ResetEra Games of the Year 2018 - Voting Thread (READ THE OP) [Ends Jan 20th 8:59am EST]

hibikase · Jan 19, 2019

Celeste - I mean, what hasn't been said about Celeste already? I'll just say this: I've been having a hard time dealing with my mental health over the past few years, and so Madeline's story really resonated with me. I know many people have dismissed it as being too simplistic of a take on the subject of depression, but I don't care. It's an amazing platformer that is a perfect storm of emotion thanks to its narrative, and its vibrant soundtrack.
Octopath Traveler - I'm having a hard time describing why I am putting Octopath Traveler so high. It's certainly a divisive game, that has disappointed many people hoping for something closer to the golden age of Square's 16-bit era RPGs. And I understand that disappointment, but for me Octopath Traveler more than made up for it with its relatable characters, its fully orchestrated soundtrack, and most importantly, the battle system. I have nothing but praise for this game's battle system, it's a perfect balance of "easy to understand, hard to master" that kept me always learning new nuances about it during most of my 100+ hours soldiering though the game. It's definitely the game I spent the most time into in 2018, which wouldn't have happened if it were any less stellar.
God of War - I had pretty much written off western AAA games since 2017 or so, but then in 2018 I decided to make an exception with God of War since it released just as I was taking time off from work. I did not regret it. I think the best way to describe it is that this game is to Santa Monica Studio what The Last of Us has been for Naughty Dog. It's a brilliantly executed game, that takes the God of War lore and repurposes it into a surprisingly mature narrative and handles that radical tone shift very well. Just like what Nintendo did with Breath of Wild, they were not afraid to make radical changes to an existing franchise, and it paid off immensely. And just like BotW it is also most likely to win GOTY here as well, so clearly this is something video games should do more often.
Into The Breach - I'm a huge fan of FTL, and when I heard that the same developers made a turn-based strategy game I wasn't on board at first because I'm not a big fan of strategy games in general. But I gave it a shot anyway, and to my surprise I had an amazing time. In my opinion, ITB is less of a strategy game and more of a "damage control" game. Rather than being about planning multiple moves in advance, ITB forces you to into the present, or rather, the immediate next enemy turn, as you keep struggling to mitigate the possible harm done by the enemy's upcoming attacks. It's a unique dynamic that keeps you on your toes and sometimes forces you to make frustrating decisions as you are almost always outnumbered. Sadly the game eventually becomes stale as you start getting a hang of everything, but I expect them to add more content as time moves on. Maybe a year from now it will be exciting again.
Iconoclasts - Joakim Sandberg made this game all by himself over the course of 7 years! That's fucking amazing! I wish I was even half as multi-talented (and hard-working) as him! Unfortunately his game released right next to Celeste which completely overshadowed it, although it did get a Switch port later which I hope did well for him. As for the game itself, yeah it's pretty solid. The most interesting part of its design philosophy is how it is very inspired by Metroid Fusion in its linearity, which makes it fairly unique among the endless wave of uninspired "metroidvanias" that have been flooding the indie scene lately.
Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon - Probably IntiCreates' best throwback game to date, this shameless ripoff of Castlevania 3 (intended as nothing more than a stretch goal incentive to the "main" Bloodstained game, no less) excels at doing exactly what it sets out to be. With just the right length and difficulty, and an excellent chiptune soundtrack led by SotN's Michiru Yamane, one might worry that it is so good that it may have raised expectations a bit too high for Ritual of the Night, which is still MIA…
The Messenger - So following Bloodstained is yet another Shovel Knight-esque fake NES game. Maybe in a few years I'll be sick of them, but right now I still welcome them, as long as they manage to do something interesting. The Messenger doesn't quite feel like a masterpiece by any means, but it ticks off enough boxes for me, with the soundtrack, the multi-faceted art direction, and surprisingly, the writing, which I wasn't sure I liked at first, but eventually grew on me after a few "do you have any stories to share?". I'm also hoping for some sequels/spinoffs in the same universe, though I can't explain why without going into spoiler territory.
Night In The Woods - This was a fun surprise to me, essentially a "walking simulator" kinda deal but presented as a 2D platformer (automatic bonus points for me), with a touching story of self-discovery and dealing with depression (yes, again). It also has a delightful art direction. Furthermore, the proof of concept prequel game included in the Switch version is fantastic, and makes me hope that the developers will produce more games with their engine.
Nintendo Labo - (Variety Kit) I got it at launch aka. same day as God of War, and while I'm not going to pretend that it was nearly as memorable of an experience, I was surprisingly impressed by it. I know it sounds silly to say, but the whole package feel very high quality. Building all sorts of gadgets from nothing but just bending pieces of cardboard was very satisfying, and almost therapeutic. This is exactly the kind of weird stuff I wanna see more from Nintendo, and is a good reminder that they are the only truly Japanese console maker left, which is a damn shame. I'm probably going to buy the Vehicle Kit eventually, although the storage space taken by Labo is a genuine problem in my tiny apartment, so I have been reluctant so far.
Tetris Effect - Tim Rogers describes Tetris Effect as "Luxury Tetris" and I agree that this is a pretty accurate describer. It doesn't do anything revolutionary to the existing timeless formula of Tetris, but it feels like a very polished and nice package of one of the best video games ever made (if not the best), and really, do we need anything more? The VR mode didn't do much for me though, I thought it would be the killer feature but I ended up playing more of it in regular mode.
WarioWare Gold - It's the WarioWare equivalent to Rhythm Heaven Megamix! And it includes a superior version of the Game & Wario mini-game Gamer, hereby making G&W obsolete because that was the only good part of it! And there's more Charles Martinet voice acting than ever before! And… that's pretty much everything. Just like other WW games you can plow through it and feel like you've had your fill pretty fast. It's a good run, but just like the individual microgames it contains it is pretty much forgettable. It was going to be my #10 entry but then I remembered at the last minute that I forgot to include Into the Breach, so here it is as an honourable mention.

Games I didn't finish but enjoyed enough that they would have been top 10 material otherwise: Astro Bot Rescue Mission, Dead Cells, Valkyria Chronicles 4.

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Courage · Jan 19, 2019

Celeste -

A figurative journey of a young woman coming to terms with who she is. Madeline is set on climbing Celeste Mountain; something she's always wanted to accomplish, but never felt capable of doing. She views it as a way to give direction and find purpose in her life. Celeste is one of the special cases in the medium where theme and content are in perfect harmony; every platform you climb, screen you clear, strawberry you collect in Celeste contributes to Madeline's goal of climbing Celeste Mountain and growing as a person. There's also congruity in its aesthetic and retro influences, along with Lena Raine's serene synthy soundscapes, which engulf you in their ambience but crescendo when necessary. Like other effective art that deal with one's psyche, Madeline's demons are physically manifested as her own doppelgänger, externalizing her internal conflict and making the threat tangible to the player. It's one of the many examples where the game uses various characters and metaphors to emotionally anchor Madeline's ascent to the summit.

It also helps that Celeste is the best 2D platformer I've played in terms of mechanics and pure inventiveness in its design. Madeline's move repertoire only consists of a jump, an air dash and a wall climb for a limited time. Three basic actions which are the foundation that the game builds upon as it progresses and the levels organically evolve, sometimes even mixing level design ideas in the game's hardest optional levels. Like any good, challenging platformer, it never feels unfair. The player and Madeline both know getting past every obstacle is up to them and it's that unwavering determination which pushes them through.

Celeste also had a profound impact on me personally; like Madeline, I also felt worthless with no direction in the beginning of 2018 after losing a loved one in 2017 and neglecting myself. In many ways, I related to Madeline's insistence in helping others but not focusing on her own health. I related to her phone calls with her mom, her fear of solitude, and self-doubt: will I ever good enough for this world? Celeste handles the resolution of Madeline's mental struggles gracefully: finding a way out of darkness by accepting yourself and being able to live with your mental illness, instead of trying to hide that part of you like it doesn't exist. When Madeline realizes this, the game transitions into a beautiful, cathartic sequence, an amalgam of mechanical and audiovisual brilliance, only made possible due to its interactive nature. The elegant execution of these elements and its ethos helped me turn my life around, so for that I thank Celeste.
Return of the Obra Dinn -

A one of a kind detective puzzler that isn't afraid to leave the player stumped, due to its own confidence of the knowledge the player needs to solve a puzzle being there and presented in a logical, consistent manner. Conceptually it's as ingenious as it is bizarre: identify who each crew member aboard the Obra Dinn is and note the cause of their death. The game conveys information through standstill vignettes of every crew member's death; like a grisly diorama you must examine and comprehend thoroughly. Its monochromatic visuals give the game a striking style and keep it minimalistic enough to reduce extraneous visual information. The non-linear presentation and sheer volume of deaths can get overwhelming, but serves to make the act of solving fates more gratifying, as the game congratulates you and a triumphant audio jingle plays every time you get three of them correct. That core gameplay loop is what makes it so captivating, incrementally making progress and solving the Rubik's cube that is the tragic tale of the Obra Dinn.
Red Dead Redemption 2 -

Red Dead Redemption 2 is a Rockstar game in most ways one would expect. It fits their mold of game design they've obstinately adhered to for years, creating a weird gameplay dichotomy between world exploration and story mission design, while also stagnating mechanically, and maybe regressing when it comes to shooting. They overcome shortcomings like this with the amount of money and time poured into each game, but also sheer talent by being able to uncompromisingly execute such a singular creative vision of this scope. It's the most cinematic and focused open world in the medium, with almost every moment in it feeling scripted and intended by the developers. It's highly curated and meticulous in every facet of its world design like NPC behavior and activity, its living ecosystem of plants and wildlife, random encounters that the player simply stumbles upon, and the list goes on. There is also a serene, natural beauty to Red Dead Redemption 2's world, reminiscent of the ambience of Breath of the Wild's world. Just being in that world is immersive in its own right, which is what makes exploring every abandoned shack or interesting geographical landmark of the map so alluring.

What is very unlike Rockstar in this game is the tale of Arthur Morgan. Rockstar managed to weave in its most personal and intimate story in their biggest game yet. They manage to contextualize and brutally deconstruct the life of an outlaw, even using a nonsensical honor/morality system to mirror Arthur's actions, constantly swinging from Evil to Good like a pendulum, as Arthur remains conflicted by his actions throughout the game. It's only when Arthur

gets diagnosed with his fatal illness that he truly feels lucid and free, with chapter 6 being the contemplative culmination of his arc. He sees through the crumbling foundation of the gang he's been loyal to for years and becomes disillusioned by the empty promises and lies propagated by Dutch. He tries to make other people's lives better, already knowing he's a lost cause. It's a tragic yet heartfelt sendoff to one of the best written and realized characters in the medium.
Monster Hunter World -

The successful streamlining of a series that once seemed impenetrable. Capcom finds a way to convince most people what makes Monster Hunter so thrilling by distilling what it's truly about: the gameplay loop of hunting monsters and crafting gear. It's an immensely rewarding game since everything in it requires some investment: learning a new weapon's moveset and your role with it, or adapting to a monster's behavior and exploiting its weakness thus being able to efficiently hunt them with optimized gear and equipment. There's always a sense of progression, even when you're hunting the same monsters. A game as a service done right.
THE MISSING: JJ Macfield and the Island of Memories -

Similar to Celeste in how it intertwines its gameplay and narrative, but done with a SWERY twist, couching the game in his own stylistic sensibilities. It sets up a lot of its emotional gravitas without the player knowing until it shows its hand at the end. It's ultimately about a character's self-acceptance and finding their identity. It uses body horror as a novel mechanic but also as a strong thematic indicator in JJ's characterization. It's the most gut-wrenching yet sincere depiction I've seen of the subject it's dealing with and I admire it for that.
HITMAN 2 -

I only started playing HITMAN 2 last week, but since this is my first exposure to IO's reboot of the series I couldn't help but write about how it intelligently modernizes what I loved about Blood Money and pinpoints what makes Hitman such a distinctly lovable series. From a gameplay perspective, Hitman is essentially a puzzle game, each map with its own rules and set of AI behaviors, with Agent 47 able to throw a wrench in the cogs turning in each map and wreaking havoc in various ways. The open ended puzzle box design of each map is what makes it so replayable, with the game having a plethora of challenges that can be tackled to take out each target. Hitman is also not afraid to have some fun with how inherently absurd it is as a concept but done under the guise of serious professionalism that one would expect from Agent 47. It's that juxtaposition of Agent 47 stoically garroting people while dressed up as a flamingo which makes Hitman 2 one of the funniest games ever made.
Into the Breach -

I'm not the biggest fan of strategy or roguelike games, but Into the Breach excellently extracts what makes each genre special while trimming the fat. Each scenario feels handcrafted even though procedurally generated, with each turn taking longer than one would expect, as the player is forced to tactically think ahead in a game of mech vs. kaiju chess. Into the Breach becomes exhilarating when barely clearing a map with one mech left after scraping by a barrage of attacks, reaching a new personal best with that run. It's a never ending cycle of battles barely survived, as challenging as they are rewarding.
Warhammer: Vermintide 2 -

It repurposes the Warhammer universe as a fun Left 4 Dead-like with satisfying melee combat mechanics and tactical cooperative play. There are five different characters with three classes each, with their own unique role and skillsets. While customizing your character and the dripfeed of loot is what comprises the incentive for replayability, Vermintide 2 shines in its moment to moment thrill. There's almost no time to breathe as Jesper Kyd's score, consisting of ominous percussive instruments and sharp strings, starts blaring and a horde of Skaven swarm your team. It's a bloody fast paced rush from start to finish.
DUSK -

A faithful homage to old school first person shooters, and even a little bit of Half-Life in its latter levels. DUSK is a fast-paced nightmarish descent into hell, a la Doom, with the atmosphere and sense of place of Quake, and interactivity of Build engine shooters. A self-aware celebration of its influences that does enough to set itself apart.
Ashen -

Ashen is a meditative journey of finding refuge among others in a sunless world. Most obviously inspired by Dark Souls, it reinforces the Souls series' themes of cooperation in desolation, by almost requiring a partner to get through dungeons, leading to emergent cooperative moments with minimal communication, a la Journey. It's an understated game with muted colors and soft ambient audio cues, reflecting its depressing world. The main hub is the world's emotional core, as it continues to expand as you help more people and find their way there. By the end of the game it feels like a town, with NPCs you've come to know, all with their own backstories. It's the light that shines into Ashen's darkness.

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Andrew J · Jan 19, 2019

Managed to beat more games this year than last, thanks to clearing out a bunch of short indies as the voting deadline approached.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - Truly "Video Games: The Video Game." The gameplay is as satisfying as its ever been (the slow and zoom on finishing hits is great, regardless of whether it was taken from Tekken 7), but the real highlight is the love of the history of video games on display. The new custom Classic modes pay homage to each fighter, and seeing how every new Spirit is represented in World of Light is delightful every time.
Octopath Traveler - This game reminds of Breath of the Wild, in that there are a ton of obvious ways a sequel could improve...but it's still so good. Yes, the individual stories don't come together until very late. Yes, the cutscenes are all written as if each character is alone and frequently don't make sense if there's a full party. But all that falls away in light of the game's amazing qualities. The battle system is superbly engaging, avoiding the usual slow wearing-down of boss HP common in JRPGs to focus on timing; combining Boosts, Breaks, buffs, and debuffs to maximize burst damage. Dramatic sound and visual effects make turn-based combat feel exciting and engaging. Visually, it looks and sounds the way classic JRPGs do in your memory, with gorgeous landscapes, amazing music, and gigantic boss sprites. Using the path actions reveals so much about the inner lives of individuals and the secret workings of the world.
Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age - DQ XI, for better or worse, feels like it took part of my soul. A huge adventure, it takes you across the world multiple times in multiple times. I got the platinum trophy after more than 100 hours and still didn't do everything there was to do. Toriyama's monster designs have never looked better, animated with goofy vitality. The localization is a marvel, filled with (barring some unfortunate accents on a few minor characters) amazing and heartfelt vocal performances that really drive the story home emotionally. The game is held back from higher ranking by some problems: overworld mechanics feel half-baked; there is crass sexualization, particularly in Jade's Act 2 story; pep power and rarefied and monster quests can go to hell; and of course the music, which has been discussed by much more qualified persons than me at length elsewhere.
Celeste - Precision platforming at its finest, Celeste wisely advises you up front not to be discouraged by failure. Death is barely a punishment, putting you nigh-instaneously back at the start of a relatively short platforming challenge. What needs to be done is usually clear, and progress is a matter of execution. This structure meshes well with the story of overcoming anxiety, doubt, and depression, which nevertheless maintains positive tone without wallowing in grimness. The music is the best game soundtrack of the year, full of funky electronica that perfectly suits the mood of the challenge on hand. The bonus stages present some of the most diabolical challenges I have ever seen in almost three decades of playing platformers, and I must admit I was not able to beat all of them without the built-in assist options. The game doesn't judge you for this; we all need help sometimes.
Marvel's Spiderman - I won't say it made me feel like Spider-Man, because I honestly don't think about what it feels like to be Spider-Man much, if at all. I will say it feels good, with a movement system dedicated to maintaining momentum (though this makes small, precise movement feel a bit squirrely) and fighting that adapts Arkham's style to Spidey's toolset. It is harder than Arkham; you take a lot of damage even from melee attacks, and takedowns are much more precious with how long it takes for the focus gauge to fill and how you need to spend that resource on healing, too. The pacing is excellent, the best I've seen in a Western AAA action game; the final act in particular features a thrilling sense of escalation. There's the usual open-world flotsam, but it rarely feels like a chore and there's not that much compared to other games of this ilk, although waiting for crimes to spawn can be tedious. The stealth sections vary in quality; the early ones are dull, but the later ones that throw some sort of twist in are all right.
Kirby Star Allies - It's more Kirby, with cutesy platforming that slowly gives way to a surprisingly epic conclusion, zooming across planets to face down a giant evil god in a shmup minigame. You know how this goes. The multiple characters gimmick lends itself to some neat puzzles. The later boss battles are surprisingly tough; let down your guard and you can lose a lot of health real quick.
Timespinner - This is unapologetically trying to be an Igavania, and for the most part it succeeds. Crisp character and background art, intricate maps filled with place to go back to when you get new abilities or keys, satisfying combat and movement controls, and amazing music that could fit right into the Dawn of Sorrow OST. The focus on sidequests offers a new wrinkle, and the characters involved are very diverse, which is nice. The variety of items, abilities, and enemies is lower than in a genuine Igavania, but I won't begrudge that against an indie Kickstarter game.
Megaman 11 - Had to turn the difficulty down to Easy to get through this with any speed; I must be getting old. Enemies new and old are presented with a ton of charm and energy. The Robot Master weapons all have unique properties and feels, and each has lots of applicability in the levels. A worthy successor to the franchise.
Deltarune Chapter 1 - The most unexpected game this year. You can tell the Undertale system had to kludged quite a bit to accommodate a playable party, but somehow it works. The characters all grow on you, whether new, old, or both(?), and the story that ends with the final boss battle feels reasonably complete, while at the same time leaving open huge questions about what will happen next and the relationship of this universe to Undertale's...and that's before the stinger!
Splatoon 2: Octo Expansion - Takes the wild creativity of the standard Splatoon single-player and builds on it, with tougher versions, rail-based stages, physics puzzles, and subtractive art. The chat logs you see do more to flesh out this weird world of paintball fashionistas than it probably needs, while simultaneously giving you insights into the characters. The finale was tough, but very satisfying once I pulled it off.
Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon - I played Dracula's Curse last year, too, and while this spiritual successor is arguably less ambitious (much more linear, and probably has fewer levels overall) it's definitely a much more accessible experience. Switching characters is snappy, their powers are all useful in a variety of situations. Visually, Curse of the Moon outdoes its predecessor, with gorgeous tilesets and huge boss sprites. The final boss of Nightmare Mode I want to give a particular shoutout to, it's very rare you see a boss battle that seems so totally overwhelming at first, but that with practice you can get good enough to barely get hit in just a few tries.
GRIS - A beautiful metaphor about dealing with loss and grief, every screen of this game looks and sounds beautiful. The ludic elements are better than I would have expected, too; moving, jumping, and special abilities all feel pretty good, and progress involves platforming and puzzle challenges that are mildly, sometimes even moderately challenging.
Wandersong - A goofy adventure about someone who is explicitly not the hero and all the wacky people he meets trying to save the world at the end of the universe. The game is not strict at all with its rhythm challenges, and engagement comes more from talking with weird and wacky cast of characters and the puzzle platforming in the spirit world. The latter show surprising inventiveness, although they tend to go on for a screen or two too long.
The Messenger - Ranked this low because I didn't have time to finish it, only getting to where it really opens up. A tribute both loving and irreverent to classic action platformers, filled with sarcastic fourth wall-breaking jokes, cool chiptune music, and escalating challenge. There was a difficulty spike around the Glacial Peak level; the cloud-stepping mechanic, where you can airjump after hitting something, isn't crucial up to that point and you don't have to get good at it, right up until you really, really need to get good at it.
Shadow of the Colossus - A gorgeous, melancholy game, that leaves you alone with a horse and your thoughts until you need to slay a giant. The climbing can be a bit finicky, though not as much as in Ico (I played the PS3 HD version last year beforehand), but otherwise it was every bit the amazing experience I've heard people talk it up to be.
Owlboy - An absolutely gorgeous game. The controls take some getting used to, but once you do combat and traversal feel pretty satisfying, especially with the final partner character's movement abilities. The story makes it feel like most of what you do is kind of pointless, though, which was a downer. The amount of knockback from getting hit is, frankly, obnoxious.

