Board 8 > Mac ranks 63 games played in 2021

(+) Yeah! (+)

Could be any of them, they all have to better than any jurassic park game

1. Final Fantasy VII R
2. Va11 Hall-A
3. It Takes Two
4. Metroid Dread
5. SM3DW + Bowser's Fury
6. Omori
7. Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker
8. Forgotten City
9. 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim
10. Persona 5 Strikers
11. Astro's Playroom
12. Ys IX: Monstrum Nox
13. NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139
14. Judgment
15. Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart
16. Cyberpunk 2077
17. Lost Judgment
18. Thumper
19. Severed Steel
20. Horizon Zero Dawn

Uninformed prediction go

Cyberpunk 2077 because it plays like a game from the jurassic era

Your predix are spot on so far, Shonen Bat!

20. Horizon Zero Dawn (2017) - PS4

I liked just about everything about Horizon. It took a while for me to get used to get used to the combat, but once I figured out more of my options I enjoyed fighting a good amount. Using traps is pretty fun, and the different arrow types are neat to use for various scenarios. I also realized that rapid-firing arrows did more damage than pulling back and aiming, but unfortunately you get bows that do more damage when you pull back and aim in Frozen Wilds, so that kinda backfired on me eventually <_<. Exploring is always enjoyable, though I feel like there wasn't that much motivation to go out on my own? Not a ton of stuff to find. More the game mechanics around it that feel good. Everything about the game is just extremely polished and has the gamefeel I crave. I think the thing I'd want most gameplay-wise for a sequel is some sorta new movement mechanic. Something like a double jump, or flying, or a jetpack, or a glider. Mounts are cool, but this would be cooler. Overriding enemies to fight for you is probably the best/most unique mechanic in the game, and it's great.

Story-wise, learning about what happened in the past is the highlight. Everything that happened in the past was super compelling, and it was fun to learn about that gradually all throughout the game. There was a neat cast of past characters, and pretty much everything made sense. The present-day story wasn't as exciting, but it was still enjoyable, and the ways it tied in to the past story were cool too. I'm kinda worried about how good the sequel will be because of this - most of the mysteries of the past have already been revealed, and since the present day storytelling isn't as good, will they be able to match HZD's quality? I'd hope so, but I'm not super optimistic.

Finally, I don't think Frozen Wilds is as good. I'd give it more like a 7 or 7.5 out of 10. The story's still cool, but it's not quite as compelling overall. There's a lot more creativity in the enemy design and the puzzles and exploration, but the execution isn't nearly as good IMO. I found myself getting lost or frustrated or just plain not having fun a lot more often. I appreciated that it felt like a full expansion instead of some cheap DLC, but it's a shame it didn't have the same polish as the main game. I'd have ranked the game higher without it.

Next game hint: sometimes it really feels great to go on an adventure with a group of friends.

P5 Strikers? Endwalker?

The first of one

Horizon sounds pretty alright but it's one that's always gotten lost in the huge sea of games that seem cool.

Persona immediately jumps to mind from that hint.

Sony giving it away for free is what got me to play it

19. Omori (2020) - PC

Omori a similar feel to something like Undertale in some ways with a mix between serious and silly parts, but with more of a divide between the two I guess. The serious parts are probably better here? There's some good emotional scenes, and the characters are likable. Combat system does a good job of representing the game's themes, which isn't too common for RPGs, and the humor usually hits too. Probably the best thing about it is how it depicts friendship. You really feel how strong the bonds of the main group are, no matter how much they're tested. It's really great seeing how their friendship evolves throughout the game. I know some people say they cried a bunch at the later parts of the game, but I did not, unfortunately. I found some of the earlier scenes to be harder hitting.

Next game hint: the game with the best bass in anything I've played.

Valhalla

Thumper next!

But let's gooo Dread!

18. Thumper (2016) - PS4

I'm so glad Sony gave Thumper away for free, since I doubt I ever would've played it otherwise. It's kinda like, a rhythm racing game? Or something? I dunno. It's really enjoyable to play. It feels super unique, and just playing it is an experience. The first hour or so I had a grin on my face the whole time. It feels so good. I wouldn't necessarily say it got worse after that, but there's not much more to it, unless you're more hardcore than I am. The gameplay mostly stays pretty similar, with a few new mechanics here and there, presenting the player with enjoyable new levels. More variety might've been nice, but I didn't really mind the lack. The music itself isn't that special, but it has great effects when you do things like turning, so I had the volume cranked when I played it. The main flaw of the game is that I suck at it/it's too hard. I only ended up beating 3 levels (out of 9 - they're fairly long) and getting a decent chunk into the fourth. I could've gotten further, but the frustration is annoying sometimes, so I think I had enough. It's not often I can say I'm satisfied with a game after only beating a third of it, but the experience of Thumper was something special.

