Well folks, it's that time of year again! And though we're still in the middle of a global pandemic that continues to linger because the "facts don't care about your feelings" crowd demands that the rest of us care more about their feelings than facts, and certain members of our senate are still secure in their jobs after committing treason by allowing a would-be dictator to get off scot-free after trying to stage a coup, 2021 was at least a significantly better year for gaming than 2020...there, got it out of my system, and now we can just talk about the games! It was such a good year for gaming, in fact, that I nearly decided to do a top 15 at the end instead of my usual top 10, but I decided against it. In the past few years I've gone with more concise GOTY articles: only listing the best games in 2019 and only listing the winner of each category in 2020. But this year, I wanted to return at least somewhat to form. I finally found employment in early November, so I don't have nearly as much free time as I used to, so I decided on this: I'm going to do the full lists with blurbs and everything, but I'm gonna take it easy when it comes to the length of each blurb. As the years have gone by, I've wanted this to become a bigger and bigger article each time, but in the interest of putting out the best thing I can, this year I'm not going to feel like I didn't do enough if the blurb is only a sentence or so long, even if that means the formatting looks kinda weird. In addition, this year I've added a handful of new categories as well as one new honorable mention! But before we get into it, first, let me lay out the rules here.
1): As always, only games that I both played and reviewed will be on any of these lists. It's possible, for example, that Deathloop is the 10/10 game that IGN was paid off to say it was, but I actively wanted to punish Arcane's marketing department for how often they shoved this stupid game in my face at every gaming-reveal livestream of this year! It may also be possible that Battlefield 2049 is as terrible as people are saying, but I don't do multiplayer. In addition, I played literally not one next-gen console exclusive, because the scalpers are still running rampant and I actively wish for them to starve. Beyond that, the usual "I didn't play"s apply: no sports games, no racing games, no multiplayer games, no strictly co-op games, no roguelikes, etc. Assuming you aren't reading this too far ahead in the future, a good rule of thumb is if you look at the navbar at the top of your screen and don't see a game's title listed, it isn't going to have a spot on any of these lists.
2): "This is my opinion, but if you disagree, that's ok" is the most pathetic, sniveling little wimpy thing to ever say before you put together a list of your favorite games of the year. I see it in almost every GOTY video I watch on youtube, and every time it makes me roll my eyes. Of course this is my opinion! You wouldn't be here if you didn't want to know it. But still, in the blurbs I do try to explain why item x is above item y, so if you do happen to disagree, I hope that I at least give you the perspective you'll need to understand my decisions.
3): You should assume that there are spoilers in every single blurb. That isn't actually the case, but if you haven't played a game and don't want spoilers, if you see its name on one of these lists, it's probably best to avoid the blurb just in case. In the past I would just be super vague, and it meant that the blurbs were never good enough to describe a game's positioning on the list. I'll be keeping the "headlines" spoiler-free, but I can't promise the same for the content.
4): This year I tried something different and attempted to have any given game featured only once in a list if at all possible. There are exceptions, such as "Best Moment," but I wanted to see what would happen to my GOTY placement calculations if category points were spread out a bit more. As a result, I'm more satisfied with this year's GOTY placements than ever before!
5): Unfortunately, blogger has been really chugging during this article. I had to do all my writing in a texteditor becuase it would take upwards of 20 seconds for the platform the render my text, even if it was just a few words. Sadly, there's no workaround for pictures, so in the interest of getting this out in a timely manner, I'm forgoing picture in this article except where necessary (such as graphical discussions). It sucks, but formatting this thing took longer than the writing did. Really think about that.
6): If you like this article, maybe make an NFT of it and con some poor sucker out of their money!
Now that that's out of the way, let's get down to business, and whether or not the huns get involved is up to you.
THIS!!!!!!!
IS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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The Technical Awards
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Best Realistic Graphics
One caveat to the whole "2021 was better for gaming" argument that you'll likely notice as you move along is that while there were a ton of great indie games, there weren't very many great AAA titles. There were so few, in fact, that I don't even have the usual minimum 5 games for this list! So, instead, we're going with the top 4. But I digress. This is one of the more straightforward categories in this article, it celebrates the games that went for a realistic look with their graphical styles and succeeded. Unfortunately, this almost always means that budget is key to winning in this category, but good realistic graphics are good realistic graphics!
#4): The Forgotten City
The Forgotten City comes in at the bottom of this list for reasons that are probably self-evident if you're currently looking at the picture. The character models are just...not great. But what the game lacks in quality faces, it more than makes up for in quality spaces. That is to say, the titular city is clearly where the budget went, and it definitely shows!
#3): Far Cry 6
#2): Guardians of the Galaxy
Realistic Graphics of the Year: Resident Evil: Village
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Best 2D/Isometric Artistic Graphics
Normally there's just the one category for artistic graphics. But with so many great indie titles having come out this year, I had to split them up by overall style in the interest of judging fairly. So this first new artistic graphics category belongs to the games rendered in a 2-dimensional or isometric view, and their graphics within these styles are what earn them a spot on this list.
#5): Death's Door
#4): Wife Quest
#3): Ender Lillies: Quietus of the Knights
#2): Backbone
2D/Isometric Artistic Graphics of the Year: The Ascent
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Best 3D Artistic Graphics
On the other side of the artistic graphics coin, we have the games that sport a 3-dimensional view and aim for a non-realistic graphical style. There can be 2D aspects or assets, but to qualify for this category, a game must have an overall 3D style. Because 3D naturally lends itself to a broader range of artistic styles than 2D or Isometric, any given game's placement on this list is dependent on how impressive the graphics are, whatever the style may be.
