Board 8 > Tazzy's Super Late Top 5 Games of 2017

(+) Yeah! (+)

Late because I wanted to make sure to play a few games before doing a list. Only give. because I only want to talk about five. Okay let's go.
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5. Cuphead


A few folks in the anime topic know that Im pretty into animation. I specifically enjoy the Western style, as I grew up seeing creative and fun character designs from the 90s and earlier. Cuphead is a game inspired by the cartoons of old. The animation is fluid, the music has this grainy effect to it, and the characters all feel like they were ripped straight out of the 1930s, boasting vivid actions and expressions that make each encounter memorable.

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The first thing people take note of in Cuphead is its difficulty, which is fair. The game wears its challenge on its sleeve, and understands that players are likely gonna die quite a bit to each of its many bosses. It circumvents frustration, however, through some simple, yet effective, design decisions. The best one is the progress bar youre shown after you die. This lets the player understand their position in relation to the entirety of the fight. As you continue your battle, you will be able to determine the best opportunities to use you super moves, as they can allow you to bypass portions of the battle you have more difficulty with. Any game with challenging boss battles should have some indicator of progress, and Cuphead does this perfectly. Another fantastic move is that you dont have much downtime between deaths. Cuphead isnt so much about punishing you for poor play as it is teaching you patterns and training your reflexes. I never once got frustrated with Cuphead, as it allowed no time for annoyance. Once you lose, you are almost immediately able to throw yourself back into the fray.

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The animations for each boss are crucial to the game as well. While they appear to be there solely for stylistic reasons, everything, from there movements to their facial expressions, act as telegraphs for their coming attacks. It wants to hammer these animations into your head so that they may keep building onto these attacks with new challenges compounding onto each other. This creates for some intense combat situations that require the player to keep every bit of the screen in relation to their own. An example would be Captain Brineybeard, where you start out simply dodging his occasional bullets as a treasure chest drops on you from the air if you go underneath it. After you deal with this for a little bit, the fight introduces dogfish, a squid, or a shark appearing from the water, all of which add a new layer to the fight. After you deal enough damage, the ship will begin to periodically shoot cannons across the floor. So now we have Brineybeards bullets, the treasure chest, a squid/shark, and cannons hitting all at once, leaving very little leeway as far as safe space goes. But each danger is choreographed so deliberately, that it allows the player to gather their senses and pick out the best way to reduce threat to their progress. Brineybeards bullets are slow, the treasure chest is always in plain sight, the dogfish blow a deep whistle as a telescope pops out from the water, the shark/squid are whistled for, each presenting their own tells before becoming a danger, and the ship makes an obvious chewing motion before spitting the cannonballs. While this is chaotic, its all very manageable thanks to the brilliant art and sound design from the team behind it.

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Cupheads definitely not for everyone, but its a rare game where the fun never really stops for me. I beat it in 8 hours, and not a single one of those were spent in boredom or frustration. Its great to see a massively hyped indie game actually live up to such expectations. I cant wait to see what Studio MDHR has in store for the future.
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Damn, the gifs didn't embed.
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Not a top ten indie game of 2017 imo
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get out troll
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Id like to play Cuphead, but I cant really see myself getting a PC or a new laptop anytime soon and the same goes for another Microsoft console. Why couldnt they just put this game on PS4 :(

4. Tales of Berseria
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I have an odd relationship with the Tales franchise. There are titles, like Symphonia and Xillia, that rank among my favorite games of all time, while others, like Destiny and Graces, I find actively miserable to power through. But its a series Ive stuck with, because the high moments always seem to make up for the crushing lows, and theres not really any research Im personally capable of to know where a certain game will land on the scale. Enter Berseria. When it first came out, I had just been burned by Zestiria, a game I found promising that ultimately devolved into a massive fetch quest that last about 20 hours too long. Not to mention it had set up some great lore, but failed to utilize that in delivering its story, which is about as interesting as a heel of bread. So lets just say I wasnt really buying the hype of a prequel. I ended up buying it on sale months later, since I can rarely leave a Tales game sitting much longer than that. What I got was, barring severe nostalgia bias, the best Tales experience yet made.



