My 5 favourite and 1 least favourite games I've finished this year

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Alex79
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My 5 favourite and 1 least favourite games I've finished this year

Post by Alex79 »

Hope everyone had a good Christmas! I was looking at my completed games list just now and thought I'd name my five favourite games I've finished this year, along with my least favourite. Interesting to know anyone else's too, not necessarily a game of the year, but it can have been released any time.

First off, Elden Ring was magnificent, but I never finished it yet so not counting it for this list (by my own arbitrary rules which also include not picking any replays of games, but you pick whatever you like!)

My favourite 5 games I finished this year:

5. Halo Infinite
This might not be anyone's favourite Halo game, but I played this near the start of the year as the end point to my entire series playthrough I started towards the end of last year. Prior to this I'd had very little to do with the Halo series and never had any interest in getting to know them better. But, I surprised myself by really enjoying the other games in the series and ended up really liking this one, too. The story might not be up to much but the guns and the combat, zipping around with the grappler, spawning in vehicles to traverse the huge map, and some of the more epic battles were all incredible stuff. It's certainly not a perfect game, and it's quite heavily front loaded, with a lot of the later gaming taking place in boring interiors, and the bosses pretty much sucked, but overall I had an absolute blast with this.

4. X-Com 2: War Of The Chosen
I'm not normally a fan of the turn based strategy genre, but this really hooked in to me and I ended up doing two straight playthroughs of this, once the vanilla version and once with the War Of The Chosen add on installed. During the first playthrough I was amazed by the versatility of combat you could tailor your squad for, and my named characters I ended up getting really attached to. But with the War Of The Chosen add on, the game really reaches another level. Squad members can pair up and grant bonuses to each other, loads of new weapons, enemies and story missions. It's almost like a full blown sequel, but weaved in and out of the original game. I spent over 90 hours with this game this year, and could have easily done another playthrough. Absolutely outstanding.

3. Forza Horizon 5
I absolutely hammered this when it came out last year and got a bit fatigued by it after a couple of months, but still dip back in and out occasionally. Plenty more stuff has been added since, but I did, at one point, have all the races completed! It's a brilliant semi-arcade racer, and was the first Horizon game I played. I can't even imagine what 6 will be like when it eventually comes out!

2. Disco Elysium
I was always a big fan of the old CRPGs like Baldurs Gate and Neverwinter Nights, and this, with a similar style but set in more modern times and with no combat was the perfect way to tell such a great story. There's not much more than can be said about Disco Elysium, but the characters, the writing, the setting... It was all fantastic. I felt like I really played my own story, and I'll definitely go through at least another time with a radically different character I think.

1. It Takes Two
I think this game is nigh-on perfect. I played the entire game with my two younger children, and we absolutely loved the Nintendo level of gadgets and ideas used in the game. Constantly changing, surprising, and always fun, we really had a great time playing this together over the course of a few weekends.

And then the game I finished and enjoyed least this year...

Saints Row IV
This is absolute dogshit. I played the worst possible version probably (Switch) which was a total joke of a port, game breaking bugs meant I had to restart 4 or 5 times, and by the time it was working properly it was no more fun. The entire game takes place at night, which isn't the end of the world, but why..? The missions are tedious, the story is beyond crap and the characters are detestable. I have no idea why I finished this. Sometimes, with games and films, they'll grow in my head over time. I'll look back and I'll remember things as even better than when I actually played or watched them. This has got worse. In fact, even thinking about it actually makes me feel pissed off, so I'll stop now. Don't ever play this. It's one of the worst games I've ever played.
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Will Marley
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Re: My 5 favourite and 1 least favourite games I've finished this year

Post by Will Marley »

Good thread. Kind of a weird year for me, I almost completely stopped gaming, maybe burned out from overdoing it during the pandemic but either way, I've finished very little so will have to just go off what I've enjoyed and what's brought me back.

5. Sifu (I think it was this year).

I never finished it, couple of the bosses were a fucking ball ache but when it flowed well, it was top tier action. I freely admit that I would have got more from it if my reactions weren't dulled by age but it was fun watching shmup/brawler expert iconoclast take it to the cleaners. I'll defo be interested in what they do next.

4. Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu (Switch)

Excellent port of the 360 port (basically) and it got me playing this game with some interest and focus. I still think the spinning laser stage is annoying in a very non-Cave way and I couldn't be arsed/wasn't able to memorise it well enough so I never got round to clearing the game in the ten or so hours I put in, always wasted too many bombs/lives on that section, but great fun overall nevertheless.

3. TLOU Part One

I've not finished it but I really enjoyed this PS3 engine spit and polish. I never really understand the grief these games get; the characters, performances and - more than anything else - the astonishing world and atmosphere are pretty much best in class. Gameplay is more limited than Part Two but still enjoyable and pretty brutal. I will finish it.

2. Ketsui Deathtiny

I had a goal to 1CC this game finally in 2022. I didn't really get close. I put a few shifts in here and there and got to Stage 5 without losing any bombs or lives on a few occasions but that final stage is just a colossal wall for me. It's probably my favourite shmup ever in many respects but I kind of have to accept I'll die without clearing it. I did clear Mushi Futari Original a few more times and scored quite decently, not cleared it since the first time a couple of years ago, but it's a piece of piss compared to Ketsui.

1. Elden Ring

It's too big and fragmented/ambiguous in terms of the lore for me to feel the same intimate familiarity as I do with Demon's, Dark, DS2 and Bloodborne but from a gameplay and variety perspective, as well as in terms of consistent brilliance, it's probably the best FROM game. It's not the one I love the most (Dark or DS2) but it's arguably the best.

Stinker:

I tend not to gamble on games any more so didn't play anything crap but I thought Stray was dull: Annapurna-on-autopilot.
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Re: My 5 favourite and 1 least favourite games I've finished this year

Post by markfm007 »

Nice one, I don’t play enough new releases to put together a yearly list so this works for me. I’ll leave off replays and unfinished games too. Also I’m picking favourites here rather than the ‘best’ games I’ve played.

Favourite

5 - God of War 3 Remastered: Really enjoyed playing the original God of War trilogy this year. 3 was my favourite as it got rid of the more frustrating things and stuck to big boss battles, pure addictive action and dramatic set pieces.

4 - Little Nightmares 2: Love the children’s storybook horror of these games. They tell simple stories beautifully through straightforward level design, excellent choreography of chase and hide and seek sequences, and imaginative and expressive character design. The sequel pulled me in and shocked me even more than the first.

3 - Devil May Cry 5 SE: Got quite addicted to this. There’s a lot of joy in just playing through levels for fun, improvising and learning moves, enjoying what new combos you can pull off and how well the characters control. The light tone and cheesy music are great too.

2 - Final Fantasy IX: Cheating a bit as I mostly played this in 2021, finishing it in January. I really enjoyed it though, loved the characters, story and found the whole experience very charming. I’ll use a walkthrough for any future Final Fantasy games I play though to avoid backtracking and missing things.

1 - Elden Ring: Fell in love with this. It wowed me constantly and had me feeling like a kid again, running around in awe of this world, getting lost and following my own path. Recency bias but as a whole this is one of my favourite games I’ve ever played. I love From games but this one stands apart for me.

Least favourite

The Callisto Protocol: Sad to say it but I have to be honest. The dodging, blocking and glacial movement mean that it’s fundamentally flawed from the start. After a mostly enjoyable first half it runs out of ideas and becomes frustrating and gruelling. There’s promise here, but it needs some work before I’d consider playing any more. It’s the most frustrating game that I don’t completely hate.
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Re: My 5 favourite and 1 least favourite games I've finished this year

Post by lbthrizzy »

10. Devil May Cry 5 for the second time
9. Titanfall 2
8. Stray
7. FF7 Remake
6. God of War: Ragnarok
5. Horizon Zero Dawn (Forbidden West was not as fulfilling but still good)
4. Fallout 4
3. Days Gone - Super random, but this game kept me company through a hard time even though most would say it's not the *best* game.
2. Cyberpunk 2077
1. The Witcher 3

Least favorite: NBA 2K22. Just always feel like I'm being taken advantage of for my money with these games.

Unfinished that I loved award: Death Stranding, MGS V
Unfinished because I didn't love it award: ELEX, Persona 5, Watch Dogs 2
Unfinished because too hard for me lol: Elden Ring, Returnal

Honorable Mention: God of War 2018 (classic), AC Valhalla (really solid. but rushed ending)
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Re: My 5 favourite and 1 least favourite games I've finished this year

Post by Alex79 »

lbthrizzy wrote: December 27th, 2022, 7:40 pmLeast favorite: NBA 2K22. Just always feel like I'm being taken advantage of for my money with these games.
I put loads of hours in to this when it came to Gamepass, and I do really like the NBA games (and always try to get the Heat to win the finals) but yeah it can be a real grind to get your player stats up unless you drop real money on it. For the first and only time I paid a couple of quid to level up some stats and instantly regretted it :lol: The game is really difficult for the first dozen or so games though when you have really low stats, it's just not fun missing every shot and hardly getting any minutes on court. (Talking about the career mode which is all I really play)
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Re: My 5 favourite and 1 least favourite games I've finished this year

Post by Angry_Kurt »

I am still playing through sparks of hope and norco which could potentially make my top 5 but otherwise:

1. Metroid Dread
2. Evil West
3. Grid Legends
4. God of War 2018
5. Kirby and the Forgotten Land

Least favourite: Steamworld Quest
Love Heist and Dig, but this didn’t click with me and I thought it was too hard. At first I thought it was I didn’t like card games but then I started slay the spire a few weeks ago and love it.
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Re: My 5 favourite and 1 least favourite games I've finished this year

Post by Magical_Isopod »

2022 is not quite over, and I plan on doing a 2022 GOTY list on the 31st. :P But of all the games I played this year, I think my top 5 looks like this...

1. TAKE. CONTROL.
2. The Chant
3. Quantum Break (why do people hate this game????)
4. Sonic Frontiers
5. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Darkness


In terms of "worst", I mean, that's obviously Angry Alligator. That game was objectively trash. But you know what? I ENJOYED Angry Alligator, scales and all.

If I have to pick a most disappointing of games I actually completed? It's like a tie between Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and Stray. I have more detailed reviews of these games on the Games Completed 2022 thread, but in short, XC3 has a very messy story that kinda goes nowhere and accomplishes very little in the scope of the broader series lore, and Stray is a game that fundamentally lied about what it was - it's not a game about a cat finding its way out of a scary world, it's a lame, hipster game about robot people and "like, emotions, man". Neither of these games are BAD, in fact, both are like solid 7/10 games for me. But if I have to think back on the games I finished and felt like, "Well, that was a waste of time," it's these ones.

There's a game I DIDN'T finish that I will go over in my GOTY post... That takes the cake for worst/most disappointing game of 2022. But I'll leave y'all guessing for now. :P
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Re: My 5 favourite and 1 least favourite games I've finished this year

Post by MattL »

Excellent idea for a topic!

My Favorite 5 for 2022

5. Dishonored - Death of the Outsider (PS4) - I played this to cleanse my Arkane games palette after being disappointed by Deathloop (see below) and was quickly reminded how talented this developer can be. This game is a perfect miniature encapsulation of what made Dishonored 1 and 2 great.

4. Dragon Quest 11S Definitive Edition (PS4) - This was a super fun nostalgic romp! I loved it and would recommend it to anyone wanting to get into DQ.

3. Days Gone (PS5) - In some ways, I'm sorry I didn't play this sooner to support the developer at full price, but in other ways, I'm glad I waited for the PS5 patch rather than dealing with the well documented performance issues at release. The hordes, while not as numerous as I would've like, were fun challenges. The open world was beautiful. Scrounging for bike parts and other gear gave the game a real survival feeling. And, yes, I even enjoyed the characters and story (minus the obviously evil religious zealot military dude, because he was just too cartoonishly villainish). FYI, Skizzo might be my most favorite villain in a game in years.