#5): Before Your Eyes
#4): Road 96
#3): Demon Turf
#2): Persona 5 Strikers
3D Artistic Graphics of the Year: Kena: Bridge of Spirits
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Best 2D/Isometric Performing
Similarly to the artistic graphics category, this year I elected to split up the performance section by view. By nature, games rendered in a 2D or Isometric view aren't going to have to contend with as much as their 3D counterparts, so stable performance isn't exactly rocket science for them. However, there are still considerations to be made when deciding where any given 2D/Isometric game falls on this list, so there's still stuff to talk about.
#5): Impostor Factory
Impostor Factory and every other game by Kan Gao has so little on its plate in terms of assets that might slow down the product that it's never any wonder why they perform well. But I still wanted to have Impostor Factory on this list because I feel like he deserves any points I can justify giving him.
#4): Wife Quest
Being made by a minuscule team of people with seemingly mere pennies in terms of budget, and also given how good Wife Quest looks and feels to play, it's kind of a wonder that the team didn't have to make any sacrifices to make it run at a stable framerate. Of course, I'm not a game designer and I don't know how taxing any form of pixel art is on a system, so I could be wrong, but that's my feeling!
#3): Ender Lillies: Quietus of the Knights
What gets me about the way Ender Lillies performs is that the foreground and the background appear to move at different rates, and yet the game as a whole doesn't suffer from this. Add the whole host of particle effects the game boasts and the speed of certain bosses, and it makes the game's consistently stable framerate even more impressive.
#2): Metroid Dread
It would be tempting to say that Metroid Dread's excellent framerate is a given, since it's a Nintendo-published game. But ever since Breath of the Wild launched in a state where framerates were constantly dropping, good performance is unfortunately no longer a Nintendo staple. But even so, Metroid Dread delivers. It's not exactly taxing on the graphical front, but what it lacks in graphical demands, it makes up for in speed of combat. Any given combat encounter happens at a breakneck pace, and if anything were to tank the game's performance, that would be it. But alas, it doesn't, and as a result, Metroid Dread comes pretty close to being the most stable 2D/Isometric game released in 2021.
Most Stable 2D/Isometric Performance of the Year: Death's Door
Just like Metroid Dread, Death's Door isn't exactly an enormous task to handle in terms of rendering its graphics, but it's significantly more of a task to handle than Metroid Dread. Obviously the graphical quality itself is better, but beyond that, there's also plenty more to render in terms of overall space and effects. Death's Door, while not a massively-sized game by any stretch of the imagination, is fairly packed and spans several different biomes. Furthermore, you may recall that when I was discussing the game's graphical style, I mentioned that the effects have a tendency to distract from gameplay. This is because the explosions and magic effects are so tremendously impactful that they tend to obscure player vision. Though this is a point against the game, it's further evidence that Death's Door is optimized exactly the way it needs to be to maintain a consistent framerate, so I can think of no better choice for the top spot in this award than Death's Door.
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Best 3d Performing
Like with the artistic graphics, on the other side of the performance coin, we have the games that present their worlds in 3D. Unlike the subjects of the last category, any given 3D game has quite a bit more to consider when it comes to optimization. Character models are more resource-intensive, environments require far more detail, and there's movement along a whole other axis to consider, and that's just the bare-bones stuff. So the winners in this category are games that were truly given the best technical foundation for the graphical styles and levels of chaos they offered.
#5): Road 96
Road 96 more or less has players operating inside tiny little box levels throughout its runtime, so it's not like it's actually having to handle anything beyond what you can immediately see. But what compelled me to have it on its list is how it compares to other dialogue choice-heavy games, such as those from Telltale. Road 96 not only has the occasional need to make a quick dialogue choice, but it also has several, several, several minigames. Compare that to any Telltale game. They'll have one kind of minigame at most, sport an art style not as good as Road 96's, and still have frequent framerate drops. So while Road 96 isn't going to blow anyone away with basically anything it has to offer, I have to give credit where it's due and say it runs excellently for what it is.
#4): Omno
In the last blurb, I brought up Telltale Games: a company that (before it went bankrupt and refused to give its staff severance pay) put out lots of games that always came with significant technical problems despite their minuscule scope. In this blurb, I'd like to bring up the opposite side of the coin: AAA releases. How many times have AAA titles released with massive performance issues? Well, enter Jonas Manke, the sole developer of Omno: a small, but well-polished and feature-rich game in the same vein as games like Journey. As simple as this game is, it obviously doesn't have too much going on that would tax the system beyond the bare-bones 3D game aspects I mentioned in the introductory blurb for this category. But it still is worth noting (and 100% worth a spot on this list) that one guy was able to do for his game what countless AAA developers couldn't do even with year-long delays.
#3): Demon Turf
Demon Turf is unique in that it's the only game on this list that ever experiences framerate drops. It would seem like that would be an automatic disqualification, but the name of this category isn't "Best Game With Literally No Performance Problems." This whole category is about games that do the best they can with the technical payload they were given. See, there are only certain levels in which this game doesn't perform well, and those levels are the "return trip" versions of a handful of levels in the final area. The reason for these framerate drops is the snowstorm that gets added to the mix in these versions of these levels. So, you see, what performance problems this game has aren't a result of overall incompetence in designing the technical foundation, but a result of an aesthetic choice that they maybe didn't test as thoroughly. For every other level, no matter how many independently-moving npcs there are, no matter how many independently moving assets there are, no matter how many timer-based assets there are, no matter how many assets that change literally each time you jump (no matter where you are) there are, the performance is stable. So, that's why Demon Turf scores so high despite being the only winner on this list to have performance issues.
#2): Scarlet Nexus
Stable technical performance is stable technical performance, and if the developers took technical shortcuts to get there, it doesn't matter for the purposes of this list. Were it not for Far Cry 6, Scarlet Nexus would be the single most lazily-programmed game of 2021, so numerous are the technical shortcuts they took to make the game stable...but they did succeed, so I have to begrudgingly give this spot to Scarlet Nexus, which is a bad game.
