Board 8 > Para's Top 50 games from 2020-2021

(+) Yeah! (+)

Yeah Petal Crash plays nothing like PDP, even though I did make that obvious comparison. It's a totally new idea.

bumpo

Covid has made me an absolute husk of a person this past week, I've recovered from the illness mostly but I have a lingering cough that's affecting my sleep and I've just been tired all day. I'm gonna try to work on this more, sorry that I fell completely off the wagon on a writing project again, the brain fog is really killing me here.

I am promising to myself that I will finish this list before the end of September. So, I'm back! I'm feeling better! Let's get this done! Back on the wagon!

#14: Ynglet

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/9/2/AAA-H0AADqZc.jpg

There's a cool little museum called the Museum of Pop Culture, or MoPOP for short, that sits in Seattle Center right in the shadow of the Space Needle. It originally opened as the Experience Music Project a couple of decades ago, as a popular music-focused (especially Seattle-related acts like Jimi Hendrix and Nirvana) museum that featured an interactive section where you can fuck around with digital instruments - that still exists, but they've branched out since, now also hosting a pretty good collection of movie props from genre-fiction movies of the last 50 years or so. They also have a giant, three story tall sculpture made up of like 300 guitars. It's a pretty chill little museum.

One of the other exhibits that's become a semi-permanent fixture is the Indie Game Revolution, a showcase of... well, indie games. It's basically just a room full of PCs showcasing indie games that you can play. It's pretty cool and weird to see these games in a public art exhibition like this; this is how I first discovered Night in the Woods, actually, and I know I've seen stuff like Minit and Inside there recently as well. Actually, there's a whole list right here:

https://www.mopop.org//exhibitions-plus-events/exhibitions/indie-game-revolution/

A mix of stuff I have and have not heard of. I think the exhibit is kinda missing something, though, which is that most of the games don't actually work very well in this format. A lot of these games are very much meant to be played sequentially, starting at the beginning, with the game gradually teaching you mechanics and revealing the world bit by bit, or telling a story in a linear fashion. So, when you roll up to a PC that just has one of these games loaded up, you can't really jump into playing it that effectively, which means you can't really understand it or appreciate it, which means it completely fails as an art exhibit, and it doesn't even really work as an effective advertisement. The only games that seem to really work are the crowd-pleaser multiplier games that they put up on one of the big TVs in the back. But can you really appreciate Night in the Woods in any meaningful way from fiddling around with it for 30 seconds in the middle of the game? You can go 'oh, the art looks neat' but that's about it.

In my opinion, the exhibit needs a better focus on interactivity; stuff you can actually play and get a feel for within moments of picking up the controller. If I were going to build an exhibit like this, I would want to showcase games that display a dazzling world of art and sound, that you can pick up and immediately interact with with the touch of a button. I would start with Ynglet.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/9/3/AAA-H0AADqZd.jpg

Ynglet is a sort of platformer-without-platforms, in which you play as a strange, fish-like microscopic organism. You swim around in bubbles and have to hop from bubble to bubble, gravity affecting you on a 2D platforming plane as you leave the water, eventually gaining the ability to launch yourself in midair, bouncing off and piercing through obstacles. As a platformer, it's extremely well polished; the controls feel smooth and launching yourself into the air feels satisfying. Unlike the many infinideath platformers out there, this one is very forgiving, allowing you to create a checkpoint anywhere safe, so you're able to play around a bit and launch yourself through the air as you please, and it feels extremely satisfying to bounce off of stuff and use those bounces to redirect yourself into another mid-air launch, hopping from one wall to the next, moving through levels by catapulting yourself rather than conventional movement.

But the audio-visual world is the real selling point here; the reason I want to put this game into an art exhibit, which is where it should be. Ynglet is a game that I consider to be truly immersive in the way that immersion means to me. I think that most people, when they think of an 'immersive' game, imagine something that's so close to real life that the line between the two blur, and being within the game world feels as if you're experiencing something real. That can be a powerful experience, for sure, but Ynglet offers something else; a completely unique visual and aural world that completely draws you in and surrounds you, enveloping you to the point that the real world is forgotten, no distractions separating you from submerging yourself entirely into this other world.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/9/4/AAA-H0AADqZe.jpg

Right from the get-go, Ynglet looks like no other game I've ever played. Shapes and colors draw themselves into existence and sprawl out in every direction, glowing and pulsing and expanding and breaking apart, always in motion. Everything is something to look at. Every still frame looks like a modernist painting, but when animated it becomes truly mesmerizing. I can't take my eyes off of Ynglet. It's just so damn pleasing to look at; it really reminds me of how much visual appeal does actually matter in a video game. As a piece of visual art alone, Ynglet demands to be seen.

Ynglet's secret weapon is its music, though. It doesn't really have music, so much as it has a sort of sound world that unfolds around it. Actions taken and visual elements on screen get accompanied by electronic sounds that kind of fade into existence and gradually build a sort of musical tapestry. I really love abstract, sort of avant-garde soundscapes like this, and the way Ynglet's sort of reacts to the world around it is so subtle, but I greatly appreciate it. It really adds to the immersive feeling of this world, that the music always feels alive, created out of the game itself rather than a looping music track.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/9/5/AAA-H0AADqZf.jpg

This game started out good, but got really incredible at the first 'dark' level; when the background goes dark and the colors all light up in neon and the soundscape comes in with these jazz drums. I was already into the game before that point, but once I got there I was just blown away. Totally jaw-dropping. I was just completely sucked into the game for a short time there where I forgot I existed in real life for a bit and just kinda... experienced the game for a bit.

Problem is, the experience is pretty short lived - you can probably 100% this game in one sitting, shouldn't take more than 2 hours max, even including the bonus levels. You can play the game on the bizarre 'reverse' mode which inverts the colors and mirrors all of the levels vertically, but that only adds so much more. It seems like a really good game for speedrunning, but I didn't get into it. So I played it for a couple hours and then I was done - I probably have less playtime in this game than anything else on the list.

But damn, if it wasn't a great two hours. Ynglet's a work of art that really demands to be experienced. It's in the Ukraine bundle so you probably already own it. I urge you to check it out - it's gorgeous and extremely playable and I promise it won't be a waste of your time. Please give it the full attention it deserves and play it in full screen, with the lights off if possible.

Next up: One of my wildest dreams for a particular game finally comes true after 20 years of hoping they'd do it someday.

I had Ynglet on my Steam wishlist for a long time and then I finally got it in the Ukraine bundle. But then I had problems with the controls. Do most people play it with a controller or keyboard? Neither way felt comfortable for me.

Next game: Possibly the reason why I started tracking this topic?

I played it with a controller and it felt fantastic to me, I never had an issue with the controls, not sure what was different about your experience.

Ynglet seems neat. I'll have to give it a try.

Paratroopa1 posted...

Next up: One of my wildest dreams for a particular game finally comes true after 20 years of hoping they'd do it someday.

Gotta be Metroid Dread... I think.

I'm trying to post a new entry and GameFAQs just isn't letting me do it. I'll try again after I wake up.

In honor of the announcement on the Nintendo Direct two days ago...

#13: Mario Party Superstars

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/9/1/4/AAA-H0AADrVK.jpg

Oh my god, they finally did it. They made the definitive Mario Party. And it's online! I never dreamed they would actually figure out how to do this. But they did! Man, Switch-era Nintendo is just built different.