2. Marvel's Spider Man: Remastered / Miles Morales (PS5) - I'm making these two co-winners because of how similar they are. That being said, these were the absolute best super hero games I've played in years, both in gameplay and story. Zipping around the city and fighting thugs in the 90fps+ framerate mode was a thrill!

1. Elden Ring (PS5) - Without a doubt, a wonderful expansion on the Souls-like genre and my favorite of the year. The weapon art mechanics from Bloodborne, DS3, and Sekiro were phenomenally improved upon and the use of spirit summons opened the game up to new fans. That being said, it's not my favorite Fromsoft game. Their best talents as a studio are level and encounter design and the gigantic overworld kind of obscures those strengths.

My Least Favorite of 2022

Deathloop (PS5) - I've said so much on this forum about how disappointed I was in this game after loving Arkane's prior games and I don't want to repeat myself, so I'll try my best to summarize. The AI is braindead. There's only one solution to the whole game. The levels are smaller and fewer than prior Arkane games. The powers are fewer and less interesting than prior Arkane games, particularly due to the two power limit, thus reducing the player's ability to combine powers. I can't believe Sony backed this game so hard and, if the recent rumors are true, I can't believe there's a sequel planned.

Honorable Mention - Games I've played, but not finished

Streets of Rage 4 (PS4): Wow! A retro game done right! I love this game! I'm still working on S ranks, which is not something I normally do, but this game has such a great fighting system that I find new combos all the time. The best thing about SOR4 is that it's simple to pick up and play, with a lot of hidden depth.
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Re: My 5 favourite and 1 least favourite games I've finished this year

Post by lbthrizzy »

MattL wrote: December 29th, 2022, 4:36 pm Excellent idea for a topic!

My Favorite 5 for 2022

5. Dishonored - Death of the Outsider (PS4) - I played this to cleanse my Arkane games palette after being disappointed by Deathloop (see below) and was quickly reminded how talented this developer can be. This game is a perfect miniature encapsulation of what made Dishonored 1 and 2 great.

4. Dragon Quest 11S Definitive Edition (PS4) - This was a super fun nostalgic romp! I loved it and would recommend it to anyone wanting to get into DQ.

3. Days Gone (PS5) - In some ways, I'm sorry I didn't play this sooner to support the developer at full price, but in other ways, I'm glad I waited for the PS5 patch rather than dealing with the well documented performance issues at release. The hordes, while not as numerous as I would've like, were fun challenges. The open world was beautiful. Scrounging for bike parts and other gear gave the game a real survival feeling. And, yes, I even enjoyed the characters and story (minus the obviously evil religious zealot military dude, because he was just too cartoonishly villainish). FYI, Skizzo might be my most favorite villain in a game in years.

2. Marvel's Spider Man: Remastered / Miles Morales (PS5) - I'm making these two co-winners because of how similar they are. That being said, these were the absolute best super hero games I've played in years, both in gameplay and story. Zipping around the city and fighting thugs in the 90fps+ framerate mode was a thrill!

1. Elden Ring (PS5) - Without a doubt, a wonderful expansion on the Souls-like genre and my favorite of the year. The weapon art mechanics from Bloodborne, DS3, and Sekiro were phenomenally improved upon and the use of spirit summons opened the game up to new fans. That being said, it's not my favorite Fromsoft game. Their best talents as a studio are level and encounter design and the gigantic overworld kind of obscures those strengths.

My Least Favorite of 2022

Deathloop (PS5) - I've said so much on this forum about how disappointed I was in this game after loving Arkane's prior games and I don't want to repeat myself, so I'll try my best to summarize. The AI is braindead. There's only one solution to the whole game. The levels are smaller and fewer than prior Arkane games. The powers are fewer and less interesting than prior Arkane games, particularly due to the two power limit, thus reducing the player's ability to combine powers. I can't believe Sony backed this game so hard and, if the recent rumors are true, I can't believe there's a sequel planned.

