Board 8 > SHINE's Favorite games of 2020 (and other lists)

(+) Yeah! (+)

3 weeks late this year since that's when Giant Bomb decided to do their GotY. Gave me some extra time though to check out a few more games I wanted to at least get a good idea for what they were and felt comfortable enough to rank them.

2020 was a weird year! While a lot of people got to spend their time working from home and playing a ton of video games for me it was a very stressful time of treating covid patients while avoiding ever catching it myself and trying to just not be exhausted at the end of the end of the week to play the games I wanted to play. Throw in everything else going on in the world and it certainly was a time of uncertainty.

But now that's all over and at the end is...A LIST! Well the usual set of lists I do. I'll start off with the games I wanted to check out, but never got much of a chance to. After that it'll be my favorite old games of the year which is usually games that remasters in 2020 regardless if I've played them before or not. We had a few games this year that were a bit more than what I consider to be a remaster, but also weren't quite remakes. Those games I saved for the main list so you won't be seeing them here. After that the honorable mentions which there seems to be a large amount of this year. Then the main list! There's 10 of those as is the tradition.

After that I'll ramble off a few of my most anticipated games for 2021 and beyond and begin the process again for next year.


---

tag

---

The Top 10 Games I wish I played in 2020

10. Half-Life Alyx



I don't have the proper VR headset to play this. Maybe if they ever put it on PSVR then I can. More than likely I'll have to wait until PSVR2 is out on PS5.


---

Tag

---

The Top 10 Games I wish I played in 2020

9. DOOM Eternal



I always like me some DOOM although more of the MS-DOS variety. People didn't seem as hot on this one as DOOM 2016, but I'd still like to play it one day. Still hoping Doomslayer also makes it into Smash one day. Also having a sword in an FPS is cool.

---

The Top 10 Games I wish I played in 2020

8. Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore



This was like one of the first games to come out in 2020. Part of a long list of Wii U games I never really got around to that got Switch upgrades that I also never got around to! I tend to fall more on the SMT side of things than Fire Emblem, granted this game is more Persona with idols than anything else. Every time I look at it I think it looks really cool and something I'd enjoy, but I just never got around to popping it into my Switch.

---

The Top 10 Games I wish I played in 2020

7. Persona 5 Royal



Speaking of Persona here's actual Persona! The original I think finished 5th or 6th in my 2017 list. Royal seems to be an improvement in all areas above the original, but I heard a lot of the new stuff you don't really start seeing until the second half of the game? I'm not really sure, but I didn't want to play through the whole game again so soon if I wasn't going to see a ton of that content early on. I think maybe the grappling hook is one of the things you get pretty early that makes dungeons improved, but beyond that I'm kinda in the dark about this game. I can see myself playing this whenever I get around to also playing all the secondary Persona release like P3P and P4G.

---

The Top 10 Games I wish I played in 2020

6. Star Wars Squadrons



I don't care what you say in my mind they made a new Rogue Squadron. I know it's not exactly that, but I still want to play it and see what it is. Also seems it was received pretty well too so that's a bonus! Just tell me I can go on a bombing mission with a Y-Wing and I'm good. I'm afraid to try out the VR support though because the most sick I've ever gotten in VR was doing that X-Wing demo in Battlefront 2.

---

The Top 10 Games I wish I played in 2020

5. Hades



Apparently a lot of people's Game of the Year! Something about Supergiant games never really clicked with me. I played a little bit of Bastion way back when and didn't care much for it and just haven't really played any of their games since then. Doesn't help that's it's a roguelike which is a genre that I generally don't care about either. The only ones I ever really got into were Binding of Isaac and Rogue Legacy. There's sooooo many people saying to check this game out though that I guess I'll have to at this point.

---

The Top 10 Games I wish I played in 2020

4. Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity



Breath of the Wild is good. Musou is good. However I was still working on finishing Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition and didn't want to touch this one until I at least finished that. Also still a ton of other musou games I need to finish too! There's another musou game next month it just never ends!