Now, I cant sing praises of the game without first bashing its combat, but Ill keep it short because this is a list of positivity. I found the game far too easy for the most part, even when cranking the difficulty up to hard, where things just got tedious on top of still being easy. Enemies were far too susceptible to elemental attacks, and you could assign these elemental attacks to any combo, so it gets extremely repetitive and mashy. I do like how the newest games are more dodge-centric, but the window youre given to actually be rewarded for your skills is frustrating. Needless to say, by the end, I just slapped it on the easiest difficulty and avoided battles as much as possible, as they were a hindrance to the absolutely phenomenal story the game tells.



I dont want to spoil anything, so this might end up being a pretty weak write-up, but Velvet Crowe is one of my favorite video game protagonists. Her story starts off edgy as hell, but it has its own luster to it. You get to see the lengths shell go to for her revenge, and it leads to some interesting circumstances to say the least. But it did start to wear on me once I entered Taliesin. This is where the story starts to take an entirely different direction. We see a newer, deeper side of Velvets character. We see the shallowness of her revenge and the weakness of her resolve, and the hypocritical nature she takes in her actions. Once you hit this part of the game, the story doesnt let up. We see Velvets willpower tested, pushed to the brink of sanity and culminating in one of the most twisted scenes in gaming, shortly followed by something truly beautiful. The writers did an outstanding job with this character, and, after like, over a decade, Zelos Wilder is no longer my favorite Tales character.

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So while the combat is pretty dull and the story unfortunately fails to stick the landing, Velvet Crowes story is a thoughtful and harrowing visage of revenge that few stories are able to capture in my experience. Through its story alone, Tales of Berseria will always hold a special place in my heart, and its weird to see a game that made such an emotional impact on me finish third in a single year of gaming, but 2017 had a few games that hit me even harder.
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I don't get GameFAQs embedding...
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tazzyboyishere posted...

I don't get GameFAQs embedding...

Only certain image domains are supported for GameFAQs embedding.
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Some of giphy has embedded itt and some hasn't. Same with imgur.

It's no big deal though.
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Aw yes Velvet the best.

Well actually I probably still like Yuri more, but still.
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3. Nioh
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Im a huge fan of the Souls games. I ended up playing through everything that was released in 2015 multiple times each. Its been a long time since a series has resonated with me in such a way. But while From Software has the formula down, other developers havent really been able to nail a true Souslike game that both differs from the traditional formula From created, while being just as fun. Enter Nioh, a game heavily inspired by Dark Souls, while also maintaining its own identity.

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The first thing noticeably different about Nioh is the combat. Its still a highly focused experience where you must juggle your stamina while maintaining an offense, learning enemy attack patterns and knowing when best to dodge and strike. Nioh leans more toward the typical character action games, however, with a much deeper and intricate set of abilities at your disposal. Not only are there five different styles of melee combat, but you have the chance to learn new abilities, giving you a wide variety of moves to take down enemies with. On top of this, you have three different stances that allow for more versatility in combat, though I rarely switched out of mid stance. And of course you have ninjutsu and magic, two builds that add even more depth to the mechanics, though I never fooled around with either much. Once I tasted that axe, I never looked back. While you can brute force your way through about half of the game, it eventually gets to the point where, if you cant manage ki properly, youre not gonna do too well. Ki management is really the entire basis of this game. You have to make sure you have enough ki to attack, block, and dodge, and many enemies you encounter later have the same set of rules. The best fights are the ones where both the enemy and you are playing aggressively while vying for ki. It feels especially rewarding when youre able to never run out of ki during a tough battle with well-timed ki pulses. Plus, grapples are some of the most satisfying maneuvers to pull off in the game.

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The difficulty is likely going to be offputting for some. I personally never hit any kind of significant trouble, completing the main mission and nearly every sub-mission, but theres a certain set of unwritten rule that these types of games follow, and if you arent used to them, I imagine Nioh could be a frustrating experience. Its pretty stingy with elixers in-game, but I found out in the later levels that you can offer up your equipment for large quantities of elixers. Im not sure if this was explained, but I found I didnt really understand many of the more in-depth mechanics in the game. It wasnt a huge deal, since most of it likely only comes into play after the main mission is over, and Im not into the whole, Challenge for the sake of challenge thing. Thats why I never do NG+ in the Souls games. Hell, even the equipment has a ton of depth to it, with so much variety in what buffs theyll give you. I mainly just piled up my defensive multiplier while maintaining a low equip weight, but I imagine someone more enthused by this stuff would go insane in the menus. Every mission has you finding loads of randomized loot, most of which I didnt even touch.