Honorable Mention - Games I've played, but not finished

Streets of Rage 4 (PS4): Wow! A retro game done right! I love this game! I'm still working on S ranks, which is not something I normally do, but this game has such a great fighting system that I find new combos all the time. The best thing about SOR4 is that it's simple to pick up and play, with a lot of hidden depth.
Fucking loved Days Gone. So underrated.
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Re: My 5 favourite and 1 least favourite games I've finished this year

Post by MattL »

lbthrizzy wrote: December 29th, 2022, 5:29 pm Fucking loved Days Gone. So underrated.
Same here. I would've loved to see a sequel expanding upon the mechanics and the story. Sadly, I guess I'm part of the problem as to why it under performed. Looking at when it released, I think I was just too busy to buy a game that got a bunch of middling reviews and was plagued with performance issues. 2019 was a crowded year for games, plus my then fiancee (now wife) and I were planning our wedding and house shopping, so free time was limited that year.
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Re: My 5 favourite and 1 least favourite games I've finished this year

Post by Magical_Isopod »

It was a zombie game that came out like 5 years after people were already tired of zombie games. I think that's the sole reason Days Gone flopped.
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Re: My 5 favourite and 1 least favourite games I've finished this year

Post by ratsoalbion »

Days Gone didn't really flop though, it sold somewhere between 6 and (a disputed) 9 million copies, reviewed ok (could have been better), and won a few awards.

Most of the Cane and Rinse crew enjoyed it quite a bit too: https://caneandrinse.com/days-gone/
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Re: My 5 favourite and 1 least favourite games I've finished this year

Post by Alex79 »

Days Gone was my favourite PS4 exclusive, and I really loved Death Stranding, Uncharted 4, Lost Legacy and The Last Of Us Part 2, but I enjoyed Days Gone even more than them. It's such a shame they pulled the plug on the sequel, I could have played a lot more in that world.
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Re: My 5 favourite and 1 least favourite games I've finished this year

Post by Jon Cheetham »

5 Pentiment
Fantastic narrative game I already want to return to.

4 Pyre
Supergiant at their best - don’t sleep on this if you’ve only played their action games.

3 A Plague Tale Requiem
Gripping story and simply astonishing visuals. The new best game about rats!

2 Disco Elysium
Unquestionably an all timer. Great characters and an entertaining mystery.

1 Elden Ring
From’s most accomplished game without a doubt, even if my personal favourites are still Dark Souls 1 and the precious little squid baby that is Bloodborne.

Hmm, a lot of my top stuff is very narrative heavy this year. Which is good because the narrative genre just seems to be getting stronger and stronger - I still want to get round to As Dusk Falls and that latest Life is Strange.

I don’t have anything I disliked and finished - honestly there isn’t time to play and finish the stuff I do like! I suppose one faint disappointment would be Deathloop, as the amazing Arkane gameplay and levels are held back by the time loop stuff and the aggravating antagonists. I hope Lyons studio either go back to something more classic (which they don’t seem interested in doing) or that this provides a reference point for them to really nail this formula next time out.
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Re: My 5 favourite and 1 least favourite games I've finished this year

Post by Alex79 »

Jon Cheetham wrote: December 30th, 2022, 3:54 amI still want to get round to As Dusk Falls...
Reminded me I need to go back to that. I turned it off during the credits after watching what I actually thought was a pretty good, open ended cliffhanger ending but it turns out that's only halfway through the game :lol:
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Re: My 5 favourite and 1 least favourite games I've finished this year

Post by Kasuga-san »

Five Favorites (in no particular order and only of what I remember that I played this year because I don't keep lists):
Persona 5 Royal:
Just as good as the original version, and I was glad I could finally play it since I've dropped out of the Sony ecosystem. Not entirely sure how I felt about the new semester, but I'll never say no to more Persona at this point.

Pentiment
I know this game isn't for everyone, but I love language, history, and art, so this was a fun little adventure even though I wish it asked just a little bit more of the player. It's more of a game about shaping narratives than about solving the mystery, but it definitely still has me thinking about it.

