Superfluous Thoughts on Game of the Year 2021
Well, another year, another batch of games I played and decided to write about. Somehow despite all of the manifesting the good people at twitter.com did at the beginning of the year, personally 2021 was uhhhhhh not great and more or less worse than 2020. The escapism of games curtailed the effect of stressors, so here I am with some reflections, recommendations, and remusings on my favorite games of the year.
This year I’m just gonna group games based on some type relation, not really a top list except for the number one spot. Part superlative, part genre breakdown, part stream of consciousness I guess.
Games That Would’ve Been on Last Year’s List Had I Played Them in 2020
Kentucky Route Zero
A term I saw thrown around that perfectly encapsulates Kentucky Route Zero is that it is a work of surrealist Americana. Yes, it follows the video game concept of a point and click adventure game, but in practice it is an interactive, metatextual work of art. And it knows it. As evidenced by episode interludes featuring a moving art gallery, a theatre play, and a TV broadcast. It functions as both a love letter to Appalachia and an anti-capitalist critique of systemic injustice in America. If you enjoy android love songs, gospel music that makes you cry, radio plays, dungeons and dragons, and the collected works of Sam Shepard or Eugene O’Neill, give KRZ a try. Afterwards, enjoy this lovely critique by Noah Caldwell Gervais as well.
Going Under
With the exception of my game of the year, there’s no game I played this year which I related to more than Going Under. Now, if you’re familiar with Going Under, a rogue-lite where your internship at a tech start-up consists of bashing goblins and skeletons with office supplies, that may sound mildly concerning. There are extremely few games which get what it’s like to work in tech though, and Going Under does. Corporate buzzwords? Check. Friend at work just wanting to eat and smoke out back? Check. The grunt doing all the work while management twiddles their thumbs and ignores systemic issues? Check. The gameplay isn’t groundbreaking but is a serviceable hack and slash with a fun variety of weapons and random office supplies. The art style is stellar, acting as a parody of the Alegria corporate art style used by every company, google ad, and multi-level-marketing scheme you’ve seen in the last year. Sharply written, consistently funny in its delivery, and bringing heartwarming moments when needed, Going Under is a delight throughout. If you’ve ever wanted to flip a table when your scrum master schedules three stand ups back to back for the next week, give Going Under a shot.
Tenderfoot Tactics
Tenderfoot Tactics asks the all important question: What if a Tactics RPG was stripped down to its bare basics where your units were goblins and the graphics look meant to be processed on a CRT from 1998? It’s an incredibly niche concept but one that has just about everything I love. Incredibly chill, super unique graphics that are amazingly customizable. An easy to learn but difficult to master combat system including a myriad of classes to discover and unlock. It also featured some things I normally hate in games, specifically a map that doesn’t actually show your position on it. This was something I grew to love too though, as just vibing on your goblin boat and learning key landmarks could’ve been a walking simulator in and of itself. If tactics games and breathtaking 90s fog polygons are up your alley, make David Bowie proud and become the Goblin King.
AAA Games I Enjoyed Way More Than Expected
Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy
Some of my favorite experiences with games are when a perfect storm of circumstances surrounds one. Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy had the complete opposite for it going in. My Marvel fatigue has severely set in, I simply do not care about any of the Disney+ series after waiting on bated breath for every film prior to Endgame, and Square Enix published games have felt completely bland to me for years. And why did Shang Chi go from enthralling Hong Kong action film to CGI nightmare fuel with random little gremlins????? Guardians received generally favorable reviews on launch, but none of the trailers instilled confidence in me that I’d enjoy it. Slowly but surely word of mouth surrounding it crept up on me until I gave it a go.
The best way to describe Guardians is as a throwback to late 2000s/early 2010s action/adventure style game design. We’re talking when IGN reviews described everything as “like watching a movie” and my sister sat on the couch to watch the “Cut Screens” in Uncharted 2. Gameplay wise, it’s a third person shooter with light hero shooter mechanics. It’s fun and easy to pick up while remaining engaging for the 15ish hours a playthrough takes. Crucial to this style of game are writing and pacing, two points that Guardians absolutely nails. The characters are completely endearing, funny and witty yet all survivors of trauma that they are slowly working through together. They also never shut up yet are rarely annoying, something I could probably learn from myself. Guardians is a charming adventure full of heart, and it did the impossible task of making me look forward to a new Marvel property in the year 2021.
