2020 sucked but the games didn't. Here are, objectively, the best ones in, objectively, the best order.
Honorable Mentions
Moon: Remix RPG Adventure - I felt it important to give Moon some recognition seeing as it's easily one of the most off-kilter experiences I've ever played. This was a game almost lost to the annals of time had it not been for a Switch port over 2 decades after its 1997 PS1 release. Crowned with the moniker of "The Anti-RPG", Moon is essentially an oldscool adventure game where you explore the underside of a tropey fantasy JRPG as a character who is on a parallel journey to the JRPG protagonist's. This means you'll come across the aftermath of scenes that are completely normal when you play the hero- random encounters, stealing from townsfolk, rampaging through a quest hub- but from the perspective of characters who live in that world. So the Hero's random encounter wasn't just that, it was a massacring of an entire forest's ecosystem. The Hero rummaging through someone's cabinets wasn't just looking for items, it was thievery. The Hero bumrushing through a questhub wasn't just passing through while turning in missions, it was a tidal wave of disruptions, damage, and narcissism. Simply from a theming standpoint this game was so far ahead of its time in the way it warped stereotypical RPG interactions to fit a greater meta commentary. All of that is before even getting into a 7-day world and NPC day/night schedule, the eccentric multi-genre in-universe soundtrack, and the subversive characters and puzzles populating this world. You can absolutely feel the rough edges of this being a preserved game from 1997, but the experience is like no other and I highly recommend it to adventure game vets, fans of offbeat weird games, oldschool JRPG fans looking for a heartfelt lampooning by a late 90s contemporary, and anyone interested in truly hidden gems.
The Last of Us Part II - There's nothing of value I can add to The Last of Us Part II's discourse other than to briefly touch on why I think it's both incredible but also didn't make my top 10. I'd be lying to myself if I didn't include it on this list somewhere because it's straight up one of the most impressive showcases of AAA level videogame production you will ever find. Mechanics, level design, art, graphic fidelity, animation, sound, music, acting, much of the direction (gameplay and cutscenes), and scope are just off the charts. In many, many areas this is the peak of Naughty Dog's talent as a linear, set-piece heavy, character driven action-adventure developer. There are stretches here that are SO FAR BEYOND what comparable games can offer that your entire perspective on videogame polish, setpiece execution, and game fluidity may very well be forever outside what is realistic for 99% of teams today. It's a shining example of the full power of a 1st party team that seemingly has a blank check from their higher ups and a pipeline cultivated over years to do exactly what they want to be doing.
Having said all that, the end of TLOU1 is essentially perfect so I came into this game with a massive disinterest in seeing where Joel and Ellie went because I simply did not want or need any further clarification than what we already had. The magic of that game's ending was in the execution of the ambiguity, and reopening that wound to shove my hand in there and poke around was not something that intrigued me whatsoever. I say all that to say: The story of TLOU2 left me beyond cold, I'm talking absolute goddamn zero. I would've been able to put this disinterest to the side and just enjoy the game as the hugely impressive Naughty Dog spectacle that it is, but their storytelling is so intrinsically linked to both the gameplay scenarios and gameplay pacing at this point that the lines between gameplay segment and story segment is blurred. It's hard to find the urgency, motivation, tension, or thrill in gameplay when it all ultimately leads to a story beat as payoff if you aren't invested in that story. Had this been solely Abby's game- new cast, new story - TLOU2 would potentially be in my top 5. As it is, it'll remain, for me, a stopgap to Naughty Dog's next project, albeit an insanely impressive one.
Doom: Eternal - This is easily one of the most audaciously demanding and intense FPSs ever made, and a beacon for developers who might be afraid to push the boundaries of their own design restraints. With Doom Eternal, id Software, 27 years after the first Doom, are still at the forefront of maniacally satisfying, high energy shooters, It's one of the most exhausting traditional games you can play, every successive level leaving your hands more and more fused with your input device of choice, to the point that by the time you see credits your body is 98% Doom Eternal Buttons. Beyond just combat, level design continues to be a winding festival of videogamely hidden upgrades, encounters, and secrets all stashed behind well paced and palette cleansing platforming obstacle course routes. The story unfortunately no longer carries the admirably brash "IDGAF" attitude leaving you in more situations where the ridiculous demon lore and rituals are driving that side of the game. To be fair this doesn't hurt the experience whatsoever aside from leaving the early story scenes feeling completely contextless, but unlike in 2016 there isn't any boon to this decision either, a move that dilutes some of Doomguy's fun Honorable Wrecking Ball characterization.
In any case, it's not often we see an action combat game from the West so ridiculously hellbent on making the player succumb to its internal ruleset and push its mechanisms to their limit; id did something great here. It would've been top 10 if I weren't getting old or something, idk man.
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2 - Incredible remaster of a pair of groundbreaking games combined into one package dripping with nostalgic juices succulent enough to make a grown millennial cry. My only problem with Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2 is that it's not Skate.
Spelunky 2 - It's hard to improve on perfection, but Derek Yu tried his damndest. I ended up watching more of Spelunky 2 than I played, but whether you engage with the game directly or just observe people die from glorious, systemic, domino effect slapstick, it's plainly obvious that the Spelunky formula is not only still incredibly finely tuned, but still relevant and valuable through the absolute glut of roguelikes available these days. There is nothing like the hilarious despair of a Spelunky death. But don't fret, the next run is THE run.
Chicken Police - One part noir farce, one part leftfield furry nightmare fuel, Chicken Police is a charming narrative adventure game (visual novel, basically) following the strange dialogue driven escapades of the titular Chicken Police, Sonny Featherland and Marty MacChicken, a duo of legendary fowl detectives who reunite to solve
one more case. Being something of a film noir fanboy, I jumped at the idea of this headfirst as soon as I saw a trailer with no real expectations aside from a ton of period appropriate homage laden noir-isms. I came out of it having experienced a game made by people who are clearly just as enamored with the style as I am. From the black and white presentation (with blotches of Sin City style color use), to the laughably twisty plot beats, to the world lore and post-war allusions using animal kingdom feuds as stand ins for real life stories, this game is just all around noir absurdity. Grounding and gluing the whole thing together are the fully voiced and endearing characters playing to every archetype of noir storytelling from hard boiled cops, to overcompensating gangsters, shrewd femme fatales, and cagey journalists. Being their first game, I hope wherever The Wild Gentlemen go next they never lose the offbeat spirit that led them to make this thing.
Creaks - Point and click vets Amanita Design shift gears ever so slightly here with a puzzle platformer adventure game featuring full character control, but otherwise Creaks continues their penchant for crafting strange and beautiful games. Creaks is filled with storybook whimsy, presented in Amanita's signature painterly visual style, giving life to the small bumbling cast of character populating this underground journey. Combined with the well-paced and never devilishly difficult puzzles, that finely tuned physical comedy nicely accents the adventure, assuring the game never loses its goofiness or forward momentum for too long. The whole thing is just so pleasant no matter how rundown the environment might get. To top it off is an incredible soundtrack from Hidden Orchestra- electronica, orchestral, jazz, downtempo laced atmospheric, morphing excellence that subtly layers and builds and drops back out every time you solve a piece of a puzzle, then crescendos on cue to give you these fleeting, dark, icy, synthy bops out of nowhere. This game needs to be played with headphones in an attic surrounded by piles of dusty haunted furniture. It's wonderful.
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THE LIST
TEN
Spiritfarer - As one of the bigger surprises of 2020 in more ways than I can even recall at this point, Spiritfarer takes the traditional Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons style farm sim and injects it with more emotional resonance and charm than you can shake a hoe at. The farm here is atop what's initially a small boat which grows and grows to comical proportions as you, being the newly appointed Spiritfarer of this world, house more and more souls, and need more and more resources to aid their transition to whatever awaits post post-death. In this particular twist on the Grecian River Styx ferryman mythos, you play as a woman named Stella, and fairly early on start to see the connective tendrils of how all these specific souls and stories may or may not connect to her. Speaking about any of these characters specifically risks spoiling too much for whichever crazy person is still reading my ramblings, but it's enough to say that between the game's fantastic presentation, animations, communal + character events, and brief daily conversations, bonds start to form and between Stella and her shipmates that reach out from the screen and grab the player by the feels. This game's greatest accomplishment, aside from the platforming elements and overall game feel being surprisingly great, is the way it digs into your mind and starts to attach itself to your own memories of loss (in all of its forms), regret, nostalgia, and connection through these souls-turned-spirit animals. Much in the vein of a Studio Ghibli film, the fanciful core concept (and busywork primary genre) is, in turn, infused with pathos. If not for a few late game grinds and lulls that I almost want to argue are thematically intentional despite the tedium, this would've placed higher. Still, Spiritfarer was a meditation on loss that felt especially well timed in 2020.