Chained Echoes:
A great homage to the 16-bit/early 32-bit era of JRPGs with modern QOL adjustments. I feel the translation and some of the story itself falters, and the fact that it's clearly meant to be a multi-game series hurts the narrative towards the end. I loved the moment to moment gameplay, though. I just hope for the sequel that Matthias brings in some people to punch up the story a bit and introduce more characters earlier.

Gloomhaven:
Does one actually "finish" Gloomhaven? Sure, you can reach the end of the campaign's major questline, but the fun is in building your party and trying to survive the various scenarios. It's not perfect, but I love the gameplay loop while trying various party compositions. Can be hard as hell, though...

Spider-Man and Miles Morales:
Like the previous poster, I'm putting these two together since they essentially combine into the same game. Loved my time with them, though Spider-Man gets the edge for the better campaign. Miles Morales feels a bit too rushed at times, and I felt I didn't quite get to know the characters as well. Still, both excellent experiences.

Honorable Mentions: Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Triangle Strategy, TMNT Shredder's Revenge (and Cowabunga Collection)

Worst:
I don't know if I finished any games that I hated. I guess if I really had to choose a game that I haven't enjoyed as much but will probably end up finishing, it would be Pathfinder Kingmaker. I love CRPGs, and there's a lot to love in this game, but it is SOOO unbalanced, poorly-paced, and unhelpful with its quest descriptions (how am I supposed to know what I'm doing if I come back after a few days? They rarely clearly state what you were even doing in the quest). I hate the kingdom simulation that you are forced to engage with on some level. It just feels like a chore... and then I hit a dungeon or a questline that I truly enjoy and all is forgiven for a while.
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Re: My 5 favourite and 1 least favourite games I've finished this year

Post by Pconpi »

I still haven't finished Elden Ring and God of War: Ragnarok and I am confident both of those would be on my list if I had finished them. I am 20 hours into God of War and it is blowing me away because the performances are so good and I am enjoying the combat even more than 2018. Also, I am about a quarter through Mario and Rabbids Sparks of Hope and it has been sneaky good, surprising me even with having enjoyed the original.

5) 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim on Switch The way you piece the story together through selecting the chapters really is brilliant and the story and characters are quite enjoyable. All of that in Vanillaware's typical gorgeous art style and it was a great game.

4) Kena: Bridge of Spirits Beautiful game and it pulls together different mechanics that I really enjoyed. Plus the Rot are really cute.

3) Plague Tale: Innocence. I have Requiem sitting on my shelf so if I had played through that it might have supplanted this. But, I loved each of the characters and especially Amicia. She was my favorite protagonist in a game I played this year...I am a little nervous to have the new voice actors in Requiem because I connected so much with this performance.

2) Metal Gear Rising Revengeance. I have slowly been making my way through the Metal Gear series and thought about skipping over this one and going onto Phantom Pain. I'm really glad I didn't because this is now my favorite Platinum game and honestly my favorite Metal Gear game. I just loved that it went all in on being bonkers and over the top which felt more genuine and consistent to me than the other Metal Gear games. And, I loved the journey I took with Raiden from hating him in Metal Gear Solid 2 to loving this weird bad ass in Revengeance.

1) Cyberpunk 2077 PS5 update I love narrative driven games and for me this had the best stories and characters of any game I played this year (until I finish Ragnarok :D). Loved the characters and side stories of Panam and River and really felt Night City become one of my all time memorable settings for a video game. I still have some more side content to go through and I look forward to getting back into that world at some point.

