- Outer Wilds - Just an incredibly cool experience all around. Time looping, a world on a schedule, all of this is my shit to begin with and it all worked so well together. I never felt stuck (though I played after lots of QoL changes, I know) so I could always just keep pulling at threads and feel like I discovered something huge. Ending maybe didn't strike me as strongly as it did some people, but if nothing else it provided a strong sense of conclusion to a game where you can kinda do anything in any order, which is definitely an achievement.
- Control - I can always appreciate a cool fellow Jesse. A lot of style and thankfully the substance behind it mostly sticks the landing. I am someone who *always* seeks out every bit of writing in games by default, so I cannot say the thing others have said about it, but: sure has better writing in its collectibles than most other games do. It also got me to build a desktop, finally, so it had that sentimental feeling as well.
- Disco Elysium - A bizarre tale of this mess of a sorrycop. Was extremely pleasantly surprised by most of the writing. Expected something a little too bitter/grim, and it has that at times, but not enough to overpower everything else. Just lots of wonderful little moments with various characters and bits of world building that will stick with me. Kim rules.
- Zenki Zero: Last Beginning - The actual gameplay is a bit simplistic but as someone who doesn't play many dungeon crawlers, I was happy to dip my feet in like this. It has a surprisingly strong cast that I grew pretty fond of - exceeding my feelings for any Danganronpa cast, I'll specifically say, given the vague advertised connection between them. And after spending forever getting the Platinum, the fact that the ending is just suddenly incredibly strong hit me hard out of nowhere. Absolutely knew the cast was its main strength and aimed went right for something sentimental rather than generically hopeful, when I'd not expected them to realize that, and so it somehow landed amazingly well despite rushing through covering a couple twists and timeskips. It's getting ranked this high mostly because I'm still thinking about that every so often, damn.
- AI: The Somnium Files - Uchikoshi did it again, restoring my faith after the disaster that was ZTD. Just wish they toned down the needless pervy jokes, as the Somnium humor worked way better for me.
- Hypnospace Outlaw - Amazingly ridiculous but sincere nonsense. So much love is put into its world and characters and music, making this completely bizarre alternative internet feel like it could totally be a real thing people used and posted on. I will never forget Chowder Man.
- Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice - Maybe played like 3 hours of Dark Souls ever, but this really really worked for me. Lack of having to care about stats/builds is means freedom from anxiety over that for me, so it's only a gain. Made me feel cool as hell when I finally took down a boss, suddenly getting into a flow and barely getting hurt after many fuckups. Made me actually approach bosses in other games more intelligently too, being more observant of attack patterns, a skill I appreciate growing after Hollow Knight started me towards it soon before this.
- Kingdom Hearts 3 - A little bit of a mess but it's mostly what I wanted it to be. A wild, personally meaningful culmination of not only the entire series so far, but also of the prior half of a year in which I replayed/played the entire rest of the series, after playing most of them back at their release.
- Dicey Dungeons - A really neat take on a deck building/rogue-lite that clicked with me immediately. Very intuitive and easy to get yourself thinking (for better or worse) about new equipment combos every run. Art, music, and writing all serve to make it even more charming. I often cannot stick with run-based things, or find myself going "I love this and find it relaxing, I should play this every so often" and never do (Heat Signature, I will return to you one day...), but I have actually kept coming to this during streams and podcast every so often.
- Another Eden: The Cat Beyond Time and Space - Forgot this could probably count so I can go for it, oops. After avoiding gacha for so long - and still being kinda morally opposed - and also having drifted away from phone games (after following them closely for a good number of years), it was weird to stick with this along with Dragalia Lost for the entire year such that it merits being ranked to represent that part of my daily life now. Started mainly doing login bonuses for a while, but have been playing daily for months and months now... to vastly varying degrees of "this was worth the time for what I gained in-game", unfortunately. But I've enjoyed it a lot overall; it's got a fun cast and the story additions haven't ever disappointed me. The combat mechanics are a little simplified but in a way that let me understand it enough to actually take on harsh fights. Some of the harder boss fights that give access to new characters... I spent hours perfecting my strategy for them, and it was cool to feel that challenge in an RPG even if I'd have appreciated it going a bit faster. I wish my gacha luck in this was anywhere close to my Dragalia luck given the rather low amount of free currency, even when I've begrudgingly paid for the guaranteed 5* stuff, but I've gradually gotten what I need to get by just fine.
- Death Stranding - I cannot tell you if this game is good, or what my final thoughts are, so it's here (EDIT: was 10 but I remembered I could put Another Eden...), but I can tell you I played like 150 hours and do not really regret most of that time? I can tell you that the satisfaction of placing a zipline that connects to 3 other ziplines when I thought I may have blocked myself into 0 feels more satisfactory than most experiences in most other games on this list. I have only played MGS1 and my other Kojima reference points are vaguer or tangential (Boktai, ZoE: Fist of Mars), and otherwise I've just heard about other MGS plots, so it was interesting to come into this with that perspective. I sing BB's theme to my cat.
- Baba is You - I had this at like 8-ish but I saw someone say Dicey Dungeons at the last minute and it ranked instead. Amazingly intuitive puzzle game that my brain unfortunately became bad at approaching reasonably, eating way way too much time per level on bad approaches. I have few puzzles left but cannot let myself spend hours bashing up against them. Would love to finish it and honestly probably someday will, but it's hard to ramp my brain up to the bizarre logic required for the remaining levels. Still feels super cool to finally solve a puzzle, though. BABA IS HELL.
Probably 100% forgot some huge game I loved because it's 6 AM and I mainly looked at the spreadsheet. Still playing or have yet to play some things like: SaGa Scarlet Grace, Raging Loop, Code:Realize Wintertide Miracles, Sayonara Wild Hearts (I love Simogo and yet have just failed to set aside an hour or two that I feel like I can really enjoy it in...), Heaven's Vault, etc. that could have ranked. Lots of honorable mentions like Three Houses, Link's Awakening, etc. Sorry for my bad time management...
well I absolutely need some sleep, got plans in the morning, but my brain got going so I hope this was worth it; listing also feels so arbitrary so most of this could be in any order, but...
(EDIT: hmmmmmm now I'm just debating editing in Another Eden... yeah)
**VoteBot: Thanks for participating in ResetEra GOTY 2019! You vote receipt is available here.**
**VoteBot: Thanks for participating in ResetEra GOTY 2019! You vote receipt is available here.**
Last edited by a moderator: