It’s that time once more, for us to reflect on the year and think about how we can do better in the year to come. Obviously, I don’t need to tell anyone reading this that 2020 hasn’t been great, but that doesn’t mean good games didn’t come out. Pickings are slightly slimmer than they would be in a normal year. And yet, what did come out was generally strong on its own merits.
As a reminder, just because a game doesn’t show up on this list doesn’t mean it’s bad. It’s possible that either I missed it or that it didn’t leave a strong enough impression on me to talk about. So without further ado, and presented in a random order, my highlights of 2020 are:
Hades
Although I go out of my way to list these in a random order, I am grateful the RNG put this at the top of the list because it would absolutely be my Game of the Year if I did such a thing. I’ve played on stream a few times now and I would be happy to do it more.
I’ve mentioned it in last year’s highlights piece, but since this was the year the game was both completed and brought to the masses with a full release, it’s more than appropriate to bring it up again here. It’s been a treat to see all of the memes and fan art as people fall in love with these characters I’ve adored for over a year now.
In terms of roguelikes, Hades has done a lot to improve both the on-boarding process, with God Mode and the way it chooses to account for the inherent randomness to the genre, meaning the players who ordinarily wouldn’t take to it have a good chance of still having a fun time. Additionally, the developers go out of their way to make it so that players look forward to their next death because they’ll advance either the main story or some side plot afterward.
So if you haven’t already, go play Hades.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons
It is almost impossible to discuss the new Animal Crossing game, and my first AC ever, without going into the environment it was released. The experience of going into lockdown could not have been better for its odds of success.
For better and for worse, New Horizons defined the early quarantine period for myself and almost every other person who owned a Switch. While the world was going to hell around us, and we all had to discover our new “normals”, or what it meant to exist amidst a pandemic, we could take about an hour everyday checking in with our friends at our island home. I fondly remember talking to Coach about his fitness routine or asking Wolfgang about the book he was reading on the bench next to my flower beds.
And later in the game, I had a blast connecting with my friends using it in a moment where physical connection was no longer possible. Just visiting their islands, seeing how they’ve adorned their spaces, and chilling with them virtually was good enough for me. Then, we started sharing decorating tips, giving each other our spare crafting recipes, and compared the ever-present turnip prices to try to maximize profits.
It was exactly what I personally needed to help deal with the encroaching anxiety during these difficult times. I may not have returned to my island home since the end of the summer months, but I still think fondly of the succor my fellow villagers provided for me back then.
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2
This was another comfort food game for me in 2020. As a child, the neighborhood kids and I would get together and, using the cheat codes to turn off bailing and gain unlimited balance, play around in the levels to see what we could discover. Then, we would spend hours creating our own skate parks to see what we could pull together.
The remake of 1 and 2 brought me back to those childhood memories. It was smart of the development team to bring in a lot of the additions from later games, like reverts and manuals, into this updated version because Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 doesn’t feel the way it's PlayStation brethren did, but rather the way my friends and I remembered it. And for me specifically, having all of those old codes available from the first as training/accessibility option allowed me to play the way I wanted to, exactly as I did with my friends in the day. In a year defined by misery and uncertainty, there was value in going back to those nostalgic memories of a bygone era.
Spider-man: Miles Morales
It’s safe to say at this point that Miles Morales is the best thing to happen to Spider-man canon in the past decade. While I have nothing against Peter Parker, it feels great to follow a character who isn’t a white guy in his 20s. Even better is seeing how those differences inform Miles and his ability to don the Spider-man persona. Those who watched Into the Spiderverse will be familiar with the idea, but it’s still a tale worth telling all the same.
I also have a fondness for a particular scene where a character looks at Miles and says “For the longest time, I’ve had a Spider-man looking out for New Your City, but this is the first time I’ve had a Spider-man looking out for me”. I remember getting choked up as I listened to that because it’s easy to forget the importance of representation. Miles is a good kid and as I kept going I couldn’t help but root for him, and the family and friends who stand beside him.
There was also something refreshing about having a GTA-style open-world game that only took 20-25 hours to fully complete. As my time grows more in-demand with every passing day, even in quarantimes, I’ve grown to appreciate games that don’t overstay their welcome.
Yakuza: Like a Dragon
Having spent the last two years getting fully caught up on the story of the Yakuza franchise, it was only natural that I took interest in the latest installment of Sega’s long-running “out Shenmue-ing Shenmue” series.
The twist this time around is that rather than stick to the tried-and-true brawler gameplay that the franchise has been using since its inception, this time around the format is a good ol’-fashioned turn-based JRPG. Even stranger is that it’s a surprisingly good one of those, especially if you happen to be a fan of Dragon Quest or older Final Fantasy games.