I've been playing Mario Party games for a dumbass long time, and I don't really know why. The first Mario Party sucked, but it was hella addictive for some reason. The embarrassing thing is, I didn't even really have that many people to play with. I played with my mom a lot, because the two of us just played a lot of video games together, and on very rare occasions I'd convince a group of friends to play it, but I did a lot of Mario Partying solo. Which is, frankly, a sort of sad experience. It's like drinking alone. Even as a kid I felt slightly ashamed of it, playing these hellishly random board games with AI opponents who cannot be my friends and don't even feel schadenfreude when I get fucked over by chance time. But for some reason it's still kinda fun? Mario Party is just colorful and exciting and most of the minigames are really fun and the N64 games had a lot of stuff to unlock so they kept me pretty busy.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/9/1/5/AAA-H0AADrVL.jpg

I loved the first three Mario Parties and I got a ton of playtime out of 4 as well, but by the time I got to 5 I kinda started to feel like the series wasn't growing in a positive direction. MP5's gimmick was to have these weird capsules that you had to put on the board in lieu of items, and they just weren't very fun - in theory the idea of modifying the board should be fun but it never felt like it amounted to much and they weren't as fun to use as items. I didn't play 6 or 7. 8 just wasn't as fun as it could have been - the Wiimote wasn't always applied in the most fun ways and the board designs didn't allow for a lot of strategy, as far as I recall. Then 9 and 10 just went in a lame direction with the whole 'everyone's in a car' idea. Didn't play 9, but 10 is just one of the worst games I've ever played. The outcome of the game just feels incredibly arbitrary, even moreso than usual, and it makes the whole thing a chore.

Super Mario Party was a pretty good return to form, though. Not a huge fan of 1-6 dice blocks and smaller boards, but it's a defensible choice. I liked the huge roster and the character-specific dice blocks, although a lot of them didn't amount to very much. Felt like the minigames were back to being pretty good. Thinking back on it, I didn't have it in my top 100 list of the past decade, and I've only just now realized as I'm writing this that I completely forgot it this whole time. Oops! It should've been on there. SMP was good.

But ah, Mario Party Superstars. It feels like they finally figured out the winning formula here. We're back to the standard Mario Party formula established in MP3-MP4; 1-10 dice blocks, 3 items, nice big boards to traverse. And it just... works. MP3 and MP4 had already gotten pretty close, in my opinion, but MPS really figures it all out - balancing the item prices, giving you plenty of money to work with, and fine tuning the boards so that it really feels like you actually have some say in the matter. It feels polished. It feels right.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/9/1/6/AAA-H0AADrVM.jpg

It's funny to see a Mario Party game go with the whole nostalgic throwback remake idea, since I didn't really figure that there'd be a ton of N64 Mario Party nostalgia, but since people seem pretty happy about the games being announced for NSO this week, I guess there was enough demand for it. There is something kind of comforting about these familiar boards and minigames, after so many Mario Parties that just weren't that good - it feels like they're just dialing it back to what worked. I like hearing all these familiar tunes that I didn't realize I remembered, and I like seeing the little screenshots of the N64 game when they describe the boards. It kinda tickles my late-90's nostalgia brain.

But oh man, it's so much more polished. I'm really pleased with the minigames they chose and how they decided to touch them up a bit. Of course, they still managed to find a way to include some stinkers - the damn Piranha Plant skateboarding game that the skateboarder always wins, for instance. If I could add one feature to this game, it would be the ability to curate the minigame list, because there's a few games that I wouldn't keep in there if I had the choice. But it's not *too* bad, because overall by drawing on mostly the best games from past games, I feel like this is overall one of the best minigame lists in the series.

And of course, the online play. They added it to Super Mario Party in a free update recently, which I think led people to speculate there'd be online in an upcoming Mario Party, and so there was. This is what I've really been waiting for since the early 2000's. I couldn't play with friends very often, so I dreamed of the ability to play Mario Party online - after all, there's so many nerds out there like me who stupidly binged these games solo who also need friends to play with! But, alas. It took a long time for Nintendo to even figure out the whole 'online play' concept at all, and even by the time they started they didn't include Mario Party in their plans. Maybe they thought that online play in such a longform game wasn't feasible, or maybe they just thought it wasn't worth developing, but it's been maddening waiting for it.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/9/1/7/AAA-H0AADrVN.jpg

But thank god they've finally come around on online play, and it turns out it fucking slaps! It's as fun to play this game with friends as I had always hoped it would be - no more AI who can easily be exploited in minigames and who feels nothing when they screw you over and never ragequits. Online play always seems really stable to me and it plays great. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention stickers - whoever came up with those is a fucking genius. Every single emote you can spam on screen is solid gold in its own way and the memes that organically spawn from it make the online experience really come alive.

So yeah, the wait was worth it! Mario Party Superstars is just about as good as I could ask for. Playing it with friends online is a blast and makes it easily the best Mario Party to date. I really, really wish this game had more than five boards. All of the boards we got are fun - I'm really partial to Yoshi's Island and its bifurcated map where you have to pick the right side, it feels like there's so many fun tactics you can pull off there - but five boards just isn't enough, especially when there's so many more boards from the old games you could draw from. I feel like if this game had another 5 boards, to make it 10, that would be perfect. That would be just about the most perfect Mario Party. As it is, it's really close, and it almost pains me to not rank it higher, but it IS just Mario Party. Even drinking with friends is something that should only be done in moderation.

Next up: I WILL talk about this game again in the future, but I'm going to talk about it now anyway.

there, that time it just allowed me to post it without an issue

I haven't played a Mario Party since 3. My only experience with the others was watching the Pokecapn LP several years back where they played a round of every Mario Party, and they seemed increasingly more unfun to play.

Yeah I'm really hoping for a free update for more boards at some point. I'll even take it as DLC/Expansion pack.

i actually never even knew this game existed. so it's... a remake? a greatest hits collection of repolished versions of all the best minigames from the past, up to the n64 era?

Dels posted...

i actually never even knew this game existed. so it's... a remake? a greatest hits collection of repolished versions of all the best minigames from the past, up to the n64 era?

Yeah, it's a game that has remade versions of MP1-MP3 boards, and remade versions of MP1-MP5 (6?) minigames, while also going back to mechanics closest to MP3 but a little polished up.

that does sound really good

The last two Mario Parties really have been bangers. I think I like SMP more than Superstars but it's close, and I haven't played the latter as much so my feelings might change.

I don't understand the love for MP4 though. Even as a kid I didn't like that one!

I didn't like 4 either (when it came out I liked it less than all of the previous three), but I think it gets lumped in with 1-3 because it was the last one that used the "traditional" formula. 5 replaced the items with capsules and they kept changing more and more things from there.

I liked MP4 as a kid but I haven't played it in years, maybe I'd like it less now, no idea. I think it was fine?

4 has maybe the best collection of mini-games in the series but among the worst boards, because the Mini/Mega Mushroom gimmick sucked.

The only GameCube one I really like is 6, which I think is actually the second best in the series after 3. MPS comes in a solid 3rd - I love everything about it except that I think the coin economy is way out of hand.

SMP is an abomination and I don't understand how anyone enjoys it at all, tbh.

Yeah, the coin economy is probably a little TOO much in MPS, so the balance isn't quite there. I think it's better than the N64 games though where non-minigame winners don't really have much of a chance.

NBIceman posted...

4 has maybe the best collection of mini-games in the series but among the worst boards, because the Mini/Mega Mushroom gimmick sucked.

Yeah, I kinda agree with this. 5 is the opposite -- bad minigames, but I like the boards and the capsule system a lot more.

