Board 8 > azuarc ranks 66 games played in 2020 [predix] [prize] [vgm]

(+) Yeah! (+)

NFUN posted...

you could've just looked up the text file...

Is it the same every time? The guide I looked at told me where to go to find the information, not what the code was, so I assumed it was generated separately for each save.

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azuarc posted...

Is it the same every time? The guide I looked at told me where to go to find the information, not what the code was, so I assumed it was generated separately for each save.

it's been a while but IIRC it was something meaningful and constant

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...I guess I thought 50% to pass was universal

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In this system, 50% is average. And in most American schools, passing is 65%.

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Oh, I haven't posted today?

49. Renowned Explorers: International Society
Genre uhhturn-based adventure rogue-like?

Gameplay: 7
Rest of Game: 6
Engagement: 6
New to Me: 0
Playtime: 2

Total score: 21/40

Scores are purely for my 2020 experience. In 2017, this might have topped the list.

RE:IS is a fantastic and underrated gem from Abbey Games that you should absolutely check out. Its my third-most-played game on Steam, and the other two lend themselves to long playtimes. This one is replayable in 5 hour chunks. Unlike a lot of the games so far on the list where the general reaction by now is probably uhh, this dude must suck at games because he quits on everything, I was very serious with Explorers.

Explaining it, thoughthats tricky.

The International Society of Renowned Explorers is a group of adventurers, circa 19th century, who are attempting to perform the most awesome expeditions in the world. They find treasures! They make fantastic discoveries! They do really cool stuff! And the game systems center around those exploits -- gold, study, and fame. You control a new member of the group who grabs two teammates from a total pool of 20 and conducts five expeditions to try to win the societys prestigious Explorer of the Year award.

So you arrive on a map, with a few supplies, and move to one of the connecting nodes. And something happens when you arrive. You might upset the local population and get beset upon by zombies, or you might chase after a pack of monkeys who are running through a jungle obstacle course with treasure, or you might discover an ancient tomb and chart everything down for archaeologists. Or you might simply fall asleep, and gain a point of research when one of your teammates studies your snoring. Theres a lot of fun humor in the game. Eventually you reach a boss encounter -- the battle system that rears its head intermittently definitely is an acquired taste -- and emerge with the greatest find in the area. And then go back to base and spend your new resources to prepare for the next run. Hopefully after all five, youll have achieved enough renown to surpass the esteemed Matthieu Rivaleux. (That asshole Frenchie.)

This explanation, honestly, probably did nothing to explain what RE:IS really is, so Id find a gameplay video and check it out. But I love it. Consider it my personal game of the decade for the 2010s.

Should you play it?: Did you miss the part where I said RE:IS is a fantastic and underrated gemthat you should absolutely check out? Or where I called it my game of the decade? Are you even reading this?

Next: An ironclad game

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48. Slay the Spire
Genre Card battler/dungeon crawler hybrid

Gameplay: 4
Rest of Game: 5
Engagement: 5
New to Me: 5
Playtime: 2

Total score: 21/40

After playing modes of Hearthstone that I was told were based on Slay the Spire, and then hearing about it from quite a few sources elsewhere, I was kinda excited to try Spire. It sounded like it had a lot of promise, and it had basically spawned a new sub-genre that was being imitated by titles like Monster Train and Griftlands. It was Magic: The Gathering, if Magic was a progressive series of PVE encounters and the dungeon master gave you extra cards to add to your deck as you went.

To be honest, after the Hearthstone variants, I found Spire a pinch underwhelming. I can understand how people would love it, and I was motivated enough to play several games, but it felt more like something Id do more as a pastime than a game I was genuinely motivated to play strategically. The graphics were definitely indicative of an indie title, and the game mechanics were a bit limiting despite having a fair bit of flexibility. Starting with just one of three starting characters/decks seemed a bit too narrow for my liking. But I absolutely would have gone back to it if I hadnt found other things I wanted to play more, because Im sure theres a whole lot more depth beneath the surface that I never drilled into.

Should you play it?: If the phrase turn-based card battler isnt offputting, yes.

Next: A game that isn't the most recent in its franchise

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I was sorta interested in Yugioh when I was younger and had a deck for it, but those card games are something I've never been able to get into.

Guessing the next one is Epic Battle Fantasy. A shame if so, I like the series

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good topic!

i'll throw in a casual/unofficial top ten guess list in no particular order

Hollow Knight
Super Mario Odyssey
Monster Hunter: World
Disco Elysium
Celeste
Night in the Woods
Ori and the Blind Forest
Hades
Breath of the Wild
Jackbox

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At least one of your picks is correct, and at least one your picks is going to enter...the bad taste zone!!

But not right now, because Shonen is right. That hint could have applied to other things, but we do indeed have:

47. Epic Battle Fantasy III
Genre JRPG

Gameplay: 3
Rest of Game: 5
Engagement: 6
New to Me: 5
Playtime: 2

Total score: 21/40

Ive dabbled with EBF before. I played 4 for a bit, and ultimately walked away. Its not that I disliked the game, but I did dislike certain aspects of it. And it clearly picks up where 3 left off.

Actually, thats part of the problem. Theres tons of in-jokes related to the characters as they carry over from game to game. The controls are also 100% driven by the mouse, which can get a little annoying at times when youd love to just mash the A button to tell everyone to attack. Of course, that would be a terrible idea because the game expects you to use abilities almost constantly and be a bit more thoughtful about your attacks. Credit to it for that. The graphics are certainly distinctive, and so is the writing and humor. Say what you will, but you wont mistake EBF for something else.

But man, I just dont trust characters without noses. They sort of have noses.

I liked what I played of EBF3, but it was one of the many games that I sat down to try once, and basically never returned to. Ive done that to far better games than this.

Should you play it?: Its fun, its quirky, and its lighthearted. If you like JRPG combat, sure. But there are also two sequels. (And, I assume, two prequels.)

Next: And all of that is me.

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I would like to point out that we still only have two sets of predictions in. While you can't earn credit for any games already revealed, you can still place predictions for the chance to win a free game.

Current prediction scores:
Shonen_bat - 10
ArkOfTurus - 5

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I'm behind where I want to be, so I'm gonna do a little accelerated catching up today.