It also helps that the main cast are some of the most relatable protagonists I’ve ever seen in the genre. Ichiban Kasuga and his merry band all struggle to keep afloat in a cold and uncaring world, but never lose their passion and joy for life. Especially this time of year, I felt my heart bleed for this man who had to pick himself up after being left homeless and abandoned by everyone he knew.
I’m also endlessly amused by the wordplay inherent to the English version of the game’s title. For those in the know, it’s a well-constructed double entendre referencing both the franchise’s Japanese game and the fact that the main character is a huge Dragon Quest fan. It’s honestly amazing that what started as an April Fool’s Joke evolved into this fully fleshed out and endearing RPG adventure.
Legends of Runeterra
People who have followed me for a while know that I began playing Legends of Runeterra as it came out in open beta, and later full release, this year. To that end, the game succeeds on two very crucial axes.
First, the act of playing an individual match, either against another player or the AI. Mechanically, it combines some of the strongest aspects of Hearthstone, including the consistent build-up of mana as rounds pass and the use of effects that could only be accomplished in a digital card game, with some of the strongest aspects of Magic: The Gathering, specifically the flexibility in deck building and combat which forces the defender to make tough decisions and weigh their options carefully lest they’re taken by surprise with enemy assaults.
More importantly than that, is the economy surrounding it. I do not believe I have ever seen a more generous collectible card game, digital or otherwise, than this. Without exaggeration, just by completing daily quests and collecting the rewards for them, most players can build to a top tier competitive deck in less than 2 weeks of semi-regular play. Currently, I’m swimming in so many spare shards and wildcards despite taking a few weeks off to play other games, that every time I have the inkling to test out a new deck I can just build it with in-game currency, not spending a single time of my real money.
Not to say it doesn’t have ways to make money, because I’ve certainly purchased emotes, card backs and boards to play on, but that seems to be the way they intend players to invest: In the cosmetics aspects rather than the actual game pieces. And to be honest, I think that’s the more consumer-friendly way to go when it comes to this genre.
Riot may have had its share of controversies, but I can’t deny that they did right by the player base when they set up Legends of Runeterra.
Final Fantasy 7: Remake
This was another nostalgia game for me. Though I waited until the early 2000s to play Final Fantasy 7, it remains a very formative experience for my gaming canon. Even after the announcement of this game on the Sony stage back in E3 2015, I didn’t actually believe I would live to see this game get remade on modern technology. There are few times I am happy to be wrong, and this is one of them.
I knew that the team responsible for heading up the project were the right people for the job right after I got my hands on the playable demo for the game a month before it was released. This wasn’t the brooding, perpetually depressed Cloud that had become disastrously commonplace in supplemental media and cameo appearances. This was the Cloud I remembered: An idiot tryhard who wants so badly to convince everyone around him that he’s tough shit.
Nor was this the demure, pure maiden Aerith that other writers insisted on. This was the worldly version of Aerith that, though one of the kindest people you’ll ever know, had sass and personality. This was the Aerith who reacted to a ladder crumbling as she hurried to climb up by exclaiming “Shit!” while Cloud rushed to catch her. The Aerith who took a folding chair to a mafia goon’s head like a pro wrestler, smiling as it made contact and knocked him out cold. These were the characters I grew up with.
To top it off, out of all the attempts Square-Enix has ever made to blend turn-based ATB systems with real-time action-oriented combat, this was by far its most successful iteration. No matter how many battles I fought, I was always eager to enter the fray just one more time against another group of enemies. There’s a high degree of skill in the systems at play such that mastering can bring what was once a 30-minute boss fight down to a short 5-minute encounter.
And with the additions made to the story, I am eager to see what they’ll do in the next part of this new FF7 remake series.
Ghost of Tsushima
I wasn’t sure whether or not I would play Ghosts of Tsushima right up until reviews had come out for it, mostly because up until then I wasn’t sure what kind of game it was. As it turns out, it was an Ubisoft-style open would game that came out at a time when I was looking for a good one of those that wasn’t made by Ubisoft.
And were that everything, that might have honestly been enough, but there’s a solid story about one samurai’s ultimatum to stay true to his moral code and die, or otherwise adapt to a changing battlefield and thrive. It’s neither a historically accurate or original concept, but the performances are solid and the executive of it left me satisfied as credits rolled.
It’s a junk food game, but it’s a tasty junk food game that I was glad to consume.
The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope
After streaming Man of Medan with Acharky last year, it was only natural that we would do the same with the next feature of The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope.
We were not disappointed. Little Hope improves upon the core gameplay of its predecessors, including Until Dawn, by giving players a warning before a QTE comes up so that they aren’t ambushed by a random event while they’re watching the story unfold. That extra couple of seconds is crucial, especially for players who have poor reaction times.
