I’m not an accommodating video game critic. Either a game sinks its hooks in me within the first hour, or I jump to something else right away. I never had patience for this “after ten hours it will be fine” nonsense. A game either understands its own brilliance or it doesn’t. And only titles that fearlessly believed in their own vision made it into my first annual personal top ten list.
The house in Fata Morgana
Morgana girl is the most creative visual novel I’ve ever played. I’m usually not a big fan of media that use violence as a shock value. I find them boring and creatively lazy. This game is neither. Morgana girl inflicts a crushing amount of undeserved tragedy on his incredibly personable characters. Just when I thought the worst was over, the situation worsened to unbearable levels. While I was playing, I just wanted a nicer explanation for everything that happened. This is how stories should work, I thought: You get over the gloomy to be rewarded with crumbs of hope. I waited and wished until it was clear that I would remain disappointed. Still, I kept playing. After a while, I was fully prepared that the game was going to bring the worst. After experiencing several tragedies, I no longer needed to be rewarded by the narrator. And that changed everything about how I consume stories. Morgana girl is one of those games that forced me to reckon with my own role as a reader.
Don’t read the spoilers. Just play the game.
The legend of Tianding
This comic book-style platformer gave me what I really needed in a year where our government kept failing us: a lovable vigilante who believes in old-school justice. I have written many words about the cultural context and why Tianding is important as an art game, but really? It’s just fun to steal from the rich and kung fu a few cops along the way.
Octopath traveler
While Octopath has an incredibly fun turn based combat system, this game deserves a place here mainly because I can’t stop hearing its great soundtrack. It’s calming, very haunting, and kept me sane as I tried to buy groceries during a global pandemic. I really couldn’t imagine going through this year without it Octopath.
Stories from Arise
When I started up Stories from Arise, I expected a stories Game, but with more budget. It absolutely is. But it’s also a surprisingly ambitious story of revolution, empire, and common struggle. More importantly, it just feels damn cool knocking down finishing moves with my favorite party members. I will be grinding this game well into 2022.
NEO: The world ends with you
I know, I know. I wrote a harsh criticism of it at the beginning of the year because I wanted to NEO be like its predecessor. I wanted it to disembowel me and expose my heart. I defied the idea that the game should just be a feel-good JRPG for mainstream consumption. After my initial disappointment, I settled down and enjoyed the killer art style and banger soundtrack. It’s a solid sequel experimenting with interesting party-based mechanics. Come for history but stay for the most stylish video game location of 2021.
Poacher myth
When someone wanted a quick and dirty explanation for Poacher myth, I would tell you it XCOM for fantasy nerds. The main difference is that the personal narration of each character is a lot harder than I would expect. See, Poacher myth is mostly generated procedurally. You can randomly choose your characters’ appearance, gender, sexuality and background. Your personal arcs are determined by random life-changing events, but the writers have put so many loving details into it that I sometimes forget that a cold and callous roll of the dice determines my characters.
These dice throw people are real to me. That’s all that really matters, isn’t it?
Chicory: a colorful story
This is how most of the choices are presented in video games: kill the NPC or let them live? Tell someone a truth that hurts them or lie? Save the few or the many? In chicory, there is only one important choice: blue or orange? Dots or stripes? Bombastic colors or the serenity of pure white? My character in chicory got a paintbrush and was asked to paint each part of the game’s 2D levels.
painting chicory‘s setting was a responsibility that allowed me to define the game world in a very tangible way, but my choices were not paralyzed by choice. Everything I did was inherently right. Everything was permanent until it was no more. chicory Deserves a spot on this list just because I can influence the environment in personally meaningful ways.
I want to save the world. I want to leave my mark. But I don’t want to make a bunch of mistakes and screw everything up either. chicory is the answer to all of these impulses. And it’s super satisfying too.
Opus: Echo of the Star Song
Star song has the most impressive vibes and world education of any game I’ve played this year. His galaxy feels both human and inhuman, intimate and distant. Star song wraps violence in soft colors and a soft soundtrack. But it never loses sight of the violent systems that have shaped every aspect of its characters, factions, and locations.
Genshin impact
Raise your hand when you see this coming. It’s correct. The game, which I put in at least 20 hours every week, made my GOTY list for good reason. The updates were reliably consistent, the new functions really increase my gaming fun and the Fan content that comes from this community is unparalleled. I always look forward to every major Genshin Patch, and I suspect it won’t be any different next year.
The Great Ace Attorney: Chronicles
I’ve only finished three Ace lawyer Games, and I never meant to go beyond that. But then a complete stranger literally begged me to play The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles. Sure, I thought. I could take a few minutes here and there to solve a few murders. I started playing this game five days ago and have been playing it every day since then.
GAAC has completely exceeded my previous experience with the series. While it’s filled with the usual whimsical jokes and eccentric personalities, it also tells a surprisingly mature and nuanced story about class, gender, race, and empire. There’s still the old emphasis on solving puzzles and presenting evidence. After all, the British legal system is “modern” and “scientific”. Yet Chronicles is ready to sabotage its own gameplay in order to prove to the player this truth is inherently political. Not only have I gathered the truth behind these gruesome murders. The game invited me to challenge the supremacy of the British Empire.
To say that Chronicles is a Ace lawyer Spiel would sell it pathetically close. It is an absolute must for anyone interested in visual novels or detective novels.
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