your previous run, but keeping count of events over multiple runs just to bring it up later down the line.
• Zagreus fighting an unamed boss so many times he eventually gives it a nickname somewhere down the line, which consequently updates the Health Bar of the boss itself with the new name.
• Using the Heat Mechanic to make some of the boss fights harder has the Bosses themselves comment on their 'upgrades', to the point where they'll reference it if you lose to them. There's even new dialogue from Zagreus and bosses after you turn off the feature, specifically mentioning that!

I have no idea how the hell Supergiant keep managing to put out games this good, but I'm so glad they do.

Soundtrack highlights:

Hades had tracks that flow between the 'quiet' versions when you're not in combat, to the 'louder' ones when you're fighting. They're great on their own, but even better to experience them in game.

Working your way through Tartarus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GRKJ87S5cI&t=438s (Out of Tartarus)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GRKJ87S5cI&t=3466s (Scourge of the Furies)

"Optional Phase 3 Final Boss aka We need even more metal"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GRKJ87S5cI&t=8546s (The Unseen Ones (ft. Masahiro Aoki and Daisuke Kurosawa))

No. 1: 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim

Where do I even start with this one, other than to say 13 Sentinels was definitely the most surprising game I played this year. I spent some time reading around the desciption of the game, looking at screenshots of the combat and I still wasn't entirely sure whether I'd be into it, so in the end I took a bit of a leap and checked it out.

Do you like Sci-Fi?

Do you like Good Video Games?

Because yeah you should definitely play 13 Sentinels.

After completing the prologue, you have the choice of choosing between following each of the 13 protagonists and their individual stories, or working through the combat missions, and you can bounce back and forward between these at your leisure for the most part. Eventually you'll run into character sections that need you to complete another character's chapter, or a specific combat mission, to give some kind of pacing to the overall plot, but that freedom in tackling character chapters in any order really lends itself well to the absolutely absurd twists and revelations that happen in the story on top of you jumping around between timelines and perspectives.

And those revelations really are something, it's a wild time from start to finish, which makes it difficult to speak about the best bits of this game because most of my praise is inherently focused on the story structure, the reveals and the sheer amount of sci-fi influences. Given that it pulls references from an astonishing amount of sources (including Macross, The Terminator, E.T., Total Recall, War of the Worlds, Short Circuit and even freaking Fantavision, on top of loads more) and you're following 13 different stories it's incredible that it not only provides numerous "what the hell" scenes but it actually manages to tie everything together by the end.

Switching between characters/combat will likely give everyone a slightly different flow to the whole experience, but for me it hit everything almost perfectly. I even read every single entry in the game's glossary, it's crazy stuff.

Which isn't to say the story is the only positive, the battle system got surprisingly fun the more I played of it and the visual style, which looked fairly unappealing in screenshots, rapidly grew on me as I saw it in motion. I found something profoundly satisfying launching a bazillion missiles into a fleet of enemies and seeing a explosion of pixel-looking...well, explosions everywhere. My endgame tactic of ALL THE SENTRY GUNS made this even more fun. I mean, if you're playing a game with Mechs in it then the more giant, pulse lasers the better right?

Even the little metagame touches of swapping pilots around for the optional challenges, keeping your combo multiplier up and being forced to use the different pilots and styles had me playing numerous combat missions in a row because of how fun it was, despite wanting to know the details behind whatever shocking event just happened in the story.

While the artwork is phenominal, as always with Vanillaware games, another huge surprise to me is that the soundtrack is a genuine delight. The music in the character sections suits the mood depending on the scene, varying between the lighthearted school sections and not-so-lighthearted bits as it goes, but it's the battle tracks where it really shines.

Part electronic, part orchestral with different composers for many of the main battles, it contributes to the fantastic atmosphere and overall tone of the game, from the quiet build-up before the kaiju attack to the headbanging beats while you're desperately trying to fight off swarms and swarms of enemies. It's synth-JRPG-Tower Defense-Boss music and it's awesome.

Like with all the sci-fi references in the story, and in another area of wearing its influences less on its sleeve and more being decked out entirely in them, there's an End of Chapter battle that pulls out the most extreme of Macross vibes as a vocal track layers on top as the clock ticks down on your objective. It's definitely my favourite soundtrack of the year and I'm getting that remix album as soon as it drops.

I had a really difficult time separating my top 3 this year, as they all could've been my top choice in years gone past, but I keep remembering my reaction to the first big plot twist, the frantic battle with the vocals blasting out and Hijiyama's absolute dedication to Yakisoba Pan, and I had to put 13 Sentinels at number one.

It's the first Vanillaware game I've felt compelled to complete, with a top-notch localisation, and I hope more people give it a shot because what a fun, strange ride it is.

Soundtrack Highlights:

All the battle tracks.

That build up to 1:58...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDdJvfvdcUA (-(DEOXYRIBOSE)-)

The violins at 3:51! That entire Outro...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMT8BA73B0Y (-(PHENYLALANINE)-)

A non-battle theme, to mix things up a bit, especially at 0:45

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkghXw64KO (A Cruel Thesis)

The whole thing:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1rY59ZRV0lhys2xF_IiqNy9NlYxtum3B