This was just a busy year for me. Between the projects I was on at work or having a new kid at home, finding time to really power through games was not that easy this year. However, within that there were still some absolute highlights that I can point at as must plays.
Game Ramblings #190 – Dave the Diver
I know this isn’t an indie game and I know it came out a long time ago, but it’s the closest thing to an “indie” experience that I’d totally recommend this year. This one surprised me a lot in how well it blended an arcade-style sushi shop experience with surprisingly fun scuba diving segments into a game that I didn’t expect to enjoy as much as I did, much less actually complete it and play it for a couple dozen hours.
Game Ramblings #183 – Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown
This was easily my Metroidvania of the year. This was the perfect mix of traversal and melee combat that allows the genre to work so well for me. Retraversing old areas was never a chore due to new shortcuts making things shorter and abilities opening new paths. Combat felt appropriately challenging but not unfair. Unfortunately it seems like the studio hasn’t made the cut at Ubisoft after its sales numbers came in, but hopefully we’ll see more things out of those folks wherever they end up because this was a winner.
Game Ramblings #195 – The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom
Look, it’s just fun to spawn a horde of crows to attack your enemies while you run in circles avoiding damage. This both is and is not a top-down Zelda game, but it just works. This being good wasn’t necessarily a surprise but it being maybe one of the best games I played this year certainly was. This is easily up there with the Oracle games in quality for on the go Zelda.
Game Ramblings #185 – Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
Game Ramblings #184 – Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name
These were my stand out RPGs of the year, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that they’re both action focused. I’ve increasingly become less willing to sit around and grind in turn-based RPGs because to me it feels like they’ve increasingly become unnecessarily long. Both of these games don’t give me that feeling, and that’s with FF7 Rebirth still being a very long game. Modern action gameplay just continues to be more fun over time than a lot of turn-based combat setups even against similar levels of variety and I don’t doubt that that will continue.
In this year’s case, Gaiden is a return to the Yakuza series action combat that also just had incredibly good flow. FF7 Rebirth was an iteration on the gameplay of Remake. Neither were perfect games, but they were both ones that I wanted to continue when I finished, rather than being games that I was glad were over.
Game Ramblings #194 – Astro Bot
I’m probably lying if I say that this wasn’t my game of the year, or at least if there is a better game from last year I simply haven’t gotten around to playing it yet. This game just had such a great mix of platformer flow, nostalgia kicks, fun moments, and impressive level design. Could it have been a bit more difficult? Sure, probably. Could it have had more levels that were fully themed around games rather than one at the end of each group? Sure, probably. However, that would just be me nitpicking. This is one that I can point to from this year and go “when you get the system, play this first” and I think that’s the only one I can say that about on this list, so by that measure it should simply be game of the year for me.