NINE
Yakuza: Like A Dragon - I'll be honest, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio is basically penciled into my GOTY list every year, and it's kind of hard finding new ways to wax poetic about their games. To be fair to Yakuza 7, this is by far the most radical shift the series has had in… ever, swapping genres completely from a 3D beat-em-up to a turn based JRPG (if stories are to be believed, in a ridiculously short span of development time). Doing this while introducing a brand new protagonist, a brand new location, and still promising a full fledged numbered sequel in a series known for overdelivering on content nearly every time out is a big ask, but, of course, they nailed it. Now that's not to say this was a completely seamless jaunt into a new genre unscathed. RGG hit numerous potholes that will be ironed with further iteration I'm sure. For example: an incredibly cumbersome handling of changing character jobs to acquire certain skills, or some weird late game difficulty spikes forcing you into side grinds that were initially presented as optional. Really though, if I at any point jumped into bed with Yakuza looking for peak mechanics, I would've bolted right out of that sleazy hotel room 93 games ago. I'm here for story, and Yakuza Seven Semicolon Like A Ryu delivered TENFOLD. Ichiban Kasuga is protagonist of the year EZ GG. Have you ever seen a man so hardheadedly wholesome yet able to reach deep within himself to deliver climatic monologues with the gut punching weight of another Nintendo Direct without a Metroid Prime update? Ichiban Kasuga is so damn great he made the power of friendship look cool.
The power of friendship. That's the worst power of them all. Your favorite JRPG protagonist could never.
So we have an all time great protagonist combined with a fun ensemble and a narrative that takes its time setting the stage for a new Yakuza with a new perspective, THEN they managed to stick the landing so goddamn hard I refuse to believe anyone finished this without rainbows shooting out of their videogame playing machine of choice. If Spiritfarer was the tonally appropriate entry, 7 Dragons: Yakuza Like a VIllage is the antithesis to 2020's awfulness.
EIGHT
Streets of Rage 4 - A miracle, plain and simple. As someone who actually, ACTUALLY has Streets of Rage 2 run through his mind a few times a week at least, there is no way in hell that Streets of Rage 4 in 2020- with a different artstyle, with different devs, with different music- should work. My raging nostalgia should be dismissing this game with the fury of 5000 suns. The craziest part is not only does it work, it's great. And not only is it great, it called me back for aimless replays just to juggle mooks with the new combo system. Who even replays games anymore? From the artstyle to the responsive and beautifully animated attacks, this game is crispy incarnate, and I was just playing over and over to see and feel it. SoR4 is so good that, much like Sonic Mania, it brought me back to a place of pure, untainted Nostalgia Nirvana. That is, perhaps, the toughest technique for any game to master, and somehow two 90s SEGA revival sequels pulled it off. Proof of God? Proof of aliens? Your guess is as good as mine, but this is not natural. Just about the only thing in SoR4 of this Earthly realm is the soundtrack. Sorry Olivier Deriviere, I appreciate the synced layering and detailed mixing, but nothing can replace the 90s electronic dance, house, techno, and jungle vibes. My nostalgia has a foot and it had to be put down somewhere. S for effort all around.
SEVEN
Hypnospace Outlaw - Speaking of nostalgia, Hypnospace Outlaw is a self described "internet and OS simulator", ostensibly an adventure game, and this thing took me right back to a time in my life I never expected to be thinking about while playing a videogame. Putting the player in the role of an "Enforcer", Hypnospace Outlaw tasks you with moderating a burgeoning new cyberspace that users access in their sleep called
Hypnospace. After a tutorial that runs through an amusingly cursory explanation of your role in the community, you're set loose onto a 1999 operating system with pre-Y2K communities, and pre normalized social media users. While this is an alternate universe parody, much of the behavior, characters, marketing, underground fandoms, website design, gimmicks, security features, bugs, viruses, file sharing, lingo, and general goofy ass 90s tone will be immediately recognizable and disturbingly accurate to anyone who was active on the internet during that era. This game is like finding a box full of stuff from your youth and being simultaneously fascinated and repelled by its contents. I don't know what sent me back in time with the most whiplash- getting a pop-up spamming virus, downloading sketchy desktop buddies, or finding my way into file sharing access portals to pirate music.
If all the surface level set dressing wasn't perfect enough, beneath that lurks an incredibly clever balancing act of interactive writing wherein the game is not only providing you wacky examples of early day memes to laugh at, but is stringing together a web of characters, screen names, websites, communities, products, music, programs, and events that you reverse engineer from all angles to reveal the central plot, and numerous subplots happening concurrently. What begins as a quaint look back at a proto Twiitter era of digital life becomes a kind of bittersweet archival experience, like finding forum posts you made as a kid that are still around; A ghostly digital trail of real people just being dorks at a very specific moment in time.