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MochaD124 · Jan 19, 2019

God of War - I played a ton of the GoW trilogy as a teen and thought it was great for the massive boss fights and spectacles. When I played GoW 2018 I loved it for the low-key character drama and the growing father-son dynamic playing out. I have always had a complicated relationship with my father so it was a strange experience going through the game on the other end of that dynamic and seeing Kratos struggle to bond with his son. The story was compelling enough to keep me interested as I only have basic knowledge of Norse mythology. The revamped combat was a treat and the leviathan axe felt incredibly satisfying to use once you get some upgrades and skills into it. I can't wait to see how the next game plays out and I will absolutely be there day one to enjoy it.
Monster Hunter World - Like many people, I had very little experience with Monster Hunter leading up to the game's launch. I put some time into 3U (near the end of LR) on Wii U but had zero interest on playing it on handheld. MHW was the perfect storm of reeling me in by being on consoles, adding lots of QOL features to make systems less obtuse, and launching after I was done playing some last 2017 games for that GOTY list. I got extremely hyped for the game, watching lots of pre-release footage and gameplay and pouring at least a dozen hours into the demo sessions. When I finally started playing I was obsessed and grinded every new monster in LR to craft their sets. I could not put the game down and probably put in 50 hours before moving on to HR. Going in I intended on trying out all the different weapons but once I started using the charge blade I fell completely in love. Once I learned how to juggle the meters efficiently and start tossing in guard points the weapon controlled like a dream. Being able to consistently pull off the super amped discharge and see monsters get absolutely destroyed is one of my favorite gaming moments of the year. Unfortunately, the end-game grind felt very unrewarding and I went from playing to daily to quitting entirely around the time tempered Deviljho came out. I started using new weapons to try and refresh the experience but dumping 200 hours into a game over a single month can burn you out for any game. Despite that, I will hop back in this year to check out events I missed and will be extremely excited once the new expansion drops.
Yoku's Island Express - If you told me earlier this year one of my favorite games would be a pinball Metroid-like I would have laughed you out of the internet. YIE charmed the hell out of me with its cutesy characters and absolutely fantastic soundtrack. The pinball mechanics were simple to grasp and it felt great managing to move the little bug across the variety of landscapes in the game. I had issues with the boss fights and other random moments where precise accuracy was required but it didn't hamper my overall enjoyment too much. My feelings at the drop of the late title-card basically summed up how I felt playing the whole game – filled with joy and with a big grin on my face.
Donut County - Donut County was a simple reverse katamari puzzle game. The game shined in its writing and the hilarious dialog between characters. I was only ever stumped once in the game and felt like the puzzle mechanics never had the time to be flushed out and fully utilized. I love listening to the soundtrack when I need some mostly chill soothing beats. Playing through the whole game and grabbing the plat in 3 or 4 hours was a great time.
Marvel's Spiderman - Spiderman is a shallow game that is saved by how amazing it felt to swing around the city. While a lot of the content may have been repetitive I didn't get bored of swinging around dealing with it until I got the plat. The story kept me well engaged and the ending moments definitely touched me.
Tacoma - Tacoma was a very simple game but the way the story was laid out kept me intrigued and excited to watch and rewind through every area to get all the dialog.
Spyro Reignited Trilogy - I had a lot of nostalgia for Ripto's Rage as a kid and it was great to play the remastered version. The trilogy has a lot of charm but I should have spaced the games out more as the formula feels extremely stale after 3 games in a row.
Vampyr - I barely managed to finish this in time for the cut-off of the lists. I enjoyed Vampyr a lot more than I thought I would but a lot less than I could have. The game stumbles on too many fronts which takes away from the excellent loop of investigating citizens to discover hints and then speaking with others in the district to find even more info. The combat, while serviceable, always felt like it was tagged on to try and make you feel like a powerful vampire but it was too clunky to achieve that. The feeding aspect of the game (Played without embracing anyone) was handled very poorly and it felt like the devs punished me for taking the moral choice the narrative pushed me towards. I would like to see a sequel where the combat was heavily reworked or removed entirely and you were forced to feed to progress. I still loved investigating citizens and the story was compelling enough the keep me going. I am glad I played the game and hope Dontnod decide to make another one with a lot of improvements.
Tetris Effect - I have not had a lot of time for Tetris yet but I have enjoyed most of what I played in Journey mode. When the game clicks with the visuals and music it really gets me hyped up and I am very excited to play more going into 2019.
Dead Cells - I didn't spend any time with Dead Cells during early access, so the official launch took me completely by surprise. The game gave me the strongest "one more run" feelings and I would jump straight back in even after losing a crushing number of cells. The tight controls and roguelike elements made it very satisfying to play and it always felt like I was making progress even if it was just lowering the number of cells left for an upgrade. Trying to beat the final boss killed the game for me in the end. Needing to spend 30-40 mins every run just for a chance I might die in 3 seconds was incredibly frustrating and forced me to see the game had a flawed structure. The game had become extremely repetitive where I would speed through the same areas fighting mobs with the same patterns just to grab scrolls and hope I can scrape a decent build together that might let me win. When I finally managed to kill the final boss, I was done with the game and had no interest in the extra cell difficulties. The game played very well and I had an awesome time starting out with it but I am happy to never touch it again.

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famikon · Jan 19, 2019

Shadow of the Colossus - Vast empty (though gorgeously beautiful) world only highlights saddens and hopeless. No other game can give you the same feelings.
Tetris Effect - Ultimate Tetris experience. Tetris was already a perfect game, but new visual and audio effects push it to a completely new level.
God of War - Almost flawless execution. Even though most ideas and mechanics in this game are not exactly new, smart fusion between them makes God of War nearly perfect.
Yakuza Kiwami 2 - Excellent remaster of the best Yakuza game.
Monster Hunter World - Bigger scale, big changes and huge risks. But they did it. And it worked. One of the best multiplayer game of the last year.
Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age - Before this game, I almost forgot how "classic" JRPG games can be so much fun.
Lumines Remastered - Good game. Good remaster.
Into The Breach - Chess 2.0
Two Point Hospital - Theme Hospital 2
Street Fighter V Arcade Edition - Solid update to already good fighting game.

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AniHawk · Jan 19, 2019

So I'll be the one asshole that votes for this. I think what drew me to it the most was that it was at least trying to do something with its format, by questioning how we make decisions. Do you go for the mundane option? No! Destroy your computer! Fight your therapist! Kill your dad! Add in some fourth-wall trippiness and the game really stood out. Talking to a guy from the 1980s as someone 35 years in the future using an online streaming service was so dumb yet so perfectly strange and memorable. I'm aware of other games that try and use 'the player is also a character' as a way to tell the story, but Bandersnatch is one of the few where I felt it worked. Add in some great performances and a wonderful soundtrack and it was one of my favorite interactive experiences of the year.

Nippon Ichi's isometric brawler is pretty grindy and repetitive. It's also a lot of fun trying to go back and beat my own high score by strategizing what to buy in each level and when to use it to maximize the effect against tough enemies. Despite two playable characters, I only played as the titular princess, who had the moveset I was more comfortable with. The story by Sohei Niikawa is a lot closer to what you might expect from this studio.

My first experience was on Switch, and about a month or so after it launched, so I was able to avoid the issues everyone else had faced, fortunately. I think I had the best experience as a result, and despite some graininess on the screen and the dynamic resolution making everything blurry or not-blurry, I didn't have problems actually fighting or hopping around the main world. While the game starts off with some unfortunate anime tropes, it thankfully leaves them behind after the first two hours. The Switch version having the DLC costumes allowed me to do some head-canon stuff too. I put Dana in a pirate outfit instead of her standard one, so whenever it would switch between her segments and the present, it felt like she was part of the crew in the present. The action-game style of combat, party system, and cast was a lot of fun to play around with. The music was pretty good, and the story winds up surprisingly touching in the true ending.

I just played a bit of this today and it was giving me flashbacks to 2001 and playing Melee with my buddies in high school. I miss home run contest, but the rest of the game is pretty great. World of Light was fun to play through and the amount of players and customization gives multiplayer a ton of options. There are things I would like to see come back - Smash Run from Smash 3DS was pretty great, as well as the aforementioned home run contest, but these things aside, I think this may be my favorite in the franchise.

Yeah I'm cheesing it a little by listing a game that I held in pretty high regard in 2017, but Sonic Mania is just that good. It's the 2D Sonic the Hedgehog 4 that would have come out on Sega Saturn, and with extra characters and modes, it's only better.

I'd held an image of what Katamari Damacy was in my head since 2004. When the game first launched on PS2, I bought it on a whim and it stuck in my head. Parts of We Heart Katamari stuck in there too. This was something that was only apparent on the replay, when other elements I had expected to pop up did not. The replay was a real trip though. Since my teenage years, I have been to Japan a couple times, and what seemed like an abstract fantasy world actually looked closer to an abstract day in 2004 Japan. There were a lot more references that I was able to catch now versus 2004. The music was so much better than I remembered too, ranging between strange to funky to atmospheric. Yet it all works in the world of Katamari Damacy.

A late surprise in 2018, Hitman 2 was also my first Hitman game. The style of gameplay always intrigued me, and I was pleasantly surprised by the playground each mission offered. Hitman 2 knows how to find that right balance between realism and video game cheesiness. A bald guy running around in different outfits yet not getting caught is both silly and also helpful. It would be a lot more frustrating if there was no way to get away from the scene of a crime. I also appreciate that while there are story missions for cinematic assassinations, the game never forces the player to play the way the designers intended, instead letting anyone go about the world as they saw fit.

Naughty Dog created Jak II because in their perception, gamers do not have a motivation to play platformers because the story is usually very basic. The execution of this was a travesty, and my takeaway was that platformers are only worsened by the inclusion of a story. It took until 2018 before Celeste changed my mind. Madeline is climbing a mountain. She's climbing it to accomplish something, so she can overcome her depression and put it behind her. Madeline's struggle is linked to the player (I'm a sucker for this thing in games) as they struggle through the game, each stage, side-stage, side-side-stage, bonus challenge, and screen. It's only after accepting all parts of herself that Madeline is able to conquer Celeste, and the player is granted more power than ever before. There's so much to this game - unlockables, secret collectibles, and a cheat menu to allow less skilled players to play at their own pace. Add in a delightful soundtrack and Celeste is really a complete package - combining great platforming with memorable music, as well as a story that actually enhances the experience. I hope Naughty Dog is taking notes.

This was my biggest surprise of 2018. I like a lot of what NIS has to offer, but I was way more into them between 2003 and 2007 than much recently. I skipped on The Witch and the Hundred Knight, their roguelike games, and their more recent Disgaea titles. The positive word-of-mouth around this had me interested though, and I was in the mood for a more normal RPG even though I'd never gone through a dungeon RPG before. But damn - it managed to capture that "breaking the rules" vibe Disgaea did back in 2003. Transfer souls, break down walls, cram 3-8 people into a single party or have up to 15 people with you in a single battle… Use points to raise your offense or defense, think about your formation, bank your experience points (and risk losing them all when a fight doesn't go your way). It just felt like I was free to do what I wanted and how I wanted. The game starts off with some pretty good dungeons too, although by the end it starts to wear itself out a little, and the second-to-last labyrinth was pretty annoying. Labyrinth of Refrain may look and sound like Disgaea (thanks to the artist and composer both returning), but its story is nothing like Disgaea. It is a sad, serious, and grim game, with only a few moments of dark comedy to lighten the mood. Some serious stuff is tackled here, and it's not done for the sake of titillation. By the end, I was rooting for the main cast to overcome their struggles, and the ending was appropriately bittersweet. The post-game was… well this is where the game overstayed its welcome. For all of the good in the main game, the extra part that gets to the true end feels tacked on. Worse, what's treated with the appropriate amount of gravity in the main game feels like dark for dark's sake in the last part of the postgame. Still, Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk was a big surprise, and I can't wait to see what's next in the series.

"Every passing day the winds blow in stronger Til they light the way to keep the reminder." Who knew that combining gameplay with music the way Tetris Effect does it would be the first time anyone could consider video games art? But seriously, the way Tetris Effect works is not just to have different music playing over Tetris. It's craft. It's using as many senses as possible to provide a singular experience: The sound of the music, and the effects of the blocks rotating and dropping; the visuals in the background and on the Tetris screen to provide a feeling of heat, serenity, or adventure; the way rumble effect lets you feel the song; and how each track is accompanied by changing speeds to engage the player further. There's different modes, and ways to improve your high score by locking in blocks or entering 'the zone', but it's all a bonus to the beauty of the core game design.

Tetris Effect - "Every passing day the winds blow in stronger Til they light the way to keep the reminder." Who knew that combining gameplay with music the way Tetris Effect does it would be the first time anyone could consider video games art? But seriously, the way Tetris Effect works is not just to have different music playing over Tetris. It's craft. It's using as many senses as possible to provide a singular experience: The sound of the music, and the effects of the blocks rotating and dropping; the visuals in the background and on the Tetris screen to provide a feeling of heat, serenity, or adventure; the way rumble effect lets you feel the song; and how each track is accompanied by changing speeds to engage the player further. There's different modes, and ways to improve your high score by locking in blocks or entering 'the zone', but it's all a bonus to the beauty of the core game design.
Labyrinth of Refrain Coven of Dusk - This was my biggest surprise of 2018. I like a lot of what NIS has to offer, but I was way more into them between 2003 and 2007 than much recently. I skipped on The Witch and the Hundred Knight, their roguelike games, and their more recent Disgaea titles. The positive word-of-mouth around this had me interested though, and I was in the mood for a more normal RPG even though I'd never gone through a dungeon RPG before. But damn - it managed to capture that "breaking the rules" vibe Disgaea did back in 2003. Transfer souls, break down walls, cram 3-8 people into a single party or have up to 15 people with you in a single battle… Use points to raise your offense or defense, think about your formation, bank your experience points (and risk losing them all when a fight doesn't go your way). It just felt like I was free to do what I wanted and how I wanted. The game starts off with some pretty good dungeons too, although by the end it starts to wear itself out a little, and the second-to-last labyrinth was pretty annoying. Labyrinth of Refrain may look and sound like Disgaea (thanks to the artist and composer both returning), but its story is nothing like Disgaea. It is a sad, serious, and grim game, with only a few moments of dark comedy to lighten the mood. Some serious stuff is tackled here, and it's not done for the sake of titillation. By the end, I was rooting for the main cast to overcome their struggles, and the ending was appropriately bittersweet. The post-game was… well this is where the game overstayed its welcome. For all of the good in the main game, the extra part that gets to the true end feels tacked on. Worse, what's treated with the appropriate amount of gravity in the main game feels like dark for dark's sake in the last part of the postgame. Still, Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk was a big surprise, and I can't wait to see what's next in the series.
Celeste - Naughty Dog created Jak II because in their perception, gamers do not have a motivation to play platformers because the story is usually very basic. The execution of this was a travesty, and my takeaway was that platformers are only worsened by the inclusion of a story. It took until 2018 before Celeste changed my mind. Madeline is climbing a mountain. She's climbing it to accomplish something, so she can overcome her depression and put it behind her. Madeline's struggle is linked to the player (I'm a sucker for this thing in games) as they struggle through the game, each stage, side-stage, side-side-stage, bonus challenge, and screen. It's only after accepting all parts of herself that Madeline is able to conquer Celeste, and the player is granted more power than ever before. There's so much to this game - unlockables, secret collectibles, and a cheat menu to allow less skilled players to play at their own pace. Add in a delightful soundtrack and Celeste is really a complete package - combining great platforming with memorable music, as well as a story that actually enhances the experience. I hope Naughty Dog is taking notes.
Hitman 2 - A late surprise in 2018, Hitman 2 was also my first Hitman game. The style of gameplay always intrigued me, and I was pleasantly surprised by the playground each mission offered. Hitman 2 knows how to find that right balance between realism and video game cheesiness. A bald guy running around in different outfits yet not getting caught is both silly and also helpful. It would be a lot more frustrating if there was no way to get away from the scene of a crime. I also appreciate that while there are story missions for cinematic assassinations, the game never forces the player to play the way the designers intended, instead letting anyone go about the world as they saw fit.
Katamari Damacy ReRoll - I'd held an image of what Katamari Damacy was in my head since 2004. When the game first launched on PS2, I bought it on a whim and it stuck in my head. Parts of We Heart Katamari stuck in there too. This was something that was only apparent on the replay, when other elements I had expected to pop up did not. The replay was a real trip though. Since my teenage years, I have been to Japan a couple times, and what seemed like an abstract fantasy world actually looked closer to an abstract day in 2004 Japan. There were a lot more references that I was able to catch now versus 2004. The music was so much better than I remembered too, ranging between strange to funky to atmospheric. Yet it all works in the world of Katamari Damacy.
Sonic Mania Plus - Yeah I'm cheesing it a little by listing a game that I held in pretty high regard in 2017, but Sonic Mania is just that good. It's the 2D Sonic the Hedgehog 4 that would have come out on Sega Saturn, and with extra characters and modes, it's only better.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - I just played a bit of this today and it was giving me flashbacks to 2001 and playing Melee with my buddies in high school. I miss home run contest, but the rest of the game is pretty great. World of Light was fun to play through and the amount of players and customization gives multiplayer a ton of options. There are things I would like to see come back - Smash Run from Smash 3DS was pretty great, as well as the aforementioned home run contest, but these things aside, I think this may be my favorite in the franchise.
Ys VIII Lacrimosa of DANA - My first experience was on Switch, and about a month or so after it launched, so I was able to avoid the issues everyone else had faced, fortunately. I think I had the best experience as a result, and despite some graininess on the screen and the dynamic resolution making everything blurry or not-blurry, I didn't have problems actually fighting or hopping around the main world. While the game starts off with some unfortunate anime tropes, it thankfully leaves them behind after the first two hours. The Switch version having the DLC costumes allowed me to do some head-canon stuff too. I put Dana in a pirate outfit instead of her standard one, so whenever it would switch between her segments and the present, it felt like she was part of the crew in the present. The action-game style of combat, party system, and cast was a lot of fun to play around with. The music was pretty good, and the story winds up surprisingly touching in the true ending.
Penny Punching Princess - Nippon Ichi's isometric brawler is pretty grindy and repetitive. It's also a lot of fun trying to go back and beat my own high score by strategizing what to buy in each level and when to use it to maximize the effect against tough enemies. Despite two playable characters, I only played as the titular princess, who had the moveset I was more comfortable with. The story by Sohei Niikawa is a lot closer to what you might expect from this studio.
Black Mirror Bandersnatch - So I'll be the one asshole that votes for this. I think what drew me to it the most was that it was at least trying to do something with its format, by questioning how we make decisions. Do you go for the mundane option? No! Destroy your computer! Fight your therapist! Kill your dad! Add in some fourth-wall trippiness and the game really stood out. Talking to a guy from the 1980s as someone 35 years in the future using an online streaming service was so dumb yet so perfectly strange and memorable. I'm aware of other games that try and use 'the player is also a character' as a way to tell the story, but Bandersnatch is one of the few where I felt it worked. Add in some great performances and a wonderful soundtrack and it was one of my favorite interactive experiences of the year.
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Torna the Golden Country - Xenoblade Chronicles 2 was my 2017 game of the year. I totally bought into the shonen tropes, the character development, the gameplay, and the story. For an expansion pack, Torna goes through some pretty nice lengths to provide as fresh an experience as it can, with a new continent to explore, a crapload of side quests, and even twists on the fighting mechanics from Xenoblade 2. Unfortunately that for as epic as Torna's story is in scale… there's not really much going on between setting off on the adventure and completing it. Still, it had me hooked, and I spent over 35 hours playing it until I had completed all the side quests and superbosses.
Kirby Star Allies - Actually this was another game I forgot about in 2018 until just recently. The little puzzles and the ally system was fun. While the game never reaches the best parts of Triple Deluxe or Planet Robo-bot, I think it has one of the coolest final boss fights in a Kirby game - and this is a series full of insane escalation in its final moments.
Mega Man 11 - Mega Man 9 and 10 were some of my favorite games in the years they released. Mega Man 11 is… pretty nice too. Maybe it doesn't say much about it that I forgot about the game until coming up with this list, and I first played it about three months ago, but it is possible to screw up Mega Man and I'm glad this provides a faithful experience.
Super Mario Party - Ah, after 15+ years, a sequel to Mario Party 2! But seriously - I have played Mario Party 1-4 and 8-10, and Super Mario Party feels like the first evolution from what I loved about the first two Mario Party games. I would love more maps, but if this is going to be the base of the franchise moving forward, I can't wait to see what comes next.
Disgaea 1 Complete - It's been seven years since I've completed a Disgaea game. In that time, I've put about an hour into Disgaea 5, and I own Disgaea D2 but never played it. It turns out that some of my memories of what Disgaea 1 is are based on newer releases. For a remake, it's definitely barebones. You can't skip cutscenes, there's few new sprites (the defenders of earth and the antagonists), there's no magichange, and the music and voice clips had this weird static stuff to it that sounded like they used the same compressed sound files from the ps2 or psp release (and playing disgaea 5 a bit afterwards sounded much clearer). As disappointing as that is, I never played Etna Mode before, so I got a shot at that. It winds up being kind of unnecessary as I didn't need to understand her backstory, but when it ended, and how it nodded towards the original game's opening, I went through the main game again anyway. There was actually more there than I remembered - the story with Maderas, the importance of Big Sis Prinny, Laharl's development - what I had recalled as a satire on PlayStation-era RPGs actually had an emotional core I had either overlooked or completely forgot, and I think this, coupled with the gameplay, carried me through despite the game being a low-effort re-release.
Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom - Early in 2018, I also played Wonder Boy and the Dragon's Curse. It was nice to have some quality of life improvements. The warp system was a big improvement. It feels like a game out of time, one that would have been made for the Sega Genesis or Saturn in the mid-90s. With that comes a few issues… such as some puzzles being a little obtuse, as well as a late-game grind which seemed out of place. Otherwise, it's a charming experience and absolutely worth the full asking price.
Deltarune Chapter 1 - In 2015 I voted for Super Mario Maker over Undertale as my game of the year. In early 2019 I feel that was a big mistake. Undertale might be my favorite game of the generation, and when Deltarune dropped suddenly, I made sure to beat Chapter 1 in a single playthrough. It lacks that hook Undertale had in its morality system, but it retains the charm with a lovable cast of crazy characters mixed with darker tones.
Splatoon 2 The Octo Expansion - This is this single player I was hoping to experience in Splatoon 2 proper. While some of the difficulty was beyond my skill level, I wound up dropping it when other games released, and never went back to finish it - but it will stay in my backlog because many of the challenges are unique to this style of game and function as cool 3D platforming.
Runner3 - Bit.Trip Runner 2 was one of the biggest surprises near the end of the PS3's life. When Runner3 was announced for Switch, I was on board immediately. The changes were mostly not made for the better. There's no aural feedback for kicking down wooden signs, the camera will zoom in and out, sometimes blocking crucial information to prepare you for the next obstacle, and the game feels a bit uneven when it comes to new and sudden gameplay elements like controlling a car or bowling ball. Despite all of that, the level design is mostly solid, and the soundtrack is still a nice listen. I can appreciate that Runner3 has a decidedly different feel from its predecessors, and I enjoy the more vibrant and varied backgrounds as well.
The Fall Part 2 Unbound - Part One of The Fall was a fun side scrolling adventure game and almost a new take on the Metroid style of defeating enemies and acquiring powers. The sequel heads in a different direction, and while the core gameplay is mostly fine, the lack of focus hurt my time with the game.
Hollow Knight - Any game I couldn't beat will sit outside of my top ten, and Hollow Knight on Switch was something I wound up dropping after a good 15 hours in. I really gave it a solid try, but I don't think it's for me. Or maybe it's mostly for me, and some more options in fast travel would have improved my experience.
Wolfenstein II The New Colossus - Having played Doom on Switch, I bought this for the platform on a whim back in August. This wasn't up there with Doom, but I liked the characters and you can't go wrong punchin' Nazis in the face.
Detroit Become Human - David Cage doesn't know how to write believable human beings or create metaphors properly and Detroit: Become Human continues his career-long streak. It's saved partially thanks to the Connor storyline, which should have been the only focus of the game. By leaning heavily into the buddy-cop tropes, it starts to have fun with choices and the main themes of the game, but everything else surrounding that story is handled clumsily at best.
Valkyria Chronicles 4 - It's been a while since I have been so totally let down by the story of a game. Valkyria Chronicles 4 was a game I had anticipated since its announcement, looking to be a return to form after two handheld releases that stripped the original of its charm. VC4 has the opposite problem of Owlboy. The game is actually a lot of fun. I played all the skirmishes, went for the top ranks, and made sure to challenge for all the side-missions as much as possible. The cast though - they're just awful. I never got the feeling that they really liked one another, and it was hard to believe in what they were fighting for. As the game wore on, anime tropes went off the charts, with an innocent little girl being the key to everything, mustache-twirling villains, and the part that broke me in particular - when the main character says, "That power…!" In a game that is supposed to be alternate World War 1.5. Normally I can embrace the goofiness of games like this, but Valkyria Chronicles 1 had established a tone, and this was so far off the mark that it was impossible not to make comparisons.
Owlboy - The Switch release of Owlboy was my first time through the game. It was also the biggest disappointment I had in any other game from 2018. Owlboy features a gorgeous soundtrack and wonderful pixel art, yet the gameplay is simple and the puzzles lack creativity. It makes the dungeons boring. At one point near the end of the game, it glitched out just as I was experiencing the ending, and it was exciting, because I thought the game had entered into some strange meta-narrative. Instead it was just a problem in the programming. I hope that for the next project, the developers can put as much attention into the game design as they did into the presentation.