Most Stable 3d Performance of the Year: Persona 5 Strikers
Stable technical performance is stable technical performance, and if the developers took technical shortcuts to get there, it doesn't matter for the purposes of this list. In case you've already forgotten, that was how I opened the blurb for Scarlet Nexus. The same sentiment applies here, albeit to a much lesser extent. See, Persona 5 Strikers does take technical shortcuts. For one thing, it has literal assets pop-in (such as traffic cones or the like) seconds after they should have spawned. Also, the developers didn't do much to improve the camera control from their last project: Hyrule Warriors. But here's the thing: Persona 5 Strikers has more taxing technical aspects than literally anything else on either of the two performance-centric lists. There are hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of enemies of varying AIs and difficulty levels each doing their own thing in any given arena, you have three npcs at your side who do their own thing until you take over them, and every single member of your party has a smorgasbord of abilities with their own animations and effects, with the main character having access to hundreds of different combinations of abilities/animations/effects. This game didn't have the same budget its parent game, Persona 5, had, but given the demanding nature of the combat paired with the demanding nature of the visual side of thing, the sacrifices made in the name of better performance are 100% acceptable.
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Best Controlling
Not to be confused with the Honorable Mention I always do for the game with the best control scheme, this brand new category is about how well a game controls, specifically. This isn't really the kind of thing I think about that often (except while playing Red Dead Redemption 2 or Death Stranding), but this year I played one game that controlled horribly and one that controlled so well that it prompted me to make this list in the first place. In order to qualify for this category, a game has to do exactly what you say when you say it. It can't be overly fiddly or have slight input delays due to complex animations.
#5): Ender Lillies: Quietus of the Knights
When I talk about Ender Lillies, I always say it's the definition of "tough but fair." Part of that is because, while the game commits what I consider the cardinal sin of game design (having the player take damage from touching an enemy that isn't on fire/made of spikes/etc), you have plenty of control over Lily. So if you end up running into an enemy, a lot of the time it's because you didn't get away fast enough. It isn't every time, there are definitely moments that are just plain unfair, but for the most part, you have enough control if you're on top of your game.
#4): The Ascent
All you really do in The Ascent is walk and shoot, so it's not like you have a lot on your plate. However, no matter what kind of gun you're using, you will literally always shoot in the direction you're pointing the second you decide to point there, and the character turns at the exact pace you want them to turn. A good sense of control is a good sense of control, even if it's not much of a balancing act for the game.
#3): Metroid Dread
Unlike stable framerates, one thing you absolutely can count on Nintendo for is an excellent sense of control. These are the people who publish the Mario games, for crying out loud, of course Metroid Dread controls well!
#2): Necromunda: Hired Gun
Necromunda: Hired Gun wears its inspiration on its sleeve in all the right ways. Wanting desperately to be Doom Eternal (Right Trigger Game of the Year for 2020), the key focus of this game is freedom of mobility. It does that well on its own, but what really solidifies the game's position on this list is the grappling hook. It isn't that the grappling hook goes where you want it to go, in fact, it doesn't. But the thing is that this grappling hook always knows what you wanted to do based on where you aimed, so you literally always end up on whatever platform you were hoping to reach, so intelligent and well-designed is this system.
Control Tuning of the Year: Demon Turf
In a platformer, control is 100% the most important thing to nail. And to be honest, I think Demon Turf might have the single best sense of control of any platformer to date (including Super Mario Odyssey, which I realize is a hot take). As I implied in the opening statement for this category, I was so impressed by how well I could control Beebz that I created this category just to recognize this excellence. When you do the riskier "super jumps," if you fiddle with your left thumbstick to manipulate where you land, you'll land exactly where you intended. If you mistime a jump, you know it pretty much from the second you see the trajectory you're on and you know how to adjust your timing on the next attempt. Hell, I, a non-speedrunner, was able to beat two speedrunners and claim the world record times on the Baby Ocean and Port Manteau levels (though they easily could have reclaimed them by this point) because of how simple it is to remain in control. Demon Turf didn't just spawn this category, there's no other game that comes even close to it in terms of eligibility!
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Best Sound Design
Sound Design is one of those things that's a little difficult to nail down and mainly gets judged on a case by case basis. At least, that's how it is for me. Anyway, let's just get to it!
#5): The Ascent
What earns The Ascent a place on this list is the quality of the gun sounds. I used a minigun for the majority of my time with this game, and despite vibration not working on my PS4 controller when plugged into my PC, it felt like it was vibrating from the sheer depth of the gunshot noises.
#4): Emily is Away <3
This is a category that Emily is Away games always nail. These games, being set in online chatrooms back in the day, always emulate computer sounds from those periods. As you type on your keyboard, what you hear is the thick, clunky sounds of old-school computer keys, and whenever you get notifications, they always come with an almost uncanny representation of what the AOL chatroom notifications sounded like. It's a simple assignment, but developer Kyle Seeley always knocks it out of the park!
#3): Wife Quest
Wife Quest's reason for being on this list is as simple as they come: the coin sounds seem like they come with serotonin embedded in them! There's just something about how crisp and rewarding the sounds of picking up coins in this game are that it just feels excellent to do it. If my memory of one of developer Pippin Games' devlogs is accurate, then I believe the sound designer's name is Daniel. If so, good job, Daniel! You singlehandedly earned Wife Quest a spot on this list and gave it some points towards GOTY!
#2): Demon Turf
The only thing really holding Demon Turf back from the #1 spot is the fact that sound effects so often don't play or cut out in the middle of playing. And that's a crying shame, because, as evidenced by the fact that it's this high up the list, the sound design in this game is phenomenal. More specifically, the sounds that play when you walk or jump on surfaces are phenomenal. Each type of surface has a different kind of sound associated with it, and some of them are so excellently designed that you can practically feel the texture of the surface. And on the PS5 version, I'd wager you literally can. I'll reiterate the example I used in my review: there are certain surfaces made of a slippery blue rubber, and the *squeakysqueaky* of the rubber communicates the texture of these surfaces so well that the brain just automatically knows what they would feel like to the touch.