46. Endless Legend
Genre 4X

Gameplay: 4
Rest of Game: 4
Engagement: 4
New to Me: 4
Playtime: 5

Total score: 21/40

Endless Legend is what Civilization isnt. And often, thats a wonderful thing. You dont have to micromanage a billion units. City development is strangely organic. Every race in the game plays completely differently, in an even more extreme fashion than Alpha Centauri. There are about eight different ways to win the game. It brings a lot of interesting ideas to the genre, and eschews a ton of pitfalls and annoyances I deal with in Civ. The citizens in the game are used to bolster whichever resource youre lacking, but it isnt strictly necessary to focus on food, and you can actually have an outpost of a city that doesnt even produce any. (Or be playing a race that literally doesnt use food.)

But it also has some pitfalls. Animations are slower, artificially stretching the length of turns. Crossing the map is often more difficult due to the terrain. Combat is a gigantic black hole where either you have to learn all kinds of stupid stats and mechanics, or -- far more likely -- you just hit the auto button and let the game play for you. But then you never really know what makes a unit good or bad. Resources are often extremely limiting. The tech tree is just five tiers, and once you research enough from one tier, it unlocks the next, which is both good and bad. The game mostly shuts down on periodic cycles as winter strikes the planet. Naval travel sucks.

Amplitude Studios has, over the course of about four years, released a slew of DLC to add even more wrinkles to the game. The primary benefit of most of these is to add yet another playable faction each, which is fantastic. The other game mechanics are debatable, depending on how complex you like your games. But the fact that the developers lovingly supported the game for so long says a lot.

Overall, I like Endless Legend better, but I play Civilization more because the engine simply runs faster and I have a better sense of whats actually happening.

Should you play it?: If you like Civ, but are looking for an alternative, Endless Legend is a far more manageable product than anything Paradox will ever make.

Next: A platformer with so-so meovment

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the prequels to ebf 3 aren't really worth playing (1 is super rough and 2 is back-to-back battles) and you don't really miss much from not playing them, aside from Lance being the final boss of 2

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45. The Purring Quest
Genre Platformer

Gameplay: 3
Rest of Game: 7
Engagement: 4
New to Me: 5
Playtime: 2

Total score: 21/40

I was gifted this by a fellow cat owner. And it is adorable. The art and animation is the highlight, and the opening cutscene is like watching the beginning of Up all over again.

You play at Kimchi, a cat who has been left behind by her owner during a walk. The aging man lost his wife to cancer, and now the cat is basically all he has of his past with her. But one day, while walking Kimchi in the park, he sees a young woman that reminds him of his late wife and chases after her, leaving Kimchis leash tied to a bench. Kimchi eventually slips the collar, but by then, hes gone. Now its your job to go find and be reunited with your owner.

Along the way, youll fight mice, get chased by dogs, grab collectible fishbones, and do a bunch of other cat stuff as you cross several environments to reach the end. There are five levels, and I had trouble finishing the fourth one, mostly because the controls are pretty stiff and this one part of the game is extremely demanding. Sonic, it aint, which is why it gets dinged on gameplay. However, despite that, its a much better game than I would have expected. I had extremely low expectations for The Purring Quest, and it actually convinced me to come back and see if the fourth level had magically gotten easier. (It hadnt.)

Should you play it?: Only if the mere mention of the word cat makes you swoon.

Next: A game that hurt my eyes

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That's not the kind of backstory I expected for a game called 'The Purring Quest'

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44. Sayonara Wild Hearts
Genre Rhythm

Gameplay: 3
Rest of Game: 5
Engagement: 5
New to Me: 5
Playtime: 3

Total score: 21/40

Song selection: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lct1dnTt_yY

Hot take Sayonara Wild Hearts is incredibly overrated.

First of all, this game needs an epilepsy warning or something. I can handle lots of flashy particles on the screen, but the visuals are basically nothing but neon pink and purple and blue on a black background. Everything that isnt the background is extremely bright, extremely flashy, and really difficult to handle. I havent heard anyone else say that the visuals bothered them, and most people love the cel-shaded graphics and the polygonal art style as a highlight of the game. I cant blame them for that, but it takes me about twenty minutes to adjust during which Im nauseated and trying to protect my eyes. (And for reference, games that come with epilepsy warnings never bother me.)

Second, the game is cute. Not a daww kind of cute -- a clever kind of cute. Once you transpire that, however, the levels are short and mostly lacking in substance. Yes, its a rhythm game, but this aint DDR. The levels could mostly stand to go on a little longer. And theyre extremely varied almost to the point that you feel like youre playing a minigame collection. Im guessing this is what Rhythm Heaven feels like, if Rhythm Heaven were set on the Las Vegas Strip and set to a very different style of soundtrack. Really, Rez would be a better comparison, except Rezs gameplay mostly remains consistent. The journey the player goes on is interesting, I guess?, except it feels more like an acid trip than a symbolic journey to me. Im not typically fond of that sort of presentation.

So okay, I get why some people would like it. But 97% positive on Steam, huh? Yeah, that seems like way more that the game deserves. Its okay. But its certainly not fantastic.

Should you play it?: Eh, probably. Im talking shit about it, but its not bad. Its just not that good, either.

Next: Retro-inspired

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azuarc posted...

But I absolutely would have gone back to it if I hadnt found other things I wanted to play more, because Im sure theres a whole lot more depth beneath the surface that I never drilled into.

I'd recommend it. The strategy element picks up a lot once you unlock all of a character's cards, and get far enough into the ascension system. That said, I don't have any other experience with deckbuilders (aside from some random games of Dominion,) so my perspective might be different.

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Will definitely consider it. If I had to choose between Spire and Monster Train, though, I think I'm probably leaning Monster Train. They do provide very different things beyond being deck battlers, but I felt like MT provided a more interesting experience overall.

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Monster Train was the one game that I hadn't heard of prior to this topic that I thought I might want to check out, so I'm looking forward to that write-up.

