Top 10 of 2017 Extravaganza post

Last year was the year I valiantly made my way back into prototyping. It was also the year that a lot of games came out. I’m getting asked the question a lot of “What were your favorites this year?” and, since 4 of my top 10 have even made their way into my personal top 10 games of all time, I’m wound to recommend more and more of them each time.

Let’s get this out of the way: here’s my top ten favorite games of all time + one remake. Just to know, the only rule I had was it had to be a finished game. No Early Access or something with all the episodes not out yet.

Here we go,

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I put this section of “Best Remake” because a LOT of games are getting remade, and they’re getting remade. Fantastic remakes at that. Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap and Crash Bandicoot were definitely contenders, but they didn’t really fix much. Okami HD was also a contender, but I don’t own a 4K TV, and it didn’t quite impress me the same way this one did

Best Port/Remaster: .Hack//G.U. Last Recode

So step right up G.U. – You’re a remake that admits you have flaws, and you not only fixed some of them, but also added a bit of extra content (albeit small). We’re going to see a lot more remakes, ports, remasters, and so forth in the same vein, so, I’m hoping more notes are taken on what G.U. did. It’s absolutely amazing to pretty up the graphics and music to a game, and even add a bit of story, but always fix up some gameplay when getting a chance.

Oh, and I put it because it made a game series go from “This is okay” to me to “Wow, that’s a quality jump.” Though, I confess, I’m not familiar with the original G.U. games enough and I played the series before that (IMOQ)

People I recommend this game to: Did you like Xenoblade and Tales Of? You’ll probably like this. Just don’t get too annoyed at wasted potential.

Now let’s get the real top ten started,

10. Night in the Woods

Night in the Woods, like many other games on here, was a game I was waiting for a very long time. I beat it sometime in the beginning of this year and it’s still struck with me. Since I like stories in games a lot, it’s hard to go through this top 10 list without giving spoilers.

The ending gives a lot to discuss and it’s a really surreal experience for anyone that’s lived in a small town. The rest of the moments still hold up too, giving moments that made me laugh and think. The soundtrack, aesthetics, and small bursts of gameplay definitely held up too.

People I recommend this game to: People who like visual novels/more story based experiences and want a more chill time.

9. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a stunning experience. We got our answer to “What if Nintendo made an open world game” and after 4 years of development, we found out. A simply stunning experience with gameplay and aesthetics, with a minimalistic approach in other categories.

Breath of the Wild made it as #1 for a lot of people this year, so why isn’t it mine? I love the game. I’m going for all Korok seeds and Shrines. There’s a lot I think is fantastic. However, to me, Breath of the Wild does some things very well and other things very ‘okay’. Combat is a particular stand out in that department. I get that those may not be the highlight of what they were going for, but it works enough for me to still enjoy the game.

People I recommend this game to: If you liked Fallout 4 and Skyrim, step right up, because Nintendo borrowed some of Bethesda’s drugs

Fire Emblem of the Year: Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia

With all the Fire Emblem games released this year, I had a hard time deciding Fire Emblem of the Year. I still didn’t get around to purchasing #FE or finishing up all the campaigns in Fates, and there were three Fire Emblem games this year. I heard Fire Emblem Heroes was good. I didn’t play it, but it must be a good timesink if my server constantly talks about it. I played some of Fire Emblem Warriors for like, 3 chapters and enjoyed it, I guess that must be good too.

Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia takes the cake for me. After the times I got it recommended to me, I was really surprised to find myself enjoying it as much as I did. The gameplay is pretty great, bar the cantor enemies. Soundtrack’s phenomenal, aesthetics’ great, and while the story was albeit predictable, the characters really swept in.

Why this isn’t in best Port/Remaster: It changed enough to practically be a new Fire Emblem entry, where-as G.U. kept the same core game and improved upon it. Regardless, both are fantastic approaches for remakes and I hope for more Fire Emblem and .Hack remakes in the future.

People I recommend this game to: Did you like Nintendo when they actually wrote games with great stories like Mother 3, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, and Golden Sun? Step right up. Oh, and if you enjoy Fire Emblem’s gameplay, of course.

(This seriously is #8, FE of the Year is just a joke.)

7. Tooth & Tail

From the makers of Monaco? An RTS? Wow. The only shock I have with this is it isn’t higher up, but that’s an indicator of how many games blew my mind this year. I feel bad for this game: not only did it release in a packed year, but it released in the most packed month (September). You know the drill “All parts of this game are fantastic” but what I really want to draw attention to is the gameplay.

Typical RTS’s take their time with the gameplay and aren’t fit for a controller. Tooth & Tail allows both a controller and short matches along with an actually good Team mode in an RTS. What impressed me more is its main campaign has a surprisingly good difficulty curve and focuses around learning the basics of a game – Most multiplayer games hardly do that well. This game is definitely not for everyone, but I’ll be able to get my dev team through sessions of this online at least a few times with me. With the right bribery and liquor recommendations, probably.

People I recommend this game to: Do you and your friends need a new multiplayer game? Does the gameplay look tight to you? Or were you one of the five people that played Multiwinia? If the answers to any of those are ‘yes’, take a shot at it.

6. Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony

Honestly, I felt really burned by anything from this series after Danganronpa: not just because of the quality of those, but because Danganronpa 2 was so *GOOD*. This game takes what I liked about the first two games and heavily improves on it.

The gameplay in the trials is definitely what improved the most, but the game is packed with so much that I can praise. Danganronpa 1 to 2 felt like a small jump, but V3 feels like a big jump and I really can’t wait to see what’s next for this series.