Sound Design of the Year: Resident Evil: Village
Yeah, kind of predictable for a critically-acclaimed horror game to win in the sound design department, but it is what it is. To explain why it wins this category, I'd like to point to one section as an example: the level colloquially referred to as "The Dollhouse." This section is all setup and the monster doesn't appear until the very end, but it's the sound design that really sells the horror of all this buildup. The main "hub" of this level is a mannequin workshop where one mannequin resembling protagonist Ethan's wife is lying on a table, and several isolated mannequin parts hang from the ceiling. In order to progress, you have to manually take apart this mannequin that resembles your wife piece by piece. The entire time I was doing this I was holding my breath because I fully expected it to jolt up and start screaming or something. The process of removing a piece of the mannequin was slow going, and there was no music save for the sound of wooden parts clacking together overhead. There is no jumpscare in this segment, but I didn't know that, so all I could do was flinch a little and take another deep breath with every harsh-sounding scrape as I twisted an arm off or started opening the mouth with a bit of a rustic creak. This is but one example of how Resident Evil: Village utilizes sound to build dread (and I didn't even talk about how they handled the monster's sound), and I hope it adequately explains why it wins this category.
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Best Soundtrack
Unlike most categories, Best Soundtrack and the next category are pretty much entirely subjective, so I'll basically just be describing them instead of making cases for their placement.
#10): Road 96 (Various Artists)
It's basically just a collection of original indie songs written for the game world, but I always admire that kind of effort in worldbuilding. Also, the title track, "The Road," is pretty darn good.
#9): Necromunda: Hired Gun (Olivier Zuccaro)
While the sound levels aren't exactly configured to make the most out of Olivier Zuccaro's work, it's still a 100% acceptable tribute to the Mick Gordon ost's that made Doom and Doom Eternal kick so much ass!
#8): Wife Quest (Pippin Games, Maybe "Daniel")
In my review of Wife Quest, I remarked how professionally-done the soundtrack seemed despite this being a minuscule team presumably without any access to orchestras. Presumably, every track in this game was composed with software, but I've never heard a software composition that sounded this real. So I have to give props to the team over at Pippin Games for their excellent use of whatever software they had on hand!
#7): Death's Door (David Fenn)
A note I usually start out on when writing the introductory paragraph for this category is that part of what makes a soundtrack good is how well it fits its subject matter. I normally like to bring up A Knight's Tale as an example of a bad soundtrack because the classic rock in no way fits the medieval setting. Well, Death's Door's soundtrack is an example of how to do it right. Whether you're high up on a snowy mountain or deep in the Frog King's jungle, David Fenn made sure every piece of his work fit the scenario and sounded good to boot.
#6): Backbone (Dashin and Arooj Aftab)
There's not a lot to say about Backbone's soundtrack, as good as it is. Simply put, it's an excellent noir-inspired soundtrack that elevates the sense of mystery.
#5): Ender Lillies: Quietus of the Knights (Mili)
The key draw of Ender Lillies' ost is how it elevates the atmosphere of every level. Take the bottommost area near the heart of the world's corruption, for instance. The soundtrack for this place? It's just a low droning and scattered frightened gasps. On the other hand, if you wander into the part of the map filled with mushroom witches, you might think you'd stumbled into a Harry Potter film judging from the music. It's a varied soundtrack, for sure, but the variance is always in service of helping whatever mood the game is going for in a particular moment.
#4): Impostor Factory (Kan Gao)
The day a Kan Gao score doesn't make the "Best Soundtrack" list is the day where hell freezes over. Even in the case of Impostor Factory, which isn't exactly his most memorable musical offering (partly due to the lack of Laura Shigihara singing the song that makes you cry), it still does its job: making you either feel all warm and snuggly or bawl your eyes out.
#3): Jett: The Far Shore (scntfc)
The name of the game in Jett: The Far Shore (I mean, besides that) is atmosphere. The whole game is shrouded in mystery due to the alien nature of the world and its culture. So, the soundtrack had to carry that same indomitable atmosphere. And thankfully, scntfc handles this perfectly. Moments of exploration are underscored with a pizzicato orchestra, while the most science-fictiony moments are scored with synthetic vocals. On the other hand, the more human moments are scored with actual voices wailing in the language of the world. At every corner, scntfc carries the atmosphere of Jett across the finish line.
#2): The Forgotten City (Michael Allen)
I wish I had more specific things to say about Michael Allen's excellent score, but unfortunately, all I can say is that it sounded pwetty enough to land in the #2 spot!
Soundtrack of the Year: Persona 5 Strikers (Atsushi Kitajoh)
As you may very well already know, dear reader, Persona 5 is simultaneously indomitable and inimitable in its sheer sense of Style with a capital S. The soundtrack, leaning both into jazz and funk and sung by the one and only Lyn, just makes you want to do the most embarrassing dances you can imagine. And guess what? Persona 5 Strikers is more of that! Yep, it's an entire new OST full of the same Funk with a capital F, and it features more songs sung by Lyn. When a soundtrack alone makes a game worth the price of admission, there's no contest when it comes to what ought to win this category! Personally, I hope Persona 5 doesn't go away for a long time so we keep getting more and more of these certified Bangers with a capital B!
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Best Soundtrack Piece
As subjective as the last category was, it pales in comparison to this one! There's really no benchmark for where things go on this list, it's just my own whims and how much I liked each entry on the most basic level.