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43. Evoland Evolutionary Edition
Genre RPG mash-up

Gameplay: 5
Rest of Game: 5
Engagement: 4
New to Me: 5
Playtime: 4

Total score: 23/40

Song selection: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-4MomAcSJg

Evoland is a cute idea. Start with a game that looks like a super old-school RPG, and gradually add components to it until it becomes a more full-fledged, modern-ish game. You gain the ability to attack. You gain background music. Scrolling backgrounds. 16-bit graphics. 3-D graphics. Turn-based and real-time battles. A companion. The game advances from SNES-era to PS1 (complete with loading screens that can be sped up by purchasing a faster DVD player,) to eventually dipping its toes in other games. Its a neat idea, but its also a bit of an incohesive mess. I eventually struggled my way to grabbing all the collectibles en route to the final bossand then got to do it all over again because the evolutionary edition contains Evoland I and II.

By the time I got a couple hours into Evoland II, the charm had completely worn off. In an attempt to tip their cap to games that werent used in Evoland I, the second game branches out in too many directions and makes you do endure some of the most annoying RPG cliches. I decided I had better things to do. At no point was the game really all that great, and the novelty had long ago stopped carrying the series.

Should you play it?: Watch a lets play. Its amusing, but not in a way that requires you to play it yourself and spend money on it.

Next: A major spin-off

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By the time I got a couple hours into Evoland II, the charm had completely worn off. In an attempt to tip their cap to games that werent used in Evoland I, the second game branches out in too many directions and makes you do endure some of the most annoying RPG cliches. I decided I had better things to do. At no point was the game really all that great, and the novelty had long ago stopped carrying the series.

This is almost exactly how I felt playing these. I liked the first game enough that I felt it was worth the time, but I bounced right off the second one.

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sounds like Upgrade Complete but overdone

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I'm saying Sayonara to this bad take

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42. Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris
Genre Action-adventure

Gameplay: 6
Rest of Game: 6
Engagement: 4
New to Me: 5
Playtime: 2

Total score: 23/40

Song selection: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfYAByEPfFw

I got Temple of Osiris for free during one of the early coronavirus responses, and didnt play it immediately. But I liked Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, and I assumed (wrongly) that this isometric TR spin-off was just a follow-up. It uses the same engine, and a couple of the same mechanics, but its basically a completely new game. And honestly, I probably could have liked it more if I had come back to it. I had two play sessions and never returned for a third, not because the game was bad, but because I just wasnt as interested as I was in a few other games I had in rotation.

Temple of Osiris gets a bit of a bad rap, or at least the parts of it I saw suggests it does. The story is nothing revolutionary, the writing is laughable, and the controls are occasionally frustrating, but its a solid adventure in the mold of classic action games that have actual point scores. Id still probably play Guardian of Light first, but Temple of Osiris is fun for what it is, and I could definitely make the case for why it might even be the more enjoyable of the two.

Should you play it?: If you like 3-D action games with lots of collectibles and score challenges, absolutely.

Next: A series Im at least somewhat known for playing

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41. Trine 3
Genre Puzzle-platformer

Gameplay: 6
Rest of Game: 6
Engagement: 4
New to Me: 5
Playtime: 2

Total score: 23/40

Song selection: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggvo6BgPcsM

Add this to the list of games I should have given more of a chance to.

I loved Trine 1. I absolutely adored it. When 2 came around, I didnt pursue it nearly as hard. I got stuck at times and didnt want to look up a guide, and just kind of stopped instead. Then came back, and got stuck again. Back and forth. When Trine 3 was announced, I was excited, except the game was marred with disappointment by fans, mostly for being short. Having played it now, Id say thats a load of bullshit. Trine 1 and 2 arent exactly 60-hour clockmunchers. Theres nothing wrong in that regard with Trine 3. Now, I know the developers apologized profusely for 3 and maybe there were some changes made in the meanwhile, because there are a bunch of extra levels that arent required to finish, but the version I played didnt seem like it would be any shorter than the first two games.

Where Trine 3 is mainly different is that they tried to make the games 3-D. Trine is a beautiful, fairy tale-esque side-scroller with some interesting mechanics as you toggle between three characters to invent your own solutions. Sometimes theres a singular or very obvious solution, and sometimes you get very creative with having your wizard conjure boxes, your thief uses them for extra vantage to grapple across a gap, and then your knight kills the skeletons or goblins on the other side. Each game they try to make Pontius a more critical component to the team, and each game I still feel like hes just a big beatstick when Id rather just be controlling Zoya the whole time.

Regardless, Trine 3 was a natural expansion, since there were only so many different puzzles they could generate in the 2-D space. I wont say the controls felt great, and I seem to lack for depth perception in a lot of these fixed camera pseudo-side-scrollers, leading to poor execution and missed ledges. Still, Id say the primary frustration came from not seeing things or not knowing where to go, and while a lot of that is on the level design, some of its part of the switch to 3-D. Even so, after trying it, I felt like Trine 3 got shat on a lot more than it deserves.

Strangely, the only reason I was playing 3 was because I bought a bundle that had both 3 and 4, and 4 makes a complete return to the series rootsbut I still havent fired it up yet. Maybe thatll be in next years list.

Should you play it?: Its not an automatic yes, but I would caution you against looking at the negative review scores.

Next: If they make a movie, it should star Gina Carano

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40. Pyre
Genre Sports fantasy

Gameplay: 5
Rest of Game: 8
Engagement: 3
New to Me: 5
Playtime: 2

Total score: 23/40

Song selection: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQhbktFT7HI

Sports fantasy (and I couldnt say fantasy sports due to ambiguity) is not a genre I ever thought I would ever use to describe a game, unless youd apply that to Rocket League. I mean, sure, its essentially what Blitzball is, but Blitzball is awful. PyreI had no idea what I was even getting into with Pyre. I just knew it was a Supergiant Games product, and it came for free with the itch.io bundle.

But Id played Bastion, and Id sorta played Transistor. (I put Transistor down immediately out of disinterest.) I figured I knew what I was getting myself into, and oh man, was I ever wrong. The gameplay of Pyre features some sort of weird hybrid of 3v3 rugby and powerball from American Gladiators. Conceptually, thats interesting, but although there is some degree of depth, and definitely a ton of skill-testing involved, I honestly found myself not the least bit interested in the trials.

The only parts that kept me involved were the things every Supergiant product seems to have fantastically stylized music and art, with a strong emphasis on narrative storytelling. In Pyre, a team of wanderers are hoping to take part in the trials in order to gain their freedom, but they have need of someone with a very specific skill to manage their team. As a Reader, youre able to not only see where the trials will happen, but also serve as a sort of telepathic conduit to coach the team as a unit (despite the fact that you can only control one player at a time while the others stand stock still, which makes it somehow less engaging than NES Hockey.)