I didn't hate the mini/mega mushroom gimmick that much, I don't think.

Also in honor of recent announcements:

#12: Deltarune Chapter 2

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/4/1/AAA-H0AADrb1.jpg

I, as well as the rest of the entire world, was caught completely off guard by the shadow release of Deltarune Chapter 1 in 2018. The notion that the mysteriously named SURVEY_PROGRAM could possibly be an hours-long peek into Undertale's sequel wasn't something that really even crossed my mind when I started playing it, and I didn't know what to make of it at the end. It was great, almost enough content to make for a full game in its own right, but I didn't really know what to do with it for my game of the decade ranking. Was this just a demo, with the full game to come sometime in the 20's? Was it going to be episodic? At the time, I figured I would just wait and talk about it in the "Games of the 20's" ranking, but it's clearly going to be a little while longer, as it turned out to be episodic. I think with that list, I wanted a more definitive ranking that didn't include things like episodes or early access, but with this ranking, I'm just ranking all the game experiences I had the past couple of years, so I'm more open to talking about episodic things. And I think that Deltarune Chapter 2, much like 1, is worth talking about in its own right.

Like the phenomenon of Undertale before it, each episodic release of Deltarune is a weird little gift from Toby Fox that shows up once every three years. As games, they're charming enough on their own, of course, but what's really interesting to me about them is how big of a cultural event they are. The moment they spring up, everyone in all of my circles and all over the places I frequent on the internet has also played it, and a whole new set of characters and memes are born into our collective consciousness. You wake up one day, and BAM suddenly Spamton and Kris Get The Banana are things we have now.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/4/2/AAA-H0AADrb2.jpg

Chapter 2 dropped sometime in late 2021, around the time I had almost started to forget that Deltarune was a thing. I've been pretty patient and the wait is rewarding; it's exciting to go on new adventures with old friends like this. The whole cast of this game is great and it's comforting to see them all again for another few hours. I think there's a great deal of benefit to waiting all this time; I feel like I've only grown fonder of these characters over time and there's something strangely nostalgic about having to have waited 3 years for an update.

All in all, it's a damn good update. I was a little worried after the injury and the burnout that he was suffering, but Toby hasn't lost a step at all. All of the new characters and dialog and wacky events are as good as the first episode, each one a strange little gift to get to unwrap. These games never get old because of their pacing; nothing ever goes on for too long to get boring, there's always some kind of new surprise just around the corner. Here, you meet a new villain, then suddenly you're playing a Punch-Out game against her, then you're running around in a cyberworld, riding some teacups, fighting some boombox guys, driving cars, meeting some kind of weird salesperson gremlin, playing a weird strategy game in a tunnel of love ride on a river of acid, that kind of thing. It's all great. I love this stupid game.

I love the cast. Susie and Ralsei are so great that it makes playing Undertale with no party members feel strangely empty. My wish of getting more Noelle in this chapter came true; I didn't wish for more Berdly but I'm glad we also got more of him. The Queen comes in with a sort of energy that Toby Fox just KNOWS is gonna land, and he's absolutely right. Spamton is the weirdest fucking character in any of these games yet and he's perfect, somehow. All of the bit characters are great. Cute, fun characters are the fastest way to win my heart and Deltarune delivers.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/4/3/AAA-H0AADrb3.jpg

It's also great to see this game continue to build on the improved battle system that this game sports. While Undertale feels largely like a sort of RPG-themed bullet hell game, Deltarune has more of an actual RPG skeleton to it and I think that does make the game more entertaining in a lot of ways. There's a little bit of actual tactical meat to the fights, and the bosses, especially the 'secret' boss, are really great in this chapter. It's pretty easy, but just challenging enough to be fun, which is right where I want the difficulty curve of this game to be. It shouldn't be super hard; just a fun romp that occasionally makes me feel like i kick ass.

I feel like I'm at a loss to say much more about it. I just love these damn things so much. Undertale was one of my favorite games of the last decade because of its humor and its charm and its warmth and its incredibly clever deconstructions and subversions. Deltarune, so far, has hit all of the same notes, and some of the 'secret' stuff in this chapter, as well as its ending, promises some more crazy shit in the future. I don't know if this game will ever be as good as Undertale, but Undertale itself didn't become a true masterpiece for me until its final act, and we haven't gotten there with Deltarune yet, so who knows? It's really hard to catch lightning in a bottle twice, and part of what made Undertale so great was its novelty. Deltarune can never be the first game to do what it does like Undertale did, and I think Toby Fox knows that, so I'm excited to see how he tries to top himself. I don't want to get into spoiler tags today, but I think Chapter 2 showed just a little bit of how he might do that, and I'm excited.

I await future updates for this game patiently but excitedly. We just got a little update about the game the other day, and it sounds like things are progressing smoothly; I bet I'll be talking about the next few chapters the next time I decide to do one of these lists, and I'll be interested to see where the full game lands once it's time for me to sum up my Games of the 20's (which is gonna be a hella stacked list if 2020-2021 is any indicator). Can't wait to see what the next weird little gift that Toby Fox gives us is like.

Next up: The OLDEST game on my list. It's older than 2015. There is a close-but-incorrect answer that I think someone might give if they try to guess what this is.

Well, the first Great Ace Attorney game came out in 2015, so it's not that.

#11: Phantasy Star Universe (Clementine server)

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/4/0/2/AAA-H0AADrsa.jpg

One of the things that ties this list together is that nearly every game on this list came out or was popularized during what we all know of as the pandemic era. Covid times have been rough. In addition to being stuck in our homes and dealing with being sick or afraid of getting sick, we've had to endure a lot of loss; loss of family and friends and friends-of-friends, local businesses shuttering, a lot of our ways of life changing in ways that we don't know if we'll ever get back. But there have been glimmers of hope here and there; during a time of all this loss, occasionally a small miracle occurs, and something is revived and comes back to us under the unlikeliest of circumstances, reminding me that it is still possible for good things to survive and flourish even in the most trying of times.

I'm talking about the Boston's Pizza on Main Street in Mill Creek, WA.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/4/0/3/AAA-H0AADrsb.jpg

This place had some kind of ownership problems in 2019, and lacking an owner, it shuttered indefinitely, with no word of when it would return. This was before covid, so restaurants shutting down hadn't really become a commonplace event yet. This was just across the street from where the bookstore closed down because the rent was too high to justify keeping it open, so for a while, this prime location in the middle of a lively and affluent town center has been a dead zone. I wasn't really too sad about it. It's not like it was my favorite place to eat - it's mostly just that they're really close to my house and very convenient. They have a lot of different options and it's really easy to get takeout there that satisfies everyone. Having it be shuttered was kind of a bummer. Then covid hit, and I figured the place was gone for good. It was a hard time for restaurants. One that was already dead wasn't just going to come back in the middle of our strictest period of lockdowns.

And then, one day... it just came back. A small, mundane miracle. In 2020, it was back. Boston's was open for business again. By the way, I know some western Canadians are gonna be mad at me. I know it's called Boston Pizza up there. It's the same chain here, but the US-based resturants are called Boston's Pizza, with the apostrophe-s. I don't really know why, okay? Maybe some kind of trademark issue? Maybe they thought the Boston name too strongly implied that it was actually from Boston? I mean, it still does, so I don't know. But it's called Boston's here. And it's nice to have it back. I mean, it's still literally only the third-best pizza place within a block - both Brooklyn Bros and Zeek's are fantastic and completely kick the shit out of Boston's. But, hey! Really, I'm just impressed that they were able to bring it back at all, and it's nice to be able to go there for old time's sake.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/4/0/4/AAA-H0AADrsc.jpg

Phantasy Star Universe came out in 2006, and in many ways, I consider it to be the real sequel to Phantasy Star Online, despite the existence of Phantasy Star Online 2. I actually haven't played PSO2 much, by the way - it could have been on this list, since it debuted in the US in early 2020, but I played it a bit and it wasn't to my tastes. I was immediately turned off by all of the constant reminders of ways I could sink money into the game, and the offputting feeling that I was a second class citizen as long as I wasn't doing that. It also just felt like the game was already too big and complex from its eight years of having been going in Japan, and I couldn't get into it. The servers were a problem too - I already had multiple people playing on different servers and there's no cross-server play so I couldn't play with each of them easily. All that and plus, I just kind of heard that PSO2 wasn't very good? So I passed on it. There's my PSO2 review. There's also PSO2 New Genesis, which I ALSO could have placed on this list, but I just haven't gotten around to it. I heard there isn't a lot of content in the game yet - maybe one day there will be? I'll get around to it someday, I guess. I don't know why I haven't yet. So that's not on the list either.

Phantasy Star Universe, on the other hand, for me, is sort of like the Star Trek Voyager of the PSO series. It didn't quite live up to the original game, for me, for a lot of reasons... but now that I've seen what the future holds, I can kinda go back to it and realized that I judged it too harshly. It's still truly PSO, through and through, and I do love it, in spite of some annoying level gating and repetitive content (it's not like PSO doesn't have that problem as well). Getting together a friend or two and going on missions to slash through enemies and find cool gear never gets old. Phantasy Star Universe is smooth, stylish, and just a lot of fun - for me, this series has always been the premier online RPG, over other instanced RPGs like Diablo and MMORPGs like WoW.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/4/0/5/AAA-H0AADrsd.jpg

PSU originally came out in 2006, and I really enjoyed it a lot at the time. It was big, and grand, and exciting, and new. This was in that peculiar post-WoW boom period of the late 2000's where online RPGs were all the rage, and a ton of people were playing this one, since PSO still had a lot of cultural cache and I guess aside from FFXI this was the big online RPG for weebs. For at least a year or two it pretty well absorbed my life. I'd log on, play with my friend and grind a bunch of quests, watch all my numbers get higher. Eventually, I moved on from the game, my attention span not able to continue handling the game in perpetuity, but I did miss it a little bit once I had moved on. But eventually, I wouldn't get my chance to come back to it. In 2010, the north american servers shut down, and the game was over. All online games do have to shut down someday, and the playerbase was dwindling, but it still felt far too early. There wasn't even a PSO2 to replace it yet. But, unless it was WoW, the online RPG craze was starting to die off, and PSU was a casualty. So that was that - a sad farewell to a great online game that only had a few years to flourish.

And then, one day... it just came back. A small, mundane miracle. In 2020, it was back.

I had forgotten about the game for quite a long time now; I haven't played any online RPGs in a really long time, as I just really don't have the attention span for them anymore. I'm not sure how I ever did! They're time-consuming and I have other shit I want to do sometimes. The game had been absent for ten long years, and aside from thinking about whether or not I wanted to include it in my top 100 games list and getting a few pings of nostalgia thinking about it, I didn't think about the game much. In fact, it was going to be hard to even include it on such a list, because I had started to forget what the game was even like. Ten years is a long time for a game to be completely dead.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/4/0/6/AAA-H0AADrse.jpg

Little did I know that there was a team of dedicated devs who had been working on a project to revive the game on a private server for many years now, and that project would finally come to fruition as the Clementine private server. A torch that I thought had flickered out long ago was being carried by someone all this time, and now it was burning again. So now's my chance to make up for my guilt at not having played the game more in the past when I had the chance. Something I thought I'd lost was suddenly back in my life.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/4/0/8/AAA-H0AADrsg.jpg

My friend Donald and I, who I'd played the game with so much 15 years ago, picked it back up together and I kinda realized how much I missed this game all of a sudden. Like I said, it may be the Voyager of the PSO series, not quite able to live up to its predecessor, but it's still pretty damn good, and it feels every bit like PSO. Despite the fact that PSO2 does exist, PSU just kinda has a 'they don't make 'em like this anymore' quality to it. No endless microtransactions, just a good ol' action RPG to sink a bunch more hundreds of hours of my time into. And I hadn't done this in a while. It really felt nostalgic to be able to go back.

The amount of work that the Clementine team had to do to put this thing together is staggering; I truly did not realize how many obstacles there were in the way of setting up a private server for this game. Basically, although PSU did have an offline campaign that you could (and still can) play, all of the game's netcode, any features that relied on online functionality, as well as a great deal of features, text, AI, etc - they're gone, forever. Perhaps stored deep within Sega's vaults somewhere, but who even knows; it's likely lost for good.

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So the Clementine team had to remake a lot of the game basically from scratch. All of the environments and models are still there, thankfully, and the code for a lot of the game's basic functions were retained offline, but they spent years patching everything else together. Netcode had to be rebuilt from scratch and a lot of the game's online functionalities had to be re-engineered. Even some things like boss fights had to be reprogrammed. The models for them existed, but they would just sit there and do nothing; the AI that handled their combat routines was server-side. So they had to watch old videos of the game and try to piece together how they thought the boss was supposed to work basically from scratch to make the game work again. Absolutely mindboggling shit; it is completely insane that they were able to put in the work and actually get this game running again at all.

And yet, the game doesn't feel like it's held together by stitches at all; it feels like PSU just like I remember it, with only a couple of seams occasionally visible (some of the text is still in japanese and a lot of it is broken, and there's a few bugs around that are hard for them to fix, but they're mostly minor). It's really a blast from the past, and it's such a wonderful gift to have received from this talented team of preservation artists. Game preservation like this is a really big deal to me, and I'm extraordinarily grateful that there are people out there putting the time into doing stuff like this.

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It's not as lively as it was in the past, but there's seemingly still a surprisingly dedicated fanbase to the game, and it doesn't feel dead at all. The Clementine team have done their job trying to keep the game active and fun, keeping up a schedule of holiday-based events and even adding some new missions and items of their own where they can to keep the game feeling as alive as it was back in 2006, and it's heartwarming to see so many people gathered together in a lobby during an event. It's a weird feeling; PSU is in many ways a very dead game. The updates that the Clementine team can do to it are limited, and the game is well past its heyday - wandering around the game's city areas, you won't see a lot of people hanging around like you used to, giving the game a sort of 'liminal space' feeling to it.

But it feels good. It doesn't feel like a zombie of a game, resurrected from the dead as a shambling husk. It feels like PSU, now, is finally free. Free in the literal sense, of course, because you no longer have to pay for it, which is a huge benefit compared to its contemporary in PSO2. But free in the metaphorical sense as well; it's been given a comfortable afterlife where it can continue to be enjoyed by those of us who still hold a candle for this 2000's-era online RPG that most people have likely long forgotten about. I don't know how long it'll stick around. Probably not forever, but certainly longer than 5 years, I bet. I'll probably continue to be playing it for a little while longer; I've already gotten some 300 or so hours into Clementine-era PSU, and it somehow still feels as fresh as ever in an era that has largely eschewed this sort of game.