Composed by the hit in-game rebel rap group, Maximas Matanzas, Camino Revolucionario plays during the first quest on their plotline. As I tried to stealthily take out the fascist soldiers, I found myself bobbing in my chair.
This being the first song that plays after exiting the tutorial area, "Harmonious" had the unenviable task of being the player's first impression of the world, and I have to say it excels in this regard.
#8): Morgana's Castle (Wife Quest)
(sadly, no clips of the track exist on youtube that I could find). The stakes in Wife Quest aren't exactly high. Sure, a legion of monster girls are trying to have an umpteen-way with your husband, but he's a good boy who only has eyes for you, and the girls aren't going to hurt him. That being said, the track that plays in the final push before facing the dark witch Morgana does get you pumped to kick down that hussie's door and rescue your beloved.
As you listen to this, ask yourself if swinging around a giant battlefield with a grappling hook you barely have to aim, running along the walls shooting enemies at breakneck speeds, and flinging yourself towards giant foes to insta-kill them with a knife while this plays would be awesome. Spoiler alert: the answer is yes!
i wouldn't call it a complaint, per-se, but I did think the design of the final boss of Death's Door was a little on the silly side. However, because this was the track that played throughout, I didn't pay that feeling much mind.
This track plays during a sequence where you're in the home of a horribly-grieving mother, looking around the premises and asking questions that might help you get into her daughter's computer. If you listen to the track, I don't think I need to say much more to describe why it's so good, especially given the story context.
Now you can finally understand what I was talking about in this game's blurb from the last category!
We'll get to the spoilers involved with this track later on, but I want you to listen to it and keep the emotions you felt in mind.
If I were to play you this track with you having no knowledge of Persona 5 Strikers' story, what would you think the context was? Was the answer "a super important boss fight where the price of failure is the total enslavement of all mankind?" No? I didn't think so, but doesn't that boss fight sound like it would be awesome now?
Unfortunately, I need to simply point you back to spot #3 and ask you to rinse and repeat with this song. Don't worry, we'll get there.
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Best Level Design
There's a reason this category is the second to last one in the Technical Awards section. There are several factors to consider when it comes to judging a game's level design. There's variety, visual cohesion, environmental storytelling, environmental telegraphing, the list goes on. But at the end of the day, what makes good level design is how well it services gameplay. Good gameplay in a poorly-designed level can still be fun, but most of the time this category can make or break a game.
#10): The Forgotten City
The whole of The Forgotten City takes place in one level, the city itself. With that in mind, the game needed to really knock it out of the park, and they did! This being a largely investigative game, no fanciful detour goes unrewarded, and the sheer intricacy of the city perfectly lends itself to this non-linear narrative. You and I might discover some key bit of information at different times in our playthroughs, for instance, but it will always flawlessly fit into what we already know. Though this is only a one-level game, I can't stress enough how well this level was designed.
#9): Persona 5 Strikers
I hate to keep defaulting to this, but I mean, it's more Persona 5! Of course the level design is gonna be good! In this case, however, it's less about the structure and more about the visual design. With each level taking place in the heart of some twisted individual who is only twisted due to some past trauma, a lot of effort naturally went into visual storytelling.
#8): Omno
One of the things that fascinated me the most about Omno was how well it seemed to know what "the line" was. In both its puzzles and the amount of space in a given level, developer Jonas Manke seemed to have a firm grasp of how much difficulty or space would be too much. No level was ever too large to be cumbersome to navigate, and the puzzles were just the right level of difficult to temporarily give me pause without ever having to try for more than a minute or two. So, I've gotta give credit to this solo developer for nailing the design as well as he did.
#7): Resident Evil: Village
People have described Resident Evil: Village as a horror carnival ride of sorts, ferrying the player from one type of horror to the next. Whether it's the classic monster horror of Castle Demitrescu, the "fear of uncertainty" horror of the Doll House, the germaphobic horror of the swamps, or the industrial body horror of Heisenburg's factory, every level is designed from the ground up to deliver on their assigned horror type...but there's one problem, and it's why Village is this far down the list. That last level, the factory? While the visual design is as excellent as in any other level, the way it's physically designed makes it one of the most annoying levels I played through this year. So, Village stumbles a bit at the finish line, but the rest of the level design is good enough to land it a spot on this list!
#6): Wife Quest
Wife Quest is a surprisingly large game from a team of like 3 or so guys, and when I see statistics like that, I find myself lowering the bar in my head. So, I figured that levels might be repetitive or recycle challenges and enemies, things like that. But what I found instead was a wealth of variety in all regards. Each level is completely different than the last in terms of environmental design and enemy loadouts, and perhaps most surprising of all is the fact that I was constantly surprised by the amount of brand new challenges that the devs kept throwing at me. I could rarely guess what kind of trials might be next in this game, and for the most part I was consistently pleasantly surprised!
#5): Death's Door
For Death's Door, the big thing in terms of its level design is intricacy. Much like The Forgotten City, no curious detour is for nothing. A walk down a side path could easily reward you with an upgrade to health/magic or one of the game's many collectibles. But the other big thing is the subtle way the game visually signposts where to go. It's so subtle, in fact, that I don't actually know how they do it. But most of the time I would end up exactly where I needed to go in a level simply by going the direction that looked right to me. There was clearly some control group testing or super sciency brain stuff going on at Acid Nerve, because the levels are well-designed enough that they can manipulate you into going the right way and have you think it was your idea.
#4): Necromunda: Hired Gun
Despite most levels looking same-y, the actual design has tons of variety. One minute, you're grappling your way through a subway station with hostile settlements set up in the air, the next, you're in a secret underground facility filled with poisonous plants. And what makes these various levels great in how they add to gameplay is that almost all of them act as little playgrounds for you to flex your movement skills in. Even the most cramped corridors, for instance, obviously have walls for you to hardcore parkour your way across, and on the opposite side of the spectrum, the wide open spaces provide plenty of opportunities to grapple your way up into the air then back down at an unsuspecting enemy like some kind of dirty industrial British Spider-Man. This is a game that knows what its primary gameplay loop is and what makes it fun, and the levels are all designed accordingly...well, almost all the levels. That underground facility level I described is so horrible that it takes what could've easily been the winner of this category and puts it down at #4. But still, the rest is excellent.