My understanding is that the story is really good if you continue, and the emphasis on character development (from a story perspective) is incredibly strong, but I just didnt care enough about the core gameplay loop to stick it out.

Should you play it?: If you ever thought, man, you know what NHL94 really needed was a story mode for every one of the games in season mode as you crushed people with Mario Lemieuxs one-timers, then this is the game for you.

Next: Indie throwback

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Sports games are another genre I mostly haven't been able to get into. That one sounds like it would be a fun concept if it does better.

Guessing the next one is 20XX, though that and A Hat in Time are both games I was expecting to be much higher

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39. Super Win the Game
Genre Action-adventure

Gameplay: 7
Rest of Game: 4
Engagement: 5
New to Me: 5
Playtime: 3

Total score: 24/40

Song selection: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLDOebktrMs

Id heard of SWtG, but I had no idea what it was. When it showed up in the itch.io bundle, I knew I had to at least check it out, and it was far more than I expected. Basically a throwback to games like Zelda 2, Win the Game featured a ton of exploring towns, dungeons, and caves as a side-scroller that were full of progressive puzzles in the same way that Zelda titles could be conflated with metroidvanias. Mixed with that was an overhead world map that was completely safe, but gave you a sense of progression as you had to move around the world grabbing the story mode items, built around a super bare-bones plot described with about as much panache as WHAT A HORRIBLE NIGHT TO HAVE A CURSE.

But then, thats obviously what they were going for. The controls are tight and the difficulty is challenging. Its a surprisingly rewarding experience, and I was thoroughly impressed with the complete package, considering I expected a glorified minigame from something titled Win the Game.

Should you play it?: Yeah, actually! Give it a shot.

Next: A standard-bearer of its genre

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Basically a throwback to games like Zelda 2

Yep, sold.

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Editor's note: I just realized that I left a game out that should have been revealed by now. As a result, quite a few games are positioned one spot lower than they should be. I will adjust that retroactively in the score sheet when I get around to writing that review. However, as a result, I will be skipping #38 because we actually just had #38.

Incidentally, I only noticed because I made an additional counting error later, and spotted it when I was writing the reviews near the top of the list. This is what I get for not making explicit rankings beforehand and just saying "eh, I'll break the ties as I go."

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37. Rogue Legacy
Genre Rogue-lite

Gameplay: 7
Rest of Game: 7
Engagement: 7
New to Me: 0
Playtime: 3

Total score: 24/40

Song selection: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mujOrSIiqY0

Rogue Legacy is considered one of the banner-carriers for the rogue-like genre, on the opposite side of the camp from Spelunky. You enter a dungeon, you explore as much as you can, you grab money, and then you die. Whatever cash you grab can be used to pay for upgrades that make your next play experience a little easier. One of the gimmicks is that when you die, youre dead, and the next character you control is one of your descendants, as your family is determined to eventually break through and conquer this haunted castle. Except the castle changes layout every time.

I love Rogue Legacy and have played it quite a bit before. In fact, as you can see from the New to Me: 0, the main thing holding RL back on this list is that this wasnt my first go with it. I got in the mood to revisit it earlier this year, and although I didnt play to completion, I got a pretty decent chunk of the way into the game before a new shiny came along.

As mentioned above, Rogue Legacy is at its core a dungeon crawler. The gameplay is fluid and the art and animation work really well. Theres some silly humor along the way, too, especially if your character has a particularly obnoxious trait like they see everything upside down or theyre delusional and phantom enemies appear on the screen. Lots of bonus challenges, lots of interesting ways to try to build your character across the various classes and equipment choices. My favorite is to play as a lich, which is essentially a basic fighter type except they have super low health and gain max HP for every enemy they kill. Combined with an item that gives current HP, and youve got a character you can settle in for the long haul even if you mostly suck.

But that requires a fair bit of unlocking. The money you collect goes toward enhancing your castle, and the new additions are what give HP upgrades, unlock new classes, and offer the other various bonuses that make your future runs more tenable. It is theoretically possible to beat RL on your first life, but the games tough enough on later attempts that youd have to be a speedrunning god to pull it off.

Its worth noting that Rogue Legacy 2 is currently in development, and although I havent touched it yet because my understanding is its little more than a playable demo right now, I fully anticipate it will be in my library some day.

Should you play it?: Definitely.

Next: A game undeserving of its spot

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36. Celeste
Genre Platformer

Gameplay: 7
Rest of Game: 5
Engagement: 5
New to Me: 5
Playtime: 2

Total score: 24/40

Song selection: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eeIEMOQw4s

No, this isnt the bad taste zone. (Thats reserved for the next game.) I just didnt play much of Celeste. Its been sitting in my log, with a promise to come back to it some day, along with 6 or 7 other games like it. In a purely objective world, the first two categories probably should score higher, but this is my memory of how much I played.

Im going to trust mostly everyone here knows what Celeste is by now. Indie darling from 2018, and a speedrunners paradise, Celeste is a platformer with very highly-refined controls featuring Madeline, a young mountain climber with confidence issues who is determined to reach the summit for reasons unknown. Along the way, she meets a few other characters, confronts her dark side, and is introduced to a variety of new mechanics that keep the levels fresh. Oh, and strawberries. Lots of strawberries.

Given that I didnt finish, I dont know how much I can really say here. I beat the hotel level and maybe the one after that, with a friend watching me play, and then I just never picked it up again. Yes, thats becoming a running gag at this point, but I promise there wont be many more games where I walk away after one session. From this point forward, mostly everything I walk away from is for a reason beyond just oh, lol, I stopped playing.

Should you play it?: Its a platformer players dream.

Next: A game I stopped playing.

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35. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre Open-world adventure

Gameplay: 5
Rest of Game: 7
Engagement: 7
New to Me: 5
Playtime: 1

Total score: 25/40

Song selection: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZaqDYrvoMA

*holds up finger* Okay, now, ummm! Justmmjust hang on a sec. ImmaImma explain

I dont own a Switch. Thats the biggest problem. But a friend of mine got one last Christmas. I bought them Super Mario Odyssey, and there was the assumption that wed be hanging out a bunch and probably do some couch sessions at their place. They even bought Breath of the Wild, not because they were interested in playing it, but because they thought Id like it. Then COVID happened.