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All in all, Niohs a blast to play. While I await whatever game Froms teasing, I felt I needed a new Souls fix, and this scratches that itch quite nicely. Hell, I like it even better than some of Froms games! Its a ton of fun, and, if you can make it past the difficulty, its definitely worth a play.
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Cuphead wasn't a top game for me in terms of gameplay, though I can't say I've ever seen a run-and-gun/bullethell kind of guy

Art, animation, music and boss design were all top tier though
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2. NieR: Automata
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I feel dirty for not considering this my #1 game of the year, but Id feel even dirtier not putting the winner there instead. NieR: Automata is truly a game worthy of being called the greatest of all time in my eyes. It accomplishes nearly everything it sets out to do while pushing the boundaries of what video games are capable of in ways no other video game has.

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Automata wastes no time letting you know how this game will go, the combat goes at a blistering speed while constantly shifting gameplay types and camera angles to keep you on your toes. It makes for an exciting and versatile battle system, unless youre a dumbass like me and spend 70% of the game with auto-dodge on because youve let your own ineptitude at character action games blind you from the fact that this plays nothing like them. This is accompanied by one of the most brilliant soundtracks in gaming, with a dynamic and fitting score to make every step feel all the more majestic and powerful. Theres nothing quite like stepping through the amusement park gates as your ears are greeted with a magical tune, or hearing mechanical vocals and percussion as you escape from a factory of homicidal machines. And of course, this is all being driven by one of the greatest achievements in mankind, 2Bs ass. Though in all seriousness, the story is one that would make Tales of Berseria look like the fanfiction I wrote in middle school. There are so many intricacies lining the overall plot, which doesnt exactly break new grounds with the story thats being told, rather, it stands out with how remarkably well told it is. The music, environment, voicework, gameplay, etc. all culminate into one grand epic that could have never been spun as effectively in a different medium. It is the very definition of a masterpiece.

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Honestly the fact that I didnt want to play the game in a fun manner might be what hindered it from the top, and thats just sad to be honest. Though some day, I will replay it, experimenting with different builds and taking part in the story-driven sidequests. Maybe then, I will find a new layer of appreciation for it, and I can love it even more.

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But seriously, can I just talk about Ending E? Please? Yeah? Alright, here goes
*deep breath*
I love video games. Ever since I was a child, I found them to be magical. It wasnt really hard to impress me as a kid, but as Ive grown older and hardened to the emotional impact games can leave me, it becomes increasingly rare for me to truly find magic. This is what made 2017 so great, as I had three video games (the top 3 here) that hit me in a truly impactful way. When I was finished with the first four endings of Automata, I was left feeling that it was simply a damn good game. One that I couldve enjoyed more if I werent being dumb, but quite good nonetheless. Then this ending hits. Keep in mind Im going in blind and have no idea whats in store for me. The idea of fighting the credits as if theyre defense programs against the player is really unique in itself. But thats not even a fraction of whats to come.

Eventually I started dying. The names had too much health and spat out too many bullets. But as I was dying, the game was giving me messages. For whatever reason, the, Do you think games are just silly little things? hit me hard. As I kept dying, more messages began to appear in the background. Not questions from the game itself, but words of encouragement from other people who were in my situation. I kept pushing, denying all the questions the game was drilling into me, and as I kept dying and denying my ineptitude, more messages would appear to cheer me on.

Then something truly special happened. I connected to the human network, and my allies began to fight alongside me. Faceless allies from all over the world who had given voiceless encouragement were now fighting with me as if they were my comrades. As I witnessed this all, the crescendo of languages singing Weight of the World kicks in, and my body forced itself out of the chair as tears began to roll out of my eyes. The battle that once seemed impossible was now a breeze. You could say that the weight of the world was lifted if you want to get pretentious.

This moment single-handedly sold me on the game as a masterwork and Yoko Taro as a man of deity-like ability. The game spent the past many hours drilling into you the futility of being, yet Ending E shows that humans are very much still alive through our own network. As long as our strength and tenacity exist, we will do what we can to save this world.