Specific is the key word with Hypnospace Outlaw for me. This is a unique game that is about a specific point in our modern internet history which people who didn't live through, even as a child, might not fully appreciate. Most importantly, as an adventure game of sorts, there is nothing in 2020 that made me feel more like a detective combing through mounds of trash to find one needle in a haystack of poorly setup websites. Whatever this game lacks in flash it makes up for with nailing its themes. Huge surprise.
SIX
Kentucky Route Zero: TV Edition - I feel like I'd been following KRZ for the entire of the 2010s by the time this thing released in full… and that's because it was revealed in 2011. Nine years in the game industry is like 3 lifetimes. Somehow I managed to remain unspoiled until every chapter was completed, and now with the TV Edition, Kentucky Route Zero turned out to be exactly what I expected and also unlike any game out there. Hell "game" might not even be the right word. At times KRZ is little more than an abstraction of some other medium filtered through the interactivity of a choose your own adventure book where your choices are simply to set tone rather than invite consequences. You actually often interact with multiple sides of a conversation, essentially speaking to yourself through different character perspectives as the game flows from reality to surrealism at a moment's notice. It's all around a pretty God's eye style experience, but one that can only really be accomplished with
some kind of interactivity, if only for the sudden style and genre shifts that send your brain reeling attempting to figure out exactly where the narrative has dropped you off. There are sequences in this game that are so masterful with the way they throw you into the deep end and allow you to slowly swim back to the shore of context that you'll barely even understand how you understand what happened. Is it a little self important? Of course. Is that inherently a bad thing? Absolutely not. Because when the game isn't probing philosophically or chugging along dripping atmosphere through dark lighting and Lynchian drones, there are moments of genuine character based storytelling, wit, and emotion that create an attachment to your growing band of road trip misfits traveling through the underbelly of Americana. So what's the point of Kentucky Route Zero? I could choose to expand on its critiques of the American dream, capitalism, The Forgotten Ones and whatnot, but really it's about the journey. All of its twists and turns, every sleight of hand, the moments that test your patience and the ones that throw you into a white water dream. This was the last thing I played in a pre-covid America, so it's only fitting that it feels like a hazy memory of some other reality.
FIVE
Lair of The Clockwork God - And here's a game that completely takes the piss out of everything Kentucky Route Zero stands for, as well as the industry at large, and even itself. Lair of the Clockwork God is a half LucasArts style point and click adventure, half modern indie darling platformer that exists purely make you smile. Using intensely British Briticisms run through an already effervescent, ironic, classic adventure game sense of humor, you simultaneously play as 2 characters literally in 2 distinct genres on an adventure to save the world from the apocalypse…. well, actually all of the apocalypses. Just as the genre mash-up is walking the line of point & click and platforming, so is the humor. Both characters take shots back and forth, Ben being pro adventure game and Dan being pro platformer (particularly artsy indie platformers), in an attempt to make a case for which is better: the old or the new. Oddly enough, in both gameplay and dialogue, what ends up happening is this brilliant melding of ideas where both perspectives are good on their own and shine when juxtaposed. With the writing you get these amazing contextualized barbs while hopping and bopping as Dan or investigating all sorts of ridiculous inventory items as Ben, and in gameplay you're swapping between both styles solving these wacky item, switch, positioning, platforming, and 4th wall nuking puzzles. It gets to the point that the oil and water of the whole situation becomes completely natural for the player and you wonder why it took this long for the idea to be executed with such confidence. If that wasn't a good enough pitch, the game goes out of its way over the 10 hour campaign to unpack so many genre cliches, and twist them back on the player, making for some of my favorite sequences and jokes of anything I played last year. Comedy games are exceptionally difficult to get right, and while this genre has a higher batting average than most, aiming that comedy inwards is an even tougher sell. Inside baseball writing can so easily go wrong or become self-referential the point of flubbing the punchlines, but Lair of The Clockwork God makes it all feel effortless. Great writing, great puzzles, great time.
