I don't play a lot of games this year.
This is surprising news. I play games all the time. My games library is an ever-expanding sprawl. I subconsciously, effortlessly, follow after gaming news and analyses. I know Spider-Man is big. I know God of War won a lot of awards. I know all the kids plays Fortnite. Celeste was fantastic. The Return of Obra Dinn was fantastic. Asscreed Odyssey is the same old Asscreed but still fun somehow. Fallout 76 was an embarrassing flop. Super Smash Bros Ultimate is a game I need in my life but I'm okay if it's not right now.
But then I try thinking of games for my personal best-of-the-year list and it took me a while to figure it out. I certainly talk and read a lot about games this year (I don't write much about it though, as this blog's abysmal record for 2018 shows). What have I played in 2018? As it turns out, not a lot comes to mind.
(What have I done in 2018? I didn't write much. I didn't do particularly well in school. I didn't finish a darn thing I'm proud of. I had a four month internship as a software engineer in a start-up company, something which was almost completely swept aside after it was done.)
Iconoclasts
I'll always remember Iconoclasts as the game that I can share with my sister. She follows after games, she enjoys watching other people play, but she doesn't actually play them, per se. When we get a new game, I'm always the one doing the playing, and she does the watching.
Not for Iconoclasts, though. I played the first few parts, but when I handed her the controller, she took it, and she played, and she kept playing. For once, a game is compelling enough for her to play by herself. It helps that the game's mechanic is clear, its puzzles simple, its bosses interesting but not too difficult. Iconoclasts is mechanically a forgiving game, and bless it for that.
The story, though. It looks cute and lovely up-front, and it never gets gloomy, but.... Or more precisely, it never tries to be gloomy. It has always been dark. Every flowers grow on top of corpses. Iconoclasts doesn't much care about easing you into it, or making a show out of the ugly underbelly of the world. It just is. This is just how it is.
It's a lovely, honest game. The ending makes me feel depressed. But that is just how it is.
Cytus II
If you ask me what I think about this game, like, five months ago, I will have nothing but praise. If you ask me today I will pull out torches and pitchforks and yell.
It's a music rhythm game for mobile. I really like music rhythm game. My taste in music was moulded by Guitar Hero, back in the days. Cytus II's music is predominantly dubstep and other electronic. Lo and behold, the genre I've previously looked at with disdain is now my favourite.
One of the most interesting part of Cytus II is its story, scattered throughout the game as social media posts by fictional characters. That's pretty cool on its own, but the characters' personality aren't just told through their posts or the occasional text logs, but also through the music in the game. It takes place, from what I gather, in a post-apocalyptic Earth that has been rebuilt, but not by human hands. Traditional acoustic instruments are just archaeological curiosity, and all the music of the day are electronic. That most of the writing is a somewhat subpar translation only adds to the foreign atmosphere of the setting.
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Pretty sure ConneR's the only guy to play classical instrument in this world, and he's an archaeologist![/caption]
But I guess for me the game is so much more. I've been having these headache attacks for several years, and it's gotten worse and worse and more often with time. Music is one of the ways that I can deal with it. I think Cytus II saved me from a lot of crisis.
I don't play it much anymore. Songs get old. And the developer keep releasing more songs and story content only as overpriced paid DLC, while making the base game a grind to get through. Which I'm upset about. I guess I just didn't expect it to be a AAA-priced game in disguise.
NieR
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A fanart of NieR by Ritsuko, because it's godawful difficult getting a decent-looking screenshot of this ugly-on-the-outside game[/caption]
I bought a PS3 around July of this year. Biggest purchase of the year for me (I'm a student, ok). I thought I'd finally be able to play all the best games of the previous generations I've missed, and Persona 5. I got Persona 5. I got Metal Gear Solid IV. I got a couple of games from the acquaintance I bought the console from.
It just ended up being The NieR Machine instead.
NieR... is not a very good game, looked as a whole. And the things that make it so unique years ago doesn't age very well either. That the protagonist is just a father protecting his daughter is no longer new. Deconstructing violence in video games isn't novel anymore either. That surprising revelation at the end? A cliche at this point. Some new revelations on your second playthrough? It was pretty good, actually, but Automata did it better in a hundred different ways.
But. But I can't count how many times my face made a What. expression during my entire playthrough. NieR pulls out surprises and throws them, carelessly, at my face. It's so often, so crass, so forceful and unsubtle, if any other game dared attempt the same move, they will be looked at as Trying Too Hard. But NieR? NieR doesn't give a damn whether you think it's pretentious or not, it's just going to barrel through. And damn, what a lovely breath of fresh air this unprovoked bravery is.
I know people often criticize it for its gameplay, but the gameplay--a simple, mindless, hack-and-slash--works in my favour. I've been having these moments of, I'm not sure what it is, inexplicable panic? It's gotten worse this year and happen more and more often. And when those moments come, the easiest, best thing to calm me down was just to sit on the couch, boot up NieR, and just, wander about, beat up Shades, do sidequests, listen to that beautiful music, get Very Sad. And then I'll be ok.
The story of NieR is a pessimistic one and it's not afraid to say it. But at the end of the day, it doesn't even care about that, it just barrels through.