Next game hint: my favorite type of eggs.

17. Persona 5 Strikers (2021) - PC

AKA Persona 5 Scramble, but they changed the name. It's real good stuff! Enjoyed basically all of this. The dungeons were cool, with a good mix of longer, more epic dungeons and shorter ones to keep the pace from getting dreary. The presentation was awesome and perfectly in line with the original P5. Everything looks and sounds excellent. It was cool getting to see the Phantom Thieves actually interacting with each other and having fun the whole game, which was a bit lacking in the original P5. I thought the story started a bit slow, but the last couple chapters had some excellent moments that made me feel emotional. Was really cool how it's a pure sequel to P5, featuring the same cast plus a few new people. Sophie's a great addition, and I quite liked some of the villains. The combat wasn't my favorite ever, but I mostly enjoyed it, and it was cool how much of P5's DNA even that part of the game retained.

So why do I give it a lower score than the original P5? I guess I just didn't feel it quite as much for a good chunk of the game. The lack of S-Links is sad, since those were my favorite part of the game. None of the characters besides Sae and Sojiro even show up, despite being teased. And for the fun parts, it's a bit too focused on food, haha. Still, I feel like it achieves everything it aspires to do. It aims to be a fun sequel with a few solid emotional beats, and that's exactly what it is. Fun times!

(the real reason it's worse is because Lavenza sucks and Justine/Caroline rule cannot believe there are people who like Lavenza more)

Next game hint: video games sure are pretty nowadays.

reranking of Kena: Bridge of Spirits

Never heard of Thumper before, it sounds cool.

Predicts Ratchet

16. Final Fantasy VII Remake (2020) - PS4

The start of this game is incredible. For the first chapter or 2, I couldn't stop laughing and grinning like an idiot because of what I was getting. Seeing FF7 with so many cool things added was amazing. The graphics are probably the best I've seen in any game - the characters in particular look absolutely incredible. A lot of the expansion on characters is good too. I never really cared about Barret, but he's probably the best character in FF7R. Jessie and Biggs get real fleshed out, to the point where I kinda like Jessie more than some of the main cast. It couldn't quite keep up that momentum - there are slower parts, and while I liked a lot of those, some of them weren't quite as good. The plate collapse in particular added a whole bunch of junk that sucked the life out of it. Some of the added content feels like busy work, and some of it takes away from the emotional impact of scenes, unfortunately. The combat's pretty fun, and I like how they kept the Materia system and everything. They did a real good job with it overall, I think. Hopefully the next one will be executed a little more smoothly, adding good content where it helps and holding back on the filler.

Also, this game is way better than FFXV in every way and it's sad that Square couldn't make something more like this for FFXV.

Next game hint: the title of this game is a pun with multiple meanings. I'm not sure if any of them apply to the game itself.

It Takes Two?

15. Lost Judgment (2021) - PS5

It's a bit hard for me to rate this game fairly because of how lame the ending and the story leading up to it were. They only make up a few hours of the game, but it certainly goes out on a low note. Still, it wouldn't be fair to judge it just for that, considering how much of the game I loved. Besides the last part of the story, the game's generally better than Judgment 1 IMO. The game smooths out several of the first game's problems with regard to playing as a detective, which is nice. Tailing works better here, without as many irritating pauses, the parkour system is cool, and lock-picking doesn't have a stupid timer. They do add some stealth stuff which is bad (there is zero choice about how to approach some of the sneaking parts), but thankfully it's pretty minor. The combat's still fairly dull, but I feel like there are fewer bosses with a ridiculous number of HP gauges, which is nice. Having a new city to go to is fun and makes the distribution of side quests feel more natural. They got rid of the Friend system from the first game, which was fun, but it's nice to have something new. The side cases in general are probably a little better.

The thing that really makes the game better is the School Stories system. For various reasons, Yagami's investigating a high school, which is a fun setting and works into the game's major sidequest system. He basically goes to become the advisor for various high school clubs to investigate their connections with a certain criminal syndicate. Each club has its own minigame, some of which are extremely fun (dancing rules. Robot fighting is also good). Some of the minigames aren't the greatest, but the story and characters around them makes them more interesting. Some of the minigames also take too long (the racing minigame has way too many opponents to beat), but it wasn't painful enough to make me want to quit or anything. You unravel the greater mystery connecting all the clubs over time, and it almost feels like its own story/game in a way. The climax of this story is awesome and really brings everything together in a good way. Much better than the actual game's story!