Additionally, both Chris and I were blindsided by the plot twist at the end. Fortunately, it wasn’t one of the bad ones like in Heavy Rain. If we were paying close attention, we would have seen the foreshadowing and been able to figure it out, we just didn’t because we were otherwise too engrossed in the experience of making sure our crew survived the night to make the connections.
If you need a good horror game, especially to play with friends, I would gladly recommend this.
Resident Evil 3
After playing the Resident Evil 2 remake on stream last year, how could I possibly ignore the follow-up?
I don’t know if there was ever a moment where I felt truly scared playing Resident Evil 3, but I nonetheless had a spectacular time with the game. Jill is an excellent protagonist because even when the odds are against her, you as a player always feel like she has the ability to fend for herself. She’s far from powerless, and her improvisational skills are second-to-none. Carlos was also a lovable meathead that I couldn’t help but root for as he did his best to support the girl he was obviously crushing on.
While the story won’t win any awards anytime soon, I’m still awestruck by how capable the RE Engine proves itself to be time and time again. Not only are the character models and environments packed with detail, but I never had any major technical issues and it ran well on my PS4.
Capcom has been producing a lot of great games lately, and they deserve to be applauded for it.
Murder by Numbers
This game takes the award for “cheeriest way to say ‘murder’s never far away’” thanks to its opening theme song.
In all seriousness, I’m always looking for a good mystery game, and when I saw this game randomly pop up in the Nintendo eShop I was intrigued enough to give it a shot. What I found was a quirky little gem about protagonist Honor Mizrahi’s journey from professional actress to amateur sleuth by way of hilariously implausible circumstances and a robot friend with a penchant for finding clues.
While the story takes the form of a visual novel, most of the gameplay involves solving puzzles to identify new items and evidence that the cast will use to solve problems and draw conclusions about the murder cases they’ve been unceremoniously thrust into.
It also came out at a good time for me, since lockdown had only just begun and I was in dire need of something to do while I waited for bigger tentpole titles to come out and occupy my time.
13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim
I can’t seem to get enough of Vanillaware’s hand-drawn sprite art or their bizarre obsession with food and dining, and 13 Sentinels certainly has both of those in spades. And if you’re a fan of their previous work, you know they also have a tendency to use multiple protagonists to explore the same story from different perspectives, culminating in a total picture stronger than the sum of its parts.
In order to avoid spoilers, I’ll not go into too many details here. Yet where The Dark Picture Anthology: Little Hope blew my mind a single time towards the end, this game serves up twist after twist, each time completely recontextualizing everything I thought I knew about the world and the people inside of it. Despite this, every detail remains internally consistent, and each world-shattering revelation brought the gears in my head closer and closer to perfect alignment until I began to understand the true extent of the mysteries at play.
The RTS mode, where the cast of 13 characters teams up to defeat kaiju in giant mech battles is surprisingly fun. Admittedly, it’s on the easier side, but it is immensely satisfying to see a whole swarm of killer robots felled by a railgun or anti-aircraft fire. The total package here feels like it shouldn’t work, but it does and I’m glad I made time to pour the 35 hours or so necessary to see it through to its conclusion.
Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time
After playing through all of the games in the original Crash trilogy, and Crash Team Racing, for your amusement on my streams, and what feels like hundreds of times over the years, nobody should be surprised to discover I loved the first new Crash game since…
*checks note*
...2010!? Seriously!? It’s been a decade since we’ve had a fully-original Crash Bandicoot title!? Well, thank god it’s good.
Toys for Bob ought to be proud of the work they put in with this one. This is far from a cheap knock-off. Crash 4 is the real deal, down to the hyper lethal platforming that defined the original games. I’ve seen many Crash games, especially in the PS2-era, get bogged down by gimmicks and mechanics that ultimately detract from the core platforming the series is known for. The Quantum Masks that serve as our power-ups and special twists avoid that trap because they’re powerful supplements that augment the game while still keeping the focus on that strong core Crash is known for.
The same can also be said for the addition of other playable characters like Tawna (complete with an incredible new design that I instantly fell in love with), Dingodile, and Dr. Cortex himself. Each of them has their own skill-sets and toolkits, bringing in a variety of new playstyles, and yet they all feel as though they belong, adding to what was already there.
As a long time fan of the games and the characters, I can happily say that I fully support the direction they chose to take them with this story. Crash Bandicoot always took its inspiration from the cartoons all of us used to watch every Saturday morning in the 90s. That feeling is perfectly captured, and other fans no doubt had as much fun searching for all the continuity nods and easter eggs as I did. I’ll never 100% this game because I practice self-care and a lot of the levels are hard when attempting to beat them in 3 lives or less, but seeing credits roll left me smiling with a sense of satisfaction.