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CharlesAznable · Jan 19, 2019

Marvel's Spiderman - The best Super hero game I've ever played, and probably the best non-comicbook adaption of spider man. The game has a lot of open world trappings that I usually dislike but the core gameplay loop is so fun that I didn't mind doing them all at all.
Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age - Game came incredibly close to dethroning SM. I was surprised by how much I loved this game. perfectly paced, great cast, great visuals. Easily one of the best rpgs i've played this gen.
Assassin's Creed Odyssey - Surprised by how much I liked this game. It has a lot of jank and stupid amounts of filler content. But I really loved Kassandra and the setting as well. Kassandra is easily my favorite protag of the year.
Bayonetta 2 - An improvement over the first game in every way except maybe plot/setting. Super fun action game.
God of War - My first GOW game, and honestly this game is the closet to perfect on this list. There are very few flaws In this game and the only reason it isn't higher is just because I've enjoyed the other games more on a pure fun basis.
Spyro Reignited Trilogy - A nice package of 3 solid games I've always wanted to play. While I don't think I liked them as much as I thought I would they did give me 3 easy platinums.
Call of Duty: Black Ops IIII - Might just be the best COD multiplayer wise. Probably put more hours into this than every other game on my list combined, and that's no small feat.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - Best Smash game since melee. Love the huge roster and all the gameplay changes.
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Torna The Golden Country - Game play is a vast improvement over the base game, and even though I still have a lot of issue with this release, I put it on here because I like that there was still improvement over the main game.

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Quad Lasers · Jan 19, 2019

Monster Hunter: World - You can now join coop sessions after they've already started instead of silently shadowboxing by yourself in a lobby for an entire hunt because you were three minutes late.

Really, what else needs to be said?
Super Smash Bros Ultimate - This is the first Smash I've gotten into in earnest since the original game, which was probably 9 year old me's favorite game. I'm not sure what exactly got me to finally dig into the online for real this time rather than with the mostly competent Wii U game, but for whatever reason it finally stuck and I'm now living my best, most headstomping-est life. Cahm Awn.
Forza Horizon 4 - Despite a boring and repetitive soundtrack(with some exceptions), a really poor UI, and a sorely needed throughline to actually structure the game's content instead of the map barf that you have to randomly sift through, Horizon 4 was and continues to be a consistently enjoyable game to periodically nip at. Any complaints I have over this game tend to just wash away when I'm racing through a facsimile of a PGR track in the Edinburgh section of the map. Bonus points for running phenomenally on PC.
For Honor: Marching Fire - Winner of "game I played the most this year that I kept forgetting I own", For Honor is another exemplary model of Ubisoft's GaaS model. Admittedly it always takes a little prodding from a friend to get me to fire it up, but it has to be said how far For Honor has come since it launched and Marching Fire did a lot to really wash away some of my persistent gripes with the game. The biggest being that Ubisoft finally junked the min-maxing bullshit associated with armor pieces. Now instead of having to look up reddit posts over which stats are useful and useless in the game's meta and discarding/equipping armor based around that, armor now just collectively fills up bars that grant you one or two perks once an armor threshold has been met. It's not a perfect system, but it's appreciably more straight-forward and less frustrating than the previous model if all you really wanna do is chop some wo/mans without thinking too much about random armor drops. And the actual Breach mode is pretty rad too.

(Fuck that new Monk guy tho.)
Dragon Ball FighterZ - DBFZ pretty much consumed the early parts of my 2018 and I loved my time with it. But as the year wore on, the samey-ness of the cast really started to grind me down, with the game's season pass really driving the point home. People joke about there being too many Gokus in terms of literally all the god damn Gokus, but the game's bigger issue frankly is that there's honestly too many Gokus in terms of, ahem, function. It's a game that really feels like it suffers from a lack of diversity in its roster due to so much of the cast feeling like they have similar BnB strings derived from the same general archetype.

That said, it's hard to deny how great it looks and is to play. Here's to hoping that Season 2 gives us more characters outside of the "feel" of the existing cast.
Zone of the Enders The 2nd Runner: Mars - This year was the first time I got to beat 2nd Runner since Konami never bothered to patch the 360 version. This game's combat is pretty unspectacular by modern standards and the script is maybe the all time worst fucking thing I've ever personally consumed that wasn't The Room. But that train sequence. That Vector Cannon. That Auuman assault. Fuckin' Ạ̵̴̢̡͉̫̣ ̠̭̖̹̩̩͎͕̀͘ͅŃ̸̛͕̥̱̼̣̪̗̯̗͍̹̗͘͝ ̡͈̰͉̮̤̘̦̗͓̬͍̲̼̘̦͉͡͡Ų͉̼̣̪̩̪͕̜̫̳̤̣̱̮́́ ̜̳̞͢B̵͝͠͠͏̗͉͔̖̲̯ ̢҉̸̱̫͕̞̼͙̮̥̯̗̫̰̞͙̼͔̠͞ͅI̶̸̖͎̝̩̜͓͖̞̩̩̖̩̥̕͘ ̷̢̨̢͕͇͍̺̙̩̹͢S͏̹͎̻̣̥̫̀͠͡͞ . There are some pretty spectacular moments worth experiencing in 2nd Runner.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 - This is probably the most disappointing Treyarch CoD I've ever played. The spawns are the worst I've ever seen in this series, the maps are way too small relative to the movement speed, the game has maybe the most visually boring artstyle I've ever seen in a CoD and all the specialists are lame looking goobers with stupid faces.

but shoot feel good unga bunga
Lethal League Blaze - I didn't play as much Lethal League Blaze as I thought I would and frankly, a lot of that has to do with how similar the game is to its predecessor. But I think the the new characters are genuinely awesome, I love the changes they made to the health system and the ball-grab mechanic is a fantastic new mixup option. It's a hard game to recommend, especially with how much the userbase has dwindled since launch and how vicious the remaining players almost undoubtedly are. But overall I enjoyed the handful of hours online I had at launch that are likely going to end up being the lion's share of my time with LLB.

Shouts outs:

Dusk - I've only played the first of three episodes as of writing this. It's fucking awesome, but I can't in good conscience add it to my GOTY list without seeing more. Sorry Dusk, I'm stupidly slow at playing stuff.
Destiny 2: Forsaken - The panning for gold equivalent of video games. I picked my old Destiny 2 save back up this year and finished everything from the second half of the original campaign all the way up to the end of the Forsaken story. There are genuinely strong level and encounter designs in this game that are absolutely worth acknowledging, but they are constantly hampered by boring, rote, bog-standard fodder that I have to plow through at every end. There's only so many ways you can one-shot the same stupid squad of Fallen or Cabal. Bungo plz.
God of War - I thoroughly enjoyed the story, but I thought the game wore out its welcome well before I finished. The combat at least feels good, so I don't know if this game needed a more varied moveset, a shorter length or a mix of both. But it did enough well that I'm interested in at least seeing how the story develops in the future and potentially how they build on the gameplay.

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Raxgriz · Jan 19, 2019

God of War - A modern masterpiece. great gameplay, awesome story, excellent visuals and the characters interaction was wonderful. the leviathan axe is instant classic.
Red Dead Redeption 2 - It got everything you expect from a rockstar game and it is a great game if it wasn't for the controls it would been my Goty.
Hitman 2 - Simply more content is the best way to make a sequel.
Marvel's Spiderman
Detroit: Become Human
Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of the Elusive Age
Monster Hunter World
Valkyria Chronicles 4
Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom
Shadow of the Colossus

my first post , hi era.

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Oneself · Jan 19, 2019

2018 has been one of the greatest years in gaming in my opinion, some stellar indies and many high budget quality titles as well. Also, it's been a year of great Metroidvanias!!

Shadow of the Colossus - Part of my all time favorites and still a stellar game thanks to the subtle tweaks of this amazing remake. I kept being impressed at every corner; this is how a remake should be done IMO (except for his face).
God of War - One of my favorite series get a bold new start, mostly for the better. I still think GOW2 is better but this one came close.
Dead Cells - Another surprise! I didn't expect it to be this good. And I normally don't like "rogue something" games but this one is just too fun to play.
Detroit: Become Human - I loved Indigo Prophecy and Heavy Rain but this one definitely is a huge step above all of Cage's games.
Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom - My favorite Wonderboy game and one of the best Metroidvanias ever. Amazing art as well.
Hitman 2 - I've always been a fan of Hitman and this is the best since Bloodmoney. The level design is something else. Don't skip!!
Iconoclasts - Not perfect but highly impressive and super fun Metroidvania! Bought it twice just to be sure.
Timespinner - Again, another great surprise. It's not perfect but it's very, very well done. It feels as if Squaresoft (of the 90s) did a Metroidvania.
Hollow Knight - I was a bit caught into the hype so when I got the PS4 version I expected to be blown away a bit more but it's one of the most solid releases of the year no doubt.
Spyro Reignited Trilogy - While the disc version (that I own...) is a bummer and almost a scam, the game is just awesomely charming platforming just like I remembered it. Thanks to a highly tweaked remake again!!
Horizon Chase Turbo - I've been waiting more than 20 years for a proper sequel to Top Gear, thanks!
Steel Rats - A sadly underrated and unknown game, blending Trials + a 2D platformer + bits of Contra and Uniracer into something coherent and fun.

Honorable mentions: Spiderman, Forza Horizon 4 and Guacamelee 2... and probably many others I can't think of!

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empty feat · Jan 19, 2019

Hollow Knight - I went into this hoping for a quirky, moody metroidvania and came out with a GOTY.
Monster Hunter: World - I almost didn't pick this up on the back of the beta, turned out to be the most fun online experience for years (matchmaking notwithstanding, yikes).
God of War - Boy, we really are the last of us (but Gods).
Celeste - Tight controls, cute story, good challenge. Very good.
Enter the Gungeon - On the back of the dlc this year? First time I played it was 2018 anyway and I had a blast.
Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden - Straight out of left field, RTS with exploration and interesting characters.
Spyro Reignited Trilogy - It's Spyro, they nailed it.
Darkest Dungeon - On the back of Color of Madness? Game is bloody great and this dlc added so much replayability.
Guacamelee 2 - Felt a bit same again, but Guac 1 was tight, and this was still very fun.

Year was a bit weak looking back. I've still to play Spider-Man and Into the Breach, and I don't have a Switch still, so the list is a little padded.

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Illusionary · Jan 19, 2019

I've not left myself as much time for this as I should have done, as I was hoping that I might be able to put some time into a few others of the year's highlights, so this will be fairly brief, but in the interests of getting something down, here goes. I may try to expand on the comments for posterity, as time allows!

Assassin's Creed: Odyssey - an amazingly detailed open world, with a compelling story and excellently-written protagonist provide a perfect background for the best interpretation of the Assassin's Creed 'formula', either before or after the 'reboot' from Origins
Celeste -
Into the Breach -
Marvel's Spider-Man -
Iconoclasts -
Hollow Knight - This was actually very nearly my GotY for 2018, but this astoundingly good Metroidvania deserves all the praise that it can get - so as I've got another chance to vote for it, I will!
Yoku's Island Express -
Guacamelee! 2 -
Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle – Donkey Kong Adventure -
Minit -
Far Cry 5 -
Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom -
The Gardens Between -
Return of the Obra Dinn - I've not yet played enough to rank it higher, but from everything I've heard of the game, combined with brief initial impressions, I'm sure that I'll love this when I play it (soon!)
CrossCode - exactly the same situation as for Return of the Obra Dinn... too many games!

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StraySheep · Jan 19, 2019

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - A great reminder of why I love Nintendo and easily the best Smash yet. I think more than the roster I am just thrilled with all the stages and music. And as someone who doesn't have a lot of MP opportunities these days, I am very happy with the SP content. It just kind of fell into this spot.
God of War - While I played God of War 1 to prepare for this game, I was never a fan of the series and wouldn't even say I was crazy about that game. What a re-imagining of a franchise. I probably had more fun with my next game, but looking back at this and thinking about the total piece of art it is I imagine God of War will stick with me longer.
Marvel's Spiderman - This game is so fun that I don't even mind the blatant Ubisoft open world design. And while I haven't finished it yet, I am also pretty intrigued by the story. Which is impressive because I am mostly checked out of Marvel at this point.
Into the Breach - My annual Indie killer title.
Astro Bot: Rescue Mission - Almost justifies my VR purchase alone.
Red Dead Redemption 2 - Still very early, but once I sit myself down to play it I found the whole experience addicting.
Yakuza Kiwami 2 - Much better after Kiwami 1. A long pause that I had to take and its nature as a remake is what kept it down on this list.
Super Mario Party - A great Mario Party game, and one of the rare games we got my mom to play and enjoy.
WarioWare Gold - Happy that this is my first real WW experience.
Jackbox Party Pack 5 - Another knockout PP.
Shadow of the Colossus - A remake, but a killer one.
Hollow Knight - I have enjoyed it so far.

And that is mostly the games I have played this year! I haven't finished half of them either, so it is possible in a month or so this list will have changed. In particular Obra Dinn, Dragon Quest, and Tetris are at the top of my want list.

N.47H.4N · Jan 19, 2019

God of War - I've always been a big fan of the franchise, I love all previous games and a lot of them are among my favorites of all time, so with the announcement of a new entry, I was very happy and apprehensive about the new direction, but I always trusted in the talent of Cory Barlog. The wait was worth it, the game not only lived the hype, but overcame and much. From start to finish the game is incredible, polished to the highest in all areas, I do not remember the last time a game made me smile all the time, marveling at the experience delivered to me.God of War quickly became not only my game of the year, but of the whole generation, and I tell you it's not even close.God of War is a great odyssey, a roller coaster of action and feelings,and will be remembered as one of the greatest of this generation.
Shadow of the Colossus - One of the greatest games of all time, I always dreamed of a remake,and Blue Point's work was superb, not to be desired in any technical aspect. There was nothing like this game in 2005,13 years later and still does not exist, has always been and always will be a timeless masterpiece.
Detroit Become Human - I loved Heavy Rain and Beyond Two Souls, I really expected that demo to become a game. David Cage and his team gave their best work here, the amount of possible branches s is huge, characters and interesting conflicts, especially Connor, what great character, technically impeccable. Except the beginning, that drags a little, the game gets better and better showing that when it comes to interactive stories, no one in the industry is at Quantic Dream's level.
Hitman 2 - Hands down one of the best levels designs ever, the amount of freedom and creativity that the game gives you to eliminate your targets is amazing, and rewarding, many challenges makes it a game with great replay value,best stealth gameplay of the genre, best game of the series.
Hollow Knight - What an amazing game, now it's among my favorite indie ever, great level design, amazing art style, simple but fun combat, incredible boss fights and a ton of secrets and content.When I thought I was finishing I discovered new areas and enemies, a lot of content or a few bucks, I would have paid $ 60 with no problems.
Dark Souls Remastered - In 2018 I played the whole trilogy for the first time, in order, it's amazing how a good game will always be, gameplay and level design is amazing, as the areas connect, I was constantly fascinated, all secrets and lore.But I was surprised how easy the game was for me, the bosses many of them were disappointing, some of the latter areas are disappointing, yet the game deserves all the praise.
Red Dead Redemption 2 - I'm tired of talking about all the problems this game has, so I'll talk about the best. Primarily, it's technically the most impressive game I've ever played, an open-world level that no one will reach so soon, not this generation. Best open world to date, nothing comes close. One of the best soundtracks ever, unbelievable graphics for an open world. Arthur Morgan is one of the best if not the best character introduced in this generation, I find the story overrated, contains many problems but undeniably well told and written, well built characters, attention to detail that few developers can compare. Red Dead Redemption 2 is a love letter for many fans of the previous game, more than a game, a great experience.
Into the Breach - It was the last game on my list that I played, and I'm addicted, I did not play many strategy games in my life, I just ignore this genre, but this game caught me. Simple but delightful gameplay.
Marvel's Spiderman - The combat and traverssing is the great highlights of this game, great set pieces, but terrible secondary content, forced sessions of stealth and missions with other characters almost destroyed this game, I still had a lot of fun.
Undertale - A really charming game, very funny and full of surprises, I really liked the support characters, but when I got to the end, I did not feel fulfilled, I do not think it's as good as many have said.Still a good game and experience.

Honorable Mentions
Assassin's Creed Odyssey: I'm playing and enjoying a lot, if I was finished, I could see him battling with RDR2.
DragonBall FighterZ: I love the franchise, this was the reason I bought this game, it's beautiful and very well done, but I'm terrible at fighting games.
A Way Out: I just started playing with my brother, so far it's been a great experience, but unfortunately I will not finish before the deadline.

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Captain of Outer Space · Jan 19, 2019

Hitman 2 - I knocked out an entire neighborhood's worth of people with muffins, so if that doesn't make Hitman 2one of the greatest games ever made, I don't know what will. Hitman 2 took everything that was great about the first season and layers on more great ideas to make for the best stealth game that is approachable, funny, and tense at the same time.
Marvel's Spider-Man - Despite being my favorite superhero, Spider-Man's games have never really been good enough to capture my interest with the way that Activision squandered its license over the last 20 years, so it's no surprise that Sony and Insomniac Games getting a hold of the rights to make a new game resulted in an amazing game that does everything right. The writing is fantastic in all respects and the game plays really well as a spin on the classic Batman: Arkham combat system while they nailed the web-swinging to make it easy to never use the fast travel until I finished up the platinum trophy at the end of my time with the game.
Astro Bot Rescue Mission - I've been a VR advocate for two years now since PlayStation VR launched and this year has been joyous as Sony's investment in this new way to play games has paid off with several excellent games like Moss, Tetris Effect, Beat Saber, Firewall: Zero Hour, Creed, and Astro Bot Rescue Mission, which is easily one of the best platformers I've ever played. Astro Bot is an incredibly well made platformer that uses the strengths of VR to perfection that would be a lesser experience without its great controls, amazing soundtrack, and excellent presentation that sets a good foundation for Team Asobi's future VR work.
God of War - Chalk this up to another thing you'd never expect to happen in 2018, but the new God of War being a great reinvention of the series' play style, presentation, and mechanics while featuring a genuinely great story about a father and his son going on a journey together to lay their wife and mother's ashes to rest despite everybody in all of the realm's insistence on stopping them. It's a huge testament to Cory Barlog and his team at Santa Monica Studio on doing what seemed impossible a few years ago in modernizing the God of War franchise.
Return of the Obra Dinn - Lucas Pope knows how to make games that appeal to my weird sensibilities with the bureaucratic simulation Papers, Please and now Return of the Obra Dinn, which is an insurance adjuster simulation where you're exploring the Obra Dinn to find out how everybody on the passenger list died with the help of your handy magical pocket watch that shows you the moment of their death. It's one of the best detective games around with an amazing art style that is easily the best of this year.
Tetris Effect - Tetris has never been a flashy, stylish game despite the acclaim it has received for decades, so it was certainly surprising to find out before E3 that Tetsuya Mizuguchi, creator of Rez, Lumines, and Space Channel 5, was working on the newest game for PSVR and PS4 that added a heavy dose of style to the classic Tetris action that made for an outstanding puzzle experience that is like nothing else out there right now. Tetris Effect is one of a handful of games that helped make PSVR a standout platform this year that is also a thing I would not have expected to happen in 2018.
Celeste - While the masocore platformers have been all the rage since Super Meat Boy was a big deal on XBLA, the biggest problem I've had with them is their hard-on for reveling in your deaths and failures to belittle your skills and make you feel like a worthless loser. Celeste does none of that while retaining the same challenge, also offering assists for those that need it, and wraps it all in a relatable story about a girl climbing a mountain in an attempt to escape her personal issues.
Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age - It's been 13 years since Dragon Quest was last on a console here in the West and that is why Dragon Quest XI's release this year was a breath of fresh air for a classic franchise that is rarely treated like a premier franchise by Square Enix over here. While other JPRGs "modernize" in weird ways that are alien to their roots, Dragon Quest XI is mostly faithful to what I loved most about the series without feeling stale like Tokyo RPG Factory's JRPGs.
PixelJunk Monsters 2 - The original is one of my favorites from last generation and one of my all-time favorite tower defense games, which made a sequel finally happening 11 years later a big deal for me and being very good was also a great relief. It's not a perfect sequel to the classic, but the amazing art style, new 3D controls, and new selection of towers made for a tough, challenging experience that keeps me coming back often to try to figure out the perfect strategies for its tougher rainbows.
Donut County - Donut County is one of those games that does some cool stuff mechanically, but doesn't go far enough with it for that part of the game to really stand out. It's actually the hilarious writing that really makes it a great experience and is one where I took a ton of screenshots of dialog and the Trashopedia so I can read them again later while cackling at how funny it is.

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SaitoH · Jan 19, 2019

God Of War - Although I was anticipating GoW, my expectations were tempered due to franchise fatigue. This game has single handedly, made me rethink my opinion on sequels; to not outright discount them because maybe they can turn out as good as GoW. I love the more hand crafted open world-ish approach. Great story, cast, graphics, gameplay .... etc. Easily my Game of the year and one of the top games this generation.
Spider-Man - This would probably be the most fun I had playing a game this year. Surprisingly great story, combat and traversal. As a bonus it also happens to be the best Spider-man movie.
Monster Hunter World - I put in almost 300 hours into world -- making it my most played game this year. Love the changes and updates to this franchise. Charge Blade for life!
Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age - Best JRPG I've played this year and one of the best this gen. Beautiful artwork that's oozing personality and a wonderful cast. I can't recommend the game enough
Red Dead Redemption - Amazing visuals with an incredible amount of detail, coupled with a great story and the best Rockstar lead make for an unforgettable game.
Astro Bot: Rescue Mission - I bought a VR headset to play this and wasn't disappointed. For years people have talked about the value of presence and immersion. Now I get it. This game truly feels like something new.
Yoku's Island Express - Who would of thought Pinball and Metroid mashup would work. I absolutely adored this game.
Dragonball FighterZ - I haven't played a good team fighter in quite a while, but this is an absolute blast to play. Loved it so much that I signed up to crunchyroll to watch the entire DBZ super series. My inner DragonBall fan is finally been sated.
Hollow Knight - This game fuses the gameplay of Metroid with the atmosphere of the Souls series. There was such a ridiculous amount of content that at a certain point I just had to say enough and beat the game. Amazing title.
Detroit: Become Human - Beautiful visuals, with likable characters and a good story (even though it's well trodden ground). I really like this style of game and not many come out with this level of presentation.