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I knew I wanted to rank this game on my list directly somewhere, because I've put so much time into it, and it's been one of my favorite gaming experiences of 2020-2021. Honestly I could have probably ranked it as high as #3 or 4, but I decided to kick it down to #11 and keep the top ten all new games. It feels weird to rank a 2006 game on this list, but it really did feel like a new experience in a lot of ways, and I wanted to really highlight what the Clementine team has done here in reviving this game from the dead. A herculean preservation project like this deserves more than just a honorable mention.

It's really good to have it back.

Next up: I have some honorable mentions I want to do before I do the top 10, so I'm gonna do those! There's a few games that fell short of making the list because I had some issues with them, as well as a few games that were weird and cool but didn't quite belong. I'll do those next.

pso2 and ngs are fun you just have to figure out the menuing and make a conscious decision about how tryhard you want to be. you can ignore 70% of the systems in base and still have fun for a while, and NGS has enough content for a while, just not enough content for a full-ass MMO yet

Here's a quick list of games that I went into really wanting to/expecting to like that just didn't quite pan out and ended up missing the cut for this list. They'd probably be the next five games on the list - all have redeeming qualities but none of them were quite good enough for me to be excited about.

5 Games that were disappointing, but still had enough going for them that they were worth talking about:

Metroid Dread

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People keep guessing that this will show up on my list, so let me help you out here. My last draft before my final list had this game at like #46 or #47, but I realized I didn't really have a lot of good things to say about it, and after I added one more game in the 11th hour it was the last game to slip off the list. Look, I really wanted to love Metroid Dread, and I still sort of hope that I'm wrong about the game somehow, but I didn't see what everyone saw in it. The positives: Samus feels great to control and has a really cool suite of abilities, and I'm sure that this game is a really interesting speedgame - I haven't seen any speedruns of it, but I think I'm mostly happy this game exists just to add to the legacy of Metroid speedrunning.

But as a casual game, I found it far too annoying. I found the level design terrible. There's almost always only one path the game wants you to take, and if you try to stray from it you just keep finding extremely contrived dead ends everywhere, the devs' invisible hand trying to keep you away but without effectively guiding you where you need to go, so you can easily wander into a redunant area and get stuck without good pathways leading you back to the correct route. You don't even find a lot of upgrades for exploring! It just has way too much Metroid Fusion in it. Combine that with some really repetitive boss fights and boring environments, and this wasn't the Metroid revival I was hoping for, sorry. I really wanted to like it - I still want more Metroid games, so I'm glad that this one was well received.

Wildermyth

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This game got a lot of hype - Polygon put it as their #8 game of the year - so I had high hopes for it. It's... very close to being a good game, but it's just not quite there for me. I like the idea of a procedurally generated tabletop-ish RPG adventure where you control a party of characters, but there isn't enough depth in the abilities, items, or game mechanics in general to keep this one fresh as every character you build feels kinda the game and battles are also pretty samey. The webcomic-style story interludes have a cute style, but the stories themselves are entirely unmemorable bog-standard D&D plots with characters who only have one type of personality (snarky). There is a lot of content here, and I appreciate all of the settings and modes, and I think it might be fun to play with another person online. It's not a terrible game, but I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to get excited over, either. This did almost make my list as the #49 game but it got dropped, which I'm relieved about because I'd strain a bit to say good things about it. Not a waste of my time, probably my fave of the games in this section, but not the #8 game of 2021.

Loop Hero

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This game was recommended to me by like four different people independently and sadly, they were all wrong. I wasn't expecting them to be! In theory, this should be another roguelikey thing that should've been right up my alley. I already kinda did my venty piece about this one a while back, but long story short, this game can't decide if it wants to be an idle game or not. For a game where you just let your hero go around in a loop and autobattle things, there's way too much constant micromanaging you have to do, constantly putting down tiles and managing item, but it's all really boring micromanagement as the actual choices you get don't feel like they matter all that much. I hate scanning all the equipment that piles up in your inventory looking for the best marginal improvements, and I don't have a lot of fun placing down tiles when upgrades feel mostly arbitrary and marginal. It feels like there should be a lot more tactics involved with where you put tiles, but it mostly just doesn't matter that much.

The game starts simple, and I kept expecting it to get more complex, but it never really does, it's just kinda what you see is what you get. Cool artstyle and premise and all that, but the game just isn't fun. It badly fails the "50 hour" test for roguelikes, where it fails to continue to be interesting long before reaching that point, and honestly I don't even think it stayed interesting past 5 hours - it was already starting to how its limitations at that point.

Coffee Talk

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I have not yet played VA-11 Hall-A, a game I've heard is supposed to be quite good! I own it, so I'll get around to it at some point. I like the idea of mixing drinks and talking to people and experiencing a story that way - the only problem is that I don't drink and I hate bars, so the theming is decidedly not aimed at me. But a coffee shop in a fantasy Seattle? That's right up my alley! I love the setting and the overall vibe of this game, set in an alternate-universe Seattle where werewolves and elves and shit exist, but the rest of this game was disappointing.

The story's about as dry as it gets; characters come into your coffee shop, you make coffee for them, and then they have mundane problems that are eventually resolved by the end of the story. I feel like the writers took 'write what you know' a bit too much to heart; the main character who visits your coffee shop is a writer who's trying to write a novel, but is struggling to write it, and she comes in struggling to write every day until she eventually writes it. It's a bit on the nose. A solid 3/4 of the cast is like this; artistic professionals trying to advance their career and running into problems. The only characters whose arc I thought had some real barbs were the star-crossed elf/succubus lovers whose family doesn't accept them; the rest, not terribly interesting.

The writing's just not very engaging either. Like, there's one particularly weird part of the story where someone claiming to be an alien in a spacesuit shows up and asks for dating advice, and ends up getting on another characters' nerves until they start helping them. See, I think a good writer would use this opportunity to tell us about the other character through the advice they give; I'd have them give (probably bad) advice that reveals insecurities they have or past troubles they've had in their own dating life, and not actually make it about the alien at all. Instead, the script basically turns into a wikihow for actual dating advice - ask her what she likes, offer to buy her a drink, etc - and it's just dull and humorless. The game runs into this problem frequently where it just doesn't quite know how to express its characters' personalities in interesting ways or advance their stories in ways that aren't just them directly telling you what's going on.

It's a shame, because like I said, I do love the vibe of this game, but it kinda spins its wheels and never goes anywhere, aside from an absolutely baffling 11th hour twist that makes no sense and makes my head hurt just thinking about it. Ah well. I'd say the script is a 'good first try', and I do hope they can build upon it in the future.

Transiruby

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I feel kinda bad picking on this game in this section since it's a lesser known one than the others, but this is a cute little pixel-art Metroidvania that I decided to pick up one day after reading a good review of it, and it was kinda lackluster. I liked the art and the music a lot and the simplicity of the game's design and controls were appealing, but it ended up being a little too simple; I think we're past the days where getting a double jump halfway through the game is your most exciting upgrade. The level design feels way too linear for a Metroidvania and I eventually got lost and couldn't even complete the game because I'm not sure what exact point I need to go next that I'm missing. Felt a little bit let down by this one and I was expecting a bit more from the first 30 minutes or so, so here it goes into the rants section. I really wanted to plumb the depths of some obscure indies to put together a good list here and this was one of the casualties where it didn't work out.

No screenshots for these because I'm too lazy. This is a list of games that I started playing a little bit of (probably about an hour for each) but then kinda dropped for one reason or another, that I think MIGHT be good enough to make the list, but I didn't get far enough to evaluate them - but I played them long enough that they didn't go on the "didn't play" list either. So they ended up in this limbo here.