P. S. Lady Hellbender I am free this Thursday at 9 PM if that doesn’t work I can make myself free on the weekend but again Thursday at 9PM, if not no worries!
Forza Horizon 5
2021 was the year I committed to reinventing myself as a car guy. Watching F1 every week, checking oil level and tire pressure every week while listening to classic rock, watching Initial D, playing a Japan-only PS1 driving RPG, all the classic bits. So it wasn’t a surprise that I enjoyed Forza Horizon 5, rather it was a surprise just how much I stuck with it. Some of my fondest gaming memories of the year are creating customized cars with anime decals and “Believe in Christ” in Latin on the side, then tuning them perfectly to do the weeklies with the lads. There really isn’t too much to say about Forza as a game, it is simply the best driving game out there if you like driving games check it out!! Forza also deserves kudos for incredible accessibility options, varying from gameplay decisions like customizable driving assists/difficulty levels to asking for pronouns and very inclusive character customizability options.
Metroid Dread
Metroid Dread is a Metroid-Ass Metroid game. I am very glad Nintendo gave 2D Metroid another chance in the limelight, and Metroid Dread excels at most of what it sets out to do. I do wish the level design had been a little more open-ended and had a little more environment variety, but overall it is just a quintessential Metroid experience. You get new items to open previously blocked areas, speed boost for secrets, and escape an exploding base faster than Bobby Kotick runs away from responsibility. Combat and exploration are both sharp and fast paced, play it if you like Metroidvanias don’t play it if you don’t.
The Japanese Games Corner (This Would be the JRPG Corner but One Game Made it Change and Now the Title is Too Long)
Persona 5: Strikers
Look, I’m a diehard Persona fan. I preordered Persona 5 about 5 years before its release, I had a backwards compatible PS3 just to play Persona 3, and I bought a freaking PLAYStATION TV just to play Persona 4 Golden. Kids these days with their steam releases have it soooooo easy. (please bring a P3 remaster to steam Atlus). So when I was skeptical of a Dynasty Warriors style hack and slash using the Persona 5 license, know that that skepticism came from a place of love.
The metamorphosis of the core RPG seen in the last few Persona games into an action RPG works incredibly well. The persona fusion and Pokemon-esque weaknesses are still there, while the moment to moment gameplay is frenetic button mashing with unanticipated depth. It works so well, in fact, that if Atlus wanted to rethink how the core gameplay in these games function the same way they did between P2 and P3 and use Strikers as the model, it would be a change that totally makes sense. The only thing sorely “missing” from a typical Persona game is the daily life aspect and social link character vignettes. The cast is all back from P5 (standard edition, not royal) with a couple new additions as well. While the cast can feel a little cluttered at times, the story delivers a fun summer adventure that acts as a true sequel and lives up to the franchise name.
Gnosia
Gnosia is a Werewolf-style Sci-Fi Visual Novel RPG. Yes, that word vomit is its best summation. It is a hidden roles deduction game where different stats determine how effective you are at deceiving your crewmates, avoiding suspicion, and reading when someone is lying. It’s a mishmash of systems that can feel a bit inflexible at times but provides a wholly unique twist to the visual novel formula. Instead of normal puzzles or Ace Attorney style counterpoints, you need to play social sudoku with the information given and then use the systems provided to convince the AI crew you’re right. If this sounds a little like playing a board game by yourself you aren’t completely off track. Even though I’m a dork who played versus myself in Lord of the Rings Risk numerous times growing up, if that was all Gnosia offered I’d have a hard time recommending it.