I got to try Breath of the Wild one time, and then nothing for six months until I paid a recent visit and tried again for maybe an hour. Im willing to bet that with more time, I would come to love BotW. Ive played basically every Bethesda open world game, Im currently enjoying Genshin Impact for the exploration of its world, and Im well aware that this is the sites Game of the Decade. (Funny story: I also dont like The Witcher 3 at all, to the point that I didnt even include it on the list.)

But for as high a pedigree as Breath of the Wild is supposed to have, there were definitely aspects of it I did not care for. The controls did not fit like a glove. Im generally not a fan of games that rely heavily on crafting. And dont get me started on the fact that theres weapon durability. If you try to tell me, oh, its not that bad. You just use what you pick up along theyeah, this is my not-listening, not-caring voice. Its weapon durability. Kill it with fire. The worst part of every game with weapon durability is the weapon durability. There has never been a game in the history of mankind that has included weapon durability and not had it be an utterly abysmal abomination of a mechanic. So basically I had a backpack full of POS weapons and nothing that I actually wanted to use because the game wont give them to you. Youre supposed to snap 37 twigs, 10 lumberjack axes, and whatever else I was trying to defend myself with, until youve earned the right to have a real weapon. Which youll be afraid to use because its your only one, of course.

And then when I got the glider and got out of the starter area, I got destroyed by basically every enemy I ran into. That was not the sort of fun experience I anticipated. Sure, I needed to L2P in a bad way, but enemies with some serious melee range that hit me for 2 hearts when I only have 3 and I still dont have a firm grasp of the combat controls? Yeah, that wasnt very encouraging for making me want to come back. I probably could have beelined for my quest objective, but I was headed in that direction! Its not like I wandered way off the beaten path and deserved to get swatted.

So yeah, not only did I not have the chance to see this one through, but I can see some genuine reasons why I might not want to play Nintendos darling of the past 20 years. If I were the one that owned the Switch and had bought the game, and was invested for all those dollars, yeah, I would have stuck it out longer and maybe my opinion would have changed, but, wellthat wasn't an option.

Should you play it?: I was interested in seeing the world around me, but on pretty much every other count, I honestly wasnt enjoying myself that much. So my personal opinion? No. Hot take, sure, but Im gonna say take a pass if you havent played it already.

Next: Another overrated darling

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'oh'

funny enough I agree with most of those takes, I've never played a game with weapon durability where I would have missed it if it wasn't there

BotW's difficulty curve is a joke that they took seriously, early on you have no good weapons and even lone bokoblins can easily kill you, not to mention the guardians everywhere in the first damn area lol. Later on combat is a speedbump and breaking weapons doesn't even matter, until you run into that one enemy that's basically a boss and does 20 hearts per hit. there's no middle ground between 'walk in the park' and 'now I'm playing Dark Souls'

despite everything I did get a lot of fun out of just wandering around exploring the world, but in almost every other area the game disappointed in some way

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34. Disco Elysium
Genre Story-based Adventure

Gameplay: 3
Rest of Game: 6
Engagement: 6
New to Me: 5
Playtime: 5

Total score: 25/40

Song selection: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psNKPe4pOHI

I very rarely buy games based purely on reviews or accolades. I also very rarely pay full price for games, as I can be very patient in waiting for games to go on sale. But at the end of 2019, when Disco Elysium was released, I decided to take the plunge on an unknown based on the awards it was picking up. While Im glad to have had the experience of knowing what DE is, Im not going to otherwise regard it as time or money well-spent.

Disco Elysium is the tale of an aging police detective who struggles with his share of demons while attempting to solve a murder. Because our friend screws things up so badly before the game starts, gets himself drunk, loses his badge and gun, and manages to give himself amnesia in the process, the case makes absolutely no headway until a separate precinct sends an officer down to investigate. He becomes your stalwart companion as you explore the docks at the ass-end of a city, wrapped up in a war between the merchants and the local labor boss. Nobody really wants to help you, especially since you werent exactly inspiring competence upon arrival, and it will take many days and quite a few plot twists before you finally unravel the truth.

There are two main things that carry Disco. The first is the character system. At the start, you allocate points to four different general spheres that basically correlate to brawn, brains, agility, and strength of will. Each has six skills, which you can increase as the game progresses to improve your chances of succeeding skill checks. Theres no actual combat, but theres plenty of dice rolls to determine if you succeed at anything. Youll add your skill level to your 2d6 roll, needing to exceed a certain value. Most of the time, you can retry if you fail, perhaps with a penalty, but there are some checks that are one and done, which is incredibly frustrating when you fail a roll that you had a 35/36 chance of succeeding, and leads to a ton of save-scumming. But the character system itself is pretty cool.

The other, and by far the stronger, is the writing. Disco Elysium is ostensibly a visual novel that happens to contain a small 3-D world you can walk around in. Even though the original writer is Estonian, the actual narrative (in English) has a tremendously high pedigree of flair, freedom, and strong voice. It feels like youre playing an incredibly well-developed single player D&D campaign, and you have a DM that almost encourages you to be an obstinate ass. You have options in the dialogue to be the hugest dick known to man sometimes. You also have severe issues upstairs and often get into warring dialogues with other voices in your head, which accuse you of espousing various philosophies or give you nicknames for being a wuss. Overall, the narrative voice is incredibly strong and typically carries the game for the people who like it.

Overall, start to finish took me about 15 hours to complete, and while I cant say I enjoyed every minute of it, I was certainly engrossed for about half the time.

Should you play it?: Truthfully, I think the game is very overrated. But if youre a VN-lover, you might give this a shot.

Next: A game about generating resources

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Okay, let's insert this into the line-up, now that I've gotten this one written.

51. Fallout 4
Genre Open-world adventure

Gameplay: 7
Rest of Game: 4
Engagement: 7
New to Me: 0
Playtime: 1

Total score: 19/40

Fallout 4, like Civilization 6 before it, is an awkward one for me to evaluate. As a general rule, I tend to love Bethesda games, dating back to Morrowind. They have their shortcomings, absolutely, but the ability to have a zillion areas to wander around in, explore, and most importantly, loot, gives me a sense of perpetual achievement. (My Bartle type, if it wasnt obvious, is achiever-explorer.)