---

The Top 10 Games I wish I played in 2020

3. The Last of Us Part 2



I fully intended at some point this year to finally play through the first Last of Us so I could see what the discourse over this game was. I did play about 2 hours of the first game when the Remastered version came out on PS4, but it was really slow and didn't catch me right away so I never went back to it. Anyway the sequel seems to be all about making you feel as uncomfortable as possible with the most realistic detail seen in a video game and I'm all in for something like that so I'll eventually play this.....probably!


---

The Top 10 Games I wish I played in 2020

2. Trials of Mana



I played through the demo of this, but never got around to the full release. The timing of the release was not great with some other big games coming out at that time. I still remember the first time I learned there was a sequel to Secret of Mana that we never got in english and finally tracking down that fan translation of Seiken Densetsu 3. The fact that game even got a remake in the first place is just super cool.

---

The Top 10 Games I wish I played in 2020

1. Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales



Despite being the most critically acclaimed PS5 launch title I never got around to starting it because I skipped out on the first Marvel's Spider-Man so I was playing the Remastered version of that first. It sounds like while being a shorter experience it focuses on all the best things about that original game and makes them better. I'll definitely get to it sometime this year!

---

Hey there's one list done!

The Top 10 Games I wish I played in 2020

1. Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales
2. Trials of Mana
3. The Last of Us Part 2
4. Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity
5. Hades
6. Star Wars Squadrons
7. Persona 5 Royal
8. Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore
9. DOOM Eternal
10. Half-Life Alyx

Bed time and then work for me though. I may try to get my old games list going while I'm at work, but if not it won't be until tomorrow morning.

---

TLOU2 and Mirage Sessions are next up for me after I finish my Xenoblade Definitive Edition playthrough

---

Now you adjust your expectations accordingly for my actual list

---

I awake!

We'll see how work goes tonight and if I can bust out another list

---

Before I do the old games list though shoutout to the following games

The PS4 port of Cuphead

The same game I played on PC and Switch, but now I could finally earn a platinum in it. Not enough new though to qualify for the list

No More Heroes 1 and 2

Great that these games are available on modern platforms (Especially NMH2 which never left the Switch). I didn't play a ton of them though although I probably will before No More Heroes 3 hits.

Deadly Premonition Origins
Once again the same game I played on PS3. I definitely played all the way through it again though because it's so good.

---

I definitely tried to play Deadly Premonition Origins in 2020 (it just crashed so many times I eventually said fuck it)

---

I can confirm it did crash on me like 6 times, but most of them were right after a save

There was only one instance where I lost like 45 minutes

---

Forgot tonight was downtime at work so we have to process all patients manually instead of the computer

LONG NIGHT

---

ps4 port of cuphead was very good. Fun plat. Finally got me to play expert mode which was enjoyable and frustrating

---

Do play Hades.

It's not even really a roguelike.

---

The Top 5 Old Games of 2020

5. DOOM 64



It's the DOOM I did play this year! Also one of the best DOOM games that most people haven't played. I had rented it once back in the day, but didn't get very far in it so this was the first time I saw the majority of the game. This HD version was a preorder bonus for Eternal although I they also sold it separately for only $5. DOOM 64 is in the style of the first two games, but was very much its own thing and was pretty much the actual DOOM 3 before that game ever existed. I feel like back when it came out people didn't even know this and thought it was just an N64 port of the the original DOOM. The enemy sprites in particular are awesome some of the best spritework you'll ever see in this style of game.

---

The Top 5 Old Games of 2020

4. Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered



So between this game's original release and the release of this PS5 remaster is when I marathoned all the MCU movies in 2019. Now I'm in that ecosystem and naturally this game (and Miles Morales) interested me as PS5 launch games. This ones got all that 4K and Ray-Tracing support and the latter in particular is something I've been wanting to see for myself. It truly is a sight behold although the original game looked pretty good too to begin with. The Arkham style combat is excellent and they traversal around the city is fun so you never really feel the need to fast travel. I haven't gotten around to finishing it yet, but the time I did spend with it was good and memorable so I'll definitely come back to finish it.