See, Gnosia evolves over playtime to the point where even the puzzles become meta. It isn’t about winning a singular round of werewolf, it is about winning rounds in particular ways, with a particular cast of characters, with particular rule sets that the player has to set. All to the end of getting to know Gnosia’s eccentric and endearing cast of characters. Throughout the story, Gnosia becomes saturated with wtf moments that only expand the mystery further before meeting a neat and satisfying conclusion. If you like visual novels, shmogus, and think lying to NPCs sounds less stressful than lying to your IRL friends, check it out.
Shin Megami Tensei V
I played two games this year where I merged souls with Jack Frost and cast bufu. SMT V is the JRPGest of JRPGs. It is good even if at points it feels a tad stale. The level design/platforming was surprisingly engaging even if the world wasn’t. Play it if you like JRPGs. I’ve said JRPG too many times now and it lacks any meaning. JRPG JRPG JRPG JRPG
The Games About Relationships Corner Presented By Netflix’s New Hit Romantic Comedy “Love Hard”, Streaming November 5th, 2021
It Takes Two
It Takes Two is a classic example of how video game narrative can still be, uh, quite bad. The plot centers around soon to separated parents who get transformed into their daughter’s dolls, then try to make her cry to turn back into humans. While individual bits can be wholesome and hilarious, it oversimplifies the complex nature of relationships and feels pedantic and immature on the whole.
It’s to its credit, then, that the gameplay of It Takes Two delivers big time. A co-op only platformer full of good ideas and sharp execution, there wasn’t another game this year that I had a smile on my face while playing with a friend as much as I did playing It Takes Two. I don’t think there’s been a co-op experience quite like this since Portal 2, which came out *checks notes* 10 years ago. No way that can be right oh god we are getting old. In some ways it made me feel like this was the first game I’d played, just because the “Honey I Shrunk the Kids” style world design felt so fresh and inventive. It’s on game pass now and I highly recommend grabbing a friend and/or lover and playing! Just don’t expect any type of coherent commentary on relationships as much as the game wishes it had one.
Haven
Haven and It Takes Two occupy a similar space in my mind. They’re both co-op games about relationships, I played them around the same time of the year, and have unique ideas even if they aren’t executed fully. The big thing to me that stands out though is that despite these similarities, their strengths are complete opposites. Whereas It Takes Two fumbles the narrative and writing, Haven delivers a compelling portrayal of young adults who are very much in love.
Haven follows Kay and Yu, two exiles from a sci-fi society which forcefully matchmakes romantic partners. Crash landing on a floating archipelago, they need to find a way to close their empire’s gateway to find them while cleaning rustic corruption in their new home. It’s a cool if slightly trite premise, but what really makes the narrative are the small moments. Kay and Yu are fleshed out, three dimensional characters who have their own strengths and insecurities. What shines through is how they navigate their situation together in a real relationship; there are sweet moments, there are sexy moments, there are teasing moments, there are moments of conflict and resolution, there are embarrassing moments and they all get a spotlight. It feels like a healthy relationship in which you’re almost third wheeling, and that’s what makes it special. Gameplay-wise it’s part very simple RPG and part walking sim collectathon. It stays engaging, mostly due to great visuals and a stellar soundtrack from French house musician Danger; at points it almost feels like an interactive electro house or synthwave album. This combination of elements is more than the sum of its parts, and made Haven a game I thought about long after finishing. Note: technically 2020 release but it 1. Came out in late December and 2. Got released on more platforms in 2021. I WRITE THE LIST I MAKE THE RULES. And wanted to put here not in last year section. sue me.
Miscellaneous Best Indie Games of the Year
The Forgotten City
This year saw the release of a full-length DLC for my 2019 GOTY, Outer Wilds, that I somehow never got around to playing. There’s always next year. Instead, there was another Groundhog Day-esque adventure that really clicked with me: The Forgotten City. Starting out as a Skyrim mod, The Forgotten City sees the player dropped into an ancient Roman city supposedly following the Golden Rule: no crime is allowed, and if whatever god is out there detects one, the whole city will be punished and turned to gold. It’s up to the player to unravel the mystery of this curse by solving light social puzzles and doing some detective work for the citizens of the city. It’s a short, satisfying gameplay loop and much like my 2020 GOTY Hades, The Forgotten City plays well with ancient myth, simultaneously reiterating classic themes and bringing fresh, new interpretations. Check it out if you had a sexual awakening watching Hercules for the first time and then became a classics major. (And Hades too obviously).