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Captain_Cold · Jan 19, 2019

Yakuza 6: The Song of Life - I've followed the series since the PS2 days and I was looking forward to Kiryu's sendoff but, after hearing about the lukewarm reception in Japan I was expecting to be let down. Instead I found the new engine to be incredibly immersive, the trimmed back side content to be a refreshing change, and the story and characters to be among my favorite in the series. The new city in particular, Onomichi, and the homespun nature of its inhabitants made such an impression on me that I just had to make time to visit the actual city during my visit to Japan this year.
Assassin's Creed Odyssey - After I jumped ship on the series after III, if you'd have told me an Assassin's Creed game would nearly be my favorite game this year I would've laughed at you. I picked this one up on whim during Black Friday sales after hearing that Origins had been a new look for series. After about 100 hours exploring Peloponnesian War-era Greece I'm still having a blast. All the systems come together to make for a extremely fun and fulfilling experience. And the story, combat, and new gameplay elements like choice-based dialog all make it feel more like the Witcher 3 or Horizon Zero Dawn than an Assassin's creed game, which is a good thing. The game is designed with the player experience in mind, with an extremely rewarding gameplay loop that never sacrifices fun for the sake of sim-like realism. It probably helps that I played this immediately after Red Dead 2, which is the exact opposite. Also, I love Kassandra.
Marvel's Spiderman - The best representation of Spider-man in any medium outside of the comics themselves. Extremely polished and with a great story and city to explore, I never once felt bored during my 40 plus hours with the game. The combat and web-slinging both feel so good that even if the game had no story it would still be a blast just to swing around and beat up thugs. Pure fun.
Astro Bot: Rescue Mission - This game is happiness distilled down to its essence, and an incredible showcase for what VR can provide even to traditional genres. Not just a great VR game, this is one of the best platformers ever made, with each level introducing some new ingenious interaction that you've never experienced before. It would probably be my number 1 pick this year if I had gotten more than 10 hours of play out of it on my way to earning the platinum. But those 10 hours were my absolute favorite 10 hours of gaming this year.
God of War - Every aspect of this game feels fine-tuned, from the combat mechanics to the rpg-lite character progression, world map design, art, and world building. It all comes together in and amazing adventure that is an evolution of everything learned from previous God of War games, but with a completely new look and feel that complement the new setting. For me the best part was character interactions between Kratos and Boy, how you really felt the growth of the two along the journey from timid son and distant, reluctant father toward a relationship of understanding and finally love. Kratos especially went from being one-dimensional in previous games to a fully developed and nuanced character here.
Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age - The game that keeps on giving. I've played and loved every Dragon Quest since I first got Dragon Warrior for free from Nintendo Power as a kid, and this is the best one yet. The story is engrossing the whole way through and, in typical DQ fashion, just when you think it's over it hits you with a whole new quest. This happens not once but twice! It probably has the best cast in a Dragon Quest, even better than IV and VIII. My only knock against this one is that the difficulty tuning was a little off. The normal mode is way too easy, but the Draconian setting for higher difficulty is bit too hard. I played with Draconian enabled and found that some bosses represented major difficulty spikes, which made me wish I could drop the difficulty just for that boss. The problem is that if you disable a Draconian setting you can't re-enable it, a weird design decision. Other than those couple of bosses that felt unfair I loved every second of my quest.
Monster Hunter World - In the midst of my 400 hour addiction to Monster Hunter World, I remember muttering to myself that this was my favorite game of all time. I did this numerous times, when an early hunt would come together in a satisfying fashion, or after many hours when me and my buddies had tempered elder dragon farming down to a science. Or when Kulve Taroth first went live and we stayed up all night grinding out all the rewards while marveling at how other developers don't offer free DLC as cool as this. At some point other games started to come out and released me from my foggy addiction. And when I came to I realized I never wanted to play this game again. God bless you Monster Hunter and the 400 hours you gave / took from me. Never again! Though I'll probably be back for G rank / Iceborne.
Firewall: Zero Hour - This game feels like the future. When I was a kid this was the type of thing I would've only imagined possible in some far future military training setting and yet here we are. Yeah, it's small scale and only has a few modes, but the central conceit of "being there" in a tactical shooter is enough to carry the game. Just being able to actually aim down sights, blind fire around cover, use head or gun motion to direct teammates, or listen for jammers using directional sound really sells the experience. Every match is exciting, and a good community means you'll usually wind up with a cool group even when solo matchmaking. There were many nights where "just one more match" kept going until I finally took off the headset and realized it was 5 in the morning. Oops.
Red Dead Redemption 2 - What an impressive game. It just oozes production quality, with amazing graphics, directing, mo-cap and voice work. When you really get into it, it starts to feel like a living, breathing world and you are Arthur Morgan inhabiting this world. Not to mention that, in a year of amazingly well-done and interesting video game protagonists, Arthur is one of the best ever. Unfortunately many of the conceits made for the sake of realism and immersion end up grating over the course of the game. Things that are cool the first few times like skinning animals, having to ride all the way to one of too few trappers to sell the couple of animal skins you can fit on your horse, dying on the way to said trapper and losing your skins anyway, getting too far from your horse and having to walk back to camp, riding a train and having your horse follow you but die because he got too close to the tracks, bumping into people and causing full force of the law to come down on you, limited fast travel methods... all of the things add up to make for a sometimes tedious experience. It also doesn't help that the core gameplay feels a bit outdated, with character controls and mission design in particular feeling like 7th gen efforts. This is especially incongruous when compared against the amazing interactive story-telling and world building.
Beat Saber - The core concept of this one is great in that anyone can pick it up and play. My family came into town for a few weeks over the holidays, and my mom got so into Beat Saber that by the time she left she was able to finish most songs on hard. She's 65+ and has never been into traditional games but the intuitive nature of VR, the fun rhythm/slicing gameplay, and the fact that it's a decent workout for more sedentary folks made it something that she kept wanting more of. It's awesome how it slowly becomes second nature and eventually you find yourself in the zone going for full combos and S ranks on every song on expert mode.
The Persistence - I've never been too into rogue likes, but the atmosphere, unique enemies, and expertly designed core gameplay loop had me fully engrossed in this one. Mastering the weapons, abilities, and enemy encounters make for an extremely satisfying experience. Its also genuinely scary at times.
Yakuza Kiwami 2 - I wish I had more time to play this as I'm sure it would've ranked higher if it didn't come out next to Firewall, Spider-man, and Dragon Quest XI. I only got about 8 hours in before moving on, mostly because those other games were coming out and I had already had sufficient Yakuza fill from playing 6 earlier in the year. I loved the improvements to Dragon Engine, seeing Osaka rendered in the new engine was awesome, and 2's story is one of my favorites in the series, so I'll circle back to it soon.
Detroit: Become Human - The story and its themes are a bit on-the-nose and perhaps even in poor taste, but to be fair many stories focusing on A.I. revolve around some of the same concepts. I'm confident enough saying this is the best Quantic Dream game by far, and the writing is pretty strong throughout. Where many games of this type give the illusion that your choices matter, subsequent replays reveal that story variation is typically superficial. With Detroit they've gone out of their way to ensure this isn't the case, with choices you make having drastic consequences not just regarding who lives or dies but how the overall narrative plays out. The production value on display here is insane, and never falters regardless of your choices, making the amount of branching paths they've had to consider all the more impressive.
Sprint Vector - A super fun racer with a very unique VR control scheme. Many sweaty sessions learning the tracks and challenge courses lead to a great "in-the-zone" feeling when racing others online.
Moss - A cool little adventure with great graphics and an intriguing setting, I just wish it had lasted a little longer. Looking forward to Book 2, whenever it comes.

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Deleted member 2620 · Jan 19, 2019

As I get closer and closer to releasing my game, I get to play less and less each year. It's painful! There were a lot of good new original stuff this year, so I've made it a point to avoid mentioning excellent re-releases of classics like Ketsui Deathtiny, Gain Ground, and so on. As always, don't pay too much attention to the order:

ZeroRanger
System Erasure

At first glance, ZeroRanger is an extremely strong arcade-designed shooter. The visuals are stylish and very distinct. The backgrounds are varied and as dense as the satisfying destruction effects. The enemies run the gamut of archetypes you've seen elsewhere, but they're well-made and the pacing is extremely tight. You'll see references that are a bit on-the-nose, but most of them are meaningfully fleshed out and not throwaway gags (like in, say, Meat Boy) so I'm okay with 'em. You gain access to one of two selectable new weapons after clearing each stage, assigned to its own button, and they're all fun to use. The generous extends and four-stage length make the game maybe feel a bit short initially (especially given the nature of the fourth stage), but loop 2 includes some nasty new enemy behavior and a lot of unique elements on top of that: the backgrounds have big changes, the soundtrack is entirely remixed, you'll run into some new setpieces and bosses, and you're allowed to make full use of the weapons that you unlocked in the prior loop.

Given all of this it's a very good game to approach as a straight-up arcade STG and attempt to single-credit clear, but there's more going on here and it's tricky to talk about it all without giving too much away. There's a continue limit that permanently raises as you play (like Ikaruga but based on total score rather than time) and you can select a starting stage, but getting a game over rolls you back to checkpoints so there's some learning involved even when credit-feeding. And as you start to reach the end of the second loop, the game has some very effective and unique tricks up its sleeve that will force some very tough and satisfying fights on the player regardless of how they're playing. There's a lot of narrative built around this (some of which is delivered through means outside of the typical arcade game framework) and it's pretty great. This is what I "cleared" and what will give you the game's lone achievement. I haven't 1CC'd the game and I haven't fully scoped out what's changed yet, but what I've experienced is fantastic regardless.
Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana
Nihon Falcom Corporation, NIS America

Man, these games have gotten huge. Oath in Felghana and Origins are awesome and super-focused games, where VI, VII, and Celceta felt like they leave the door open for more grinding and have a less "obvious" XP curve due to their size. I'm not a huge fan of that or of the three-character system that's been around for the past couple games. VIII follows in the footsteps of VI, VII, and Celceta like that, but the new stuff is so good: the over-the-shoulder perspective is awesome, your characters blast around at the speed of the Doom marine, you spend a lot of time earlier in the game running around gorgeous blue-sky coastal areas with the most perfect video game adventure music, and there's something very satisfying about how the castaway village plot leads you to gaining access to more and more of the island. The plot feels a bit episodic at times, but this allows for some cool chapters like a murder mystery and ghost pirate ship. Many of the enemies being dinosaur-themed was pretty unique, too.

I started this one on Inferno mode, and it holds up pretty well for being the hardest of five difficulty levels. Eventually the combat becomes extremely focused on Bayonetta-style dodging (for Witch Time no less) and/or parrying, but this definitely stays engaging enough to carry the game. That said, I definitely started to dip below the level curve late into the game, and at the very last boss fight of the 65 hour campaign I decided to drop down to Nightmare difficulty. Getting through the kinda-lame first half of the fight just wasn't gonna happen without me gaining like ten more levels, and I wasn't about to grind that out lol. Still, recommended, and even if you're not playing on the harder difficulty levels this game thoroughly rules.
DUSK
David Szymanski, New Blood Interactive

There have been a lot of throwback first person shooters this decade, but I don't think any of them have been this strong. It's extremely in the Doom and Quake mold (FAST player movement, bunny hopping, tons and tons of enemies, knot-like maps with colored keys, etc), but with some neat new stuff like simulated physics props you can smash enemies with and modern-style sliding. There's an excellent cast of distinct enemies, and while the inspirations from Doom and Quake are extremely clear, there are a few key unique behaviors that spice things up. None of the enemy attacks are hitscan, either, keeping combat strictly about avoidable projectiles and never leaving you wondering where you're being hit from. The weapons and items hit the big Quake/Doom highlights, but there are a few really cool surprises in there like episode 3's sword (which is basically the Berserk mode from Doom given a few more mechanical wrinkles and a permanent spot in the player's inventory) or episode 2's Superhot needle (which does what you think it does). Tying this stuff together are three well-made episodes: the first one is a run through some kinda so-so rural locations (carried by the game's excellent core mechanics), but the second and third are fantastically varied and surreal and they introduce new enemies, items, and weapons at just the right pace all the way up to the final fight. The soundtrack is incredible (think 2016 Doom) and the map design hooks into it better than in the classics by having a lot of manually-placed playback triggers. The visuals mostly hit a Thief level of fidelity and manage to not show too many seams (the enemies look a bit worse than those in the games Dusk is trying to emulate but the environments are great).

The only real complaint I have is minor and pretty predictable. The saving model is the same as in old Doom, so you'll be having to decide between restarting maps completely when you die (which kinda sucks in the more maze-like layouts) or managing your own quicksaves. I'm particularly annoyed that it doesn't autosave at the start of each map, as that seems like an obvious and easy modern QoL thing and it would have saved me from a couple instances where I quickloaded myself back a level lol. Beaten on Cero Miedo mode.
Tetris Effect
Monstars Inc/Resonair, Enhance Inc.

This feels very slightly closer to Tetris The Grandmaster, mechanically, than Puyo Puyo Tetris did, and the new Zone mechanic is neat if not particularly complicated. The various Effect scenarios seem pretty great, particularly Mystery. I think there's a really good argument to be made that this is the best Mizuguchi game: mechanically I'd take a very good Tetris over Lumines (let alone Rez), and aesthetically it builds on top of Rez Area X's particle-focused look and Lumines' theme-specific and beat-matched sound effects through a ton of super-distinct and beautiful stage themes. And that's before accounting for VR, which inherently adds a ton to the experience despite the game having nothing particularly noteworthy going on implementation-wise. Beat Journey on Normal, played a chunk of Expert, and played around with Effect a bit.
Hitman 2
IO Interactive, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

Pretty much what you'd expect from a follow-up to the excellent 2016 game. A new handful of big, complicated locations with a whole lot to do inside of them. About a month after I initially beat the 2016 game using some self-imposed rules the developers added a higher difficulty that does what I wanted: altered item and guard locations, more on-edge AI, and strict mid-mission saving limits. Thankfully Hitman 2 launched with an equivalent to this mode, and I loved even just eeking through the main objectives with it. The challenges, like in the prior game, serve as good hints as to what's possible in a given location, and they do a good job of getting you to fully explore each area. And the head-to-head Ghost mode is shockingly fun.
La-Mulana 2
Nigoro, Playism

Very much in line with the original (which was a magically unique game), but with very slightly less ridiculous puzzles and very slightly more in-game hinting. I still had to rely on out-of-game hints occasionally, but far less than in the original and in all those cases there was a somewhat reasonable in-game thing that I missed. I think I liked this a bit more than the original on the action front, and the environment themes are a bit more interesting here. Took me about 70 hours in the end. In their original Kickstarter pitch Nigoro suggested this would be a 20-30 hour game for newcomers to the series, lol.

La-Mulana 2 and its predecessor are insanely unique games that I wish more people would check out. Genuinely tough puzzles that involve absorbing lore buried deep into archaeological ruins is unique enough, and that's before considering how well it fits into the framework of an action-platformer.
Astro Bot: Rescue Mission
Sony Interactive Entertainment Japan Studio

The core 3D platforming mechanics are pretty simple, but the situational mechanics they build around the Dual Shock are clever and most of the time they get explored enough to be more than novelties. The stages never get particularly tough, but the game ramps up faster than Lucky's Tale and isn't a total cakewalk. And speaking of Lucky's Tale, pretty much every boss in this game outdoes that game's final boss, which is saying a lot! I haven't tried the unlocked challenges yet, either, so I'm hoping those have some tougher scenarios and are more than just ranked time trials. The worlds don't have consistent styles, but environmental themes instead change on a stage-by-stage basis and each stage manages to look surprisingly unique. Hidden collectables come in the form of finding and saving robot friends, and there's a surprising amount of effort put into the situations they find themselves in. All of the robot designs are adorable, the music is adorable, and it's maybe one of the cutest games ever.

Moss, Lucky's Tale, and Edge of Nowhere are examples of decent third person games with solid-to-good VR implementations. Chronos is a great third-person game with a very bare VR implementation. Astro Bot is a great third-person game that makes very, very good use of VR.
God of War
Sony Interactive Entertainment Santa Monica Studio

The camera feels claustrophobic at first, but I liked the novelty of it combined with all the heavy hits Kratos deals, and when you add how fun it is to throw and recall the axe I'd say it's pretty justified. I'm far less sold on the game being one continuous camera shot. There's wild visuals, really tense fights, decent puzzles that don't overstay their welcome, and a nice set of moves to toy around with between the weapons, but I think the game goes on a little bit too long in part due to the lack of enemy archetypes. Maybe the valkyries would be better as part of the main story, replacing a few trolls and/or ogres? Played on Hard.
Toaru Majutsu no Virtual On
SEGA

Turns out all it took to bring back Virtual On was some anime crossover. Here's a brand-new 1v1 and 2v2 game that plays at a much faster pace than Force and with less virtuaroid unlock nonsense. The control mechanics are weird: I haven't tried the kinda hard-to-get twin sticks out there (yet), but I suspect the game is still mapping to two digital sticks under the hood. A few wrinkles that make pad play a bit easier now include a "Lock" button that allows you to immediately face the enemy without jumping, jump and jump-cancel are now the same button, and pressing Lock during a dash gives you a new movement mechanic called "transition" where you start moving in a curved trajectory and get crouch-like attacks. You can cancel into this state from air dashes and cancel out of it back into a dash, so you'll see a lot of this. All in all it's probably the most pad-friendly VO game. Oh, and there are now comeback-y Ultra attacks that are cool-looking, but I'm not sure how well they fit overall.

They also introduced this new points system to deal with the timer scamming the series is kinda known for (?), and it seems sound to me. There's still health and you can still just kill your opponent, but when time runs out the game now turns to a point system based on knockdowns. Some knockdowns are more rewarding than others (slamming someone with Temjin Turbo RW and seeing "WASTED" pop up is very satisfying) and you'll gradually lose points for playing too defensively.

The wrapping is pretty standard stuff these days. There's a big visual novel story mode, a mission mode with some goofy stuff in it (this is where arcade mode is buried), a training mode, and the online stuff (which is surprisingly playable from the States). No splitscreen on PS4, sadly, but I'm sure the Vita version has local wireless play.

It's good to have a new game in the series to serve as a return to form after Marz.
Monster Hunter World
Capcom

After playing 3 Ultimate and 4 Ultimate, it's so nice to see this series get a big huge console/PC outing. The QoL changes are really good overall, mostly removing stuff that serves as a neat novelty the first time you play MH but becomes busywork after a while (save for maybe the scoutflies, not sure where I land on them yet). The new visuals are utterly staggering when coming from the 3DS games, the environments especially. This was my first time going Switch Axe, and the new (I assume) super moves are insanely satisfying.

The only real downsides are some strange online decisions and the smaller cast of monsters. I get that this is the first time I've played a Monster Hunter that isn't the "G" version, but there are less in World than in prior mainline games, and I can kinda feel it in the campaign? At least there's that expansion on the horizon.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Prey: Mooncrash
Arkane Studios, Bethesda Softworks

Such a good idea and cool structure. The higher stakes (due to permadeath) definitely allow some of the original game's mechanics to shine in a way that they don't in the main campaign, and while you're learning you're constantly faced with making some big decisions when it comes to what order to send people in, who should gather what, and so on. Unfortunately it does get a bit too easy in the later stretch, and I think I skewed the pacing a little by actually completing the biggest objective early, but it's still extremely cool and anybody who likes the genre should check it out. I'd like to see bigger and tougher games in this mold.
EXAPUNKS
Zachtronics LLC

Zachtronics games have always been awesome from a mechanics standpoint, but this continues in the direction of SHENZHEN I/O and Opus Magnum by wrapping the core up in a cool hack-to-live narrative. The focus on replication and communication between your little EXAs is awesome, too, and surprisingly fresh given how many programming games these guys have made.
428: Shibuya Scramble
Spike Chunsoft

Death Mark was neat, but this was the better VN that I played this year. The way it makes you hop between the characters can be a bit arbitrary at times, but the cast has a lot of personality, the whole thing has a surprising amount of polish, and we couldn't really put it down. Wonder if I'll ever be able to play Machi in English.
Rolling Gunner
Project Rolling Gunner

A brutal horizontal danmaku game roughly in the same style as Cave's Progear no Arashi and Akai Katana. You have a core shot and an opposite-movement directional shot that you can quickly aim or lock by holding fire. The stages get pretty cruel pretty quickly by surrounding you from all sides of the full-width (16:9 playfield) and making sure you're constantly aiming your secondary fire properly. It's super hectic, and that's just on Normal. The presentation is pretty nice, too, with nice high-res pre-rendered enemy sprites and little between-stage dynamic-camera scenes.
Rockman 11
Capcom

It's been a little bit since I've played one, so I can't really tell if I'm rusty or if this actually is on the hard side for the series, but the difficulty level was pretty much just right for me. The new Double Gear elements seem game-breaking initially, but I think the game does a good job of being designed around them and they add nice wrinkles to both the level design and using all the weapons. The visuals are, honestly, almost as good as I can imagine a polygonal adaptation of the Famicom games being, and the end bosses in particular were pretty great (lol the Yellow Devil). What else? The music didn't do much for me and some of the extras seem neat.
Celeste
Matt Makes Games

Celeste fits into the same subgenre as Super Meat Boy. It's a ton of really tough micro platforming challenges, so it doesn't really start building tension until the challenges get a little longer late in the game. I'm still not a fan of that, just like I wasn't with Super Meat Boy, but unlike in that game everything else in Celeste helps elevate it into something really, really good. You get a bit more complexity in the core mechanics thanks to wall-climbing with stamina and a single 8-way air dash per jump. The camera is a little bit more zoomed in compared to Meat Boy, with less sloppy acceleration time and slightly more claustrophobic stage design to match. The visuals are the usual unrealistically low-res pixel art (with some modern lighting effects thrown in), but the animation is nice, the environments are well-composed, and there's a lot of visual variety. Every new area introduces and thoroughly explores new mechanics, and you'll see notably more dynamic elements to the stages than those in Super Meat Boy. Tying the brutal stages together is a surprisingly well-written narrative that fits the rest of the experience perfectly and in a novel way.
CometStriker
Iced Lizard Games

A great 2D action game with a smart retry structure, devious bosses, and a really cool selection of modes and extras. The enemy combinations definitely push for you to make the most out of the dodge, and I liked that you can risk par times to survey each room before blasting in. Nice pixel art on the bosses and good music, too.
Return of the Obra Dinn
Lucas Pope

Sick adventure game where you deduce how each member of a 60-something man crew died. You're given a book with a couple drawings of the collected crew, a map, a roster, and a magic stopwatch that allows you to walk around a frozen-time scene of each crew member's moment of death. There's a lot of fun untangling to do, and it all feels extremely hands-off without leaving you completely directionless thanks to little confirmation mechanics like telling you when you have groups of three correct and telling you when you for-sure have enough info to identify someone.

I really would have liked to have put more time into Infinos Gaiden, Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom, and Subnautica, to name a few. I was hoping to be a corny asshole and put my own game somewhere on my list this year, but alas, that'll be a year from now. Time to look at some other lists!

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SweetNicole · Jan 19, 2019

Just a reminder...

shoptroll · Jan 19, 2019

Unavowed - Great characters that I wish I could've spent more time with, an engrossing story, and wonderful pixel art direction. What more can you ask for in a Wadjet Eye game? Also my first OT so I think this has to be my #1 pick this year.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - Not that Smash needs my vote, but this is unquestionably the best iteration of this series. An overstuffed roster (and more on the way), pretty much every single stage ever, and the best adventure mode ever.
Octopath Traveler - Simply put a warm, comfy blanket for those of us who grew up on Squaresoft RPGs back in the 90's. I think it remains to be seen how fondly this game is remembered years from now, but it's a definite successor to all the B-tier RPGs we never got back in the day.
Mega Man 11 - I'll admit, I was skeptical of this when it was first announced. But the demo and word of mouth convinced me that it was worth checking out. And I'm glad I did! A real return to form for a franchise that's been either MIA or stuck in a rut nearly a decade.
Splatoon 2: Octo Expansion - I absolutely love the single-player campaigns for this series. While the difficulty on this has some very weird spikes (and largely depends on which weapons you're comfortable with) it was a real good time overall.
Deltarune - This game does more in 3-4 hours than most games 10x its size. I wasn't 100% sure where to place this on the list because it really feels like an appetizer to prepare for something much bigger, but it's like a really good appetizer.
Lamplight City - I am the worst Sherlock Holmes wanna-be in this alternative history New Orleans / love letter to Gabriel Knight. I mean, who in their right mind carries around ashes of a burned woman and willingly shows them to people to see their reaction.
Super Mario Party - Another return to form for a series that's been languishing for a while. Some really solid mini-games and the partner mode + custom dice make for a really fun variation on the traditional Mario Party experience. Sadly, this didn't stick around as long as I would've liked but I'm hoping for some DLC in 2019 to flesh it out some more.
Chuchel - Amanita did what they do best which is to create a bizarre yet humorous world, except this time it's more one-room puzzles / cartoon vignettes. Adorable.
Jackbox Party Pack 5 - This is really just a vote for You Don't Know Jack 2018 as we haven't played the other games. But this was a solid update that goes back to the roots of the series (no more predetermined episodes!) with a bizarre framing device I haven't figured out if I like or hate yet.
Kirby Star Allies - This was a fun and chill co-op experience. I would've liked a longer and more involved campaign at launch (especially after last year's Robobot) so this really didn't make the cut. One of these days I'll fire it back up and check out everything that was patched in.

