The title of this post made me think about the best and worst I’ve played this year.
The best:
- The Case of the Golden Idol. Short and sweet mystery game in the vein of Return of the Obra Dinn. Not quite as good IMO but I still liked it quite a bit.
- Marvel’s Midnight Suns. Don’t let the IP fool you, this is a really solid turn based strategy game, occasionally with really solid writing. The “dating sim”/downtime parts were surprisingly fun at best and dragged down the pacing at worst.
- Death’s Door. Really cool, minimalistic, take on a Zelda-like game. Similar to Tunic in a lot of ways. Funny, cute and probably the best game about death I’ve ever played.
- Moving Out. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed as much while playing a game as I did with Moving Out. It will always hold a special place in my heart for allowing me to connect and laugh with people I love but don’t get to see very often.
Generally I mostly play games a while after release and based on recommendations I trust. As such there aren’t many real stinkers I can think of (plenty of games that I found overrated though). With that said, here are my worst:
- Doki Doki Literature Club. With the way this game is set up it’s all about the twist. The problem is that the game it pretends to be until then is incredibly boring. Maybe it would have helped if I wasn’t somewhat aware of what is really is but generally I found this game to be a slog.
- Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion. Games that rely heavily on humor are always hit or miss. Unfortunately this one wasn’t for me in and the actual gameplay was incredibly bare bones.
Thanks for reading! What is your list?
You know, I'm thinking I'm either not playing enough games, or getting "too old" because most of the stuff I remember playing is either old or, ahem, adults only.
This year was the year I finally fully played Star Wars Dark Forces. Would've been a great game at the time, playing nowadays would be just for curiosity, really.
I played Fallout 4 a bunch, especially once I discovered how to get infinite enemies/gear/money by building settlement traps to catch Gunners. Silly loop, but I had lots of fun coming up with new ways to blow them up shortly after stepping out of the traps.
Super Smash Bros Ultimate is still the best fighting game I've played this year.
Phantasy Star 1 for the Sega Master System is the worst I've played this year. I don't think it'd be much fun even back in 1989, because it mixes typical jrpg with first person dungeon crawling and the latter is awful. Feels like the purpose of the game was selling strategy guides and/or magazines with walkthroughs.