6 Games that I started playing, but bounced off of, but they seemed kind of interesting so I might return to them:

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX

Ahhh, good old misery dungeon. I've never been quite sure if the original one for GBA/DS was actually fun, or if I just enjoyed it because it had super cute art and characters and great music and stuff. I'm a sucker for all that! I like the new, revamped art style in this one - it's a lot more unique looking than the generic stuff that Pokemon usually puts out now - but I couldn't really get too far into the game itself without feeling a little bored. Maybe I'll come back to it sometime though just because I'm kinda in love with the world and stuff.

Noita

Holy crap, I am absolutely garbage at Noita. I think the game might have made my top 50 if not for the fact that I'm just irredeemably bad at it - I played it for an hour and can't do much more than like accidentally blow myself up. I do love the randomly generated maps, and it seems like there's so many different weapons and abilities to collect here, which really seems super cool, but this game is HARD and I wish I was better at it or could just kind of play around in it a bit more.

Omori

I'd heard a lot of good things about Omori so I gave it a go. Anything that can be described as Earthbound-like isn't necessarily my thing, but hey, that includes stuff like Undertale, so you never know. I'm not sure what I think of it after an hour. The whole setting feels like it follows some kind of dream logic that I'm not initiated into, and the cast is either too boring to care about or too silly to take seriously. It's certainly creative, but it's not really landing for me. And I find the creepypasta horror elements to be really trite and overdone - ooooh, you have to open a menu and stab yourself with a knife, how edgy! That stuff's not landing at all. But! The combat system seems refreshingly creative and interesting, and the game seems to be always trying to do new things, and it seems like it could get really interesting even if I found a lot of aspects of the game stupid. I don't know, should I keep going? What do people think of this game?

Lenna's Inception

Again with the trite creepypasta horror stuff! I hate it unless it's set up and done extremely well (hi, Undertale). Other than that, this seems like a kind of interesting proc-gen Zelda-like that I enjoyed for about an hour before setting it aside and not remembering to go back to it. Maybe I will? It seems kind of fun although I wasn't immediately hooked, but I am kind of interested in where it's going. (I'm 8-bit style all the way, by the way.)

Head AS Code

I always feel like I'm like kind of obligated to at least look into any game that's kind of like Zero Escape or its ilk, so this obvious Zero Escape knockoff is kind of interesting. I don't mind so much that the art's not great, I can tell it's a passion project and I can kind of respect that. What I can't respect is that the main character of this game is the most obnoxious asshole that I think has ever been written in a piece of fiction before, which did turn me off. But I might be tempted to go back to it sometime, it just didn't hook me right away.

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity

I gave it a try, despite the fact that I've never played a Dynasty Warriors game before, and the fact that that style of gameplay couldn't be less appealing to me. Unfortunately, I was right that the gameplay is still not appealing to me - I'm just not interested in this type of 3D action game at all! I really tried. I hoped the BotW setting would make me want to get into it more, and it kind of does - I sorta forgot how much I love BotW that the characters and even stuff like the sound effects just immediately put me in a good mood. I dunno if I'll go back to this one mainly because the performance on my system was extremely bad - is it just a Switch Lite thing or is it this bad on all consoles? Oh well. If I don't get back to it, at least Tears of the Kingdom is coming pretty soon. Look for that on the 2022-2023 list!

I was let down by Metroid Dread too, though I think for mostly different reasons than you. I thought it was an "OK" janky 2D action game but there was absolutely nothing there for me as a Metroid fan. I found the controls and combat to be really bad (though marked improvements on Samus Returns, which was borderline unplayable for me). The level design was off the charts awful, both to look at and to play, at least until I accepted that I'd just let it funnel me wherever and never try to leave the beaten path or backtrack for any reason. Also, cut the EMMI stealth sections from the game entirely please, those were meritless. I did like the boss fights (until they would spring a cutscene QTE on you -- is this 2005??) and the plot was, uh, enjoyable to mock I guess. Would be a little impressed if this was a new franchise from a one man team or something, but frankly I'm more likely to pick up Other M 2 than another Metroid from this dev.

All four other games you found disappointing are games I've considered buying multiple times, so that's a bit worrying! The characters' mundane problems in Coffee Talk sound fine to me, but you're not making the writing itself sound interesting enough to support it. VAL-HALL-A or whatever is probably more my speed anyway since I'm more a bar than coffee shop person, and I'll probably try Transiruby at some point as mediocre Metroidvanias are almost all I play right now.

I'd encourage giving Lenna's Inception another shot! Without spoiling it, I don't remember any real creepypasta stuff in that game. Yeah there's glitches intruding on the game world but it's part of the gameplay and story, not used for creepiness really. Undertale neutral route would be a good comparison I think, where it can be subversive but it's not really trying to scare you. Also you can get a librarian as your familiar, which rules.

now that we get most of the real Mystery Dungeon games (Shiren 5 Switch port would be on my version of this list) its really hard to go back to the Pokmon ones made for eight year olds. Too easy for twenty or thirty hours before you unlock the actually interesting dungeons

Also mostly unrelated to any particular game youve mentioned aside from roguelikes in general but I wonder if youve ever looked at Caves of Qud

Re: Omori, I think it's worth going through for a few more hours. I think there's this big expectation after Undertale for all of the "quirky Earthbound inspired depression RPG's" to be these constantly subversive and clever works, and Omori is a bit more sincere and straightforward than a lot of its contemporaries. Stuff like STAB YOURSELF WITH THE KNIFE seem like they should be big moments the game is looking to get a reaction out of you for being EDGY and SO DEEP, but I find those contribute more to a whole than being particularly shocking in and of itself (definitely thought it was overly edgy the first time I played, as well). The game shows its hand at how it's gonna progress after you clear the first major area (the space-themed one), and I think that's the point where you can probably get a more definitive grasp on whether you vibe with Omori's storytelling. Because it's going for a particular theme, and I think it tells a story with that theme in a very nice, if somewhat "webcomic" if that makes any sense for writing style, way. Don't think it's something that'll resonate with everyone, but I found it pleasant enough and there were a few moments that I really loved and made me value the game pretty highly. Like, low Top 100 for me, probably.

And nah, Age of Calamity chugs no matter what Switch you're playing it on. It can run at a smooth framerate... just not on any version of the Switch, ever.

WazzupGenius00 posted...

Also mostly unrelated to any particular game youve mentioned aside from roguelikes in general but I wonder if youve ever looked at Caves of Qud

I did! I ranked it #100 in my 10's list, despite the fact that I only played it for like an hour because I found it to be the most wildly impenetrable game I've ever played. Holy shit I have absolutely no idea what's going on in Caves of Qud but it's really cool whatever it is.

Finally, just one more quick list. There were a few games I played that are too stupid to actually put on the list but I feel like belonged somewhere, so here is the list for that.

7 Games that are too weird and stupid to actually include in my list but I felt like mentioning them for some reason anyway:

West Hunt

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One of my favorite games of the last decade, and of all time, is a 1v1 deduction game called SpyParty, in which one player tries to hide among a party of AI-controlled guests while secretly completing missions under the watchful eye of a sniper trying to kill them. I try to evangelize this game when I can (despite its issues - it hasn't seen updates in a long while and I have unresolved problems with the community), but it hasn't got a lot of traction due to it still being in early access and being a sort of niche game to begin with. But the idea is popular, and it was popular enough to spawn knockoffs! And the most hilarious knockoff is West Hunt.