Other games I played this year that are not eligible: Persona 5 (Spent the first quarter of the year beating this, great game and very sad it's not elegible), Doom 2016 (I can't believe Doom is relevant again even though the completionist urge on this one is killing me), Super Mario Sunshine (not nearly as bad as I was lead to believe), Firewatch (babooo), We <3 Katamari (pure bliss), Night in the Woods (interesting game but really disappointing twist, it's still my new autumn game)

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Monumma · Jan 19, 2019

2018 GOTY

Celeste - Matt Makes Games; Switch
Florence - Mountains; Android
Horizon Shift '81 - Flump Studios; Switch
Into the Breach - Subset Games; PC
All Our Asias - Sean Han Tani; PC
Return of the Obra Dinn - Lucas Pope; PC
Eloh - Broken Rules; Android
Minit - JW, Kitty, Jukio, and Dom; Switch
Heaven Will Be Mine - Pillow Fight Games, Worst Girls Games; PC
Dandara - Long hat House; Switch

Boss Battles of the Year: Just Shapes and Beats - Berzerk Studios; Switch
Best More of the same: Quarantine Circular - Bithell Games; Switch
Best I'm Supposed to be Working Game: Holedown - grapefrukt games; Android
Best Dualogy of the Year: Parsnip, The Testimony of Trixie Glimmer Smith - Digital Poppy, Bun & Birb, MezmeroMania; PC
Best Looking Game I couldn't fit in my top10: GRIS - Nomada Studio; Switch
Unironical Anime of the Year: Sushi Striker: The Way of the Sushido - indieszero; 3DS
Comfiest Game: Just, Bearly - Daniel J Roberts; PC
The Heck am I Playing: The Haunted Island, a Frog Detective Game - Grace Bruxner, Thomas Bowker; PC
It shouldn't work, but it does: Yoku's Island Express - Villa Gorilla; Switch
Every year's true GOTY: Picross S2 - Jupiter, Switch
____

Celeste

Genre: Platforming. Story: the princess was kidnapped, go to adventures and save the princess. NOPE. the princess saved herself in this one.
Platformers usually don't have storytelling. They don't need to, and baking one in them dilutes the game. When you play a genre to see what trick is waiting for you in the next screen, waiting for a dialogue bubble to fill is boring. Then again, platformers are hard, and so is climbing a mountain, and so is living. The game dances on this triple metaphor and it's why the story matters in this platformer, and it's why when you fight a ghost for way too long with too few checkpoints you don't put down the game, and it's why the game is hard. Platformers are allowed to be hard, most of the people playing the genre want a pixel perfect challenge, but this game isn't hard for being hard. It's hard because it needs to be to tell the struggles of Celeste. This is why Matt Thorson struggled so much before including the accessibility options (which are top notch).
The platforming part of Celeste is brilliant, the game explores every permutation of its move set, the controls are tights, and by the end of the c-sides you will find yourself jumping around the room every time you see one of the numbers that marks the distance from the top of the mountain.
This is a seminal game, don't make the mistake of sleeping on it.
Celeste sent the developer of a Ouya game to stardom, I, and hopefully all of you, will be here patiently waiting for his next game.

Florence

It's a 30 minutes interactive story on the life of a relationship. The hard dialogues gets easier and easier as you get to know the other person, making space in you house for them, and inspiring each others.
And then it gets boring, and it gets harder and harder to keep the conversations flowing, and at some point you realise that it's over. You split and go on your separate ways. But the relationship left a mark on you, it mattered, it was not wasted time.
This is all that Florence is, with brilliant interaction to communicate what's happening, and a stellar piano ost.
Small, personal stories in video games. Finally! This medium has almost reached maturity. And no, I don't mean that devs are finally older and have families and so they put kids and dads in their games.

Horizon Shift '81

A late entry in the charts, as I played the game (available, I kid you not, only for Nintendo Switch and Atari 2600) it started climbing this chart as I played it the last days of December. In a year stacked with shmup on Nintendo Switch, this is quite easily the most captivating one. The catch? You can only move on a line drawn horizontally in the middle of the screen, and enemies come from both the top and the bottom of the screen. When an enemy reaches the line, they stay on it, and you can kill all of them with a satisfactory side dodge. Asteroids destroy the line and falling into the pit is death, the ship can jump from the line for a brief sensation of freedom, and the upgrades are fun.
The ending should be a manifesto for the community. Congratulations, you finished this one! Thanks for playing! Go ahead and support another developer now, we desperately need it.
I will, Flump Studios, I will.

Into the Breach

I play chess. When the opponent doesn't destroy my Sicilian I like chess. People that compare things to chess have no idea what they are talking about. However I study puzzles. Let me now compare chess puzzles to Into the Breach. You have the complete information at your disposal on your screen, and as much time as you need to solve a problem. And yes, it's also on a grid. When I play Into the Breach I get the same feeling as when I do chess puzzles. It's why I don't get the "this game is hard" comments I hear about this. sit in front of your screen, you have the solution in front of you. Don't half-ass things, be patient, go through the permutations: You will reach the solution. Sure, sometimes you lose your patience and sac the queen for a mate you thought you saw but isn't there, but this game also gives you take backs.
Into the Breach is game play distillated. everything from the rogue like aspects to the UI is there to get people to think: how will I solve this? Is it time to sacrifice the operator I kept for 3 runs to save this building?
From the makers of FTL you wouldn't expect anything less. They checked the critiques to FTL, went back to the drawing board, and made a game where perma death contributed to successive runs, (and not by making subsequent runs easier, but by switching the game play, because I saw the last Game Maker's Toolkit video), where you don't know if you'll beat the final level before reaching it. Quite honestly FTL → Into the Breach is a one two punch that few devs in the world could display.

All Our Asias

Is the best free game of this year. I tried to give Sean Han Tani money for a week, but the game crashed the pc every time I tried to click on the link. I'm sorry Sean.
Like in Crazy Rich Asian this game tackles what it means to be a second generation Asian (Japanese, in this case), what are the similarities between Yuito and people living in a continent where he didn't grow up, a continent where 4.4 billion people live.
Yuito's story is also, and I'd say mostly, a story about him getting to know his dying father. Because this is a videogame it's not enough to have him sit at his bed, but he goes into his mind. One catch: he'll die if the father dies while he is in it.
From there on, the setting allows for surrealism and the game dives into it. Cought in a SMT/Persona dream the protagonist wanders around dimensions and watch the memories of its father degrading. Memories that seems so far away from him, from how he is living, distant in time and place. Before you know it you find Yuito trying to find sponsor to tax the richest restaurant in a dystopic city to allow the smaller one to live.
Surreal.

Return of the Obra Dinn

The best idea of 2018. The cleanest execution. The most striking looking game. If it seems low in my chart is only because I'm too stupid for this game. It's not you, it's me, Obra Dinn.
To be more honest, it's a little bit you, Obra Dinn: your structure messes with your difficulty curve. The game starts easy, and then after the first case rapidly adds chapters until you are overwhelmed with options. As you clear some cases, as you recognise some people, it gets progressively easier to recognise others. It's, of course, impossible to make this game in another way, but in some ways, it's a bummer that you don't get to have a really difficult last guess.
Thinking about this deeper, though, this is probably just me being used to video games as they are and things are not flaws/flawed just because they are different from how they always were. So this is just me, being too stupid in the middle chapters and getting stuck, and then not appreciating the difficulty at the end, where a insurance agent would have no problem to finish the case.
One last thought, the narration of this game is flawless. Starting from the last chapter is brilliant, the chapter left hidden until the end is the crucial one to understand the story. bravo.

ELOH

The Music+Puzzle genre is severely underrepresented, so normally I would jump on a mix of two of my favourite genres, but when ELOH came out it took me some time to decide to get into it. Playing on your tablet with music on while watching tv is difficult, after all. Luckily I didn't skip this. The bad: you reach the solution after iterating on stuff a million times. The good: the sounds that the game makes while you do that are worth it and when you clear the level and hear the correct percussion line you will just turn the volume up, and a smirk will form in your face. And then you click next level and it's silent again. And you start the balls and sounds comes out… but it's not quite correct. So you iterate, and iterate, until finally the sounds are great again... But wait, there's still something missing. And so you switch some boxes again and you hear it! you found the solution. And after you heard it you see it. Next level.

Minit

Minit is both too long and too short at the same time. It's too long to tidy up perfectly, to make it run like a clockwork, but it's too short. You reach the end and you want more. The only problem with Minit is in fact this: pacing. You'll find yourself lost, killing yourself over and over again because you don't know what to do, or how to do it in 60 seconds, and then you'll stumble around the end of the game.
That said, Minit is also, like many other games on this list, an exercise in Game Design, and a brilliant one at that. The multiple concept that the game tries to make you waste time are pure theory crafted and works well. The old man that speaks slowly is the smartest and funniest thing video games did all year. I was there laughing, then I was getting angry when the timer fell under 5, and then I got the solution with 1 second left. It was probably just lucky timing by me, but that alone was worth the price.

Heaven Will Be Mine

Once upon a time earth saw an existential threat coming from space. To combat that young women get trained to drive giant space robots (like, planet size). The threat is defeated easily. Now in different factions said women kill each other. Not really, they love each other. This is the pitch for lovers of mech. As most of them already know, though, when you are deep in space giant mechs fighting are just people looking for a place to be together in, in this endless space, where they feel alone.
You pick one of the 3 protagonist and each chapter is an encounter in space with one of the others. Will you betray your cause for her or stay true to your side? Will you allow yourself to think about a different way to live to accomodate every ideal or will you fight to the end for yours to prevail? Will you love one of them? Both? Just a whole bunch of good shit like this, really. The mecha design is ethereal. The mecha have an unreal feel to them. They exist and not exist at the same time, they are one with the woman's body, lifeguard and prison at the same time.
Space. Mechs. Proudly gay. What's not to love?

Dandara

The best Souls game of the year is a 2d game where not only you can't dodge, but you can't even walk. You move through the game jumping from the floor to the ceiling, at the beginning with very insecure movement, and then always faster, as you get the hang of it. The Brazilian developers were very careful when portraying Dandara, a very mythical, but also very real woman who fought to end slavery in Brazil in the 17th century. The whole story of the game is a story of liberation, and the progress you make in the movement punctuates that really well.
A videogame, of all things, made a legendary woman known to me (and probably a lot of other people out of video games). Sometimes, video games are cool.
To the people that will come here telling me that this is not a Souls game just because it has bonfires, can I just say that this is a game with deliberate movement, bonfires, stamina, cryptic descriptions, and huge bosses? And the Boss fights are amazing. You fight bosses bigger than the screen, while you jump around from platform to platform, you go into them, you shoot them from all directions. The shooting, right, the shooting is very deliberate too. You have to charge your shots.
This game would be nothing without its art style, but Long Hat House managed to create an eerie, complex world to tell their story in: the story of Dandara. Of a nation. Of freedom.

When I started playing Dandara, the week after I finished Celeste, I didn't think it'd go this far down the list. This is a testament on how many good games came out this year. Keep it up guys, I will keep playing them!

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PinkCrayon · Jan 19, 2019

Hitman 2 - I kind of felt that 2018 was a weak year, especially compared to the previous two years, however that is not meant to take away from the fact that the sequel to my 2016 game of the year, is still an incredible addition to the Hitman franchise. Treating the game as a platform and allowing players to access all the old content with upgraded visuals and mechanics is such a brilliant idea, and I can't wait for IO to continue to improve the game and add to the experience.
Vampyr - Really enjoyed the ambition of having a living, breathing community that the player could affect with their choices. Also having my wrist slapped early in the game for trying to achieve a "best" outcome is one of the best gaming moments I had all year.
Battletech -
Monster Hunter: World -
Celeste -
Shadow of the Tomb Raider -
Just Cause 4 -
Dragon Ball FighterZ -
Return of the Obra Dinn -
Phantom Doctrine -

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Zhao_Yun · Jan 19, 2019

Monster Hunter World - I always wanted to get into this series but I didn't want to play it on handhelds as the controls seemed very annoying to me. When Monster Hunter World was announced at E3 I instantly knew that this was the perfect time for to jump in and it really did not disappoint. The level design of the different areas is great and even though the amount of areas is kinda limited it never felt boring to enter them over and over again. The main selling point of this game are the monsters though which look better than ever before. The animations and the monsters behavior are really well done and really mhelps to make them feel alive and dangerous. Fighting those monsters also feels really satisfying. It took me a bit of time to get used to the more slow and methodic combat in this game but once it clicks I just couldn't stop. I usually prefer using faster weapons but hitting a monster with a heavy weapon feels super satisfying so I wouldn't want to miss it anymore. Speaking of weapons, although I mainly played with the Switch Axe I also experimented with other weapons and it's amazing to see how much depth there is to every weapon. If I had more time I would love to practice more with other weapons as well. It's a bit of a shame that Multiplayer was a bit more complicated to access than it should have been, but hunting monsters with a group of friends was definitely one of the best parts of my experience and I can't wait to dive into the expansion with my friends again.
God of War - I will be the first to admit that I was incredibly sceptical of this game even until shortly before the game actually launched. Would Santa Monica Studio really be able to transform this shallow but fun Hack n Slay series into a mature game with a strong narrative focus? I believed that this was not possible and God of War barely made it on my #10 spot of my Most Anticipated Games of 2018 list. When the first review for this game started to drop I was surprised by the amazing reception it received and therefore couldn't stop myself to purchase a copy and give it a go myself. I couldn't believe it, but SSM really pulled it off in almost every aspect. The graphics were one of the best I've seen thus far and the combat felt much better than I initially thought. I thought I would miss the old combat from the old games but it only took me a few minutes to really appreciate the more weighty combat with the axe. The relationship between Kratos and Artreus was also really well done and I thoroughly enjoyed the story until the final end. If there was something that disappointed me then it was the lack of boss battles compared to the older games but other than that this game was amazing from beginning to end.
Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age - I have a very weird relationship with Dragon Quest XI. Within the first 10 hours I really had to force myself to continue this game as the combat felt uninteresting due to a lack of abilities and the turn-based nature of it. Once the party started growing and the number of abilities to use increased it became much better. The story pacing was also rather slow in the beginning but picked up speed at around the same time when the battles also started to become more interesting. To be honest, it's really hard for me to pin-point why I enjoyed this game as much as I did as I usually dislike JRPGs that are too traditional but something about this game really charmed me. The music was a huge letdown though and I am not just speaking about the MIDI quality. The compositions itself also felt really bland which was really disappointing.
Yakuza 6: The Song of Life - This last chapter in Kiryu's story was all in all a great send-off for a great protagonist although I would have wished that it ended different than it did. The new Dragon Engine makes Kamurochou look more realistic than ever before and I loved the fact that you can now walk into buildings seemlessly. It was a bit disappointing though that the amount of content had to be reduced due to the new engine.
Tetris Effect - I didn't think that it was possible to make an almost perfect game even better, but Mizuguchi actually pulled it off. I love Tetris and Tetris Effect is a wonderful way to experience the addictive gameplay with a new twist. Although the zone mechanic is not revolutionary in any sense it still manages to change things up a bit and I really loved the way music, the tetromino design and the speed of the game were combined with each other in Journey mode. The only negative aspect about the game is the lack of a PvP mode.
Valkyria Chronicles 4 - I had almost lost hope that I'd be able to play a true successor to the first Valkyria Chronicles, but fortunately this year my hope became reality. Yes, the game could be described as more of the same, but in the end that was not a bad thing imo. Fans of the series will notice several small tweaks and additions that kept things interesting and while I wouldn't say that the game had as big of an impact on me as VC1 I still think that it was a really good game.
428: Shibuya Scramble - Ever since Famitsu gave the Wii version a perfect 40/40 I wanted to know what all the fuss was about and I can definitely see now why this game has been so well received.
Marvel's Spiderman - While this game falls into the same trappings of most Open World games it is saved by a very cool narrative that feels really similar to a superhero movie, fun combat and traversal that is actually fun. Especially the latter was pretty important for me as I would not have liked to do all the open world stuff if traversal would have been boring.
Dragonball FighterZ - This game just looks gorgeous and the gameplay was a perfect example of easy to learn and hard to master. I am not even the biggest DBZ fan, but this game just hit all the right tones. Too bad the story mode was very boring.
Dead Cells - I didn't manage to finish this game yet, but the gameplay was top notch and the controls very responsive. Have to get back to it soon.

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ryseing · Jan 19, 2019

Astro Bot: Rescue Mission- Really can't add anything to what's already been said. It's the first VR masterpiece and while it doesn't justify the price of the headset by itself, it certainly provides a great case study for what VR can do going forward.
God of War- I have some real issues with God of Boy. The boss variety is extremely lacking, Atreus's character arc isn't great, the one-shot bit was a gimmick that negatively impacted the game's design, and the game almost derails itself in the first five hours when you go to Alfheim. That being said, God of War delivered my best moment of the year, along with a bunch of other moments that would be in my top 10. Barlog and co. use the sordid history of Kratos in remarkable ways to deliver some surprisingly emotional punches.
Tetris Effect- Between Tetris Effect and Lumines Remastered, my PS4 has been a Mizuguchi machine this year and I could not be happier. Miz is one of my favorite creators working in gaming and deserves all the praise in the world for having the guts to deliver his own unique take on the greatest puzzle game ever made. I do wish the VR implementation was slightly better, but quibbles.
Assassin's Creed Odyssey- I didn't love Origins, so why is Odyssey so high on my list given that it's Origins 1.5? Simple. Kassandra. I found Bayek and the cast of characters in Origins either intolerable or forgettable, so having such a well written protagonist as Kassandra was a breath of fresh air. I will note that given my vote is coming in after the questionable decisions made in the DLC, AC was knocked down a couple spots from where it was originally, and I now have a harder time recommending the game.
Shadow of the Colossus- I am so happy I got to play this gorgeous remake, given that I was unable to really enjoy the original game because of the control limitations. Bluepoint did fantastic work yet again.
Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker- Remarkable little puzzler that feels right at home on 3DS, which is where I played it as I missed out on the Wii U release. The length of the levels lends itself to being the perfect pick up and play game.
Marvel's Spider-Man- Earns a spot on my list just for the web-swinging, but then gets knocked down to the bottom of my list for everything else. Really unfortunate how bland most of the mission design is, and the less said about the awful MJ segments the better. Probably my biggest disappointment of 2018 given the faith I had in Insomniac, but still worth playing through nonetheless. The web-swinging is meditative for me.

Games I own but have not played enough of to make a judgement call- Firewall: Zero Hour, Florence, Hitman 2, Yoku's Island Express
Games I need to buy- Moss, Beat Saber, Celeste, Hollow Knight, Dead Cells
Games I played too much of but are not going on my list because of the deep, deep issues I have with them- Destiny 2: Forsaken, Far Cry 5
Game that I regret that I bounced off of because I wanted to like it- Red Dead Redemption 2

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Grexeno · Jan 19, 2019

Monster Hunter: World - Did not start the year thinking a Monster Hunter game would be my favorite game of the year, but here we are.
God of War
CrossCode
Hitman 2
Return of the Obra Dinn
Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom
Marvel's Spider-man
Splatoon 2: Octo Expansion
Donut County
Octopath Traveler

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BinaryPork · Jan 19, 2019

Code:

[LIST=1]
[*][B]Yakuza 0[/B] - A truly wild ride that quickly became one of my favorite games of all time, with a fun balance between serious moments and hilarity. It has some of the best sidequests and one of the best gaming soundtracks, too.
[*][B]Super Smash Bros. Ultimate[/B] - I'm still not sure if I like it more than Melee, but it has some of the most expansive side content in any of the Smash games and I've dumped a ton of time into it already. It's a blast to play with friends, and I'm looking forward to the upcoming DLC characters.
[*][B]Return of the Obra Dinn[/B] - One of the only games to ever truly make me feel like a detective when solving something.
[*][B]DUSK[/B] - A surprisingly great retro shooter that finishes stronger than I thought it would.
[*][B]Night in the Woods[/B] - A great story that I really enjoyed going through with my friends.
[*][B]Sonic Mania Plus[/B] - Great DLC for a great game that fleshed it out even more.
[*][B]Dead Cells[/B] - A great roguelite with engaging gameplay. I'm glad that it turned out to be a great early access experience.
[*][B]Bayonetta 2[/B] - An improvement over the first game in almost every way, except maybe the feeling of escalation.
[*][B]Celeste[/B] - One of the best platformers I've played in years, and probably the best story I've ever encountered in one.
[*][B]The House in Fata Morgana: A Requiem for Innocence[/B] - A good prequel and sequel for one of my favorite visual novels.
[*][B]Octopath Traveler[/B] - Although I have issues with it, the combat systems and some of the stories are pretty enjoyable.
[*][B]Heaven Will Be Mine[/B] - An interesting take on the mecha genre with some pretty relatable themes.
[/LIST]

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btkadams · Jan 19, 2019

Tetris Effect - This game completely changed Tetris for me. I have played Tetris in the past, but it never felt like this. The game is a beautiful blend of unique music, vivid visuals, and addicting gameplay. Turning the lights out and playing this on an OLED screen is a truly magical experience.
Marvel's Spiderman - I have fond memories of playing Spiderman 2 on PS2, but recent trips down memory lane have shown me how lacking that original game was. This new Insomniac release was incredible from start to finish. Sure, the world feels a little behind other open-world games like Red Dead in terms of complexity, but I still had so much fun swinging around. This game was just pure fun.
God of War - As someone who really enjoyed the original god of war games (aside from Ascension), I really could have been fine with another traditional title in the series. Prior to release, I was a little skeptical of all that they were changing. In the end, they took a huge risk and it really paid off. I can't wait to see what they do next with this new setting and style of play.
Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee! - It's been 20 years since I played the original Red and Blue games. I've played through this countless times, but it was really special finally seeing all of the pokemon roaming around in the world. I'll never forget the first time I saw a Gyrados rushing past me in the ocean.
Destiny 2: Forsaken -
Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age -
Forza Horizon 4 -
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate -
Beat Saber -
Into the Breach -
Astro Bot: Rescue Mission -
Monster Hunter World -
Shadow of the Colossus -
Florence -
Super Mario Party -
Red Dead Redemption 2 -
LUMINES Remastered -
Holedown -
Mario Tennis Aces -
Overcooked 2 -

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t26 · Jan 19, 2019

428: Shibuya Scramble - VN of the generation
Astro Bot Rescue Mission - The Mario 64 of VR.
Spider-man - Best action hero games in a long time.
Yakuza 6: The Song of Life - the prefect end to Kiryu.
Yakuza Kiwami 2 - never played the original and I am impress, still has the best story.
Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise - Not bad, but not great either.
Super Robot Wars X - Kinda of a let down after V.
Super Bomberman R - fun multiplayer

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alexplaysbass · Jan 19, 2019

God of War - My first God of War, and what a way to start
Celeste - Platforming and feelings and my favourite soundtrack of the year
Red Dead Redemption 2 - Probably my longest played game of 2018, this had some low points, but they were easily outmatched by the highs
Super Smash Brothers Ultimate - How long is World of Light?
Octopath Traveller - Not sure if I'll ever finish it, but while I was playing it just felt so right.
Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze - The most underrated WiiU game, more than happy to double dip.
Shadow of the Colossus - Had never finished the original and to do it in HD was amazing
Hollow Knight - Perfect for spending a wet season doing shift work and playing at odd hours, such a satisfying gameplay loop
Super Mario Party - Finally back to form for this series, but where is the DLC?
Destiny 2: Forsaken - Two steps forward and one step back but for me this has the best gunplay out there

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Nay · Jan 20, 2019

God of War - Despite never having really played the series before this entry due to being too young, I always loved it because of the classical mythological Greek setting. So when the newest instalment eschewed all of that in favour of the Scandinavian mythical tradition I was very interesting in how the game would turn out. Needless to say, it is basically perfect.