All the upgrades make me feel like this is a worthy follow-up to the first Judgment. I still like it better than any of the non-0 Yakuzas, and I wouldn't say there's a huge difference between how much I like those two either. It's sad that they might not make a Judgment 3, but hopefully they'll be able to work it out somehow.

Next game hint: maybe I should've ranked this game a few spots higher...

Probably Endwalker
(Higher, oh Higher)

a game with a number in the title so it could be ranked at that number

fun fact eleven games in the top twenty have a number in the title

14. Va11 Hall-A (2016) - PC

I was interested in this game for a long time, ever since it was announced years before it came out, and I finally played it when I saw it on Gamepass. This proved to be a smart choice. The game starts strong, and continues strong, but the last few days aren't the strongest, unfortunately. They aren't bad by any means, but they could've stood to have something more to them. I liked the visual novel format of the whole thing quite a bit. Thought it'd have more gameplay, and it not having a ton is a good thing. I wasn't a huge fan of what gameplay there was - it was kinda fun for a while, but it definitely gets repetitive and can feel a bit pointless. The music was cool, as I knew before playing. The jukebox gimmick is dumb though - would rather just random shuffle all the songs. The characters and writing are the highlight of the whole thing. I thought a fairly big chunk of the cast was quite likable, and even the others are interesting/serve to develop the setting/cast in general. I feel like I say this whenever I play one of these, but it's real great playing a VN in the style of Japanese VNs that doesn't follow the Japanese cliches and still has good writing.

Next game hint: it's great how a game that's focused on a gimmick can still be great when the developers inject pure fun into every aspect of it.

this sounds like astro's playroom

Well, color me surprised.

Next guess: It Takes Two.

Cyberpunk 2077

Yeah, that was a bit obvious, haha.

13. Astro's Playroom (2020) - PS5

This is kinda a weird one to rank. It's very short (probably spent like 3 hours on it? possibly 4?), and there's not much to it in general. However, for the most part, it's ultra fun. Everything is bright, everything is happy, your friends are constantly dancing and having fun, Dante is comboing a demon in the background, and it's just happy in general. I had a smile on my face almost the whole time, and not just because of the silly fanservice (though that was good too). It was fun to play and made me feel good. The platforming may be fairly simple, but it's also super competent. The levels have great variety, and there are even bonus speedrun levels that are fun in their own right. It's not quite flawless - every level has sections with a control gimmick, and those sections aren't the best. Only one of them is really fun, and some can be frustrating. But those were a fairly small part of the game, and even during those parts the atmosphere was excellent. It's really great that they give this away for free with every PS5.

Next game hint: the more things change, the more they stay the same.

12. Judgment (2018) - PS5

Is this the best Yakuza game? Maybe. It's up there with 0 at least. The minigames aren't quite as fun, but the main story is better/more consistent and definitely the best in the series. I enjoyed it basically the whole way through, and there were some surprising twists that were well executed. The whole game's well-made in general - the pacing's good, the side content is fun, and the leveling up system is pretty neat. The girlfriend system is simple, but also way better than the system the other Yakuza games have. Other Yakuza games have highs and lows, but this was basically highs the whole way through. Feels like it's the ideal of Yakuza game. Which brings me to the game's biggest problem - it's too similar to the other Yakuza games. The story focuses on the yakuza for a while, and there's more combat than I'd like. I don't like the combat much in the first place. Still, it's a very good overall package, and it gave my high hopes for the sequel, which was almost as good at least.

Next game hint: this long-awaited successor blew away my expectations.

The sequel to well-known good game Ratchet & Clank 2016

Cyberpunk 2077 as a followup to games 1-2076

11. Cyberpunk 2077 (PC) - 2020

I enjoyed this a lot more than The Witcher 3! It's actually fun to play most of the time, as they've mastered basics like moving around finally. I really like that you can double jump, since that opens up a lot of options. The combat's pretty fun, whether hacking, swording, or gunning, and the mission/area design is generally good. The story and quest stories aren't quite on TW3's level in general, but they're fairly close, and the better endings of the game are incredible. Two in particular were some of my favorite endings in any game I've played. They're the reason it's so high up on this list, really. One in particular made me cry a lot. Keanu's role in the game is surprisingly excellent as well, considering how much it felt like a gimmick before release. It's too bad about the bugs, but I didn't get hit by too many of the bad ones, thankfully. Highly recommended once it's fixed (and I do recommend waiting until then, even if you have a high-end PC, though I think the PC version is mostly fixed by now).