People I recommend this game to: Did you play the first two Danganronpa games? Did you enjoy them? If the answer to both of those is yes, you’ll love this one. This game also features one of the best twists of any 2017 game: it’ll leave you talking about it for a long time.

5. Splatoon 2

I don’t typically put online Multiplayer games, so it’s a shock already that Tooth & Tail made it on. To have Splatoon 2 on here and say that it’s one of my top 20 games is two things I didn’t think would come out of my mouth, but here I am.

Splatoon 2 has all that good stuff, but the gameplay modes and all really felt like a big improvement. While the portability mode isn’t for me, I love Salmon Run. I love the new Ranked Mode Clam Blitz. I love the updates they’re doing to this game. I love how it’s a great introductory shooter. I love the Gyro controls. Most of all: I really love playing it with friends. The big critique I’ve got for this one is that Nintendo’s netcode does not work well for certain routers, so I’m glad they’re taking their time before charging us all for online.

People I recommend this game to: Do you want a game to play with your friends and you thought to yourself “Wouldn’t it be fun to be an enemy in Super Mario Sunshine?” – This is the game for you! It’s more of a team oriented experience than Tooth & Tail, too.

4. Cuphead

Cuphead, Studio MDHR's debut game, finally came out. Following the trend of these four games, I was not expecting any of them to be this good, but I also wasn’t expecting any of them to ever reach my top 10 games of all time. Cuphead is a boss endurance game, which I really like. It has a two player co-op function, which I also really like. The hand-drawn animation, the jazz, and the themes are stunning.

Where it really comes out is the gameplay – Bar the parry mechanic, everything feels pretty airtight and good. It’s quick based gameplay that leaves me pressing the retry button and enjoying it every time. Unlike another boss endurance game I like, Furi, it’s more like a quick burn.

People I recommend this game to: Couch co-op is nice but even if you can’t do that, I recommend this game if you want to give a try to a run & gun game that’s mostly bosses. Don’t let that discourage you – they’re all great and you’ll remember each one of them.

3. Persona 5

Persona 5 was actually my GOTY for a while before the last two releases here. I'd like to apologize for how robbed it got, because on any other year, it'd be my GOTY probably. What else can I add that hasn’t already been said about this game? This game definitely has flaws, and its final act could have been executed way better. For every gripe I have with this game, there’s still at least five positives I can find.

Similar to Danganronpa V3 being a big jump, Persona 5 is a big jump from Persona 4. The story, when it shines, it shines harder than almost any other RPG plot I’ve played. It’s one of the best starts to a video game I’ve ever seen, and its gameplay receives massive overhaul treatments too, with mechanics taken from the older Persona games, the mainline Shin Megami Tensei series, Raidou: Devil Summoner, and new mechanics.

People I recommend this game to: Do you like RPG’s that are long with engaging story/narrative/etc and will probably consume many hours of your life? Welcome aboard! Just don’t pay too much attention to the dip in quality towards the end. Persona 5 had enough of a hard time just finally releasing.

2. Super Mario Odyssey

Similar to the last game on this list, I want to say as little as possible. This takes most of my favorite elements from the 3D Mario games and blends them all into one. The only BIG problem I’d say is that the moons are very sporadic in quality, but this isn’t even like Persona 5’s quality jump or anything – it’s more that the moons are very subjective. Some people will like the art moons, I personally don’t. Some people hate the platforming moons, while I like them.

Exploring around never felt this good since Sunshine. I guess that does bring up one other problem – there isn’t a lot of platforming. It’s more aching to Super Mario 64 than anything else, so I’m shocked I enjoyed it as much as I did.

People I recommend this game to: Anyone that likes a 3D Mario and/or collecting stuff in an open world.

      1. Pyre

Yup, my Game of the Year. Similar to the previous 3, I was skeptical.  What makes this one different is I played it before it came out and I was still a skeptic about it.

Where do I start? To save us time, I’ll just say that the aesthetics and audio are excellent, which leaves me to spend a bit of time on the story and the gameplay. The gameplay itself is mostly Visual Novel style text with a lot of choices, but the text prepares for the next match of “The Rites”, basically occult fantasy basketball with RPG elements. Having an RPG where I care about the outcome of each battle isn’t really common, but this game really nails it for me. Oh, did I mention you can lose as many times as you’d like and the game never ends? And that there’s a versus mode?

While the gameplay changed my view on games, the story really struck me by surprise. This is one of the few games where I feel like dialogue choices matter. Yes, I know there’s stuff like WRPG’s, but in a lot of them I’ve played I’ve noticed there’s an “Easier” or “Better” route to get. Pyre let me think about my choices, each of them having consequences, but never properly feeling like there’s a “Better” option. It’s hard to make games where choice really matters, but this is the stuff I hope to see more of in the future.

That’s at a surface level why I really like Pyre, but again, for all of these titles I wanted to stray away from spoilers.

People I recommend this game to: Everyone. If you hate the gameplay, you can just turn down the difficulty or purposely lose battles and still get a rocking time with both the story and how it's executed. I'm hoping this game inspires a few other souls like it did for me.

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And that’s it for last year! There was so many games that it was hard to keep up with them. Hope to see you all back here in a year, especially with many games already on my radar like Crackdown 3, A Way Out, Kingdom Hearts 3, Kirby Switch, Yoshi Switch, Fire Emblem Switch, Heartbound, Ni No Kuni 2… and plenty more.