Everything about God of War, from the characters, to the story, to the combat is exemplary. The game really shines with its treatment of the characters. Kratos and Atreus are both amazingly realized characters which the player gets to know and care about over the course of the game. Kratos is still the Kratos of old in some respects but is massively different in many others. He is still the gruff warrior but also is more of a protective father figure. Atreus is an amazing character as well. Initially being unsure of himself and distant, later he becomes incredibly capable and resilient. It was really interesting seeing this new Kratos and the relationship he had with his son progress through the course of the game and shape the two protagonists. The side characters like Mimir and Freya are also amazing in their own right, and just serve to illustrate how much effort and care was put into the story. The story itself is one of the best in any video game, and was able to provide a mature and thoughtful narrative. I was really invested in the story and was always eager to find out what was coming next. Overall the story was touching and was able to throw in some comedy, fear, anger, etc. to good effect. Of course, being a video game, the gameplay is arguably the most important aspect of the game. The gameplay is where God of War really shines. It is incredibly fun to play and offers so much variety in terms of combat. The leviathan axe is truly one of video gamings best weapons. The introduction fo RPG elements was really smart and added a lot to the experience of the game as well. Overall, God of War easily deserves the GOTY for 2018.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - I have always had a fondness for Smash Bros. Its the only fighting game I enjoy due to the crazy premise and mechanics and the multitude of classic Nintendo characters and third party fighters. God of War just managed to narrowly beat Ultimate for my number one spot. However Smash is still one of my favourite series of all time and Ultimate demonstrates why with its characters, modes, content, and attention to detail.

Ultimate truly lives up to its name. It includes all the fighters from past games as well as new inclusions. There is truly a fighter from everyone and the announcement that all previous fighters were coming back was one of the most insane announcements in memory. It brings back almost all the maps, items, and songs from previous games and still manages to include new content as well. All the while it retains its amazing gameplay and introduces a variety of QoL improvements missing from prior entries. The inclusion of spirits and spirit mode was the most welcome surprise in my opinion. I find myself playing spirit board all the time looking for new spirits and World of Light is the best story mode in a fighting game since Subspace Emissary in Brawl. Sakurai really put his all into this game and it shows through the small details present in maps and character interactions, as well as all the content.
Monster Hunter World - I have always loved the Monster Hunter games but have never really gotten into them quite as I have World due to the 3DS's limitations. World being on modern systems made it incredibly easy to play and made the experience much more enjoyable.

Monster Hunter World is just a fun game. The story is fine, but is not really the focus of the game. The real fun comes from the gameplay loop of hunting and looting to create better armour to fight harder monsters to hunt and loot. This is the fundamental core of the game and it is addicting. I found myself hunting monsters repeatedly in order to get better gear and while doing so having a blast. Fighting new monsters and learning their attacks and weaknesses is always fun and there are so many to fight it takes quite a while to see them all. In addition the game adds more through content updates. Fighting the monsters is also really enjoyable because of the combat system. Its fairly simple but allows for some complexity and the sheer amount of weapons means that there is something for everyone.
Red Dead Redemption 2 - I haven't played much of Red Dead Redemption 2 at all (I believe I am still in Chapter 2) which is why it is further down on the list. When I do play it however I end up getting lost in early 20th century America exploring and taking in the world. That is RDR2s greatest strength in my opinion. The world is incredibly detailed and just so fun to explore its difficult to avoid getting distracted. Riding my horse around the map its easy to go hunting or explore and the experience is always different. From what I've played the story is fairly good, being typical of a Western. The characters all all excellent however, all having unique personalities and motives. Arthur is an especially realized character with an amazing performance from the voice actor making him fun to play as and experience the story through.
Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age - I have never played a proper mainline Dragon Quest game before and bought this due to the reception here. Im working my way through the game at the moment and it is exactly what I expected. In this case thats a good thing however. Its nice to see classic JRPGs with turn based combat still exist. Being my favourite genre of game this is no exception. The story is intriguing so far and the characters are likeable. The allure of this game comes from the graphics in my opinion which have a really nice simple look to them which make the game a joy to look at.
Octopath Traveler - Playing the game right now and I'm really enjoying the characters stories and the world itself. Each character having a unique story to play through is an interesting idea and so far its really enjoyable despite me not having recruited all eight characters. The combat system is also really unique and is not like any other I've experience in a game before. The graphics are also a treat and blend "modern" and sprite based really well which gives the game a distinct visual look.
Valkyria Chronicles 4 - After the original Valkyria Chronicles I eagerly anticipated a new instalment only to be let down with 2 being on the PSP and then 3 being on the PSP and only being released in Japan. Then Revolution came out and was apparently quite disappointing. I resigned myself to the fact that I would never get a follow up to one of my favourite games ever, only to see Valkyria Chronicles 4 announced. It certainly is a worthy successor to the first game. It retains its signature style and graphics which are amazing to look at for one. It also plays like the original which is great as they didn't try to needlessly convolute the series. Basically just the proper sequel to the original game which was all that was needed.
Marvel's Spiderman - I was really looking forward to playing this game since the initial showing at E3. The thought of being able to swing all over New York as Spider-Man was really exciting. It certainly succeeded on that front. The traversal mechanics are great and really make you feel like Spider-Man. Considering I haven't finished the game yet, I cant comment of the story. The combat system I found to be really lacklustre and it really dampened my enjoyment of the game however. I don't know if its because I am playing on hard or if I haven't gotten used to it yet but its really the weak point of the game.

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OneAndOnly · Jan 20, 2019

BinaryPork said:

Code:

[LIST=1]
[*][B]Yakuza 0[/B] - A truly wild ride that quickly became one of my favorite games of all time, with a fun balance between serious moments and hilarity. It has some of the best sidequests and one of the best gaming soundtracks, too.
[*][B]Super Smash Bros. Ultimate[/B] - I'm still not sure if I like it more than Melee, but it has some of the most expansive side content in any of the Smash games and I've dumped a ton of time into it already. It's a blast to play with friends, and I'm looking forward to the upcoming DLC characters.
[*][B]Return of the Obra Dinn[/B] - One of the only games to ever truly make me feel like a detective when solving something.
[*][B]DUSK[/B] - A surprisingly great retro shooter that finishes stronger than I thought it would.
[*][B]Night in the Woods[/B] - A great story that I really enjoyed going through with my friends.
[*][B]Sonic Mania Plus[/B] - Great DLC for a great game that fleshed it out even more.
[*][B]Dead Cells[/B] - A great roguelite with engaging gameplay. I'm glad that it turned out to be a great early access experience.
[*][B]Bayonetta 2[/B] - An improvement over the first game in almost every way, except maybe the feeling of escalation.
[*][B]Celeste[/B] - One of the best platformers I've played in years, and probably the best story I've ever encountered in one.
[*][B]The House in Fata Morgana: A Requiem for Innocence[/B] - A good prequel and sequel for one of my favorite visual novels.
[*][B]Octopath Traveler[/B] - Although I have issues with it, the combat systems and some of the stories are pretty enjoyable.
[*][B]Heaven Will Be Mine[/B] - An interesting take on the mecha genre with some pretty relatable themes.
[/LIST]

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Click to shrink...

An interesting way to write out the list, but it needs to be in a standard HTML format for it to work, I'm afraid.

t26 said:
1. 428: Shibuya Scramble - I didn't think a VN could get this good. Even the bonus story is better than most games.
2. Astro Bot Rescue Mission - The Mario 64 of VR.
3. Spider-man - Best action hero games in a long time.
4. Yakuza 6: The Song of Life - the prefect end to Kiryu.
5. Yakuza Kiwami 2 - never played the original and I am impress, still has the best story.
6. Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise - Not bad, but not great either.
7. Super Robot Wars X - Kinda of a let down after V.
8. Super Bomberman R - okay multiplayer on Ps4.

Make sure to put your items into an ordered list by clicking the list button up top, and make sure you bold your titles as well.

PhazonBlazer · Jan 20, 2019

Red Dead Redemption 2 - Where do I begin with Red Dead Redemption 2? If I were to describe this game in one word, it would be 'MEATY." I'd compare this game to a full course meal, everything about this game just feels so satisfying. Arthur Morgan is probably my favorite video game protagonist of all time, and his interactions with all of the other gang members feel so genuine. I loved the story and I always wanted to see what happened next, but at the same time I never wanted it to end. I loved the slow-paced deliberate nature of the game. And my god the soundtrack was top notch. I know people will complain about the controls and the mission design, but to me these issues never come close to dragging this game down.
God of War - I have never played a God of War game before. I have never been interested in playing a God of War game before. Kratos to me always looked like just a generic rage monster. This game was an emotional ride. Sitting with Atreus and Mimir provides these conversations that can be both hilarious and emotionally poignant. The combat is among some of the best action combat I have ever played, and the Leviathan Axe is probably my favorite weapon in a video game. The combat has so many options and the tools Kratos has at his disposal, including Atreus, leads to some really great fights.
Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age - I still haven't finished Dragon Quest 11, but I can not see it being any lower on this list. The seven main characters are all so entertaining, especially Sylvando. The story seems just like any other classic JRPG but has alot of twists and turns that help it feel fresh. The combat system feels like a refinement of classic turn-based combat and has so many spells and attacks to add alot of versatility. The enemy designs are fantastically goofy and it's a joy just to watch them. Let's not talk about the music though...
Super Smash Bros Ultimate - It's Smash. I love Smash. This is alot of Smash. King K Rool. Need I say more?
Monster Hunter World - I've played very little Monster Hunter before World, but this game is just so much fun. Every weapon option almost feels like playing a different game. The monsters feel like actual living creatures and many times feel like they're outsmarting me. Being able to simply send up a flair in the middle of a battle to call in another player to help is such a good idea.
Dead Cells - What a surprise this game has been, I've only recently started playing it but I'm having so much fun with it. Just. One. More. Run.
Hollow Knight - I wish I spent more time with Hollow Knight. I love the atmosphere, I love the art style, I love the music, I love the world design. I just haven't had a chance to play it as much as I want to. I'll have to fix that some day.
Spiderman - Spiderman is just a really fun game. The web-swinging is just a joy to experience. The combat has alot of versatility, and, "makes you feel like Spiderman™." The story is actually a really good Spiderman story, although many of the villains feel underutilized. Forced stealth sections and Mary Jane and Miles? Not so fun.
Octopath Traveler - At first I really loved Octopath Traveller, I loved the structure and the way each of the eight characters had their own stories. The music is great, and the turn based combat is very fun. But the more and more I played of it, the more I realized that the structure of each chapter never changed and just got boring and monotonous. Still a fun JRPG though.
Dragon Ball FighterZ - I love Dragon Ball, I suck at fighting games other than Smash. I wish I could have liked this game more, but that's the way it is I guess. The story mode also suuuuuuuuuuuuuucks. The art style of the game is so fricking good though.

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tryagainlater · Jan 20, 2019

Hitman 2 - Hitman has always been one of my favourite series. Season 1 of this new series is one of the best games ever made and Hitman 2 is a continuation of that greatness. The continuation is quite literal since this new game includes the Season 1 maps in the same package which will have new content added to it. Despite missing the episodic structure of Season 1, Hitman 2 is games as a service done right. This game is beautiful. Hitman will always live and die by its level design and I could write an essay about the quality of the levels on display in Hitman 2. If we're to take Mumbai as an example, that level twists around itself in such a satisfying way and offers a staggering amount of creativity on how you can tackle the assassinations. The ways that you can move around the map and the ways you can get your targets to move around the map are incredible. IO are on another level when it comes to game design and it is such a bummer that their efforts aren't being rewarded if indications of the sales are anything to go by.

The post-launch support from IO was great for Season 1 and they seem to be continuing the trend for Hitman 2. Elusive targets that see time limited assassinations appear on a map return with the first one being Sean Bean in Miami which was a lot of fun. The escalations and the player made contracts offer an insight into less explored areas on the map and break the series down into its more puzzle solving aspects. New challenge packs offer weird ways to interact with the level and provide us with new unlocks. Even the multiplayer mode which I expected little from is a lot of fun even if it's only available on one of the maps right now but they plan to add it to more. It's a truly amazing game that more people should buy so they can make more.
God of War - There really is not a whole lot that can be said about this game that hasn't already said. The series needed a reboot and it's hard to think of any other reboot in any medium that did a good a job as this one. They changed the combat, gameplay loop, tone, writing style and mythological setting. They only really kept Kratos and the violence. I will always praise a well done hubworld since the feature seems to be dying to make room for more big open worlds and God of War does it wonderfully. It's small enough to get around but big enough to explore and it changes throughout the game so there's always something new. Finding a way to make Kratos relatable was a Herculean task but they somehow managed to pull it off. The story and character development does feel perhaps a bit glacial but it appears to be setting up a new series and taking a smaller approach was probably the right choice for the introduction. Some people felt that there were too many systems with the leveling and upgrades but once it clicked for me, it was really rewarding to chase those better stats. The combat is thrilling and didn't seem to lose anything from the new perspective. Perhaps God of War is simply a curated collection of features from other popular games but if it was as simple as just taking stuff that works and packaging it together, every game would be as good as God of War.
Yakuza Kiwami 2 - Two of these games were in my top spots last year and I'm not surprised to see the series make a return onto my list this year. Considering Yakuza Zero was my entry point last year, it was a little more exciting then and it's more of a known quantity now but there's no denying the quality of this series. I still love the combat, I still love the over the top heat moves, I still love the substories, I still love Mahjong, I still love Karaoke, I still love Majima, I still love Kamurocho. There is so much content in this game from the returning cabaret club minigame which is simple yet addicting, the bouncer missions which bring a challenge aspect to the combat and the tower defense minigame which is fun and has some of the best accompanying music I've ever heard in a game. The story and cutscene direction is as good as ever and the quirky humour is still everywhere. I don't know why it took me so long to discover this series since it has much that I love but I look forward to having more of this series on my GOTY lists for years to come.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance - I cannot help feeling a little bad for liking this game as much as I do due to the creative director being a complete scumbag. It lingers on in my mind as long as I'm playing it but I cannot deny that this game is offering me an RPG experience that I've been waiting for since Morrowind. The game offers you many missions with a number of options to tackle them without giving you too much overbearing guidance in a world that feels real and not overly gamey. It does have the patented Eurojank as its called and often can crumble under its own ambition and the mission and dialogue can just sometimes just completely break. That stuff can really take you out of the experience but the game is still wonderfully engaging. They commit to their survival aspects without going too far. There are always a number dialogue options and being able to charm or sneak my way out of combat is endlessly satisfying. I have to admit that there are moments in this game that almost feel magical when your dumb way of trying to finish a quest works....until the game breaks again. It also has one of my favourite perk systems is games which is saying a lot since almost every game has perks these days. There's a fantastic base here that sequels could build on to make something even more impressive.
Marvel's Spiderman - What a fun game. Swinging is a joy, combat is fast paced and satisfying, and the characters are great. I did appreciate some breaks from the action with the stealth and puzzle sections although I realise that's not the most popular opinion. A lot of the side stuff is a bit bland and the upgrade tree could probably be a bit more interesting but damn, does that swinging feel good. The game makes me excited for what I hope will be a new series of these games. The Arkham games, despite being amazing, did not lead to more great superhero games. Hopefully, the incredible success of Marvel's Spiderman will lead to more comic properties getting definitive video game adaptations.
Red Dead Redemption 2 - From a technical perspective, this is one of the most impressive games ever made. Unfortunately, the game design is less so. The game recreates a wholly believable western setting that you can almost touch and smell but you spent a lot of time shooting hundreds of people from behind cover with sloppy controls. It creates a teeming wildlife and interesting crafting system but gives you little reason to engage with it since it doesn't commit to its survival aspects. It keeps you enthralled with its fantastic writing and cinematic direction until you fail a mission and have to restart because you got off your horse two seconds early. It's an amazing product and I will play more of it but there will always be things that annoy me about it. Ultimately, I do think everyone should play it. It's pros and cons will be talked about for years.
A Way Out - This is going to sound shallow but I really appreciated how I could play this game for free by tagging along with someone who actually paid for the game. I feel more co-op campaign games could learn from that but it probably isn't financially viable. So, how was the game? It was pretty good. It felt reminiscent of the single player campaigns we got a lot of last gen which had positive and negative qualities. It's a focused story without much fluff or filler but you can finish it in an afternoon and has little replay value. I guess I can't complain about value when I played it for free. The story was fine with some shoddy writing but the actual cooperative stuff was pretty cool and novel. I thought the ending, despite being very predictable from a narrative perspective, did some interesting things mechanically. I've since learned that it was not the first co-op game to do an ending like that so I guess it isn't particularly unique but it was the first time I saw something like that so it sticks out to me.
Iconoclasts - A weird game. I never heard of it until it dropped on PS+. It's a metroidvania which are pretty dime a dozen these days. It doesn't do anything new with the genre but the mechanics and world/level design are solid. It leaves a mark with its story though. It takes place in a strange place with even stranger people. The characterization is strong throughout, even if I'll admit to thinking there was a bit too much dialogue. The characters essentially go on a crazy life changing journey, but none of them change. There was some cool blending of story and mechanics which is always appreciated.
Onrush - I generally am not into racing games so it's a good thing this isn't a racing game. You drive, you smash cars, you hit checkpoints, you smash cars, you capture zones, you smash cars, you boost as much as you can, you smash cars. In summary, you smash a lot of cars. The game did not have a whole lot of longevity for me and I wasn't really interested in the multiplayer but I enjoyed my time with the single player mode. It's a shame the future doesn't look so bright for the studio.
The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit - As far as free short games go, this one was pretty surprising especially since it dropped out of nowhere. The writing and performances were strong and the puzzles that were there were engaging enough. The boy may have been a bit precious and the alcoholic single dad may be well worn territory but I did appreciate the game displaying an abusive relationship without going too over the top. I haven't gotten around to playing the new game but this was a decent demo for what is to come.
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iksenpets · Jan 20, 2019

1. Celeste - Celeste is a very good platformer, but that would be pretty unremarkable. What sets it apart is the narrative aspects and how well they sync up with the gameplay. When Madeline is at her lowest, the levels are tight and claustrophobic, when she's at her peaks, they're big and open, and somehow the difficulty and quality of the levels remains consistent through all of that.
2. God of War - God of War is big, bombastic, and maybe the best looking game ever made.
3. Hollow Knight - I honestly don't know what it is about Hollow Knight. On paper, I should hate this game. But the satisfaction of exploring and filling out the map is just so good.
4. Marvel's Spider-Man - The swinging feels good and the story is better than it has any right to be.
5. Assassin's Creed Odyssey - Odyssey is a bit of a mess. It's too long, too big, and wear the fingerprints of all six hundred thousand people who worked on it. But playing as the raw killing machine I eventually leveled my Kassandra into was probably the most pure fun I had all year.
6. Return of the Obra Dinn - Has to be the year's most unique release. I didn't love it as much as some, but it's still a great little puzzle.
7. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - It's more Smash, but it's such a good love letter to Nintendo, and now to the broader industry at large.
8. Red Dead Redemption 2 - I honestly haven't played enough to have a solid opinion yet, or else it may have ended up way higher, but I've played enough to be impressed.
9. Yakuza Kiwami 2 - Like Red Dead, I haven't actually played enough of this yet, but Kiryu will always get some points from me.

Stratosphere · Jan 20, 2019

God of War - What an absolute masterpiece of a videogame. The previous GoW installments were fun, but this new direction took the franchise to another level. It has immediately become one of my favorite games of all time. Cory Barlog, a name I didn't know before this game, has quickly become one my favorite auteurs in the videogame industry. An amazing accomplishment by him and all of SSM.
Monster Hunter World - I have loved this franchise since my introduction to it with MHFU. I truly never thought I would see the day we would ever see such an ambitious take on the franchise. And on console top boot! As Ben Moore put it, "Now they will all understand."
Shadow of the Colossus - I was familiar with team ICO's other works, but I had never got around to playing this one before. Now I understand what I was missing all these years. What an absolute work of art. I know the exact moment I realized this game was a masterpiece - Avion.
Red Dead Redemption 2 - I really enjoyed my time with RDR2, even though I have yet to beat it. Open world games have never been my thing, but I can absolutely appreciate the work that Rockstar has done with this sequel. Every moment of that game I felt completely saturated and immersed in the old west. Arthur Morgan was probably my favorite character of 2018.
Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age - This game just oozes charm and good vibes. It's like the hot chocolate and apple pie of videogames. The characters are great, and the combat is pure JRPG goodness. I look forward to finishing it in 2019.
Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden - This was a surprise gift from my brother, as I had mentioned to him that I was itching for a fun strategy game. Well he definitely must know my tastes, because I had a blast with this one. The combination of real-time stealth with the strategy elements seemed to work so well together. The characters and world were rather interesting as well.
Into the Breach - A challenging strategy game that plays more like a puzzle game. It's the perfect switch game to pick up and play a level here and there.
Soul Calibur VI - It was just a treat to have my favorite fighting franchise back. I sure hope that the stage of history will carry on…
Dragon Ball FighterZ - Arc System Works absolutely nailed the art style and even recreated some of the iconic moments of my favorite anime, what's not to like? Well, about that story mode...
Below - This game nails the atmosphere, but it became really frustrating for me at times. Great art and music.

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Deleted member 5604 · Jan 20, 2019

God of War - Aside from being impressed by the orchestra and other production values when revealed. I was pretty skeptical of what the game's new combat system was turning out to be. It did not look great to me and seemed like a big departure (for the worse) from what I loved in the series. Boy was I wrong when I finally got the game in my hands. Not only did it exceed expectations in the combat/gameplay department, it exceeded my expectations overall to not only become my 2018 GOTY, but also my GOTG so far, overtaking Bloodborne.
Astro Bot: Rescue Mission - Day 1 of owning PSVR and playing the rescue game in Playroom VR, I knew I wanted more of this in full game form. Two years later, I got what I wanted in Astro Bot. I had expected to like the game before even starting it up, but they managed to surprise me with how inventive they could really get.
Shadow Of The Colossus- Back on the PS2 I only got to play this game for 10 minutes before my PS2 decided to get a DRE. I never even saw a glimpse of a colossus and didn't get around to the game afterwards as it was time for next gen. Didn't want to spend money on fixing or getting a new PS2. This remake came at the perfect time for me to check it out and it was such a great experience. I think the controls/improvements probably made it easier than it originally was, but it was still a terrific journey. I can see why people would consider the original, one of the best games of all time. That music...
Marvel's Spider-Man - Had wanted a true successor to Spider-Man 2 since that came out and Insomniac managed to deliver. Great visuals, soundtrack, traversal, and much better than expected story & combat makes this one of the best games of the year.
Forza Horizon 4 - While the locale is not as exciting as FH3, it somewhat makes up for it with seasons. Had a terrific time with the game and it had a really well optimized PC port (resulting in me choosing to game using my GTX1060 instead of the X)
Fighting EX Layer - Street Fighter EX Plus Alpha is my favorite SF game of all time, so seeing Arika bring back characters from the EX series into a brand new fighting game that plays similarly was a dream come true. Would've been higher on the list if it wasn't for some changes to the formula and the fact that SF characters can't be in due to requiring capcom involvement.
Detroit: Become Human- Choice based story that kept me super engaged, Terrific visuals (at some points seeming like we're getting a preview of what the fidelity of next-gen open world games would be like) and a good soundtrack.
Beat Saber - Simple yet effective + addictive concept. Great VR game.
Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze - I didn't actually play this game this year, But it deserves a vote every year it's eligible. Great game when I played it back in 2014. Still a great game today.
NBA Live 19- Because Eff 2K.

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Viale · Jan 20, 2019

God of War - From the onset of the first trailer, I was ready to experience something different, something with a bit more likability for our boy Kratos. I didn't think it'd really be possible though. I was certain that I would either see too much of this character that I had grown to hate, or the character would be so different from the past Kratos, that it may as well have been a different character entirely. I'm happy to say I was wrong. It treads the line so well that it's immediately believable that not only is this still Kratos, but this new story made me want to play GoW not for the set pieces and carnage, but for the story in hopes of seeing where they took this matured character and his BOI.
CrossCode - I was completely blindsided by this game when I went through it. This game does its' MMO setting incredibly well, maybe even the best of the games I've seen attempt it. It has an extremely charming cast with an even more charming protagonist. Excellent puzzles are littered throughout the game that initially daunt the player only to make the player feel like a genius shortly after. Combat that's genuinely a lot of fun to just mess around with. This game is a truly complete package, and I can't recommend it enough.
Red Dead Redemption 2 - Despite all the flaws in RDR2, it still probably has one of the most impactful stories I've seen in games with one of my favorite protagonists. Seeing the the group of friends devolve and break apart over the course of the game is such an interesting tale which is only further elevated by the masterful performances by all of the voice actors and audio direction. The finale itself is one I'll remember for years easily, and as someone who has historically not been able to really break into Rockstar games, I can definitely see that this game is special.
Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age - This was my first DQ game, and I wasn't super sure what to expect. What I got was a classic RPG brought up with today's fidelity. The game is gorgeous with an aesthetic that I cannot stop gushing over. The main party is such a fun set of characters(with Jade and Sylvando being the best obviously). Wonderful game, and I'll likely double dip on Switch.
Astro Bot: Rescue Mission - This was my first real foray into a VR game, and I don't know if I could have felt more impressed. Having this real presence in this game and being completely immersed in these levels was just something else. Even discounting the excellent use of VR, the game itself is already a great time. Excellent level designs with a *ton* of variety, a boppin soundtrack, and bosses(and especially the final boss) which are just such fun spectacles that I'm getting excited just thinking about it again.
Yakuza 6: The Song of Life - This marks the end of the Kiryu saga of games, and I think it was a great send off to a great character. The more down-to-earth focus of the game paired with the story centering on the family motif fit so well. The side quests are charming and wholesome, and the new cast members work really well with Kiryu. The only real detriment I can see is the lack of some past characters(like Majima), but the game still shines brilliantly, and it sits above the other Yakuzas as my favorite. (Ono-Michio the best)
Detroit: Become Human - When this was coming out, I was considering skipping it as I had just finished having a very meh experience with Beyond. Thankfully, this game is leagues better in almost every way. The choices feel like they have a lot of weight with extreme deviations between players, and the story, while a bit heavy handed with its' themes on occasion, is a very good time(especially the Conner story). Playing it with a group of people further elevates the experience.
Marvel's Spiderman - Despite side-content that actively hurt my opinion of the game slightly, this game is easily the best Spider-Man game I've played. Likely the best superhero game in general I've played. The story is well put together and had me at the edge of my seat. This game's Peter, MJ, and Miles are also among my favorite renditions of the characters. The moment to moment game play is where the game really shines though. The traversal options coupled with all the different tools at your disposal during fights were just a joy to use. It really "made me feel like Spider-Man." When it came out, I could confidently say it was my favorite piece of Spider-Man media. Then Spider-Verse came out
Monster Hunter World - This was my first go at a Monster Hunter, and it's probably the only multiplayer game I've really enjoyed this much. Besides just generally being a great game to play with friends, there really isn't anything as satisfying as smacking away a monster 30x your size with a well timed hit from your trusty charge blade.
Beat Saber - This was the game that made me stop and go "I'm gonna get a VR headset." Months later, it proved me right, and the game is damn worth it. The sound track bops as it should, and it's just an absolutely excellent time.

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Miamiwesker · Jan 20, 2019

I still have many games from last year to finish so this is my list as of now. My top games I am certain will remain the same but I bet many different games may enter my top ten later. So this is the list of games from 2018 I beat:

Red Dead Redemption 2
God of War
Detroit
Spider-Man
Astro Bot
Budget Cuts
La Mulana 2
Destiny 2 Forsaken
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Shadow of the Colossus
Metal Gear Survive
Beat Saber
Bloodstained Curse of the Moon
A Way Out

These are games I have but have not played enough to have a judgement of them yet, I suspect I may end up loving some of these:

Celeste
Dead Cells
Into the Breach
Moss
The Messanger
Subnautica
Splatoon 2 Octo Expansion
Mega Man 11
Deltarune
Guacamelee 2

So with that I give you the best games I played this year.

Red Dead Redemption 2 - Normally I go with the game with the best gameplay as my GOTY, that was God of War. But while playing RDR2 for over 150 hours I could not shake the feeling I was playing a monumental game, a stunning achievement in storytelling and world building. The story of Arthur Morgan is one of the most fleshed out, intriguing and complete stories of a man we have ever seen in gaming. The way it was told was with incredible flair, epic missions, huge twists and turns and masterful direction including how music was used in the perfect moment. Rockstar out did themselves with the stunning open world they created. It feels alive son ways few games do. Hours upon hours were spent just living in the world and uncovering its stories which range from horrifying, to uplifting and downright strange. It's also the best hunting game ever made with an impressive ecosystem featuring hundreds of animals. Yes the gunplay might not be complex, it's missions are incredibly linear and the gun fights can be repetitive. These things hold it back from the discussion of greatest game ever made, but even with those faults it's a masterpiece that will be remembered forever.
God of War - I wish I can just call this a tie because this game deserves GOTY just as much. One of the best reinventions of a franchise ever, I would say second only to the best of all time RE4. It is hard to make a combat system that feels fresh, especially under the umbrella of a previous action game but Cory and company made one of the best combat systems ever for an action game. The leviathan axe is one of those legendary weapons, the feel of calling the axe back never got old. I loved the world they created and it's zelda like semi open world. The story is so well told, a beautiful story of fatherhood while keeping the ultra violence we all expect from GoW. I wish there were more boss battles but the ones they do have are some of the most epic stuff put in a game. It had some cool side quests, nice challenge areas, and is paced very well. It's a brilliant game and the best Sony exclusive this gen.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - The title says it all, it is the Ultimate smash game. I know melee plays the best, well this game is to me the same thing, they perfected the feel. It has every character and some fantastic new ones, as usual the depth of these charaters astound me. To take characters from completely unrelated genres and make them feel exactly as they do in their game but fit this fighting game, it's incredible. And the little details, never cease to amaze. World of Light might be too long but I am always for content. The sprit system is genius, I just love the care they put into every custom fight to make it feel like you are battling hundreds of characters from all of game history. This is a love letter to gaming with its cameos, music and levels. It's also the most fun multiplayer game this gen. Another classic entry.
Astrobot: Rescue Mission - I've been playing VR for a few years now on PC, so the room scale innovative stuff. I have experienced things that can never be done in a traditional console and yet some of these games are too simple, or feel like an arcade game rather than what I am used to from the best developers. Enter Sony of Japan, they took aspects of VR but made an excellent traditional style platformer, the result is the best VR exclusive game ever made. Astrobot is a brilliant platformer VR or not but it is VR that puts it over the top, not a level will go by without something that will wow you with how clever VR is implemented. The dual shock is also used in genius ways, it has the magical quality of a Nintendo game. It's not the longest or challenging of games but it's efficient, no level feels like a miss. The bosses are sights to behold, these are building sized monsters that feel like they are building sized because in VR they are. This is the game to get on PSVR.
Marvel's Spider-Man - The best spider-man story told in a medium outside the comics, better than the movies. Insomniac nailed the feel of swinging through New York, you are spider-man. The combat is basically a faster paced Batman but without the depth. This game nails all the big moments but most of the side content feels very pedestrian.
Beat Saber - It has been a long time since I cared about a rhythm game but here comes this one of a kind lightsaber simulator where you don't fight, you jam! The notes fly at you and you need to slash them in the correct way with the right colored lightsaber. This game will give you one hell of a work out. Get on PC for bonus songs.
Detroit: Become Human - Quantic Dreams best game, they told a solid story from start to finish with mindblowing graphics and true choice. The chart detailing all your choices is something all these games desperately needed. Great acting, great exciting story with characters I ended up caring about.
Destiny 2: Forsaken - Finally Destiny 2 felt like it was moving back to what made TTK so great. Cool new area to explore with lots of secrets. I good campaign with interesting boss battles. The loot system was improved, there was lots to accomplish and gambit is a great mode. The addiction continued.
La Mulana 2 - This game hates you, it wants you to die. So its just like the first, in fact way too much like the first. It was a blast to have a notepad with scribbles all over as if I was some mental patient who believed in ancient alien hieroglyphs. No game felt as rewarding to beat.
Tetris Effect - It's Tetris! Flashy cool and in VR Tetris.
Metal Gear Survive - This game is NOT BAD. It has an insane story which only MGS can do. It keeps things interesting with new stuff happening all the time. Got a bad rap.
Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon - Wow this is one hell of a fake Castlevania 3, it might even be better.

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eternalblue · Jan 20, 2019

God of War - I was a little hard-pressed to choose between which of my top two games I ultimately enjoyed playing through the most, but remembering how great God of War's gameplay was made the deicision for me. It was so satisfying figuring out and implementing the ways to open Nornir chests or succeeding in taking down a Valkyrie. I've never played any of the previous God of War games except for a very small bit of the start of the first PS2 and PSP games, and originally wasn't really enthused or hyped to play this game based off the little interest I had in Kratos as a character. I was really happy that this game chose to deepen the story-telling and characters of this world, while still having enjoyable combat.
Detroit: Become Human - I haven't played a David Cage game since Indigo Prophecy/Fahrenheit on the PS2 and was generally quite happy with the story told in this game with many possible branches that vary depending on choices made. Biggest nitpick is that of the 3 protagonists, Markus has the slowest sections to play through, with the least amount of variety for really changing the story in interesting ways, which can make playing his parts during replays a drag.
2064: Read Only Memories - A real throwback to point and click adventure games of old, with a Snatcher-esque cyberpunk atmosphere with an enjoyable cast of characters with a nice voice-cast. I loved looking at, interacting with, and talking with everything I could in this game to see the often-times humorous and informative results that reminded me a lot of old Sierra adventure games like King's Quest VI. This game didn't seem to be listed in the eligible 2018 games list, despite it coming out for Switch in 2018.
Marvel's Spider-Man - While it's by far the best Spidey game made as of yet, I wasn't too blown away by the story or some its repetiveness, although for the most part I enjoyed this game's take on main characters and the gameplay. I found it fun just being able to swing around and run all over buildings as Spider-Man.
Assassin's Creed Odyssey - This is actually the first AC game that I've ever attempted to play, although I've been intrigued by the series from its start. I've only been playing this for a little while, but I've enjoyed it quite a bit so far.
Batman: The Enemy Within - Another game that I didn't see listed on the eligible 2018 game list, but since the last two episodes released then, I'd kind of think it should count, since the entire game couldn't be played until early 2018. Moreso than Spider-Man, I found Telltale's takes on various Batman characters very unique. They seemed to take different spins on characters seen in different mediums many times before. While Telltale gameplay for the most part remains Telltale gameplay, the last chapter in particular was a very different experience depending on what path a certain character took in prior episodes. I'm very sad that this game didn't do well for Telltale and that there won't be any more of this Batman universe.
Night in the Woods - Liked this game, but didn't love it.

There's a number of games that I'm certain would have been on my list had I the chance to play them this past year, like Red Dead Redemption 2 and Dragon Quest XII. Hoping I can play them and some other games in my backlog this year, but with Resident Evil 2 and Kingdom Hearts 3 right around the corner, they'll have to wait a bit longer.

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sapien85 · Jan 20, 2019

Red Dead Redemption 2 - Probably the most epic game I've ever played. A perfect example of how the whole can be more than just the sum of its parts. The different elements of the presentation, story and world building come together so well that it's hard to imagine other developers ever reaching this level of craftsmanship. Arthur is one of my favorite characters I have ever played as in a game. I still think the ending of the first RDR was better but this one tops that in every other way.
Marvel's Spider-Man - If I was strictly judging based on how much fun I had with a game this would be number 1. Unlike almost all open world games it actually feels extremely good to travel in this one. It looked fantastic and the story was better than I would have expected. The combat felt satisfying and kinetic, I enjoyed it enough that I never got sick of the myriad side missions beating up goons.
Celeste - The best controlling platformer since Super Meat Boy and the first time I feel like a game surpassed that one in this genre. The music is the best of the year for me and it looked gorgeous. Being able to restart so quickly right after death kept me going when I otherwise would have dropped it. Simultaneously the most frustrating and satisfying game of the year.
God of War (2018) - A great reinvention of a franchise that was getting stale. Kratos was a lot more deeper than in the past and I'm shocked they were actually able to pull off the up close over the shoulder third person camera so well for an action game. One of the best looking games I've ever played and it took the player to a new universe of myths to explore. The father son relationship was handled at depths that most game stories never even attempt.
Dead Cells - A game that's punishing but makes you feel like you're constantly progressing. It controls so well and every movement feels fluid.
Astrobot: Rescue Mission - A platformer that owes much of its appeal to incorporating things you can only do in VR. Almost every level felt like it introduced a new little game mechanic, the music was always good (sometimes repetitive) and it looked and felt like a joy to play in its worlds.
Tetris Effect - They took something very good, tweaked it a little and made it a more complete audiovisual experience. VR really added a lot to this but I still enjoyed playing it normally. The journey really did feel like a journey and it felt very satisfying to beat the stages.
Asassin's Creed Odyssey - I didn't play Origins so this is my first taste of the new Assassin's Creed and I'm really satisfied with what they've done. There is so much more to this game in scope and size than the old ones, the combat feels more challenging and satisfying while the world feels more real. There might be too much to do in this game but I've enjoyed it for the most part. The setting is interesting and Cassandra is the best protagonist I've played as in an Assassin's Creed game.
Hitman 2 - More of a really good thing. It doesn't change enough to be higher on the list, but it's very fun and it's nice to have all new maps to go on murderous hijinks in.
Detroit: Become Human - The best game Quantic Dream has made so far. Feels less stilted and awkward than their older games and they've cut a lot of the annoying controls that took away from the experience in the past. Looks very impressive, some of the most realistic people I've seen in a game. The branching choices and options are more interesting than in their past games because they lay them out for you in such detail after each section.
Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight/Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight
Vampyr
OnRush
Yakuza 6
Full Metal Furies
Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom
The Messenger
Iconoclasts
Yoku's Island Express
Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom

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Megatron · Jan 20, 2019

Super Smash Brothers Ultimate - I have never been much of a fighting game fan, but there are a few fighting games I have managed to really get into over the years. One such example was Smash Brothers: Melee. I got so, SO into that game. Far more than I expected. I was obsessed with it for several months. For whatever reason, I barely touched Brawl. I'm not sure exactly why not. And Smash 4 I played a decent amount. 45 hours on the DS and another 20 or so on the WiiU, so I had come to think that Melee was just never going to be repeated for me. And then this game came out. And I'm 100 hours in already. And I'm obsessed. I have my daily ritual of logging in and swapping my characters in and out of the gym and other activities. I recently completed world of light and have been trying to knock out other challenges. I feel like there's always so much to do. I've mainly been focused on WoL and spirit battles, but I really enjoy classic mode as well. I love editing the songs that play for the different stages. I haven't even touched online yet because I haven't subscribed to Nintendo Online. I just find this game so satisfying. There's so much to do and it exists as a love letter to Nintendo.
Octopath Traveler - Like many, I was a little put off by the $60 price tag, but when the game released I played the demo. I played the full 3 hours of that and then immediately went out and bought the full game. I was hooked. I loved playing through each character's story. The challenge bump for each chapter was large and tough to deal with at first until I learned about secondary jobs. By the time I had those I was no longer having difficulty challenges with the game, and I had found a new aspect of the game that I was addicted to. I loved spending time on message boards reading other people's strategies and then giving advice to newcomers. At 95 hours of gameplay where I was thoroughly engaged and having fun, I more than got my $60 worth.
Dragon Quest 11 -
Marvel's Spider-man - I'm a huge comic book fan, and Spider-man is my favorite character. I was extremely excited when this was announced and have been patiently waiting for it ever since. I really enjoyed the new takes on the characters, and appreciated the story not starting off with a rookie Spider-man yet again. The Aunt May stuff was powerful and I loved seeing Miles in the game. Honestly my only real gripe was in a game that includes so many of Spidey's costumes that the black costumer wasn't included. I understand it's because they plan to use it in a sequel, but they should have put it in anyway. It's not like they're all canon to the game. Nobody's referencing the spider punk costume. It's just a cool aesthetic for the fans.
Red Dead Redemption 2 - This was a difficult game to rank for me. The story was really engaging, the graphics, voice-acting, music, all superb. But the controls weren't ideal. I was struggling with them a bit throughout the game. The slow, deliberate pace wasn't ideal, and some of the design decisions in the name of 'realism' like the forced eating and sleeping contrasted starkly against all the other design decisions where they didn't need to stick with reality (murdering shop keepers, paying a $15 bounty and everything is cool). But I felt over-all that I was really engaged in the game and wanted to see where it went. After I finished the game, I immediately loaded up the first Red Dead to see compare the two and see how the narrative lead back into it's predecessor.
God of War - Honestly, these top 7 could have gone in any order. I had God of War number one for a while on my list and I do love the game and think it's phenomenal. I love using the axe, and the combat was really satisfying. I have never enjoyed a god of war game before, despite buying basically all of them thinking 'ok *this* is the one that will click for me!' and finally one did. I was really engaged in the game's story and really wanted to know what was going to happen with Atreus. I was really surprised by the revelation of his 'other' identity and am very eagerly awaiting the sequel.
Celeste
Assassin's Creed: Odyssey
Moss
The Messenger

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moomoo14 · Jan 20, 2019

Astro Bot Rescue Mission - By far the most fun I had with a game this year. It is the best platformer since the Mario Galaxy games, and each level is incredibly inventive and put a giant smile on my face.
Shadow of the Colossus - I had never played the original game, and holy guacamole did the PS4 version leave an impression. Absolutely astonishing and still unique.
Firewall Zero Hour - Definitely the most flawed game on my list, but when everything is working, it is the most exhilarating thing in the world. This is the first multiplayer game I got into in a loooooong time, and I can't imagine doing that outside of VR.
Detroit: Become Human - I think this is the first time David Cage really got it "right". Don't get me wrong, I could see the potential in his prior games, but Detroit starting with a bang really helped me get invested. Connor's story in particular was really well done.
Hitman 2 - This game not selling well makes me sad, since it is so incredibly well-design. Each level is crafted with a level of care and gameplay possibility that it makes me stand in awe at the designers at IO. A big improvement on the first game, even if it doesn't look it at first glance.
Celeste - Probably the best indie platformer ever made. Wonderful level design and a heartfelt story that helped expand my understanding of anxiety.
Beat Saber - This game desperately needs DLC, but what's there is so fun and surprisingly full of depth.
Tetris Effect - It is the best version of Tetris, full stop (unless if you want multiplayer). VR compatibility made me love it on a whole other level.
God of War - I was really impressed with how well everything came together in this game. It's quite the accomplishment to create such a cohesive product with such a large team.
Marble it Up! - This game has perfect gameplay mechanics. The only problem with it is that it is aimed only at people who fall in love with its mechanics, as it gets basically all of its playtime from replaying levels. Thankfully, those levels are well-designed, and its just so much fun to play.

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jefjay · Jan 20, 2019

Red Dead Redemption 2 - I'm a sucker for a good western. And RDR2 is plodding, methodical, and a total slow burn. Like a good western should be. The game is more of a sim than an action game. And the amazing world built in RDR2 makes it easy to overlook the otherwise clunky controls.
Wandersong - I adore this game. Wandersong is funny, heartwarming, and full of joy. While more akin to playing an interactive storybook, the musical adventure you take on is entertaining to the end. The Bard is hands down the best new character this year.
Into the Breach - Excellent strategy/puzzle game. Too many strategy games have complex rules that my brain can't deal with after a long day. This one is simple, and yet what you can do with these rules is nothing but simple. The cheers from the citizens gave me the encouragement I needed to play on.
Detroit: Become Human - Best choose your own adventure (tm) game ever with choices that matter. While there's no profound message, great characters and an interesting story kept me fighting for humanity.
Splatoon 2: Octo Expansion - As a huge fan of Splatoon 2, I was still surprised what a great job they did with this expansion. Fun and tough trials in an interesting package.
Octopath Traveler - I Haven't played a JPRG in years. This gave me exactly what I wanted out of such a game. The everyday stories were a nice change of pace from the usual save the world.
Yoku's Island Express - Another game that gushes pure joy. The positive attitude of your beetle to deliver the mail is addicting. A great game to relax on the couch with, and the only game I 100% this year.
Celeste - Tough story to play through, and I mean that as a compliment. I'm not a big fan of these precision platforms, but Celeste and the rest of the characters kept me playing.
Dead Cells - I had a lot of fun with Dead Cells. It even put me on a roguelite kick over the summer. My main issue with Dead Cells is that it's just too damn hard. It took me almost 15 hours to beat world 2. And after playing another 5 and not coming close again, I gave up on the game.
Smash Bros. Ultimate - I'm not a huge Smash fan, but World of Light is pretty neat. And the amount of fan service in this game is obscene. While not my favorite online game, I'm sure I'll be playing this off and on over the next few years.
Bayonetta 2 - My biggest surprise; I'm now a Bayonetta fan. The only reason this is so low is because I wanted to reserve my top 10 for new games.
Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker - Adorable puzzle/platform game. Keep the Wii U re-releases coming (for those that never had one).

While no 2017, all in all this was a good year. If you ask me my list a week from now it probably would be different (except for my top 3). My only mistake was playing GoW after Bayonetta 1 & 2 (which I never played before). Hearing about GoW's great combat going in, I just found the game boring. Which was maybe unfairly because I was just hoping for more Bayonetta...

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gadwin · Jan 20, 2019

God Of War - I knew since that epic reveal that we were gonna get an magical game, and SSM delivered on all fronts. On of the very best games this generation.
Red Dead Redemption 2 - Incredible incredible world, still not finished with the story (I'm in the epilogue) because I spend so god damn much time just slowly riding around the breathtaking vistas encountering new little side stories everywhere that didn't need to be a big fat marker on the map.
Fortnite Battle Royale - People love to hate it, but it's an amazing multiplayer experience with the best support and updates in the industry. Probably gonna end up as my most played game of all time that isn't named World of Warcraft.
Shadow Of The Colossus - On of my all time favorites, maybe should have topped this list but it's the third release so kinda hard to place it...
Astro Bot Rescue Mission - Not big on platformers but Astro Bot is a pure joyful experience. A true VR showcase up there with Resident Evil 7.
Detroit Become Human - Great theme, best visuals around, utterly impressive flow charts and the wonderful Connor.
Marvel's Spiderman - Probably my favorite Spiderman/ Peter Parker casting ever. Great main story and exhilarating traversal.
A Way Out - I need more of this, such an fresh and fun take on co-op. Had an blast going through this with a friend with me in the couch.

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Ailanthium · Jan 20, 2019

God of War - A monumental achievement in every respect, God of War is the kind of game that defines generations. The desperate struggle against its own legacy is a constant source of tension. Those feelings linger throughout every scene, permeated through the world itself and reflected in the relationship between Kratos and Atreus. I can think of no other game that has walked this fine a line between embracing and rejecting an identity forged by unrepentant hyper-masculinity and tempered by the unrelenting passage of time.
Red Dead Redemption 2 - Every bone in my body wants to say that Red Dead Redemption 2 is an abject failure. Few games conflict so thoroughly with design philosophies that I consider 'good' and 'right', and yet I somehow found myself thoroughly engrossed in the world of outlaws and lawmen populated by protagonists and antagonists of dubious morals. There is a sense of humanity in it that is deeply touching, a twang in the heartstrings.
Monster Hunter: World - There is no game released this year that better captures the raw spirit of adventure than Monster Hunter: World. Doing away with the melodrama that characterized many of this year's most promising games (or any pretense of a halfway decent narrative), Monster Hunter is all about spectacle. It's an audiovisual treat, but that isn't what's so impressive about the game. The moment-to-moment gameplay, best experienced with a tight-knit group of friends with their own unique skillsets, is on another level entirely.
Marvel's Spider-Man
Yakuza 6
Astro Bot: Rescue Mission
Into the Breach
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Yakuza Kiwami 2
Octopath Traveler

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SlickVic · Jan 20, 2019

2018 was another great year of game releases, and one I have to admit where a bunch of game releases snuck up on me in the final few months of the year. There are games from series I've loved in the past that I unfortunately didn't get a chance to play much of (games like Valkyria Chronicles 4 and Shadow of the Tomb Raider), and even games I'm including on my list that I would've have loved to have put more time into before finalizing the order of my list. But as we approach the end of January and 2019 is well underway, it's finally time for me to reflect on what I did get a chance to play last year, as well as look forward to playing the great games I may have missed.