My negative is just all the RPG/JRPGs I sunk hours into but didn't complete....I think in 2023 I just need to stay away from them and focus on <20 hour narrative experiences to get my most enjoyment. No joke this is the list, and I probably averaged 20 hours for each.
Bravely Default
Chrono Cross Remaster
Crimson Shroud
Dragon Quest VIII
Final Fantasy V
Final Fantasy VIII
Mario and Luigi Partners in Time
Paper Mario
Persona 3 FES
Persona 4 Golden
Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology
Shin Megami Tensei IV
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Re: My 5 favourite and 1 least favourite games I've finished this year

Post by ColinAlonso »

Pconpi wrote: December 30th, 2022, 11:01 pmMy negative is just all the RPG/JRPGs I sunk hours into but didn't complete....I think in 2023 I just need to stay away from them and focus on <20 hour narrative experiences to get my most enjoyment. No joke this is the list, and I probably averaged 20 hours for each.
Bravely Default
Chrono Cross Remaster
Crimson Shroud
Dragon Quest VIII
Final Fantasy V
Final Fantasy VIII
Mario and Luigi Partners in Time
Paper Mario
Persona 3 FES
Persona 4 Golden
Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology
Shin Megami Tensei IV
Oof! As someone who is into JRPGs and played about half of those, three of the ones I finished on that list were about 100 hours long (DQ8 and the Personas). I can see where you're coming from.

DQ8 was very old fashioned even at the time of its release, Persona 3 has a serious summer lull where I almost dropped it myself and the Golden version of P4 adds even more non dungeon stuff onto a game that I felt was close to having too much of that in the first place.
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Re: My 5 favourite and 1 least favourite games I've finished this year

Post by ColinAlonso »

I'm leaving out Psychonauts 2! What the fuck???

5 - Xenoblade Chronicles 3
Early on this looked like a contender for my game of the year but it had too much bloat and stuff that I got bogged down in and ruined some of the enjoyment. Its still quality JRPG entertainment but doesn't quite stick its landing.

4 - Final Fantasy VII Remake
Midgar's great, the characters are still great, the music's great, the combat is fun. The ghost things are terrible and some scenes near the end leave me worried for the future of this project , but that's Rebirth's problem to deal with.

3 - Inertial Drift
Yeah, I'm sticking an indie arcade racer on my list here. In the story mode the first two cars are fun to drift around the place but are not particularly interesting beyond that but the third and fourth cars are brilliant for trying to squeeze faster times on the tighter late tracks. Learning every inch of those tracks, particularly with the fourth car's devastating combo of high top speed, low acceleration and twitchy handling, and finally beating the time trial challenges was a joy.

2 - Judgement
I have a rule where I play a maximum of one Yakuza game a year to avoid burnout.

After the disappointment of 2020 (Yakuza 6, generally considered one of the series' weaker entries) and 2021 (Yakuza: Like a Dragon, would be a good Yakuza game but I consider the JRPG gameplay to be fairly average for the genre despite its nice modern day dressing), this was an absolute return to form and is in my top three in the series. The completely new cast of characters was refreshing and the plot is also one of my favourite in the series. Prime Yakuza entertainment for me.

1 - CrossCode
Damn, this game caught me by surprise. It's a 2D action RPG somewhat in the vein of Secret of Mana in terms of gameplay but completely unafraid to try its own ideas and be its own thing.

The combat is fluid and fun with close attacks, ranged attacks, special attacks, elemental tweaks to all of these, dodges, blocks. So much to do there and never overwhelming. Add in a wonderful world to explore, dungeons to puzzle through and a good story with a great lead (somehow!, given Lea is near silent).

2 to 6 could be in almost any order but 1 was an easy pick.

Least favourite - Bravely Default 2
This almost seems harsh. I've played worse games in other years. There are other games that might be considered worse where I wasn't expecting too much but they fulfilled their brief and I could say I had an ok time. But there's too much about this game that can be described as boring. The art design is boring, the plot is often dull despite some absolutely detestable minor villains that at least add something to it, the characters are uninteresting. Regular battles get boring. The game is 20 hours too long. Music varies between the boring, world map theme and the dull theme for some towns and some of the finest battle themes in JRPGs. The job system is one of the best in a game I've played and boss battles are great and they're why I ended up playing the whole thing.