Fallout 4 does exactly what those earlier games did, and it does it damn well. Whatever people might say about criticizing FO4, it doesnt fail to deliver on this front. Post-apocalyptic Boston offers hundreds of locales to explore, and countless items to discover and pillage. For me, games like this are about seeing how much money I can acquire by grabbing all the stuff, finding a vendor to sell it to, and then going out for more. I think of my gold (or caps) as my score. Fallout frustrates this incredibly when the vendors have limited money to purchase with, but thats why I have a backlog of stuff to sell while I wait for their store to reset.

Theres plenty of good to be said about Fallout, but its also not very interesting to talk about what it does well. If youve played Morrowind, New Vegas, or Skyrim, you have a pretty good idea what youre in for already. So lets talk about its shortcomings.

1. The story is awful and laughably transparent. While the idea of a pre-Apocalypse vault dweller coming out of cryo-stasis is interesting, theres some really bad plot holes and the parts that do exist arent very well-written. More importantly, theres a severe lack of scripted sidequests in the game and a lack of emphasis on your skills in the game.
2. Which is probably because skills dont exist any more. You still have your seven SPECIAL attributes, and each time you level, you gain a perk off a massive sprawling chart, which is kinda neat, but theres a surprising lack of diversity when people with sniper builds and people with shotgun builds end up wanting the literal same perks for non-repeating rifles.
3. Power Armor is way too prevalent. While Ive learned that its not necessary, and occasionally a detriment, it still takes away some of the mystique of the game.
4. Another settlement is under attack! Preston Garvey has become a meme because of how youre thrust into leading a local militia and then are expected to go out and develop or annex these settlements into your networkand then run off to protect them.
5. Theres a base-builder system, which you either love or hate. Personally, I dont care for it. Its basically what would happen if you decided to insert Minecraft into Fallout, and although the idea that you can scrap all the junk items in the world for resources is neat, Im not into crafting and sandbox free-form buildingespecially when the creation of buildings is very rigid and takes a ton of effort to do well. It can be done well if youre determined, but then whats the point when youre done and have nobody to show it off to?
6. Bugs. Often game-breaking bugs.

Now, none of these things take away from the core gameplay (except the bugs.) Diminish, perhaps, and if you see negative reviews, its usually someone ragging on these points, but they dont sink the ship. The only reason FO4 isnt high here is because of my past experience with it. I only came back because I wanted to relive it for a little bit, and I wasnt really as into it as I had been in the past. So that was a triple whammy in terms of how our list is being scored. But I certainly dont view it as a harbinger of things to come with Bethesda, like whatever the fuck Fallout 76 is supposed to be.

Should you play it?: I think so, but I also like these kinds of games.

Next: The game that actually follows Breath of the Wild

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And now, back to your regularly-scheduled programming. I've literally done nothing today but prepare write-ups. (They're much longer than this one.)

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33. Stardew Valley
Genre Farm sim

Gameplay: 7
Rest of Game: 8
Engagement: 7
New to Me: 0
Playtime: 3

Total score: 25/40

Song selection: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-84hnlrbys

Rogue Legacy, part two, in that this game is really only suffering for position because of how extensively Ive played it in the past. And also Rogue Legacy in how its become synonymous with its sub-genre.

Look, Stardew Valley is phenomenal. I generally hate sandbox games and crafting and the like, but I loved the idea of Harvest Moon some 28 years ago and Stardew Valley takes it and fixes all the mistakes. Eric Barone singlehandedly created a masterpiece of an indie title, which he has continued to support with multiplayer releases and porting it to various platforms so everyone can know the joy that is growing a few turnips and potatoes in Pelican Town. The game has implied objectives, but nothing you truly have to do, so while youre never at a loss for what direction to take your gameplay in, youre always welcome to just freestyle it. If you decide to ignore your land and just fish all day, or explore the local mine, those are options. And once you get tired of the main game, there are oh so many mods to spice things up with. Is it perfect? No. I can think of some things Id certainly change, and some aspects of the UI and controls Id probably adjust, but if you wanted to pick a single game to play for the next year, I wouldnt bat an eye if this was your pick.

Should you play it?: God, yes. This would have been pushing (or more likely capping) the top of the list if 2020 was the first time Id played it. Instead, I only had a brief return for a couple days before moving on.

Next: A genre I like but can be very fussy over

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Looks like maybe I'm going to do another fast day.

32. Gemcraft Chasing Shadows
Genre Tower-defense

Gameplay: 5
Rest of Game: 2
Engagement: 8
New to Me: 5
Playtime: 5

Total score: 25/40

Song selection: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7osw7zyvwOs

My first exposure to TDS was Defense Grid: The Awakening. I played the crap out of that. However, in the years since, Ive found very few tower defense games that could hold my interest that well.

My friend suggested Gemcraft. At a glance it didnt look like anything special. It was originally a browser game, and the lack of graphics or decent UI shows. That rest of game score is absolutely deserved. However it accomplished something most games below it did not it captured my attention, to the tune of 50 hours played. Gemcraft really doesnt look like much at first, but theres tremendous room for growth both by leveling up and by playing smarter. Plus, with as many levels as the game has, rarely do you get stuck behind a single gate the way a more linear world map would.

The story is virtually non-existent. You are a mage who summons towers and conjures gems that defend against the hordes of attacking monsters. The monsters dont do anything except attempt to reach your core. Theyre being manipulated by some big bad that has been trapped in a prison for generations and wants to break free. Your goal is to arrive and re-seal its prison. So yeah, its pretty bare bones stuff. But as far as tower defense, its got it all. Maze building, tower variety, spells you can toss out to interact with the level, bonus stage objectives beyond just kill em all. I wouldnt necessarily recommend it as babys first TDS, but if youve played others, this is worth a go.

Should you play it?: See last statement.

Next: Boss Battles R Us

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man, i haven't thought about gemcraft in a decade

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31. Monster Hunter: World
Genre whatever the hell I said God Eater was

Gameplay: 5
Rest of Game: 7
Engagement: 5
New to Me: 5
Playtime: 4

Total score: 26/40

Song selection: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=po_t8I9FC2Y

Monster Hunter is a series I was always casually curious about, but never thought Id actually play. Then a buddy I havent seen in ages decides he has some time off from work and asks me if Id like to co-op something. After a little time in Borderlands, he says, hey, lets play something else. My treat. Next thing I know, the two of us are trying to learn how to play MH:W. (I got him back by buying the expansion.)