God of War - There's no doubt this is a very different God of War game from its predecessors, but at the same time, I was also happy to see the 'roots' of the franchise still very much intact. There's the larger than life moments that are a cornerstone of the series, and there's just something so 'visceral' about the combat that makes these games so satisfying. Almost as if you can feel that full raw force of Kratos's power through the controller. I had some initial reservations about Atreus when I first started, as it's easy for friendly AI in games to be more burden than help (often times it feels like they're either not doing anything or just actively getting in your way). But he's integrated into the combat so well, honestly more as another 'ability' in your combat toolkit, rather than an unpredictable AI. Just felt it was handled really smartly.
Hard to get too much into story without getting deep into spoilers, but I really liked how the characters were handled, and I felt I developed a sense of respect for Kratos I never thought I would have based on the prior games. And while the game isn't overloaded with side quests, I was quite impressed with what was there. It was really cool to see a seemingly small side quest lead me into discovering and exploring a fairly substantial area of Midgard that wasn't part of the main story (and finding even more to do over there). I also really liked how they led to character moments that fleshed out Kratos and Atreus's relationship. In the past I've come to God of War games for the raw and brutal combat, but GoW 2018 makes me appreciate how good characters can make the journey of playing a game all the more memorable and sweeter.
Red Dead Redemption 2- My in-game progress in RDR2 only lists a total completion pf 40%, so I certainly haven't seen all this massive open world game has to offer, And to get some negatives out of the way first, I'm not a huge fan of the 'weighty' controls that have permeated Rockstar's games for a long time. And while shooting feels perfectly competent, it just never feels nearly as satisfying as some other third person shooters do. And so with a game I've only partially finished while admitting to issues I have with its controls, it may seem very odd that I'm ranking it so highly. And yet, RDR2 does so many other things so well (and sometimes to excruciatingly fine detail) that's it hard for me not to enjoy the game when looking at the entire experience. There are a lot of approaches to open world games, but there's also something special about the Rockstar approach to them. These are worlds that absolutely feel lived in. The towns feels like what I'd expect a small town circa 1899 to look like, down to the gun shop and saloon. And much like the original, there's a certain bliss to riding my horse around the Old West, sometimes without a specific goal or purpose in mind (other than to simply take in the gorgeous scenery), and being fascinated with experiencing a world and an era that has long past. It's perhaps difficult to talk too much about story details, but much like God of War, I feel there are wonderful character moments, and the game does a great job of providing opportunities to get to know people in your camp. From seemingly trivial missions like going fishing with Javier turning into a fun afternoon getting to know someone, or riding in New Hanover to stumble into a woman stranded after her horse died in an accident the game while she tells you a bit about her lazy husband as you give her a ride back to the ranch, the game does a really good job of making even the simpler encounters seem meaningful. It's exactly what makes an open world feel less like a 'video game map' and more of a 'slice of life of the Old West'.
Yakuza 0 - This was my first Yakuza game (glad to see the series finally on PC), and I was just so impressed with how much good content was crammed into it. The main story is exciting, the side quests (or sub stories as they are called here) are legitimately funny, and there are more side activities and mini-games than I honestly knew what to do with. I easily could have burned through 20-30 hours just doing managing the Cabaret Club. Focusing on characters, I think it was great how the game features both Kiryu and Majima, who are such different personalities that there different stories complement each other really well. I appreciated that while the main story was largely a serious affair (and at times incredibly dramatic), the game has absolutely zero issues with being goofy and quircky that very much gives the game its charm. I can't wait to play more of the series hopefully soon.
Spiderman - I know it's been said a million times already, but man the swinging is so much fun in this game. It reminds me a lot of Sunset Overdrive where I would spend time just aimlessly traversing the city between story missions because it just felt so satisfying.
I really enjoyed the story a lot. I'm not very knowledgeable on Spiderman lore (outside what has been presented in previous movies) so it was fun to see some new characters along with familiar faces. One thing I've always liked about Spiderman stories is seeing Peter's struggle between the responsibilities of being Spiderman and those of being Peter Parker. While I think this story focuses a lot on the former, I did like the "Peter" moments a lot in the story, and I hope that's something they potentially do more of in the inevitable sequel. And while the combat is very familiar from the Arkham games, I can't say I really minded because I really liked the combat in those games and it was also a ton of fun here.
Final Fantasy XIV - FFXIV continues to be a game I enjoy sinking a bunch of time into. Perhaps some of it is still the magic of it essentially being my first MMO (started playing in 2017), but the concept of me being my character embarking on main and side story quests, dungeons, raids, and just exploring the world of Eorzea still feels very fresh to me. One thing that attracts me to gaming in general is the idea of taking on the role of the game's protagonist and experiencing life through a different site of eyes through the context of the game's story. But while single player games tend to have a set endpoint of finishing the story and side content, FFXIV (and MMO's in general) just keeps going. Between new patches and new expansions, there's always more things to do, and perhaps more importantly, the story continues on (and FFXIV's story since Heavensward and continuing into the latest expansion is something I continue to enjoy a lot). And in that way, I get to continue being my same character in the game from when I first started well over a year now of playing (with perhaps many more years to come). And I just find that concept to be really cool.
Assassin's Creed Odyssey - AC: Odyssey was a game I really wanted to put more time into this year, but nonetheless, I really enjoyed what I played so far. I'm a fairly big AC fan (having played all the main entries in the series since II) so playing the new Assassin's Creed has become a bit of an automatic ritual for me at this point. But perhaps what I really appreciated about Odyssey is how it doesn't mind taking concepts that worked in other games and applying it to the AC series. I think Origins started this trend a bit by introducing a massive open world with a bunch of quests to do from main story to side quests (along with loot). Even if it didn't invent this concept, I still call it the 'Witcher 3' approach, mostly because of how well that format worked for that game. AC:Odyssey takes it to the next logical step, by introducing dialog choices and branching conversations. Which leads me to my next point, which is I really enjoy playing as Kassandra. There's the right amount of snark in her answers, without being overtly rude (at least that's my impression). I'm still fairly early into the game, but I've also liked how not every quest has an easy "everyone wins" solution. Much like the Witcher series, there's usually some shades of grey. Along with RDR2, I really look forward to playing more of it in 2019.
Detroit: Become Human - Perhaps it's just me, but I feel there's just not enough AAA games that take place in the future proper. I'm not talking about post-apocalyptic wastelands (which have become a favorite in all forms of media for many years now), but games showing us what cities and developed society could look like in the future (or at least a vision of it), and how technology will shape that future. It's the reason why Cyberpunk 2077 is unequivocally my most anticipated game release at the moment, and also why the premise of Detroit: Become Human fascinated me from the beginning. There's a chapter in the game early on with Markus where you're just walking down a street. You see the androids being advertised in the store windows, the fancy posters for movies, an android serving hot dogs, and in the moment, I felt like I was actually taking a stroll down a street in the future (or at least one vision of it). I really like moments like that, where a game is able to sweep you up in the atmosphere they create and immerse you in their world. And beyond making choices and building character relationships, I really liked how the game is built out of a lot of these smaller moments. They allow you step into the lives of these characters, to learn about their personality, and figure out how you'd react to a certain situation being in their shoes. Say what you will about Quantic Dream, but I feel that's something they've done really well with especially since Heavy Rain.
Final Fantasy XII - FFXII was a game I enjoyed a good deal when I first played it on PS2, but between getting busy with things in my life at the time, it's one of the many games I stepped away from for an extended period of time and was never able to get back into it to actually complete it. And thus it was added to my backlog of shame, and stayed there for over a decade. So when the PC version got announced, I was excited to finally get a second chance to finally play it and complete the story. It's been said many times before, but man the battle speed increase was such a great addition to this version. I could see myself quickly getting tired of some of the longer dungeons like Pharos at regular speed, but at 4x, the length felt just right. Enjoyed the gambit system quite a bit throughout the game as well. And while I did enjoy the ending, I did find the second half of the story perhaps not as engaging as the first half (felt like there were large lulls in the story in the back half before ramping back up at the end). Still, glad to finally see it through to the end and overall did have a good time with it.
Super Smash Brothers Ultimate - Fighting games are one of those genres I always try to get into, but never really stick with them and fall off of them pretty quickly. I guess I've always been bad at them, and have never been one for the competitive scene. In some ways Smash Ultimate is a bit different for me. As a single player gamer, there are clear goals set out of what I want to do. I want to unlock all the characters, and there's a proper story mode in 'World of Light' to get through that's surprisingly lengthy. A lot of the matches in World of Light are surprisingly fun to me, and I enjoy the scenarios they came up with to make each of them feel a bit different. Smash may not be a game I stick with forever, but I feel it's something I'm getting my money's worth out of, even playing it as primarily a single player game.
Gris - It's hard not to talk about Gris without gushing about its gorgeous art style. I'm tempted to say the game is worth experiencing just for the feeling of moving around an interactive water color painting. Gris's story is perhaps a bit abstract (to say the least), but also a powerful one in dealing with finding the strength to combat self-doubt and negativity. It certainly takes inspiration from Journey, but I continue to love this style of game and hope we continue to see more of them in the future.
Monster Hunter World - I put about 20 hours into MHW and really enjoyed my time with it. As my first Monster Hunter game, getting into the habit of tracking and hunting down monsters and getting into these epic long fights with them was a lot of fun. It's unfortunately just something I fell off of among the super busy release schedule at the end of the year, and I moved on to other games to play. Maybe one day I'll get back to it, but in the meantime, I do appreciate finally being able to understand the appeal of these games, and it's easy to see why people put so much time into playing and enjoying this series.

Well that's all for now. Looking forward to checking out everyone else's lists as well. I always find the GOTY thread is such a great opportunity to learn about games that completely went under my rader or didn't realize would appeal to me until I read why people love them so much in their lists. So here's to another great year for games in 2019!

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CoyoteSpitfire · Jan 20, 2019

Red Dead Redemption 2 - One of the best games I've ever played. It not only manages to improve upon its predecessor in most if not all aspects (much to my surprise as an ardent fan of the original), it also delivers a full-fledged western epic in the most well-realized open world in gaming to date. The absolute last thing I expected from this game was a protagonist that surpasses John Marston, but that's exactly what it delivered with Arthur Morgan. I can only hope that Rockstar adds some substantial expansions to the multiplayer to flesh it out.
God of War - I was excited for God of War ever since it was revealed. The new tone was much more appealing than the more heavy-handed edgy approach of the last trilogy, but I was unsure that the new gameplay would be up to par for the series. Much to my surprise, it has an extremely well-realized combat system. On top of its small-but-strong cast of supporting characters, it actually manages to make Kratos a fun and compelling character. Kudos for that. Though the game isn't without its flaws, those that it has are easily fixable and I have high hopes for the eventual sequel.
Celeste - Quite possibly my favorite platformer of all time. A good emotional story, extremely satisfying mechanics, topped off with an amazing soundtrack. I only wish I was good enough to complete all of the extra challenge levels.
Deltarune - I only wish that there was more of it so that it could be higher on my list. Susie is best girl.
Dead Cells - A truly great roguelite with fantastic flow and a memorably tongue-in-cheek tone.
Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition - A solid update for one of my favorite fighting games. SFV just keeps getting better.
Marvel's Spider-Man - Initially I was indifferent to playing a new Spider-Man game. However, it didn't take long for the game to win me over. Between the rock solid gameplay and the incredible portrayal of both Peter Parker and the game's antagonists, Marvel's Spider-Man has raised the bar for superhero games.
Into the Breach - The makers of FTL return to make another roguelite that is actually better than FTL. While variety is a tad low, the core gameplay loop is a blast.
The Forest - One of my favorite survival games of all time and possibly the only game I've ever played that remains scary in co-op.
Hollow Knight - Great atmosphere and wonderful art. Though metroidvanias aren't my favorite genre and combat can be a bit tedious, Hollow Knight remains a joy to experience.

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Sneaky Gato · Jan 20, 2019

Celeste - As a person who has and does suffer from self esteem and anxiety this connected more to me than perhaps anything else this year. And as someone with reflex issues the help options were very much appreciated. It made me feel very much accomplished that I could beat the sort of levels that in most other games would never have been possible. They were a challenge yes but one that I felt that I could tailor to my comfort levels. The connection between aesthetic and game play felt closer than anything else I played this year. The platforming, the music, the style changes all working in concert made for a wonderful experience. Also easily the best soundtrack of the year. I loved every moment of this game and still go back to play it all the time.
Super Smash Bros: Ultimate - This is the ultimate party game. I mean that in the way it encourages people to jump in and play with you. This is the first game that me and my brother played together physically for dozens of hours since college. That experience is something I would not give away for the world.
Splatoon 2: Octo Expansion - I loved everything about this expansion. The music, aesthetics, the world building it all comes together into one joyous package. I think the thing that I appreciated most about it was the sheer creativity of the challenges presented here. It really made me feel that the designers were really exploring the design space that something as unique as the Splatoon style presents. Every time it felt like a new challenge was presented I never knew what to expect.
Warhammer: Vermintide 2- This is here primarily because the soundtrack is dope as hell and twists it makes on the Left 4 Dead gameplay- the feel of swinging something solid into some thing else solid is just great. The difference between mindless zombies and the Skaven, the way they scatter and react to you cannot be understated.
Octopath Traveler - As someone with a preference for older handheld RPGs this felt like a love letter to me.
Total War: WARHAMMER II Rise of the Tomb Kings - This expansion felt like a huge overhaul for the game. Introducing a race that felt completely different from the others while also making the Mortal Empires map so much more enjoyable and playable.
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Torna The Golden Country - A great expansion to a good game. This redoes some designed choices and makes some desperately needed changes and it is all the better for it. And that soundtrack remains great.
Hollow Knight - This maybe the first the Metroid-esque game I've played since the Prime games that has really grabbed me. The place of history and tone that is presented just hits a perfect note with me.
Dragonball FighterZ - As someone who played a lot of the GBA games and watched Toonami after school this feels like it was tailor made for me. Easily the most hype a fighting game outside of Smash has made me since Soul Caliber.
Tetris Effect - Just a nice game to come home and relax to.

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BlackJace · Jan 20, 2019

Magic: The Gathering Arena - It's no secret that Wizards of the Coast have historically had trouble extending their digital influence beyond Magic Online, what with the now defunct Duels of the Planeswalkers and Magic Duels. I'm happy to say that Magic: The Gathering Arena is the real deal. I've put an absurd amount of time into this game. As someone that doesn't have the time nor money to really invest in the paper format, this is a dream come true. I'm really impressed at what Wizards have done to grow this platform. The presentation is top notch, and the development team is super responsive. So much so that I feel like I'm just as much a part of the development of the platform as anybody else. It runs like a dream, plays like a dream, and doesn't feel predatory. Here's to many more years!
Hitman 2 - This is the ultimate stealth game. I absolutely loved the last installment of the Hitman reboot, and I'm so glad that this is literally more of the same. It's crazy that some people saw that as a negative. This is a game-ass game that doesn't take itself too seriously, nor does it ever forget what it is. It is a stealth sandbox game that challenges you to adapt and test your cunning among a staggering amount of NPC AI. I truly hope this game was enough of a commerical success to see a final installment. IO Interactive is a one-of-a-kind development team and I want them to see the fruits of their labor pay off. Seriously, I hope someone from the team reads this: H2 is a banger and I really appreciate that these kinds of games are still being made. God bless the briefcase.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - I mean, what more could I ask for? Everyone is in this motherfucker. Once again, Sakurai and his team have provided the most balanced and mechanically sound crossover fighting game anyone could ask for. There are some definite questionable decisions here and there (notably the online features), but this is my favorite installment in the franchise since Melee.
Vermintide 2 - A fantastic co-op action game that can proudly proclaim itself as thr reigning Left 4 Dead experience. I would've never thought that rat slaughter would be so fun. It runs well, and the presentation is as charming as it is intense. I'm looking forward to delving into the content I've missed since the latest few updates.
Dragonball FighterZ - It took a while, but we've finally gotten a DBZ fighting game worth a damn since Bodukai Tenkiachi 3. Beautiful presentation, excellent soundtrack, and rewarding mechanics. It is a living, breathing representation of the anime reminiscent of what the Ultimate Ninja Storm series is to Naruto.

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cake · Jan 20, 2019

1. Red Dead Redemption 2 - RDR2 is everything I wanted in a sequel to one of the best games of last generation. I didn't want a prequel, since often "how they got there" isn't super interesting, but my expectations were turned upside-down with new protagonist Arthur and Dutch's band of misfits. Instead of just a bunch of shitty gang members that John used to know, you get a family at the ragged edge of encroaching society, trying to survive but refusing to change as the Wild West fades away. Rockstar built an incredible narrative that outdoes everything they've done before that more than justifies itself. Because you know how things end up with RDR1, there is a very real sense of dread as the game progresses even as the game asks you to invest more into this family, while the family slowly crumbles as you know it must. And through it all you play as newcomer Arthur, who somehow surpasses even RDR1's John as Rockstar's most best player character to date. Living as Arthur, you experience the last days of Dutch's gang and the awesome world it inhabits. The world is truly a character to itself here. Huge and oftentimes dangerous, filled with quirks and things and people to discover. Even casually riding out into the country can start a new odd Stranger mission to make the world feel more real, and there's plenty of side stuff to do (still working on the 100%). It's certainly the most visually amazing game this generation so far, at native 4k on my Xbox One X, and even on base consoles it's still head and shoulders above anything else. The music is amazing, oftentimes understated but fucking amazing at just the right moments, and a few comparable times to RDR1's "RIde into Mexico" moment are peppered throughout at perfect times. It's fair to note that the game isn't perfect. It takes a few hours to really ramp up from a slow start, which makes for a poor first impression gameplay-wise. Rockstar went even further with their animation priority, so even with some tweaked controls it can feel jarring coming from other games (I started RDR2 right after AC Odyssey and it was like night and day to compare them), and while I grew accustomed to it it's certainly not for everyone. Even with the game's issues, it hits a level of quality unmatched elsewhere this year. Overall, for me it's one of the best experiences I've had this generation and is easily my number one for the year.

2. God of War - Sony Santa Monica pulled an impressive feat with this: you care about the characters. Whereas before Kratos was just a rage monster, screaming and killing everything in his path, he is tempered with age, some wisdom, and a huge amount of responsibility as a widower father. He is very much the same Kratos of old, making for a few fantastic sequences as his old life comes to relevance for his present issues in a way that shouldn't work as well as it does. He's is also voiced by Chris Judge, who is always great. Atreus is well-realized and has a great arc, as a son mourning his mother and following a father that doesn't know how to live that role. The gameplay is reinvented to over-the-shoulder and with a constant camera, making for a really cool experience but ultimately might be better worked with some small cutaways. The combat is solid, with an axe that feels fucking awesome to call back to you. There isn't much enemy variety, particularly with the bosses, but what's there is solid. Ultimately it's a fucking great game that I loved and platinumed and look forward to the sequel, and while it's a super consistent game once it opens up after a few hours, it also never really hits the highs to push it over RDR2.

3. Assassin's Creed Odyssey - Origins was one of my top games of 2017, so I had high hopes going into Odyssey. It seemed like Origins+ mechanically, so I knew I'd enjoy it on that end, but I'd burned out from AC before and these are very much longer games compared to the older ones. It ended up as a minimal issue here, but I'm glad there's not one next year so this format can take a breather.The core gameplay has been refined and is still super good (and broken in spots). The combat feels better, and it replaces the shitty super cops (the Phylakes from Origins) with Morder-like mercenaries that hunt you down depending on your wanted level. The store told in three parts (the family stuff, the cult stuff, and an Isu part), so there are multiple "endings" and you can kinda tackle things as you choose. It's partly nonsense, but goddamn the game is fun and Kassandra is great. The world is great, though perhaps not much of an surprise compared to the deserts of Origins. Overall a fantastic game, though I'm glad I won't be playing Origins pt 3 this year since I'm a bit AC'ed out right now after putting into Odyssey twice the time I put into Origins.

4. Marvel's Spider-Man - Spiderman has had an amazing year. Between Infinity War, Spiderverse, and this game, it's the best time to be bitten by a radioactive spider. This feels great to play, the swinging around is as seamless as you'd expect, and Insomniac does great work with the story and characters. The open world gets a bit tedious if you go for 100% like I did, but that's a small issue next to a very solid game. I'm very much looking forward to a hopeful sequel.

5. Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu - Even in spite of playing RBY and their GBA remakes multiple times, I still played the shit out of this. Adding Pokemon Go-style catching really mixes things up and makes things feel like so much less of a grind. Adding Alolan and stone versions of Kanto pokemon helps keep things new, and some very useful changes remove a lot of frustrations from early gens (like HM mules not being a thing anymore, or finding Master Balls in the Mewtwo cave). It's also the closest I've gotten to finishing the Pokedex in a long time (needed to evolve my Dragonair but was too lazy to grind it, and needed to evolve a Kadabra), and there's some great post-game challenge fights.

6. Destiny 2: Forsaken - Even after 200+ hours into Year 1, I still find myself playing a ton of Destiny 2, now with Forsaken (and Black Armory) stuff to keep things fresh (hell, as I'm writing this, I probably put 7-ish hours in just today). Forsaken adds a few new maps, a new enemy type, and remixes various game systems to make you feel like you're always working towards something and can easily find something to do that will give some kind of progress. It also adds the new PVPVE Gambit mode, where two teams of 4 fight npb enemies and try to bank items they drop, but the enemy team is doing the same, can send blockers to stop you from banking, and can send one of their players to kill you and slow you down. It's fucking awesome. My only complaint is the requirements for infusion are terrible now, adding pointless grind and partly inhibiting you from playing as you'd like. Overall though, Destiny is in a great place right now.

7. Monster Hunter: World - Monster Hunter is that weird Capcom franchise that I kept thinking I'd give a real shot on each one and never really managed to do it. I bought 3 on the Wii U but never got around to it, tried 4 on the 3ds but the controls were fucking terrible so I dropped it. World looked like a few start, and after trying the demo co-op I was sold. It's super pretty, plays amazingly well, and is still janky as all hell in some very strange parts for a 2018 game, notably with the online components. In spite of the issues, I had a blast with it and am very curious to see what they do next.

8. Super Smash Bros Ultimate - Super fun to bring with me and mess around before an event, or play online at home. I still haven't unlocked everyone since there's so many fucking characters. I miss the challenge grid from 4, but otherwise this is the best Smash has been in a long time.

9. Tetris Effect - From Puyo Puyo Tetris to downloaded TI-89 calculator versions, Tetris has been a mainstay for a long time and Tetris Effect is a great reminder of just how good Tetris can be. The core gameplay is as expected (with the addition of being able to save/swap pieces), but it's the presentation of the game that really makes this so memorable. The core campaign in particular is a super impressive visual and auditory ride that really shows how varied the dressing can be when the gameplay is as flawless as it is. There are a bunch of other modes to play and master. I only wish I had a PSVR since from all accounts it's amazing like that.

10. Dead Cells - Roguelikes aren't hugely my thing, but something clicked on this one during my rental of it that I immediately just returned it and bought a digital copy. The risk/reward of how you approach enemies feels fantastic, it controls super smoothly, and it's just damn fun. Fuck cursed chests.

Honorable Mentions:
Hollow Knight - fuck this game is good. I killed a good few weeks playing just this in August, and honestly it would make my list if it hadn't released in 2017.
Into the Breach - fantastic from what I've played of it, but the end of year crunch killed the time for it. Definitely going to play more.

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