#3): Metroid Dread
Sure, the map layout in Metroid Dread is convoluted at best, but what's smart about the level design in this game is part of what made Death's Door so great. It's handled the exact opposite way in this game, but like Death's Door, Metroid Dread subtly hints to the player where to go next if they pay attention. But while this category's #5 winner did this with some kinds of subtle visual things, this game does it by essentially locking the door behind you at various points. Sometimes after acquiring an upgrade or using an upgrade for the first time, you'll find that some paths have suddenly become inaccessible. In such segments, you'll often find yourself boxed in with no perceivable way out. What might on the surface appear to be a frustration is actually a massive hint: the way out is in there somewhere, and it's up to you to use your mind to figure it out. This naturally guides players to spots on the map of the current area that they haven't explored yet. Some of the time, the way to progress will be in these areas. But other times, players will have to examine their maps carefully and think "maybe theres a hidden morph ball hole above this door" or something like that. By locking the player in a certain area, the game cleverly forces them to use all their knowledge about the abilities they currently have to proceed.
#2): Ender Lillies: Quietus of the Knights
Being essentially a Metroidvania, Ender Lillies boasts a map completely stuffed with secret areas and treasures to find. And unlike some of the past couple spot-earners on this list, the reason why it earns its spot is pretty straightforward. It actually goes hand-in-hand with a particular design choice the developers made: the decision to have areas in the minimap turn from blue to yellow if you've found everything in that area. Not only does this make the process of 100%-ing the game easier to manage, it also does something similar to Metroid Dread. Ender Lillies never locks the door behind you, but by giving you a clear indication of whether or not you've seen all there is to see in a given area, it ultimately produces the same result of encouraging the player to be extra thorough and inquisitive in their search for treasure or secrets. Now, I can hear certain folks saying that this category is about level design, not design design. In Metroid Dread, the post-upgrade roadblocks were choices made for specific levels, but the area color in the minimap here is more of a stylistic choice than an intentional choice to propel the level forward, these hypothetical detractors might continue. Well, to those people, I'd once again argue that the result is the same, but that this not-exactly-level-design-centric choice makes the result better in Ender Lillies. With a gun to my head set to fire if I didn't choose who hid their secrets better between Metroid Dread and Ender Lillies, I'd be dead already. They both do equally good jobs. It's just that the added benefit of knowing exactly where I need to look instead of just a vague idea gives Ender Lillies the upper hand.
Level Design of the Year: Demon Turf
If I were lazier, I'd just say that Demon Turf emulates the platformers of old (those that were good, at least) in terms of its level design. But I'm not quite that lazy yet, and I enjoyed Demon Turf enough to want to talk about it a whole lot, so I think I'll go into a bit more detail. Firstly, there's the visual variety. Like any old school platformer, each "world" (or "turf" in this case) sports an entirely different aesthetic (i.e. desert, beach, city, etc.), which is kind of the bare minimum, but still worth noting. What's truly notable about the progression from turf to turf is the ways in which the design of the challenges provide a steady, notable, and above all else, fair increase in difficulty. At first, you can get away with being a bit reckless in how you move, but starting in the second turf, you have to start taking the challenges seriously. Even so, in that second turf, you can still be a bit liberal with your placement of checkpoints. However, as the challenge continues to ramp up in the third turf, you both have to exhibit even more mastery of your movement and start to be more conservative with those checkpoints. Finally, in the last turf, you have to have both of these gameplay aspects completely mastered. While that may sound like it has potential for disaster on paper, another aspect of the way these levels are designed that earns Demon Turf the #1 spot is how it organically teaches you to be better. For instance, in one level, you might learn that purple surfaces prevent you from walking, so you can only move by jumping. Then, in the next level, you might see purple splotches on a wall and, without being told to, be able to read the context and know you'll stick to it vertically. Then, a couple levels from then, you might see a purple splotch on a rectangular beam, stick to it, then realize that the next purple splotch is on the next edge of the beam, forcing you to think not just about the way the surface works, but also how to use your basic abilities to get to it. It's like this with every challenge you come across, and as a direct result, while the challenge does ramp up considerably from turf to turf, the game basically paves the way for your success if you're willing to try for it. This is but the tip of the iceburg in terms of reasons why Demon Turf's level design is so great, but like I said in the introduction, I promised myself I'd be brief in my blurbs....even though I really like talking about Demon Turf. So, go read my review if you haven't already for a full list of the goodies in store for players.
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Best Atmosphere
Atmosphere is essentially the prime technical award, hence why I always have it last. What atmosphere means in this context isn't necessarily that it's like a Denis Villaneuve film, rather that whatever the tone is, I remain immersed in the narrative, gameplay, world, whatever, for as long as possible. To achieve this, a game must be exceptional on the technical front. If there's one technical thing a game does poorly, for example, then it must do something else excellently to pick up the slack. A game with great atmosphere isn't a technically perfect game, in other words...rather, it's a game that does what it needs to in order to keep the player feeling like they're a part of the action.
#10): Necromunda: Hired Gun
Kicking off this list at #10, we have a great example of what I meant at the end of the opening statements for this section. From a technical standpoint, Necromunda: Hired Gun is quite weak. Framerate drops, missing sound effect, wiping literally all of my saved data for no reason, you name it. But it excels so excellently in its level design and visual consistency that the many bugs present didn't take me out of the action...with the exception of when I was forced out of the action by having to start the whole game over again...but you get the drift.