This game became a little bit of a meme in the SpyParty community for a bit because it's pretty much a direct ripoff but also sort of ridiculous. One player plays as a random person in a small, western-themed town, and has to commit various nefarious deeds while avoiding the eye of the sheriff, the other player who's wandering around and looking for this outlaw. These evil acts include poisoning the water supply, setting up a bomb at the train station, stealing from the local stores, uh... grieving the loss of a loved one, and um... dancing? Yeah, I don't know either, but doing a fun dance and crying over someone's grave are two of the possible missions. Very suspicious. Very nefarious, indeed.

The game's not very good - it's very much wish.com SpyParty in every way. But it's kinda silly and fun for what it is and I had some fun playing it when there were some limited playtests of the game this past year. It doesn't nearly have the same strategic acumen that SpyParty has, mostly the sheriff just has to kind of walk around and try to see which people have been to the most places and shoot someone. It's not terribly interesting, but it gave me some laughs. I think the game saw a full release in 2022, but I don't think I'll be going back to this one.

God Damn The Garden

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At some point in 2022, I really started to make it my mission to play AS MANY games from 2020-2021 as I possibly could, and I really scoured the deepest, stupidest corners of the internet looking for interesting stuff to play. The fact that I actually purchased God Damn the Garden and played it represents my jumping-the-shark moment, the point at which I had officially lost the plot and realized I needed to stop buying and playing stupid games. I had a problem, I admitted to myself that I had a problem, and I stopped. I finalized my list soon after and began posting it.

God Damn the Garden is basically a total shitpost of a FPS. It's about an hour long, it has some of the worst lolrandom humor I've ever seen, and I have absolutely no idea why I played it. The fuck up thing is, I kind of enjoyed it anyway. It's weird as hell. I decided to buy it just because the environment and the music was so damn weird. It's a stupid game, but the dark, jungly environment in this game is actually kinda creepy and cool, and the music is some kind of bizarre outsider art. So I... sort of liked it? Why the fuck am I even talking about this game? Christ. I just really needed to show you guys how far off the deep end I went here.

Landlord of the Woods

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Another game that I found on steam for a dollar. It cost a dollar! I mean, for god's sake, there are so many games that I won't play for free, but paying a dollar for a game, that's value! Unlike God Damn the Garden, which is stupid, this game is actually cool, even if it's only about half an hour long. It's kind of a point-and-click adventure-slash-physics puzzle game-thing, and it has a super rad artstyle that I would really love to see in a bigger, more ambitious project - I hope this dev continues to make stuff because I think they really have potential. The game's cute, it has a quirky sense of humor and an entertaining ending, and it doesn't overstay its welcome. I couldn't really put it in my top 50 because it's such a tiny little bite of a game - barely anything at all - but I got my dollar's worth just for the cool art alone.

Pikmin Bloom

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Hey, remember that really boring looking mobile app that Shigeru Miyamoto was talking about in the Nintendo Direct before the much more important announcement of Pikmin 4? I play that! And as it turns out, Pikmin Bloom has been around since 2021, so it qualifies for this list. Barely. Because it's kinda barely a game. They took Pokemon Go and went, well, what if this had less gameplay? And that's how you get Pikmin Bloom.

That said, I actually sort of prefer that in a way. It's basically just a way to gamify a pedometer and give some incentive to taking walks outside, and I'm actually way into that. Pokemon Go was sort of fun for the same reason, but while it was fun to walk around and try to find Pokemon outside, it kind of ended up feeling like too much of a distraction, and I ended up not caring at all about the actual monster raising and battling aspects of the game and such - I really wanted JUST the part where it's kinda fun to walk around and find stuff. Pikmin Bloom boils it down to those elements - you make Pikmin, you walk around with them and plant flowers, you walk more steps to grow more Pikmin, you send Pikmin to collect items you find around the world. That's kind of it, but for what it is, it's a cute little app - it functions nicely as a pedometer to keep track of how much you've walked and where. This is something I can use, because I like to do a lot of walking - I actually just completed my goal of walking a mile every single day for an entire year, which I'm really proud of (before getting covid and breaking the streak).

My family is really big into the game right now too and it's cool to get them walking outside more to raise their Pikmin. We actually did a community day at the zoo recently, they had reps there who were handing out Pikmin hats, there were a surprising number of people there at the zoo playing the game, it was pretty fun. Not exactly the killer Pikmin app that anyone's hoping for, but Pikmin 4 is coming out now, which makes Miyamoto's Pikmin Bloom presentation seem a lot less embarrassing.

I can't really use it much, because my phone is kinda old and this game takes a while to load and DESTROYS my battery, unfortunately. And as someone who occasionally suffers from some kind of chronic depression, I don't desperately need the game asking me if I had a good day or not when recapping the events - thanks, Pikmin Bloom, it probably wasn't, thanks for asking. And also, please, *please* do not import photos into the game without my permission, I am begging you. But aside from all that, it's fun! I'd probably use it more often if my phone could handle it.

Game & Watch: The Legend of Zelda

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Dude, I love this thing so much, what the hell. This awesome little device was made for me. Zelda 1, Zelda 2, AND the original black-and-white release of Link's Awakening all in one cute little Game & Watch themed collectible? The three best classic Zeldas altogether, yes I know what I said? Perfection. Yeah, sure, can I play all of these games on emulator, or on like a dozen other consoles? Yes! Of course I can. Well, not the original Link's Awakening - that's actually never been rereleased before, and since the original LA is such a big part of my life, having it get rereleased was really the selling point for me here (LADX is fine, but it's not the version of the game I grew up with).

But, I dunno, this thing is just so damn cool, okay? You can even play the Japanese version of all three games, which is also really interesting since the Japanese versions of Zelda 1 and Zelda 2 are actually quite a bit different. It also comes with a little Zelda-themed G&W game, and a weirdly cool clock feature where you can watch Link run around by himself doing stuff in Zelda 1. There's also a timer feature which also doubles as a sort of time attack minigame for Zelda 2 where you have to defeat as many monsters as you can before time is up, and since I'm someone who actually likes Zelda 2, this is fun for me. Am I ever actually going to use this thing as a timer? No! But it's fun as hell and I miss the days when they made dumb little toys like this. Remember Game Boy Camera, or Super Mario Bros Deluxe? That's the kind of spirit that's being tapped into here that I really love.

I think you're supposed to just respectably display this device on your shelf or something but fuck that, I've actually put like 15 hours into this thing just playing the games on it, because I can never get enough of Z1/Z2/LA. Obviously, I'm not going to rank this in my actual top 50, but I'm in love with this fucking thing and it needed to be on a list somewhere.

Together BnB

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/5/1/AAA-H0AADsVz.jpg

Okay, I didn't actually PLAY this game, but I laughed so hard at it and enjoyed it so much that I feel like I did, and I feel like I need to give it an honorable mention of some sort. Slowbeef and Diabetus of Retsupurae did a stream of this game and it really brought me back to the old days of Retsupurae, because this game feels like a bad kickstarter project come to life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTfDlLCz8xo

Slowbeef did a review of this game in his GOTY list in which he pitched it as "A completely inept dating sim that includes the entire feature set of Unreal Engine 4 for no good reason", and that basically sums it up. It's supposed to be a shitty dating sim set in an asset-flipped house but you can also just go outside, get in your car, drive to a grocery store that's more well stocked than most actual grocery stores, or just go into the woods and shoot some wolves and collect pelts for some reason. It's absurd, it's incredibly glitchy, the voice acting is comically awful, there is so much going on here, and it really deserves to be one of the great meme games out there. I want to see more let's plays of this fucking thing.