And lets not forget the final challenge the game poses for you. Its not often that a game asks you to make a true sacrifice. Sure, sometimes theyll give you a choice that can change the rest of the story, but regardless, the choices presented wont bar you from finishing. And if they keep you locked out of a true ending or something, in most cases, you can easily reload a save and not be entirely affected by the weight of it. But NieR is different. It asks you if you would like to put your save data into the human network, so that you may help another player through struggles exactly like your own. This deletes everything youve done from existence (Except trophies unfortunately). Poof. All of your hard work gone for a total stranger, or even someone, as the game stresses, you may despise. On the one hand, you worked hard and spent hours to reach the ending, and to see it all go away would seem wasteful. But on the other hand, you would have never seen such an ending had other players not sacrificed their own save files for you. When speaking on how games deal with morality, I feel this is the perfect example. I personally chose to sacrifice my data, as I was in a deeply spirited mood while playing this part, but there are certainly good reasons to opt out. Ultimately, the game wont deride you regardless of your decision. What say do they have in it? This is your life and your choice. Absolutely phenomenal.

So yeah
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1. Hollow Knight
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My friends can tell you about how strict I am about what should qualify as a metroidvania, probably to the point of being a massive asshole. Super Metroid and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night were actually two very different games, simply using the same foundation. Whereas Metroid gave us a quick-to-traverse, compound map design with a seamless exploration loop, SotN opted for a more expansive world with completely free reign of exploration. I feel like a metroidvania should at least fit one of these descriptions, but seemingly everyone but me is so loose with the term, and games that simply have the foundation without the intricacies of design are being termed as a genre whose name was derived from two games that it is nothing like. This is definitely a me problem, and Im well aware, but god dammit Dust: An Elysian Tale has a world map for crying out loud. Essentially when I hear a game is a metroidvania, I go in expecting it to have the same foundation, yet failing to produce anything beyond linear story path but you can backtrack for upgrades. Then I played Hollow Knight.

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Hollow Knight is a game thats clearly taken its inspiration from various other works, gluing them together to form a cohesive and refreshing gameplay experience. Youre presented with a gigantic world filled with peril and very little to work with. While the game takes you through the motions for a little bit, teaching you its simple but creative mechanics, it quickly allows you to veer off into multiple directions. Almost every path you take is doable to an extent, and will lead you to powers that slowly open up the map from the center. You can explore the outskirts of nearly every area without gaining any new abilities, but when you do find those precious abilities, bits and pieces of each area slowly begin to open up further. This makes for an exploration loop that feels limitless, unbound by story progression. Your main objective is to find three guardians, called dreamers, who keep the kingdoms biggest secret sealed away. They are marked on your map the moment you hit the story sequence, but it gives you no other direction. Thats why the exploration feel so perfect. The dreamers are hidden away and require you to find the necessary powers to reach them, but you will have no idea where to find such powers. Because of the way the main story path stays out of your way, and the way the world opens up ever so slightly at a time, it feels like youre in a constant state of discovery. The game pushes you to look at each part of the map, as theres always the possibility of something special tucked away. Hell, when you enter a new area, you dont even get a map. And when you do, its incomplete and difficult to read. This puts even more focus on player exploration, not wanting them to feel tied down by a deliberate path. It makes every new find feel truly organic, and creates this unreal sense of tension as you search for a bench or stag station without a guide. This makes those moments where you see a sign pointing you to the safe space feel extra rewarding.

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That all ties into the games brilliant atmosphere. Hollow Knight spends most of its time as a quiet, ominous game. Theres this constant grayish hue over the world, giving off this feeling of emptiness. After all, youre scavenging through a long dead kingdom. The map music ranges from mysterious, to foreboding, to downright sinister. This is all in contrast to some of the more peaceful segments of the game. It isnt afraid to be humorous at times, or even heartwarming, and these positive interactions mesh well with the more negative atmosphere that crushes the player throughout the majority of the game.