To be fair, a lot of what I said about God Eater was also true here. The controls were weird to adapt to and I had a hell of a time trying out all the different weapons and trying to find something that felt right. If I didnt have a friend to join, Im not sure if I would have wanted to continue. For a non-MMO, the buy-in cost for this game is on the high side.

However, I certainly havent played anything that does what Monster Hunter does. Videos of it make it sound like the main loop is horribly cumbersome, and while the cycle is a little unwieldy, you can skip over parts of it if you want. Basically, you decide youre going to leave camp to go hunt some large monster. You eat a meal for stat buffs first. Situationally you might need some extra items like antidotes or traps. Then you go hunt. After you kill the monster, you skin it and take the parts back to make better equipment from.

Of course, I say that you kill the monster part like its as simple as hopping on its head like a goomba. No, these are epic freaking encounters. Massive beasts with a slew of different attacks that you have to work around. If youre fighting solo and all the attention is on you, finding openings to deal damage is tricky. Far better to have a team so you can coordinate. And the idea of killing the monster with other people was a heck of a lot more fun, even for someone like me who absolutely abhors playing with randoms on-line. And because the dozen weapons all play significantly differently, theres a ton of mastery to the game if you want to learn everything. Exploring the wilderness is also a blast, up until you learn where everything is.

But after that, the game becomes a grind. You have to re-kill the same enemies 20, 30 times. You have to hope it drops the parts you need for your new upgrade. The side missions to allow you to progress are very repetitive. If youre playing this game, its because you enjoy the actual act of fighting the giant fucking monsters, because the sense of progression slows down real quick after the ten hour mark. I also felt like I was never really handling the menus and the interface very well, and there was often an overwhelming amount of things to consider when it came to trying to play my character optimally. Im sure I could have stuck with this one longer if I really wanted to dedicate myself to something, but my friend disappeared back into his hole, and I returned to playing Borderlands.

Should you play it?: If you enjoy a game about exploring wilderness, collecting flora and fauna, and using potentially outrageous weapons to fight enormous beasts, then yes. Just be prepared to do a lot of dodge-rolls.

Next: Stop

And that means we're at the top thirty:
20XX
A Hat in Time
A Plague Tale: Innocence
A Short Hike
Borderlands 3
Cat Quest
DanganRonpa V3
Dishonored 2
Genshin Impact
Hades
Hearthstone
Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption
Hollow Knight
Kingdom Rush: Frontiers
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning
Lenna's Inception
Monster Train
Muse Dash
Night in the Woods
Ori and the Blind Forest
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
Phoenix Wright: Spirit of Justice
Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations
Soda Dungeon 2
Super Mario 64 (randomizer)
Super Mario Odyssey
The Jackbox Party Pack (1-6)
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel
The Metronomicon
Z3R (A Link to the Past Randomizer)

Prediction leaderboard:
10 - Shonen_Bat
4 - ArkOfTurus
0 - everyone else because you're too scared to try!

I will be closing predictions after the top 10.


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36. Celeste

Aw...

35. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

oof

OK I adore BotW but it is at its toughest by far as soon as you glide off the Plateau, if you keep going for a bit it generally only gets easier (until the DLCs at least). Hopefully BotW2 will make improvements in the areas you don't like!

33. Stardew Valley

oof again!

OK you actually really like Stardew Valley so our tastes aren't entirely opposed to each other! It really is mindblowing how one guy nailed the farming sim genre so much better than teams who have spent decades on it. Truly a phenomenal achievement.

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andylt posted...

33. Stardew Valley

oof again!

OK you actually really like Stardew Valley so our tastes aren't entirely opposed to each other! It really is mindblowing how one guy nailed the farming sim genre so much better than teams who have spent decades on it. Truly a phenomenal achievement.

FYI, a 31 will land you in the top 10. Giving Stardew a 5 for New To Me and Playtime would have landed it a 32.

I agree Celeste was robbed, moreso than any other game on the list.

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30. Monster Train
Genre Card battler

Gameplay: 6
Rest of Game: 6
Engagement: 5
New to Me: 5
Playtime: 4

Total score: 26/40

Song selection: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdJ_iwFL6R8

Pardon the bad play on words in the hint.

Monster Train features you as the conductor of a locomotive carrying the last spark of heat, trying to reignite the fires of a hell that has frozen over. The minions of heaven have snuffed out all other sources of warmth, and you are the last hope for demonkind. The angels, know, too, and they are chasing after your train, determined to board the choo-choo and stop you.

That setting alone makes for an interesting premise, but its only a tiny fragment of what makes Monster Train. Youll start in the first circle of hell with a very bare bones deck, a la Slay the Spire, and then fight Heavens minions across the different cars in your train until hopefully you manage to stop the boss. Although Im calling this a card battler, there are some very strong elements of tower defense here, too. You pick a minion to guard each room, and the enemy moves through them, fights once, and then shifts into the next. If they get to the room with your core, theyll deal it damage as it reflects back and hopefully kills them. But with a strong enough position, nothing will get through.

And therein lies the charm of Monster Train. Some of your minions, with a little preparation, can be completely unstoppable. My first victory involved summoning a plant monster that gained health and attack every time I played a healing card on it. Once my deck was thinned out of minions, I could play 3-5 tiny heal cards on it every turn, pumping it up to a size that no boss could compete with. In another game, I created a minion that had thorns damage so high that anything that dealt it damage pretty much fell over instantly. In a third, I had a super strong attacker with a charm that ensured it always attacked first, so who cares about defense?

MT definitely has a learning curve, and I was a little uncertain about my first couple runs (which all failed) while I tried to understand the mechanics, but once I grasped the idea, the game has been a lot of fun and Ive come back to it intermittently for something to play.

Should you play it?: If you know who "Timmy, Johnny and Spike" are, and identify with any of them, yes.

Next: An Outside Xbox meme

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Ill guess Cat Quest

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29. Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning
Genre MMO-style ARPG

Gameplay: 3
Rest of Game: 7
Engagement: 7
New to Me: 5
Playtime: 5

Total score: 27/40

Song selection: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-Uqmy02XJ8

KoA is simultaneously a brilliant work of art and a repetitive piece of trash. Given that I gave it 27/40, obviously Im erring more toward the former, but it definitely reminds me of my time playing Sacred II, an enormous open-world adventure full of mostly empty spaces and filler. KoA isnt nearly as bad as that, but its definitely a grind for the completionists of the world.