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Normally, this would be where I leave off with a positive sendoff and leave you with a teaser for the Disappointments article. However, I have something different planned this year. So instead, since the list of disappointments is so small compared to previous years, I think it’s appropriate to just add them here to make room for my new concept next week.
Once again presented in a random order, the Disappointments of 2020 are:
Doom: Eternal
If I had to summarize my problems with Doom: Eternal, it’s that it learned all of the wrong lessons from its superior 2016 counterpart.
Part of the charm of that game was that it didn’t take itself or its story too seriously. DoomGuy just wanted to find a gun and slaughter an army of demons... and did not care about anyone else’s thoughts and opinion on the situation at hand outside of that. The whole was that the lore didn’t matter. This makes it strange that Doom: Eternal decided to make that one of such a large focus.
Beyond that, it also doesn’t play as smoothly as I remember from Doom 2016. The best way I can think of to describe it is that I could almost see the game design document in every aspect of play. Each of the weapons at the Doom Slayer’s disposal has certain enemies and enemy types that it is particularly efficient at cleaning up. The cacodemon, for example, can be instantly defeated with a glory kill after it has swallowed a grenade. Because of the number of foes the player has to fight at any one time, failure to take advantage of these weaknesses will likely result in swift and ignoble defeat.
And I couldn’t complete this segment without talking about both the infamous Marauder enemy, who is the only foe in the entire game that is somehow immune to the instant kill weapons players can otherwise use to “Nope” out of tight situations. That might not be a problem except that he is the one enemy that I would absolutely love to take out instantly if I could. The same could be said of the final boss, which doesn’t feel like it comes together the way it should.
Doom: Eternal wasn’t a bad game, but it pales in comparison to that which came before.
The Last of Us: Part 2
People way smarter than I have already gone into laborious detail as to where The Last of Us 2 went wrong, and I see no reason to retread all of that since I don’t have anything further to add. The writing itself is poorly paced, telling a story that is woefully misguided at best, and actively malicious at worst.
It’s also personally hard for me to reconcile the fact that this game represents some of the worst and most harmful business practices in the industry. These are working conditions that are disturbing even by game industry standards. I won’t deny that Naughty Dog’s work is impressive, it’s not worth the human cost.
I have a very clear memory of two major camps setting up in response to The Last of Us: Part 2. On one side were those who were literally comparing it to Schindler’s List. On the other were those calling it one of the worst games they ever played. Meanwhile, I found myself unimpressed by what I was seeing. In fact, a lot of the “detail” that the dev team was proud of, like the way Ellie and Abby painstaking install each modification to their weapons by hand in animations that last 30 seconds, actively detract from the experience.
It’s disappointing to see such mediocrity in both management and, frankly, in gameplay, get lauded as the best gaming has to offer.
Magic the Gathering: Arena
Those of you who have been following me will know that I haven’t logged into Magic the Gathering: Arena in the past 2-3 months. Part of that is my time being occupied by other long-term “lifestyle” games now, but that’s not the core problem keeping me away.
There are two primary issues with the game as a whole. The first is that the Standard format for Magic, which uses only the sets from the past 2 years, has had a really bad showing for a while now. Out of the 5 sets that are currently legal in the format, 3 of them had a card that was so powerful that it was being used in over half of the most competitive decks in the format. Ordinarily, this wouldn’t be a big deal, because players could instead play one of the myriad other formats available.
Except, Arena has a problem where there are only so many formats available to that specific client: Standard and Brawl being the two premier ones that use the exact same pool of cards. One could play the new Historic format, which was created to give Arena players a way to use their old cards when they rotated out, but then they would run into the other issue: The economy.
Content creator Saffron Olive already made an excellent video and article talking about Arena’s economy. To summarize the point, getting the cards required to keep up the latest formats can often be more expensive than it would be in paper Magic, and there’s no ability to cash out on your current collection, either via trading or, as many other digital card games allow, dusting cards to for currency to buy new ones. On top of all the cosmetic options like special card art, player avatars, and pets, which can often only be purchased with real-world money, it feels like I’m being gouged at every turn in unhealthy and coercive ways. I’m embarrassed by the amount of money I spent on Arena, even more than I was by the amount I spent on Overwatch, or at least I imagine I would be if I had any idea, and I just can’t take it anymore.
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And that’s a hell of a way to end this reflection of the games that came out in 2020, but not the end of our talk about gaming in 2020. Next week, I’ll have an experimental piece that I think you’ll enjoy. Until then, remember to take care and stay safe.
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