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Honestly, its very difficult for me to be driven to 100% a game these days. Very few games are able to draw me back into their world once I know the ending is in sight. But whereas pretty much every metroidvania, even the aforementioned grandparents of the subgenre, only offer you more power, Hollow Knight does something truly unique. Getting 100% in Hollow Knight isnt about padding your health and firepower. Its about further understanding the kingdoms history, and where you come into play in everything. This type of storytelling drove me to find everything I could in order to discover the truth. It never felt like a hassle to collect everything, because I truly wanted to fight the secret boss and see the true ending.

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For literal decades, game developers have been trying and failing to even replicate the winning formula of Super Metroid and Symphony of the Night. Even with the indie boom, where we saw quite an uptick in the amount of games claiming to be metroidvanias, nothing ever came that could truly scratch the itch left by those two masterpieces. Yet here, in one fell swoop, we have a game that not only feels like a true successor to them, but actually surpasses them on every level. Hollow Knight is among the greatest games ever made, and im doubtful Ill ever see anything else like it in my lifetime. Its as close to flawless as a game can be, and it was all done by three people and priced at $12. If you take anything away from this list, I hope you decide to check out this game if you havent already. It truly is a special kind of game.
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Phew, I'll keep this bumped for a few days I guess. Sorry the write-ups are probably bad. Wanted to get this list done fast because it's February...

For the record, the DEFINITIVE LIST for Games of the Year since 1985

1985 - Super Mario Bros.
1986 - Bubble Bobble
1987 - The Legend of Zelda
1988 - Super Mario Bros. 2
1989 - Mega Man 2
1990 - Super Mario Bros. 3
1991 - Final Fantasy IV
1992 - The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
1993 - Kirbys Adventure
1994 - Super Metroid
1995 - Donkey Kong Country 2
1996 - Super Mario 64
1997 - Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
1998 - The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
1999 - Crash Team Racing
2000 - Spyro: Year of the Dragon
2001 - Dark Cloud
2002 - Metroid Prime
2003 - The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
2004 - Half-Life 2
2005 - Resident Evil 4
2006 - The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
2007 - Super Mario Galaxy
2008 - Persona 4
2009 - Demons Souls
2010 - Mass Effect 2
2011 - Dark Souls
2012 - The Walking Dead
2013 - The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds
2014 - Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze
2015 - Bloodborne
2016 - Overwatch
2017 - Hollow Knight
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tazzyboyishere posted...

1988 - Super Mario Bros. 2

You meant to have this as every year since 1988, right?
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Hollow Knight's one of my top games to catch up on

One of my coworkers is a diehard fan
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Aw fuck I forgot about every other year
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Yeah, Berseria's difficulty is disappointing, and on Chaos it's just annoying that enemies guard more. Never in danger of dying, especially if you stick with Velvet. However the insane combo potential makes it really fun. My favorite was Eleanor. It's so easy to fall into just spamming elemental weaknesses though. It took until my third playthrough to instead focus on chaining moves that flow well into each other regardless of element or damage, and enjoyed it a lot more.

I will give credit to Zestiria that it made you pay attention in every single battle, unless you grinded to be able to spam Armatized Mystic Artes. Caster mobs are super cheap though.
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Wheres P5?
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BK_Sheikah00 posted...

I will give credit to Zestiria that it made you pay attention in every single battle, unless you grinded to be able to spam Armatized Mystic Artes. Caster mobs are super cheap though.

Yeah Zestiria had my favorite Battle system in the series, which is why Berseria was even more disappointing in that regard.

trdl23 posted...

Wheres P5?

Not in the top 5
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oh ya go my nier automata
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To be fair, one of the biggest reasons you have to stay on your toes in Zestiria is because the party AI sucks.
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tazzyboyishere posted...

Not in the top 5

But why?
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Aww yeah Hollow Knight

Probably my #4 last year
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Did you play Super Mario Odyssey/BotW and what did you think of them?

This is basically my top five "games I want to play from 2017 that I haven't gotten around to yet" list, so unfortunately I can't comment on anything posted beyond that :(
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trdl23 posted...

tazzyboyishere posted...

Not in the top 5

But why?

Not as good

Suprak the Stud posted...

Did you play Super Mario Odyssey/BotW and what did you think of them?

Never owned a Switch so no on Odyssey. Played Zelda on Wii U and wasn't a fan.
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Up
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Up
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Last bumpo
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haven't played nioh or enough of hollow knight but the other games are all great indeed
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