---

The Top 5 Old Games of 2020

3. Saints Row the Third Remastered



It's my 2011 Game of the Year! This remaster is honestly one of the better remasters I've seen without just being a full on remake. Besides bumping the visuals up to 4K there have been significant upgrades to the textures and character models. It all looks significantly more realistic while still retaining the cartoony look these characters originally had. Beyond that it's the same Saints Row the Third you all know and love. Hopefully Saints Row 5 isn't too far off if they ever plan on making it, but I'm not getting my hopes up.

---

The Top 5 Old Games of 2020

2. Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate



MK11 continued to get DLC support throughout the year. Not just new characters but an additional story mode that brings back Shang Tsung and helps set up what they're going to be going for in the next MK game. This version specifically is the culmination of all the DLC that also got a PS5 upgrade. A lot of PS4 to PS5 upgrades also means a new trophy set (some of which automatically pop and others that don't) so I had blast playing through the whole game again getting that platinum a 2nd time.

---

The Top 5 Old Games of 2020

1. Super Mario 3D All-Stars



This one should come as no surprise. When this game first leaked over the summer it was basically the only thing I thought of until it was officially announced. Mario 64 still an amazing game (maybe the controls don't hold up as well as they used to). Mario Sunshine still one of my favorites and is the game that benefitted most from the HD upgrade. Galaxy still extremely solid although it looked so good to begin with that that upgrading it to HD basically just made it look like a new modern Mario. I ended up playing through all 3 games one after the other and getting all the Stars and Shines and by the end I was pretty Mario'd out. However I've now recovered and ready for the 3D World + Bowser's Fury. Still hoping they'll give Galaxy 2 the same treatment otherwise that's just criminal.

---

Updated lists!

The Top 5 Old Games of 2020
1. Super Mario 3D All-Stars
2. Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate
3. Saints Row the Third Remastered
4. Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered
5. DOOM 64

The Top 10 Games I wish I played in 2020

1. Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales
2. Trials of Mana
3. The Last of Us Part 2
4. Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity
5. Hades
6. Star Wars Squadrons
7. Persona 5 Royal
8. Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore
9. DOOM Eternal
10. Half-Life Alyx

---

Honorable mentions for the main list when I return

This one will be weird because there are several on here that in my mind would be making Top 10 when I played them, but in the process of making the list they didn't

---

I wanna be like Tom Brady

---

Tag

---

Gonna speed a bit through some of these honorable mentions just because I don't have a ton to say.

Honorable Mentions

Maneater



This is the first game on my list that when I played it I thought it could make my top 10. This Shark RPG has a pretty funny story that's narrated by Chris Parnell from SNL. The combat while also fun and goofy is pretty repetitive. You'll pretty much see everything the game has to offer in the first 10-15 minutes. However I enjoyed playing through that story and continuously evolving my shark with more and more ridiculous upgrades. By the end I was vampiric thief shark with electricity powers and it was rad.

Phantasy Star Online 2



Finally got to play this game 8 years later! But I hate playing games on PC and I don't have an Xbox so after spending a little bit with the PC version I decided I'd wait for the eventual PS4 port. Then they announced New Genesis instead so now I'm waiting for that! At least I got to play as Hatsune Miku for a little while.

Granblue Fantasy Versus



This was my first exposure to Granblue. As you would expect from Arc System Works it looks and plays great. The story mode is more of a glorified gacha game with cutscenes although at least it doesn't ask you to spend real money. I feel I did best with Katalina because she was the closest to a Ken or a Ryu, but I really wanted to try to learn Percival, Zeta and Narmaya too.

Deadly Premonition 2: A Blessing in Disguise



Maybe the "worst" game on this list that still deserves a mention. They performance on Switch is just so bad, but I powered through it to see the story. When they finally started tying it to the first game during the final act I was all in. York is still just as entertaining as he was in the first game and the post-credits amazing is super cool and I love it.