Battle Chef Brigade
This game is fun! And charming! And light-hearted! And it has a local multiplayer that's fun without being too competitive! I honestly have no idea what else to say without just explaining the game. It's a match-three that's not thoughtless, coupled with a fun fighting-game-inspired platformer. It's a nice game to chill out with.
The story is great, a beacon of happy but interesting slice-of-life in this mad grimdark world. Ziggy is best boy. I'm almost sad he doesn't have his own story mode.
The Great Ace Attorney
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Dumbass-but-also-sometimes-genius Sherlock Holmes is best Sherlock Holmes[/caption]
I'm a fan of the Ace Attorney series, but mainly only of the original trilogy and the fourth game, which were written by Shuu Takumi. The two games that continue it and the Investigations side game has a different showrunner and it shows. They're still pretty good games, but the plot and writing have a habit of tripping over themselves.
While the main series truck on, Shuu Takumi made a spin-off duology featuring an entirely new cast, set in the Meiji/Victorian era. It's brilliant. It has all the wacky characters and the interesting mysteries without being weighed down by the complicated history of existing characters. It introduces new mechanics that work with its entirely new setting without feeling like a gimmick. It pays attention to small details while also making sure they work well into the big picture. It dares to try new things and mostly succeed at them.
It has Sherlock bloody Holmes. And it's one of the most interesting iteration of Sherlock Holmes there is.
It's only available in Japanese (BOO!), but there's a fan translation team working on it and they're brilliant. They already have episode 1 to 4 translated to English, but it's definitely worth it to try it now.
Fire Emblem Fates
I hate having to put this game on the list, but look, this bad boy got 40+ hours of playtime despite the fact that I only have it for two/three weeks so dammit, into the list you go.
This game is crack. I can't stop playing it. I can't stop thinking about it. One in ten seconds when I'm not playing it, I think about wanting to play it. I played the two GBA Fire Emblem games a long time ago and though I loved them, I don't remember being this solidly obsessed with it.
My sister told me it's because the game combines two things I really like: number-crunching strategy games, and shipping anime characters. This is a personal attack on me because it's true. I love numbers in my game. I'm that guy who'll play an RPG and spend a couple of hours messing around the menus, setting up skills and equipments and stats and such to create the perfect utterly broken combo, and then spend all the rest of the hours setting up the right strategy in battle. I'm the guy who spends at least a full minute on a turn of chess. I love math. And Fire Emblem? It's one of the greatest tactical RPG to survive to the modern age.
I also love character interactions, I love the small banters. Give me the crappiest story but give me the most interesting characters who interact with each other in a witty, well-written way and I will love it.
Fire Emblem Fate's story was crappy. The writing isn't stellar either; I've described it as mostly adequate, sometimes atrocious, never excellent. But, it's populated with dozens of fun, interesting characters, each with distinct personalities and great visual design. Due to the nature of the game, there aren't a lot of scripted interactions between them, but my mind easily fills in the blank. What was at first a purely tactical decision (having someone wall off a corridor because he has high defence) often transformed into one with emotional ties (he's not gonna let the other guys die). The interactions, the banters, and conversations take place in my head with a script I write on my own. But the script wouldn't have materialized if the game hasn't facilitated it.
Fire Emblem has a huge fanbase releasing a metric ton of fanarts and fanfic every day and I think this is one of the big reason why. Bless this series.
So that's six games then? Eh. Have some extras!
The World Ends With You
JohneAwesome did a playthrough of the Switch version of this game, which I watched with my sister. I played TWEWY when I was eleven or twelve or so, and that game was formative of my literally everything. My taste in stories, how I see the world, how I write, how I think about other people. It didn't occur to me how much that game has influenced me until I experienced it again.
It's a good game. I'm glad I got to play it as a teenager.
Resonance of Fate
One of the games I got from buying the PS3. I haven't played much of it because NieR, but this game kind of amazed me when I did. It's flawed, yeah. Its tutorial sucks. Its story is unclear and pretty whatever. But it has the most interesting battle system I've ever encountered, with its turn-based-but-also-action-based gunplay and cinematic flourish.
I should get back to playing it one of these days.
Blue Revolver
Some days you just want to forget everything and dash through a whole rain of bullets, you know.
Hollow Knight
I bought this blessed game on launch last year. My ride through it was arduous, painful, and time-consuming. I put it in my 2017 Game of the Year list, despite only making a teensy bit of progress on it.
Things change. For reasons I can't quite yet fathom, I got better at the game. My reflexes are better, my movements more controlled. My illness made me impatient as hell, but I'm somehow able to reign myself in and be more careful. I die less.
I get better at it, and the game opens up to me. What's at first was merely interesting is now immeasurably beautiful.
Looking back, 2018 has been pretty bad. If I can sort out my thoughts some more, I can probably make a better retrospective.
It's getting harder and harder to think. It's getting harder to remember. My thoughts keep slipping away from me and some days, it's like the whole world is sliding sideways. I'll be ok, I always will. I'm just bewildered by the prospect of living like this.
Happy New Year. Here's to a better next year.