Next game hint: a game I ranked high for the story.

there goes zero bracket

Current list:

63. 12 Minutes
62. Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order
61. Fallout: New Vegas
60. Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception
59. Forza Horizon 5
58. Crusader Kings 3
57. Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom
56. Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair
55. Kena: Bridge of Spirits
54. Towerfall Ascension
53. Wildermyth
52. Quake
51. Yakuza 6
50. Doom 1993
49. Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle
48. Inscryption
47. Deathloop
46. Final Fantasy 7 Remake INTERmission
45. Death's Door
44. Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE
43. Chicory
42. Psychonauts 2
41. Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity
40. Utawarerumono: Mask of Truth
39. Firewatch
38. Rabi-Ribi
37. Ender Lilies - Quietus of the Nights
36. Spider-Man: Miles Morales
35. Tales of Arise
34. Spiritfarer
33. CrossCode
32. Yakuza 5
31. Yakuza Kiwami 2
30. Astral Chain
29. Unsighted
28. Boomerang X
27. Bravely Default 2
26. Yakuza 4
25. Axiom Verge 2
24. Yakuza 3
23. Shin Megami Tensei V
22. Tsukihime Remake
21. Overboard!
20. Horizon Zero Dawn
19. Omori
18. Thumper
17. Persona 5 Strikers
16. Final Fantasy VII R
15. Lost Judgment
14. Va11 Hall-A
13. Astro's Playroom
12. Judgment
11. Cyberpunk 2077

Top 10:

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim
Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker
Forgotten City
It Takes Two
Metroid Dread
NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139
Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart
Severed Steel
SM3DW + Bowser's Fury
Ys IX: Monstrum Nox

You managed to get most of the top 10 right, Shonen Bat!

Not bad.

Could be a couple up next. Forgotten City?

Metroid Dread

13 Sentinels because it has anime titties aka best plot device

10. Metroid Dread (2021) - Switch

The more time passes, the fonder my opinion of this game gets. The ending sequence is awesome, and I had a lot of fun going around collecting all the items at the end. Shinespark puzzles are great, and moving around once you have all the powers is excellent. It's fun how huge the map is, and how you can traverse it quickly and efficiently despite its size. However, even going around exploring reminded me of how the game has some ups and downs.

Starting with the negatives, there seem to be a lot of one-way doors. This works for funneling game progression so that the player doesn't get lost, but it makes exploring the map to find everything at the end a lot more inconvenient. I wish they would've done something to unlock these areas once you get the final power up or something. Getting some items is frustrating, since the shinesparking can require a good deal of precision, but once I figured out the tricks (like sparking into a slope to keep your charge) it got to be pretty enjoyable. The load times are a bigger negative. Unfortunately, I played the physical version, which apparently has much longer load times than storing the digital version on the Switch's internal storage, and the elevators/teleporters between regions always felt like a pain to use because of how long the loads are. I don't think I've ever played another Metroidvania with such long load times (SotN has some loads, but it's more a lot of short load times then the long ones Dread has). I can imagine playing this on a faster Switch 2 in a few years (or on an emulator now) would be more pleasant in this regard. Finally, it's kind of surprising how few powers you end up using at the end. Some remain useful throughout and are cool, but there's a good chunk of powers that serve only to gate your progress. There are way too many missiles and beams, IMO. Some of them have cool effects, but some basically do nothing. I found the game to be a bit dull at times early on, and getting boring powerups didn't help with that.

But that's about it for the negatives! There are very cool powerups in here too, and it's extremely fun to use the good ones. Classic ones like the Morph Ball feel better than ever here. Getting it and using it to explore might've been the most joyful part of the game. Some of the new ones like the Flash Shift were great too. I kind of wish there had been more new ones, though. I think just about every power from Super Metroid is in this game.

The game looks gorgeous. I was kinda astonished by how good it looks, really. The cutscenes are great, the weapon/item effects are cool, the environments look nice, etc. And the combat is very good. Probably the biggest obstacle in the combat is how complicated the controls are - you end up using just about every button on the controller, and several powers require you to hold buttons to use them. I wish there'd been a way to swap to missiles instead of holding R to use them. Still, I got used to it eventually, and it was never that big a deal. Some bosses can be a little frustrating, but in a good way - I always felt like I was getting better at them as I fought them and died a lot. The last boss was fantastic. I checked out a speedrun recently too, and all the tricks you can do to make them faster are amazing. The biggest surprise was how entertaining the story parts are. There are some legitimate good twists in here, and it enhanced the experience a lot, which I can't really say for the other Metroid games.

Overall, I've played some more fun Metroidvanias here and there, but this is the best one I played it 2021. It's a lot of fun, and it's one of the best Metroids, IMO (would rank Super above it for sure, not certain about Prime 3 and AM2R, but I prefer it to the rest). I had pretty low expectations of this for various reasons, so I'm glad it surpassed them.