---

Honorable Mentions

Bugsnax



Kinda bug and kinda snack
Try to catch 'em in your trap
Feed somebody and you'll see
We are whatever we eat
Find 'em hiding in the sand
Tearing up a ketchup patch
Come to Snaktooth Island and
Discover its Bugsnax

---

Honorable Mentions

Streets of Rage 4



SoR was always my favorite beat'em up series so it's super cool they finally made a new one that managed to retain the feeling of playing those older games and it was actually really good too. All the characters feel unique to play as and it has a decent length to it (12 stages total). You're fighting the children of Mr. X from the older games and they're the Y SYNDICATE. Looking forward to Streets of Rage 7 to introduce the Z Syndicate!

---

Honorable Mentions

Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory



Bros they took Theatrhythm and made it 3D and did a bunch of Kingdom Hearts music. What you find out is that a lot of Kingdom Hearts music just sounds the same, but it was still fun because Theatrhythm is fun. I was mainly into it though for the new story reveals at the end to continue to the road to Kingdom Hearts 4 and I feel it did deliver on that end.

---

ninkendo posted...

I was mainly into it though for the new story reveals at the end to continue to the road to Kingdom Hearts 4 and I feel it did deliver on that end.

ugh that means I have to play it

I was hoping it would be a re:coded situation and I could just skip it

---

Honorable Mentions

Animal Crossing: New Horizons



This might be the game I played the most this year just because that's the kind of game Animal Crossing is. I can't say I was ever the biggest fan of this series, but I enjoy going in and doing Tom Nook's dirty work then collecting all of things I want to get then getting out. This one I actually went past that point and made my ideal island and fully decorated it and everything. I'm also still working on collecting all the bugs and creatures for the museum, but after that I'm probably done because my museum will be 100% complete and that's all I really care about. Also my village is entirely penguins because penguins are cool.

---

4 more honorable mentions to go let me bust these all out real quick before I go to bed for the day

---

Honorable Mentions

Ghost of Tsushima



I only played a few hours of this one just to see what this game actually was. It's absolutely gorgeous, especially on PS5, and the combat has me really wanting me to go around just get into fights because I think it's the star of the game. From what I saw though going around the world wasn't all that interesting though, it was basically just like Far Cry where you clear out a base and it reveals a little bit of map and you just go to each marker and do the things it asks you to do. The story too wasn't really drawing me in either, but I enjoyed that Jin was voiced by the same guy who voices Roronoa Zoro in One Piece.

---

Honorable Mentions

Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot



So Legend of the Super Saiyan on SNES was an incredible DBZ RPG, but it ended at the Frieza Saga. Ever since that day I've been wanting a new DBZ RPG that actually covered the entire story in a single game. Since then there have been several RPGs, but all of them pretty much focused on only a single arc. Enter Kakarot I finally get my lifelong wish!

And well....the game is fine. I absolutely enjoyed playing through the story and maxing my characters to level 250 by the end and learning all their skill trees. However the story sometimes just skips important details and events or doesn't treat them all with the same quality with some parts just being a text box with no voice acting while others being this crazy cutscene that looks better than even the anime. I was also disappointed by it not being truly open world, but instead just a bunch of large areas connected by a world map menu so I guess that's my next goal to aim for is one seamless Dragon Ball world. The combat is pretty easy because if you're doing sidequests and whatnot you'll be way overpowered and can just blow through everything. It's made extra easy by some skills being completely broken like Vegeta's Big Bang Attack that you can just spam continously.

I'm probably just being overly critical because I really want the Dragon Ball game of my dreams and this one came close, but had far too many imperfections to satisfy me. I'd still recommend checking it out though!

---

Honorable Mentions

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout



This year's big battle royale is maybe the one I'm best at? Pretty early on I got this game's platinum earning those 5 wins in a row (almost 7 in a row) while it seems most people I know still struggle to win even one game consistently. Running a bunch of obstacle courses is always fun, but it eventually gets old after playing a season. Unlike Apex where we keep coming back season after season, I feel I got my fill of Fall Guys after the first season and while I've come back and checked out the Season 2 and 3 stages, it wasn't really enough to keep me coming back for that just a single day to see the new stuff.