Dragon Drop

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/5/2/AAA-H0AADsV0.jpg

I played a lot of random games from the Ukraine Bundle, most of which I don't really feel the need to mention here; the one I liked most was probably Co-open, a game with really cute bird people in which you're a cute bird on your very first trip to a convenience store by yourself, but I didn't have a lot to say about it except "I walked around, talked to some cute bird people, then accidentally fell through part of the world that was still loading and fell through the map". So I guess this list is really 8 games. Sue me.

Anyway, another game I played for five minutes was Dragon Drop, a little local multiplayer thing that's still in alpha. It's a sort of Bomberman-ish premise, where you have cute little dragons and you try to make the floor fall out from other peoples' dragons. I don't have anyone to play it with, and it's not very fun against the AI, but the game isn't really that important here. What's important is that on the results screen, you can make your little dragons run around, and if they touch each other, THEY KISS. YOU CAN MAKE THE DRAGONS SMOOCH. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

No seriously that's all I had to say about Dragon Drop. You can make the dragons kiss. I wish every multiplayer game was this unafraid of showing intimacy with your opponents after a match.

Paratroopa1 posted...

Together BnB

oh my god, someone on B8 actually played thi-

Paratroopa1 posted...

Okay, I didn't actually PLAY this game, but I laughed so hard at it and enjoyed it so much that I feel like I did

My disappointment is immeasurable and may day is ruined.

(going through an LP of it sounds fun too tho)

Also, MORE GAMES I DIDN'T PLAY IN 2020-2021 BUT I WISH I DID

There were some games I forgot to mention the first time around, and since then I've also learned of some other games I didn't play, partly thanks to your guys's suggestions, so I'm doing one more quick pass of these just to cover ALL of my bases. By the time we get down to the top 10 here I'm going to have named nearly every game released in the last two years so I'm pretty sure you can figure out which 10 games it is nearly by process of elimination.

Psychonauts 2

I have the original Psychonauts in my Steam library but I've never played it! I'll get around to it. I did, at one time in my life, really enjoy a good 3D collectathon platformer, and I could see myself enjoying Psychonauts 2, but it's not something that was really on my radar.

Deathloop

I do play FPSes SOMETIMES and this one does have a cool premise. I'm not sure how much I would really enjoy it, but I might! Stranger things have happened. I mean, you know I'm good for a nice time loop game. (Not 12 Minutes though - I think I'm glad I avoided that one.)

Unpacking

This looks cute. It also looks kinda short, and I'm not sure I would really get enough out of it to be worth the asking price, so I skipped it. But it does look cute.

Phasmophobia

I actually kinda really want to play this one! I just got turned off by it because I wasn't sure if I would have others to play WITH, and playing with randos would be no good - I'd want to have other people who are about as inexperienced as I am to play with and that's kind of tricky to get a group of people for. But this game looks hella fun.

Shantae and the Seven Sirens

It's a Shantae game. I admit that despite not being the most compelling Metroidvanias ever made I do kind of have a soft spot for them, mainly due to Jake Kaufman's impeccable soundtracks. I feel like I kinda know what I'm in for with this one though.

Fuga: Melodies of Steel

I had to include this one on the list because I randomly discovered it the other day and was like, what the hell? Did you guys know that PS1 cult classic Tail Concerto is actually part of a franchise, and this turn-based tactics RPG is one of them? This got good reviews so I'm actually kinda interested in checking it out, and I'm just fascinated by the fact that I have NEVER heard of this game before or ever seen anyone talk about it. Anyone have a good word to put in for this one?

Griftlands
Roguebook
Banners of Ruin
Quantum Protocol
Vault of the Void

Oh my god, there's so fucking many deckbuilders now! HELP!

Record of Lodoss War -Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth-

Incredibly stupid name, but really cool looking Metroidvania? I'm highly tempted to check this one out just on the visual style alone. I have no idea what property this game is based on but it doesn't really matter.

Mini Motorways

Okay, honest to god, I wanted to play this game, but I got it confused with the older Mini Metro and thought it wasn't a 2020-2021 game so I passed on it. WHOOPS. It looks fun.

Chicken Police - Paint It RED!

I have no idea what this furry noir nightmare is supposed to be but I kind of want to play it.

Grime

Another Metroidvania someone in this topic guessed at one point, I think. Looks cool, hadn't heard of it, didn't play.

Cozy Grove

Looks cozy. Decided not to get into it since I was worried it would be kind of a timesink.

ElecHead

Neat-looking puzzle game that I just didn't get around to, mainly because I heard it was 'just alright'.

At Dead of Night

I threw this one on my Steam wishlist one day because holy shit, did you know TIM FOLLIN wrote music for this? Yes, THAT Tim Follin! He's still around and he wrote music for a HORROR game for some reason. I'm sort of fascinated by this, and the game has good reviews, so... maybe? Not that I feel the need to carefully follow every game in Tim Follin's career, because I mean, look at them. But it's kinda interesting that he came out of retirement for this.

For the record, my top 10 of games breaks down like this:

1 game that I have essentially already admitted is on the list
5 games that are deadass obvious to guess if you know even the SLIGHTEST thing about me
3 games that should not be too hard to figure out if you just fill in the gaps with semi-popular games that have strangely gone unmentioned until now
1 game that I'm pretty sure NOBODY here has ever heard of, so look forward to that!

Next up: Remember that time I said there was exactly one western AAA title on this list? Here it is! It's the only one!

MacArrowny posted...

oh my god, someone on B8 actually played thi-

My disappointment is immeasurable and may day is ruined.

(going through an LP of it sounds fun too tho)

I mean I do sort of want to play it just for the laughs but I don't really want to pay for it

Guardians of the Galaxy? Not sure what else fits.

And yeah, I wouldn't buy it either, haha.

Wait I didn't know that Link's Awakening was on there :o

I maintain that the Zelda Game & Watch should have included the actual Zelda Game & Watch game that was made in 1989. It was a two-screen affair so the hardware would have needed to be different, but when else are they ever gonna be able to re-release that thing?

oh yeah people who've played it do tend to think Fuga was pretty good. The one thing I know about it besides what you've already mentioned is that there is a giant cannon that you can load child soldiers into after which they are permanently removed from your team

Paratroopa1 posted...

Incredibly stupid name, but really cool looking Metroidvania? I'm highly tempted to check this one out just on the visual style alone. I have no idea what property this game is based on but it doesn't really matter.

Record of Lodoss War is an anime based on some novels based on some guy's DnD campaign

I wasn't familiar with any of it so the plot of the game was a lil lost on me. It's a solid metroidvania, but unfortunately kinda short and forgettable.

WazzupGenius00 posted...

oh yeah people who've played it do tend to think Fuga was pretty good. The one thing I know about it besides what you've already mentioned is that there is a giant cannon that you can load child soldiers into after which they are permanently removed from your team

Awesome

God Damn The Garden & Landlord of the Woods look so cool.

Out of curiosity, you trying Metal Hellsinger? Not a roguelike, but it is a rhythm FPS. Curious what you'd think of it compared to BPM.

Yeah I saw it, I might take a look. Honestly, my list of 2022 games I want to play is so absurdly stacked that I don't know how I'll afford them/have the time to get to them all.