In Amalur, you play as a human (or similar race) who has died and then had your soul returned to your body. The other races are in a perpetual conflict with the drow, who are gradually winning because when a dark elf dies, it eventually revives. A gnome inventor was trying to invent a contraption that would replicate this for the other side, and managed to get it to work once before the drow came and smashed it to pieces. As a result, not only do you have the ability to rewrite the inevitability in the fates, but you can die and come back as often as necessary. Theres also room to define your character on a very open-ended basis with Diablo-like skill trees that can be completely reset if you decide youre done being a warrior and would like to try magic instead.

But the biggest draw is the size and scope of the world. Theres so much to do, so many places to explore, so many monsters to kill. This ends up being KoAs greatest strength and its largest weakness. In trying to move from map cell to map cell, clearing everything, finishing the quests in each section, and fully uncovering all of its secrets, youll be crawling along at a snails pace. I played for 28 hours and I finished one of the main map areas. There were at least three more regions like it.

And combat gets a bit repetitive after a while. Although you do unlock new skills in the talent tree, by the time youre level 20, youve probably got all of them and are just working on maxing out the bonuses. Thus, combat tends to turn into a cycle of A-A-A-B, A-A-A-dodge!, A-A-A-B. Sure, maybe that means I should reset my skills and try playing as a rogue for a while, but I didnt have the impression that I would necessarily find the game all that different just because I was now shooting a bow.

The game scenario was written by R. A. Salvatore, designed by Todd McFarlane, composed for by Grant Kirkhope, and financed by baseball player Curt Schilling. I used to think it was cool Schilling started a video game company until I realized he was a political asshat. Leaving that aside, KoA was intended to be part one of a series; alas, 38 Studios filed for bankruptcy long before they could do much more than release the game. Recently, EA remastered it, which changed astoundingly little, but I was playing the original.

Was Ellen right?: Fun game if youre fine with mindless button mashing to pound enemies into the ground for dozens of hours. Dont expect it to be all that intellectually stimulating after the first few segments, though.

Next: A vertical platformer?

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28. A Short Hike
Genre Adventure

Gameplay: 5
Rest of Game: 8
Engagement: 7
New to Me: 5
Playtime: 2

Total score: 27/40

Song selection: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp1w67ROuyM

The best word to describe A Short Hike would be delightful. A Short Hike features you, a bird-person who wanders around the base of an island, meeting the other animals throughout the area as they enjoy a vacation, doing leisurely things like collecting shells, playing a variation on volleyball, or running a race. Your self-imposed task is to climb to the top of the island because you dont have any cell phone reception and want to call home. And so begins an adventure to explore every last bit of the island to discover a route and the needed tools to get to the summit.

The graphics are by far the weakest component of ASH. Although its a competently created world, very obviously made in the Unity engine, the artwork is excessively pixelated and the screen animation has ripples and suffers in framerate. Beyond that, though, theres very little to criticize of this game if you have no expectations going in, as I did when it was recommended as a game to try from the itch.io bundle. The musics charming. The peacefulness of the world is refreshing. The worst thing that can happen to you is you slip down a cliff a little bit and have to find a way back up. The writing maintains the lightheartedness. And eventually, as you perform enough tasks and collect enough golden feathers, youll have the stamina to climb or glide higher up the mountain, culminating in a final climb where youll get to finally talk to Mom at the top, in a surprisingly momentous resolution for a game about a character with basically no background.

Should you play it?: Its, like, 2 hours of fluffy feel-good entertainment.

Next: Oar Umpires...and I swear to god, I don't remember what this even means, but I thought it was freaking clever when I wrote it three weeks ago.

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I'll take a random guess at that next one and say danganronpa.

Only bad thing I could say about A Short Hike is that it was indeed pretty short, still found it more than worth the play though

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27. Super Mario 64 (randomizer)
Genre 3-D Platformer

Gameplay: 8
Rest of Game: 7
Engagement: 8
New to Me: 3
Playtime: 1

Total score: 27/40

Song selection: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6NgA48KWc0

Obviously, Ive played Mario 64 before. Its a very dear, important game for me. I played it in the vein of speedrunning before speedrunning was popularized. (I did this with a lot of my old games.) I used to think I was really good for being able to clear the game in about 2 hours. But I never planned routes or knew any sequence breaks or did any of the crazy stuff that contemporary speedrunners do.

Still, the fact that I had played the game repeatedly and recently refamiliarized myself with it was valuable, because a few months ago I saw Han post a topic about playing SM64 randomizer and went, Oh, thats a thing, huh. I watched Han play for about an hour and then decided, eh, what the hell. Lets give it a shot.

Maybe I should have timed myself. I dont know how long it took. I did finish my seed, but it was an absolute hot mess, as any first-time experience in a randomizer should be. Stars are just hanging out in random places. Entrances to worlds are shuffled so that Tick Tock Clock was the first zone I entered. Everything I knew and expected about Mario 64 was mostly thrown out the window. For someone else, less familiar, an 8/10 in gameplay is super generous. SM64s camera is notoriously bad, Marios controls are certainly finicky, and if I didnt know the foibles of each zone, this would have been an intensely frustrating experience. As it was, though, I had a hell of a time. Strangely, I havent gone back for seconds, but after seeing another recent Han stream, maybe I ought to.

Should you play it?: Only if you really love Mario 64 and know it inside and out.

Next: The antithesis to an earlier entry

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Yeah, so anyone with any ideas what I meant by oar umpires? I know it was a play on words, and I feel like it was supposed to mean "rando" or something like that, but I don't have a clue how.

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azuarc posted...

Yeah, so anyone with any ideas what I meant by oar umpires?

I guess you randomized the letters in Super Mario?

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azuarc posted...

oar umpires

Anagram of Super Mario.

EDIT: Too slow.
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Ohhh, I'm an idiot. Yes, that's what it was. I went to an anagram site.

Oh well, and least it makes sense now. A shame someone had to explain my own joke to me, though.

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I wonder what the anagram generator comes up with for Z3R

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