---

Honorable Mentions

Kingdom Hearts III: ReMind



This one is weird because I'm kinda counting the whole game here. This was my first time playing Kingdom Hearts III after the DLC already came out so I got to see it through the improvements they added in and I'm basically counting it as the Final Mix version of this game. I was honestly blown away how much love and care Nomura put into this game. Every environment was huge and detailed, I really loved the Pirates of the Caribbean world specifically. I went out of my way to watch the disney movies I had not seen yet that were covered in this game.

Somehow they managed to make an actually great Gummi Ship world?! I looked forward to getting new upgrades and checking out this universe they had built.

Also the final DLC boss fight is maybe the best fight in the entire series and also amazing for its implications for what's to come in Kingdom Hearts 4. This game just missed the top 10 because I was slightly disappointed they simplified the combat back to how it was in Kingdom Hearts II because I really liked the Command Deck from Birth By Sleep and Dream Drop Distance.

---

and....that's all the HM's! There were a lot of them :|

Top 10 Favorite Games of 2020
1. ???
2. ???
3. ???
4. ???
5. ???
6. ???
7. ???
8. ???
9. ???
10. ???
========================================
Kingdom Hearts III: ReMind
Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout
Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot
Ghost of Tsushima
Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory
Streets of Rage 4
Bugsnax
Maneater
Phantasy Star Online 2
Granblue Fantasy Versus
Deadly Premonition 2: A Blessing in Disguise

The Top 5 Old Games of 2020
1. Super Mario 3D All-Stars
2. Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate
3. Saints Row the Third Remastered
4. Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered
5. DOOM 64

The Top 10 Games I wish I played in 2020
1. Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales
2. Trials of Mana
3. The Last of Us Part 2
4. Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity
5. Hades
6. Star Wars Squadrons
7. Persona 5 Royal
8. Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore
9. DOOM Eternal
10. Half-Life Alyx

---

animal crossing was robbed

---

no, I think Animal Crossing is in the correct place

---

2 shine HMs are in my top 10

---

Hidden Machines

---

Top 10 Favorite Games of 2020

10. Resident Evil 3



It's honestly a small miracle this game came out only a year after RE2 remake came out. RE2 was my 2019 GotY and was basically the perfect remake in my eyes. Capcom does what Capcom does best though and immediately take their successful engine and assets and flip it into another game as quickly as possible. In this case it shows though as RE3 is a very tiny game in comparison. It really only has 3 major areas with a few branching paths. A lot of areas from original RE3 are cut out completely and even if you're not a pro speedrunner you can easily finish it in under 2 hours if you know where you're going. Nemesis himself only shows up now at specific set areas and doesn't truly follow you around like Mr. X did either. They pad out this lack of content with a separate multiplayer mode that isn't very good, but in reality I think it would have been better if they just sold each separately for $30.

Despite all that it still plays great and these new areas of Raccoon City are visually stunning. This new version of Jill who doesn't take shit from anyone is incredible and I hope she shows up again in a different game. I would still recommend playing it if you can, just maybe wait until it's $30 or lower (it might already be that low I don't know)

---

Top 10 Favorite Games of 2020

#9. 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim



Vanillaware games sure are nice to look at. Just don't tell anyone its filled with a bunch of teenagers who get naked to pilot their giant mechs. In theory I shouldn't really care much for this game. A combination of tower defense and a visual novel is usually not what I'm looking for, but after playing this game for several hours I found myself wanting to come back for more and see what happens next. The story eventually goes to some crazy places (thanks for telling them to me, Giant Bomb), like possibly past the levels of what even Hideo Kojima can think up and I'm looking forward to getting back to this to continue to see it ramp up and get even crazier so I'll thank arti for urging me to check it out in this last week before I made a list.

Anyway currently on Team Megumi

---