Next game hint: almost every game in the top 10 has robots in it. Coincidence?

wait what

Dread turned me away early in the demo with how "on rails" EMMI makes it feel, but if it gets that good later maybe I'll stick it out.

There were some small story gripes I had too the opening sequence of events made no sense to me, though maybe that's intentional and it's sorted out later, and I thought the game trying to sell EMMI as being too dangerous felt undercut when you almost immediately destroy one but I wouldn't call them dealbreakers.

Haha, it's not like it has a deep story or anything, but I found the cutscenes to be a lot of fun.

It's definitely a game that gets better as it goes along, though.

Dread gets better, but it never really feels great in my opinion. I too had issues with exploration and how weirdly on rails it feels. I think the game in general has issues with progression: It feels like Samus plays the same the entire time (until the screw attack, which basically just eliminates all challenge in the combat except for the final boss).

I care a lot more about movement abilities than combat abilities, so I don't mind the relative lack of combat evolution, though even there there is some (using Power Bombs and Storm Missiles on bosses in particular). Being able to Shinespark bosses is ultra cool too, though I only did it like once.

Flash Shift was a completely incredible combat evolution - one of the best in the series, I'd argue. I also agree that stuff like Storm Missiles, Ice Missiles, etc continuously change how you interact with enemies consistently enough, even if the way Samus "feels" is relatively consistent.

9. Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart (2021) - PS5

Ranking this was kinda tough. It's an all around great game, and the best Ratchet I've played (the other ones I played are the original trilogy). It's mostly real smooth, and the setpieces are awesome. Shooting and platforming are all fun, and it feels real polished. I especially liked the big open level and the first one where you're teleporting between dimensions trying to figure out what disaster happened. But by the end, I was a little tired of it? There are some frustrating things, like how you'll instantly die if you jump on a platform you're not supposed to jump to - or even a platform you are supposed to jump to, but not from this angle. The story was cool I thought, and the game was real pretty too. All that said, I dunno if I'd be excited for another game. It's crazy how similar it is to the originals, without a ton of new gameplay elements. I haven't played a ton of these, so I didn't mind, but something new and exciting would've been more, well, exciting. That said, it's hard to beat consistency. There aren't much for low points, and it's nice to have a game that's fun the whole way through without any major weaknesses.

Next game hint: it's neat what camera angles can do to add to a game.

Near replican't

Bad hint, all of these games have at least one camera angle

8. Nier Replicant 1.5 (2021) - PS4

With camera angles, I am of course talking about the ability to look up Kaine's skirt and see her dick while playing as her (she kills you, the player, when you do this). When this game is great it's really great. Just about everything in the second half of route A feels excellent, as does a lot of the first half. The story parts of B/C/D/E are wonderful too. The gameplay can be excellent at times, mainly whenever it's doing something weird. The text adventure stuff is fantastic, and I love whenever the game shifts perspective or whatever. Good characters too, and the music is better than ever. I think this might have the best soundtrack of any game I've played? The visual and combat upgrades are also nice.

The only real flaw to me is the pointless repetition and going back and forth for some quests. I don't mind it that much in route B, but C (and even E) kinda suck in that regard. It definitely brings the game's quality down for me. I think the game would've been much better if you didn't have to play it again for route C, especially since it only has one exclusive scene before the ending, which the remake added. The remake also makes replaying the game a bit more annoying, due to adding a fairly long mandatory section of the game. It's a great section, but playing it three times was not so great.

Next game hint: exploring history sure is fun.

The Lost World

It Takes Two ia the only game based on real events

7. Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker (2021) - PC

A very good expansion, though I wasn't quite as high on it as Heavensward or Shadowbringers. One of the best parts of it is how there's basically always something interesting going on. I took some time off work and played it most of the day for almost a week straight, but I never really got tired of it and always wanted to know what's next. It's always exciting to get to a new area, and some of those areas are full of incredible stuff. The gameplay's pretty refined by this point, so it generally feels good to play, with the exception of some escort mission gimmicks they decided to add. The main highlight, though, as is usually with FFXIV, is the story. It was advertised as bringing the original saga of XIV to an end, and achieves that in a pretty spectacular way. The best sequence involves discovering what happened in the early days of the planet. I don't like some of the story decisions they make, and don't think the villains are particularly good here, but the game's great at setting up big impactful/emotional moments. Here's hoping they manage to figure out something new and exciting for the next expansion too.

Next game hint: It's about time.

It Takes Two [o'clock]

Predix fail