#9): The Forgotten City
Another example of a bit of a buggy game that still manages to earn a spot on this list, The Forgotten City mainly excels in this category due to its level design, soundtrack, and environmental graphical quality. Lead developer Nick Pearce spent a lot of his time consulting with historians while this game was being developed, all in the interest of steeping the game in historical accuracy. As a result, every nook and cranny of the titular city makes you feel like you're in the real deal. Combine that with a soothing soundtrack that sells the feel of the world, and you've got some top tier atmosphere. It's just such a shame that there's as much jankiness as there is.
#8): Impostor Factory
Any Kan Gao game relies almost exclusively on its soundtrack to develop its atmosphere, since basically all you're doing is walking and reading. Impostor Factory is no exception, and while it's not the greatest soundtrack Gao has composed, it's still great, so the atmosphere it creates follows suit.
#7): Metroid Dread
Metroid Dread earns this spot primarily because of its EMMI sections. Now, as I stated in my review, I didn't like these sections at all, but when you're stealthily avoiding an EMMI, it's exactly as intense as Nintendo intended. The combination of the EMMI's chirping sounds alongside the sudden silencing of music and ambient noise create a legitimately good horror atmosphere. However, when you inevitably get seen by an EMMI because of their erratic movement, that tension turns to annoyance. So that combined with the fact that it's a relatively small portion of the game that has this atmosphere keep Metroid Dread from rising further up this list.
#6): The Ascent
So, remember how I said "games don't need to be like Denis Villaneuve films" in the introductory statements in order to be eligible for this category? Well, The Ascent kinda is like one, what with its Bladerunner 2049-esque aesthetic and everything. It's actually kind of strange to me, I don't normally view twin-stick shooters as being atmosphere-heavy, but The Ascent nails it! I mean, it would have nailed it with that aforementioned aesthetic alone, but on top of that, it also adds immense crowd density and a collateral damage system. This solidifies the cutthroat nature of the world and, together with the excellent "cinematography" evident in every second you spend walking from objective to objective, it creates one hell of an immersive experience.
#5): Death's Door
Because everything that's difficult has to be compared to Dark Souls nowadays, Death's Door has, of course, not been an exception. But I'd argue that, at least on the atmospheric front, the comparison is warranted in this case. Much like Miyazaki's masterpiece, Death's Door's environments are of the intimidatingly lonely variety, with the only real breaks from the loneliness being the occasional interaction with an npc who happens to be exploring the same area. But in direct contrast to how Dark Souls executes this, Death's Door emphasizes the player's isolation with music, rather than a lack of music until a boss fight occurs. My mind immediately jumps to the track that plays in the Witch of Urns' garden: a flute-heavy (I think, or maybe a high clarinet...I'm a strings person) affair that sounds like it belongs in a posh garden such as this. And while the track certainly does fit the garden setting on its own, it also in no uncertain terms establishes that it's a hostile environment. Beyond these aspects, there's also plenty of environmental storytelling to be found, but I think I've said enough on this entry for you to get the picture.
#4): Ender Lillies: Quietus of the Knights
Oddly enough, almost anything that could be said for Death's Door's atmosphere can also be said for that of Ender Lillies. Much like in the former title, the main ingredient of the game's atmosphere is the player's sense of isolation, only, in this case, you don't even get the reprieve of talking to charming npcs. So, the isolation is far denser, and the soundtrack does an equally good job of both selling the environments and enhancing the sense of hostility (even when the track includes innocent "da-da-daaa"-ing from a child vocalist). But one thing Ender Lillies has that separates it from the spot #5 winner are the backdrops you move through. Adding to the atmosphere in this game are the disturbing, ruinous environments you spend the whole runtime with.
#3): Backbone
Any noir game worth its salt had better earn a spot on this list, I'd say! So naturally Backbone is worthy! I've actually spoken at length about the aspects of the game that establish its atmosphere: the attention to detail in the pixel art, the quality of the lighting used to set the scene in this pixel art context, and the moody, brooding soundtrack. If you still need convincing, go back to the "Best Soundtrack Piece" category and listen to "I Wonder."
#2): Resident Evil: Village
Similarly to what I said in the previous blurb, any horror game worth its salt had better earn a spot on this list! Really, if you can think of something that goes into crafting excellent atmosphere, Village does it well. While there's not much in the way of a soundtrack for this game, as I've already stated, the sound design does all the heavy lifting that a soundtrack might normally do. Then there's the sheer graphical quality: the hyper-realistic character models, the flawless lighting, the spastic animations of the lycans and their cousins, it's all great. Really, Village would be a shoe-in to win this award were it not for the terrible writing and the cartoonish Call of Duty direction it goes towards the end (need I remind you, dear reader, that one of the final bosses has you fighting essentially a mech while piloting a mech yourself in the middle of the sky?). Because of the fact that Resident Evil just can't seem to shake the stupid goofiness off, a far less technically-proficient game actually takes home the bacon in the atmosphere category.
Atmosphere of the Year: Jett: The Far Shore
As we'll continue to discuss a bit later in this article, Jett: The Far Shore is far from the most technically strong game of 2021. Sure, there were some buggy games on this list, but Jett is among the least polished games of this year. So how on earth does it win the ultimate technical award? Well, it's simple: Jett aims to do one thing and one thing alone with its atmosphere, and everything it does in service to that end is top notch. The thing in question? Immerse the player in the single most alien world possible without there actually being any aliens. The made up language that the characters speak? The effort that went into the specific ambiance that comes with radio chatter? The sense of scope when you meet your first Kolos? The ritualistic wailing of actual vocalists during story moments tied to this society's religion? The cold, synthetic vocals that make up the accompaniment to the void of space? All of this, literally every technical aspect that the game nails, all of it is in service of creating as majestic and alien an atmosphere as humanly possible. And as a direct result of this, Jett: The Far Shore is the game with the best atmosphere for all of 2021!