I think this is why this game irks me so much, there are some bits to the game that are great, fantastic even, but its surrounded by so much dull crap.
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JadePhoenix
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Re: My 5 favourite and 1 least favourite games I've finished this year

Post by JadePhoenix »

Honorable Mention: Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster I - VI
I'm going to stick to 2022 releases for my main list, and while VI qualifies, I wanted to talk about these as a group. They were the primary motivating factor for me to preorder a Steam Deck, Which I'm very glad I did, and so far they're what I've spent the vast majority of my time with that device on in the few months I've had it. Before this year, I'd never actually finished any of these games, I've spent varying amounts of time with most of them on more than one occasion, but always fell off somewhere before the end. Other than FFII, which I gave up on pretty quickly, I really enjoyed playing through and finally completing these. I'm personally glad that they decided to go with basically faithful remakes of the originals, with QOL updates, rather than adding extra content that, by all accounts, tended not to be all that good anyway. The thing that stood out the most was the music, the reworked versions of all the tracks from every game were fantastic, and one of the first things I noticed was how good the speakers on the Steam Deck are. I was sad when I reached the World of Ruin not because the world got wrecked, but because I couldn't sit on the world map and listen to Terra's Theme anymore.

5 + 4. Pokémon Legends: Arceus and Pokémon Violet.
Putting these together because my thoughts on both are pretty much the same. I've thought for a long time that the double-edged sword of the Pokémon Series is that the core gameplay is so incredibly good, that almost no matter what you put around it, the games can't help but be fun, and Gamefreak has tended not to try very hard as a result. These games both showed that more strongly than ever. Both are poorly optimized technical messes, but both also compete with each other to be the most fun Pokémon experience I've had in at least a decade. I slightly prefer Scarlet/Violet, because while PLA's focus on collecting instead of battling was a nice change, it got a bit tedious toward the end, and, once done, didn't leave much room for continuing or replay. In both cases, exploring these large, open areas looking for Pokémon to collect and battles to fight was a ton of fun, I can't wait to see what they do with the seemingly inevitable S/V DLC.

3. Rune Factory 5.
Another game with excellent gameplay but some technical flaws (though not nearly as severe), I'm starting to notice a pattern... I would happily have played a reskinned Rune Factory 4, which is fortunate, because that's pretty much what we got. The transition from 2D sprites to full 3D was nice, but introduced some performance issues, and I happen to like 2D sprites anyway. Other than the expected change in setting and new characters, the game is mechanically almost identical to RF4, which is fine with me. There's some pretty good evidence that they didn't get to finish everything they had planned for the post-game, which is a shame, but all in all I had a ton of fun with it, and it's my most played game of the year despite that.

2. Xenoblade Chronicles 3.
My favorite in the series so far, the combat is streamlined to a point where, while I still can't say I really enjoy it, I'm at least not annoyed by it like the previous games. The story is the best in the series, only marred, IMO, by the lack of resolution in the ending, which I still hold out hope that they intend to fix in the DLC later this year. If that happens, this might retroactively move to #1. It even went as far as to fix my biggest complaint about the ending of XC2 (it's basically the same complaint, actually), although they did so in the skeeviest possible way...

1. Triangle Strategy.
I did not see this one coming. I'd played the demo and thought it looked like a fun strategy RPG with a neat graphical style and a dumb name, but I was totally unprepared for how much the story would grab me. Some people have complained about there being too much dialog, I think those people are nuts. I found the narrative compelling from beginning to multiple ends. Your choices really do matter, the characters are compelling, and there are real consequences for your decisions. This might be the only game I have ever restarted as soon as I finished to get a better ending. I still think the name is dumb though...

Dishonorable mention: Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes.
FEW:3H is not a terrible game by any means, but it lives very much in the shadow of Three Houses. The stories of each route seem explicitly written to show how much worse everything is in this timeline without Byleth, to the point where the writers intentionally refused to give any of them proper endings, for fear it would undermine Byleth. The gameplay is traditional Warriors combat, but the use of the Three Houses class system means every character plays pretty much the same, and the lack of anything other that story missions severly restricts who you can use at any given time, which for me kinda defeats the point. I think the fact that this is aparently going to be the first Nintendo Warriors game not to get any DLC or post-launch content of any kind speaks volumes about their feelings about the game.
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