FOUR
13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim - There's nothing in the plot of 13 Sentinels that is especially new. A ton of the game's story beats are love letters and outright homage of sci-fi pop culture from kaiju, to Spielberg, to HG Wells, to shlocky B movies, to Back To The Future, and everything in between. But see, that's the thing. When I say "everything in between", I mean everything. 13 Sentinels is a game that was gestating since at least 2013, in development proper since 2015, released in Japan in November 2019, then in the US in September 2020. It's been a long road since Vanillaware's last wholly new game- Dragon's Cown in 2013. For most of that time I really had no idea what 13 Sentinels was attempting to be. I saw flashes of their typically gorgeous high detail art, I saw flashes of RTS stuff, I saw mechs and murmurings of 2D narrative adventure segments. Then the Japanese released happened and slowly you started to hear the seemingly hyperbolic praise hitting sites like this one with quotes from Masahiro Sakurai and Yoko Taro that this game is something special. Two weirdos surely, but that's the kind of praise you can't fake.
And then you play it.
Getting back to the concept of Everything: 13 Sentinels takes every sci-fi twist, every sci-fi anime cliché, and damn near every sci-fi concept in general and throws them into a blender. The resulting Everything smoothie is then placed into a fragmented narrative structure where you are relatively free, within certain overall progress gates, to jump from character arc to character arc. As the game's title implies there are 13 in total, but you don't get there instantly. You start small, and gradually unlock more and more characters, each new arc leaving the overall story more fragmented, and forward progress more staggered compared to the ones before. Most of the time you are given 3, 5, 7, or more options for which character you'd like to follow. I stress again, the game leaves it up to the player. That means you are taking information in from a trillion different points on the overall timeline, keeping track of 20 subplots, and attempting to make sense of a narrative that leaves you on a plot shifting cliffhanger every time a section ends. It's complete madness. There comes a point early on where you can barely speak to anyone else about what's happening because there's just no telling if you know what they knew at that point, or where on the micro and macro arcs you are in comparison. There is so much expository machinegun dialogue that the game dedicates an ENTIRE BRANCH of the 3-pronged main menu to an evolving wiki that not only helps the player keep track, but ALSO reveals critical lore information. The third prong of that menu belongs to the RTS side of 13 Sentinels, a clever framing device that gives you a modicum of context to what the narrative side of the game is talking about, but is
ALSO expanding on the narrative from a more macro perspective. The whole game is tornado of names, events, locations, jargon, and details that build and build, and twist and twist all the way to a climax that, in a feat of writing gymnastics I can only assume took the bulk of this game's 4 years in development, actually lands. This absolute sci-fi anime spaghetti madness actually makes sense of everything, and actually works. How in the name of fanservice upper thighs did this game come together.
Just, y'know, don't ask me any specifics. It's been months, I can't remember all of that.
THREE
CrossCode - The Red Dead Redemption 2 of indie games. 2D Zelda weeps.
TWO
Desperados 3 - With 2016's Shadow Tactics, German developer Mimimi Games did the impossible and resurrected the dormant genre of Real Time Tactics with such mastery, such class, such deft handling of classic stealth-tactics gameplay that you could've been mistaken it was the 15th game in a long running series. With smart updates to the old school isometric take on squad stealth, and a surprisingly well executed narrative, Shadow tactics ended up being a 25 hour campaign filled with absolutely
brilliant stealth scenarios, open ended strategies, and an earnestly delivered story. One of my favorite impulse purchases of the generation, and one of the best games last gen outright. Outstanding game. They even managed a console port that plays well. These folks are geniuses. With Desperados 3, Mimimi repeats that success with even more smart updates to the minutia of gameplay, an even more stylish and well-delivered narrative, and even more varied and hyper precisely designed stealth scenarios.
Now I love every game on this top 10, and my top 3 in particular are almost interchangeable in how incredibly great they are at what they do, but I have to say that Desperados 3 is the most mentally satisfying of them all to play. If we're talking pure strategy and execution, this game scratches my personal itches with such a loving caress it's like someone reached into my soul and gave me 2 back to back games that I didn't even know I needed. I can easily spend 15 minutes barely moving in this game, just surveying enemy patrols and potential routes to my targets, and every single time it's the best 15 minutes of any game in 2020. It's that good. With the swap from a Feudal Japan setting to a Western, there's an increased focus on guns and social stealth present here that separates it from Shadow Tactics, along with a more fantastical character who has what feels like an intentionally game breaking skill set. Taken all together, the experience is that much more involved, with more options in most situations, along with a host of level specific gimmicks that give Mimimi a real claim for some of the best gameplay direction and design in the industry IMO. My overall taste and what really excites me recently has been a bit unpredictable at best, and contradictory at worst considering some of my takes last decade, but Desperados 3 strikes such a chord with the carnivore in me that's been ravenously craving scenario focused stealth for as long as I can remember. With so many major stealth IPs being MIA, Mimimi is one of the few left carrying the torch, and I can't wait to see where they go next.
GOTY
Ori and the Will of The Wisps - Having played both Ori titles in 2020, I came away with 2 main takes and one scorcher:
A. Moon Studios is on a path that may lead to the upper reaches of industry prestige if they stay the course.
B. Ori and The Will of The Wisps is one of the best sequels of all time.
C (Flamin' Hot Take) Ori 2 might possibly be THE greatest platformer of all time.
This game, this game, this game. I finished Ori 1 and was immensely impressed. For a first outing of a team that apparently is a worldwide effort with no centralized studio, Ori And The Blind Forest is such an accomplished, poised, polished, gorgeous platformer that comes out of the gates and holds its own with the best in the genre. The game feel alone is something to be revered and studied by any aspiring platformer dev, and even most platformer veteran studios can learn a thing or 20 about how to make traversal feel amazing from this game. Visually it's quite easily one of the best looking 2D games ever, and nothing needs to be said about Gareth Coker's orchestration on the soundtrack, who has become a name in his own right. Nothing is perfect so of course there are wants and wishes coming out of it- combat could've been more, wish it was longer, you want more of this, I wish they did that. But overall it's a fantastic game.
Now in what universe do you get a first attempt THAT good, then make a sequel that completely invalidates it like 20 minutes after you start? Ori and The Will of The Wisps is so great, so unbelievably great that Ori 1 is but a faint memory at the back of my mind at this point. They plugged every hole, hammered every nail, and tightened every graphics. Somehow the fluid traversal system in Ori 1 has turned into this majestic ballet of controllable butter on non-stick coating. If Ori 1 should be studied from the comfort of your home, Ori and The Will of The Wisps needs to be examined, deconstructed, and worshipped in seminars across the world. Even Nintendo needs to be strapped down Clockwork Orange style and be force-fed this game's mechanics. Ori 2 controls like new car smell. I don't know if I've made it clear enough but hopping, bopping, fighting, scampering, bouncing, smashing, gliding, swimming, and running through this game is orgasmic. You'll notice I said fighting in the middle of that. These crazy folks at Moon decided not only will this game perform flawlessly as a jumpin' ass runnin' ass wall bouncin' ass platformer, they gave us a little combat system so flexible, so fluid, so feedback heavy, so gorgeous in motion that I've run out of ways to praise it. The game feels so unbelievably good at every level of player input. This is peak 2D platformer game feel.
The game surrounding those mechanics is great too. My biggest takeaway here is the pacing. The only real parallel I've been able to draw in terms of campaign pacing is that Ori 2 feels like Uncharted 2 era Naughty Dog detoured from their plans and decided to make a platformer. Every area is given this AAA set-piece Naughty Dog arc where you problem solve and have a leisurely paced run-through of an area, and little by little it ramps up to this show stopping sequence that looks and sounds and moves like something 1000 tiers above what the competition can achieve, then it ramps down and allows you to catch your breath. But all the while it's raw gameplay. Upgrades on upgrades. Secrets on secrets. All wrapped in the aforementioned slick, butter-like consistency of your traversal moveset. And when it isn't traditional gameplay, Moon is showing off with these incredible chase sequences that are even tighter and more spectacular than before. Hell, they managed to get stealth section in there without ruining the party. If that's not the sign of extraordinary talent, I don't know what is. More new additions include the reparable hub, mission givers, and side quests which all bolster the theme of Ori as a forest spirit bringing light back to the various creatures populating this world, as well as the wilderness itself, and all enhance the classical Disney-like quality of the game and story.
It's a success at every level and in a just world Moon Studios' next game would have the mystique of a heralded dev behind it. But if you know you know, and if you don't know you probably play Fortnite so I'm not trippin.
- [Switch] [Metroidvania] [Moon Studios] Ori and the Will of the Wisps
- [PS4] [RTS] [Mimimi Games] Desperados III
- [PS4] [Action RPG] [Radical Fish Games] CrossCode
- [PS4] [Adventure] [Vanillaware] 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim
- [Switch] [Adventure] [Size Five Games] Lair of the Clockwork God
- [PS4] [Point-and-click adventure] [Cardboard Computer] Kentucky Route Zero
- [Switch] [Simulation] [Tendershoot] Hypnospace Outlaw
- [PS4] [Beat 'em up] [DotEmu] Streets of Rage 4
- [PS4] [RPG] [Sega] Yakuza: Like a Dragon
- [PS4] [Adventure] [Thunderlotus] Spiritfarer