Unpacking
Unpacking is a short, cute little narrative game told through various moves in the main character’s life. Presented with quaint pixel graphics and a bright chiptune soundtrack, Unpacking oozes charm and warmth. The player has several boxes to unpack and put some things in the right place (towels in the bathroom, knives in the kitchen, plushies on the bed etc.) but there is plenty of room for interpretation in how the player interacts with the environment. Did you keep your art supplies at the ready throughout your playthrough, or were they relegated to the closet at points? Which mug do you put your toothbrush in? Most importantly, do socks go in the top drawer or the bottom drawer? If this sounds a little monotonous that’s a valid hesitation, but you should know it’s fascinating just how much character and story comes through such a simple mechanic. If you enjoy setting up your desk in the Sims to ease your ADHD and reflect daily upon your ideal shelves to stash old 3DS and Gamecube games in, Unpacking is definitely worth your time.
Chicory: A Colorful Tale
Chicory is the new game from Greg Lobanov, a developer who made my 2019 list for the wonderful Wandersong, and features music from the composer of Celeste, Lena Raine. With such an indie pedigree, in the best way Chicory: A Colorful Tale feels like a sentient madlib of indie game tropes come to life. A [2D top-down Zelda-Like] [MetroidVania] where a cast of [cute animals named after food] in a [hand-drawn world with a jazz-inspired and chiptune soundtrack] use the unique mechanic of [drawing on EVERYTHING] to overcome [their deepest anxieties and insecurities]. Having struggled with impostor syndrome in both professional and recreational life, the central theme of an artist getting overwhelmed by public expectation rang incredibly true. It’s full of heart and has a bit more substance in puzzles, character customization, and encounter design than you’d expect from something of its ilk. The world is gorgeous and a joy to just run around in, added to by the fact that you yourself are responsible for coloring it all in like a cathartic adult coloring book. (Or a kids coloring book to be honest….)It finally got a Switch port at the end of the year, so if any of these aspects sound intriguing definitely give it a look.
Inscryption
After playing Inscryption, I was near certain that it would be my game of the year. I grew up dueling in Yu-Gi-Oh against myself, so being forced to play card games with a character that makes Mark Duplass’s character in Creep look normal was honestly an improvement. Inscryption uses the veneer of a roguelike deckbuilder to become something much more. I’m not just talking about the horror and escape room elements, Inscryption is hiding much more than it looks and saying anything else would spoil the fun. It’s a great love letter to card games both physical and virtual, and delivers a surprisingly effective story with tons of ingenious, unique moments. Play it if you like card games and want Frog Fractions 3.
My 2021 Game of the Year: Before Your Eyes
Until December 17th, I had Inscryption pinned as my GOTY. There were a couple games I had been putting off until starting to think about GOTY because I just didn’t ~feel~ like playing them, one of which was Before Your Eyes. See, Before Your Eyes is a narrative game where the only input from the player is blinking. Literally you, sitting at your desk, blinking. It uses a webcam to track eye movement and then tells a story about the fleeting nature of life and the nature of memory using that mechanic. It sounded stressful to me as “blink and you miss it” moments sound anxiety provoking, especially right now when that feeling has been ever present while losing years of our lives to quarantine. When I finally sat down and played it, I was floored by the story told. There are reasons why the narrative affected me particularly that I don’t want to spoil; just because I can firmly recommend this game to everyone and it’s important to go in fresh. By the end, I cried, and I cried, and I cried and I cried, the game leaving me deeply affected as any great piece of art should. I want to write so much more about it but instead I just insist you set aside two hours, treat it like a film, and play it!
Thanks for reading, this had a lot more games on it and took longer than last year’s but I appreciate the reads. If you want some specific game recs to your taste I’m always an open book! I also finally catalogued almost everything I watched last year, some of which have reviews you can read here on letterboxd.
