LogFAQs > #939491876

The 21 (!!!) Games That Made Bracket (And How Long They Lasted):
-The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Contest Winner)
-What Remains of Edith Finch (Round 1)
-Hollow Knight (Round 2)
-Tales of Berseria (Round 1)
-Resident Evil 7 (Round 1)
-Horizon Zero Dawn (Round 3)
-Fortnite (Round 1)
-Tekken 7 (Round 1)
-Mario Odyssey (Division Finals)
-Cuphead (Round 2)
-Splatoon 2 (Round 1)
-Nioh (Round 2)
-Persona 5 (Quarterfinals)
-Sonic Mania (Round 3)
-Ys VIII (Round 1)
-Yakuza 0 (Round 2)
-Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Round 1)
-Fate/Grand Order (Round 1)
-Night in the Woods (Round 1)
-Divinity Original Sin II (Round 2)
-Nier Automata (Round 3)

Notable Snubs:
-PlayerUnknowns Battlegrounds
-Metroid: Samus Returns
-Destiny 2
-Prey
-Hellblade: Senuas Sacrifice
-Gravity Rush 2
-A Hat in Time
-Doki Doki Literature Club

Headliners: Breath of the Wild, Mario Odyssey, Persona 5

Busts: Tales of Berseria, NieR Automata

Overview:

This hasnt been a section in prior write-ups, but this year warrants a brief overview.

If you know your years, you know that 2017 was the Year of the Decade. Easily. Unquestionably. And even if you dont know your years, you dont have to read a single word of text in this analysis to know what a big deal it was. Just scroll back up to that banner. Link. Mario. Joker, the face of the biggest deal in JRPGs since FFX. This banner just screams power. But it wasnt merely a case of a few strong entries, oh no. This year had quality AND quantity. At 21 entries, its BY FAR the most well-represented in the contest; nothing else even broke 15. Some of you were astute enough to notice that this contest felt very backloaded, and 2017 is a big reason why you feel that way.

Theres a few reasons this year was so gosh dang good, the obvious one being the release of the Switch. Nintendo had pretty much abandoned the Wii U after Splatoons release in mid-2015, only tossing out a few niche releases like Xenoblade X and that Tokyo Mirage nonsense and some undercooked garbage like Paper Mario and Star Fox. It was clear that the Wii U was a bust, and they needed to focus their efforts on their next console. They had to win back their audience, and quickly. It didnt help that they were releasing the Switch when the PS4 and Xbone were ALSO hitting their stride; how do you convince people to buy your 300 dollar console when the other two already had a meaty library with a lot of cheap, quality games?

BOOM, Zelda. BOOM, Mario Kart. BOOM, Splatoon. BOOM, Mario Odyssey. They HAD to go ham this year; they could not lolligag like the PS4 and Xbone had in 2013 and 2014. If they didnt come out the gate swinging, the Nintendo brand might very well have died, and so they worked on having the best launch year since the PS2. Too bad this meant that wed spend the subsequent years getting one decent release every 4 months or something >.>

But the Switch wasnt the only reason the year was so successful. I was doing a thing early in this analysis where I was counting how many Japanese games there were in each line-up; I stopped because I figured people got the point. But lets start counting again, and put each years number of Japanese games:overall entries side by side.

2010: 3/13 (23%)
2011: 2/10 (20%)
2012: 3/13 (23%)
2013: 5/13 (38%)
2014: 4/12 (33%)
2015: 3/11 (27%)
2016: 3/10 (30%)
2017: 13/21 (62%)
2018: 5/12 (42%)
2019: 7/14 (50%)

Notice something? The numbers suddenly surge in 2017 and remain decently high in 18 and 19. 2017 is the only year where more than half of the entrants were Japanese-made.

Now, I dont necessarily want to imply that being Japanese made automatically means better; Im only mildly a weeb. But in my Prelude to the Decade post, I note that a lot of the high-profile Japanese companies had faded in the transition to HD, and a lot of their games began chasing Western trends, diluting the spirit of innovation and fun that their games were known for.

2017 is when a lot of those companies started to pull their heads out of their asses and either returned to their roots, or realized that there was a middle-ground between massive AAA golden pixel projects, and the mass-produced shovelware garbage of companies like NIS and Gust and Compile Heart. I already covered Nintendo (who NEEDED this come to Jesus moment), but REVII was the first AAA game Capcom had put out in a LONG time that was universally acclaimed. Square bounced back from FFXVs tepid reception with Nier Automata. SEGA saw two breakthrough hits with Yakuza 0 and Persona 5 (Sonic Mania wasnt Japanese-developed). Smaller scale projects like Ys VIII and Tales of Berseria resonated more with people than their predecessors. Even Tekken 7 was the first AAA fighting game in a while to really take that scene by storm.

An air of subversive, whimsical fun was returning to the AA and AAA gaming industry after mostly being relegated to the indie scene. Ive heard anecdotes of a lot of people who were jaded with gaming and the greys and browns and endless gun fights but were pulled back in around this period of time.

Though the endless gun fights certainly remained endless, with Fortnite and PUBG representing a massive paradigm shift in multiplayer shooters. Now, I know those games are popular to hate on, but honestly, even though I dont actually play them, Im down with battle royale shooters. In a way, they also represented a return to the basics. Enough with the increasingly contrived multiplayer modes, enough with the weirdly complex progression systems CoD ushered in, lets just take the basic Deathmatch concept and take it to its logical conclusion. Im surprised it took so long for someone to do this.

Take quality, take quantity, take influence, take every measurement into account, 2017 beat out every year this decade in a landslide. It has a very real claim of being the best year ever, period, and its a shame that the Years contest (if we really HAD to have one) wasnt held until after 2017, because it would have gone on an absolute tear.

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