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The Character Awards
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Best Character Development
I always like to start off the character awards by just taking a minute to recognize the games that handled their character development the best. Every other category in this section deals with specific characters, but with just that, it can be easy to miss the forest for the trees. So, here are the games with the best overall character development in 2021.
#5): Persona 5 Strikers
Being a spiritual successor to a critically-acclaimed game where you got to spend a mandatory 100+ hours with its cast of characters, it would've been easy for the developers of Strikers to rest on their laurels, given how well-established their roster already was. But as I said in my review, Strikers smartly spends most of its time establishing new characters and giving more screen time to the party members that didn't have as much in the base game (such as Haru). This makes the game a worthwhile successor, rather than just a run-of-the-mill Warriors-style spinoff.
#4): Before Your Eyes
I'm going to save the brunt of the character development discussion for a later category, but I'll just say that if I didn't want to be manipulative, Before Your Eyes needed to nail its characters, and it succeeded.
#3): Guardians of the Galaxy
I'll never forget one critic's review of Avengers: Infinity War in which the reviewer wrote "even by Marvel's usual standard of serviceable mediocrity, this falls flat." I didn't agree with his opinion on the film, but that line "usual standard of serviceable mediocrity" 100% summarizes my feelings about the MCU. And while the original Guardians of the Galaxy film was absolutely better than I was expecting, not even those charming characters could make the property immune to that summarization. Well, in comes Eidos Montreal with objectively superior versions of each character and a story filled with emotional depth with characters like Drax the Destroyer, of all people! I didn't think it was possible, but the developers proved me wrong.
#2): Impostor Factory
I don't know what you want me to say. It's a Kan Gao game, and Impostor Factory contains his greatest characters yet! End of story!
Most Thorough Character Development of the Year: The Forgotten City
I think it goes without saying that, given the game's nature, if the character development weren't superb, The Forgotten City would've been a massive flop. After all, how are you supposed to care about preventing the deaths of the city's 20-or-so inhabitants if you don't care about them in the first place? I said it in my review, and I'll say it again: If the only character in this game was Galerius, it would already be an easy shoe-in for the top spot in this category. But as it stands, it's not just Galerius, it's an entire cast of excellent characters. There's Desius, the snake-in-the-grass merchant who has the GOB Bluth effect of being such a complete slime ball that you can't help but love him. There's Equitia, the priestess, who is one of the single friendliest, most pleasant characters in any game this year. There's also Duli, the lovable man suffering from a developmental disorder who loves his doll and his best friend Galerius (because Galerius is wonderful). Then there's Georgius, the jolly Dionesian who dedicates his days to making new clothes because "if we're all going to turn into statues, we might as well look good doing it!" These are just a handful of the excellent characters you'll spend your time talking to in The Forgotten City, and I hope what I've described so far piques your interest!
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Best Voice Actress
In recent years, finding enough people to put on either the best voice actress or voice actor list has been difficult. This year was not much easier, but I was at least able to confidently put together a top 5 for the voice actresses at least!
#5): Megan Harvey as Sophia (Persona 5 Strikers)
For most of P5S' runtime, Megan Harvey had one job as Sophia: be cute. And would ya' know it? She accomplished that goal, solidifying Sophia as a bona-fide "pledge to protect" situation. But it's not just that. During the emotional climax of the game, Sophia makes a passionate speech about friendship (as characters in Japanese games are want to do) and awakens to her persona. Harvey's acting in this segment is much better than I would have expected, so I made sure to put her down on my shortlist of candidates.
#4): Dewa Ayu Dewi Larassanti as Kena (Kena: Bridge of Spirits)
I sincerely hope I selected the correct language cast member for this...I was having a hard time confirming whether Larassanti was the english cast member or not, because I'm evidently a huge racist. But either way, I'm just gonna go for it! In my review of Kena: Bridge of Spirits, I described the titular spirit guardian as "just delightful," and a lot of that feeling comes from Larassanti's vocal performance. Whether she's coaxing timid children out from hiding or greeting a new member of the rot joining her party, Larassanti delivers her lines in a way that's just so freaking sweet that you just can't help but love her character!
#3): Emmanuelle Lussier Martinez as Mantis (Guardians of the Galaxy)
Unlike with most of the rest of the mainline cast, I'm not too familiar with Mantis as a character, since I didn't bother seeing the second GotG film. So all I have to go on is this game's representation. In Guardians of the Galaxy, Mantis is portrayed as a simultaneously air-headed and all-knowing being: capable of seeing every timeline in existence and knowing the circumstances which lead to the events of each one, but not so great at determining where she is or what timeline she's currently in. And Martinez brings this persona to life perfectly: expressing serious concern where warranted, aloofness when she gets an aspect of this timeline confused, and adorable adoration when talking to or about her "little fuzzy" (Rocket, to his dismay).
#2): Sophia Roberts as Equitia (The Forgotten City)
Sophia Roberts' performance as Equitia carries a lot of the same strengths that Larassanti's performance as Kena does. Like Kena, Equitia is an instantly lovable, genuinely kind person, and like Larassanti, Roberts clearly understood the assignment. An example that comes to mind is a side quest in which you help Galerius by delivering a flower to Equitia from her "secret admirer" (it can't be a public thing because ancient customs and priestesses and all that). Right after immediately recognizing that it was from Galerius, she starts talking about how pretty much everybody knows he's in love with her, and she ends this monologue with "he's a wonderful man, and my favorite person in the whole world, but he's the least subtle secret admirer I can imagine...always looking at me with those puppy-dog eyes!" and the warmth and adoration in her tone just make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside on Galerius' behalf.
Voice Actress of the Year: Sarah Burns as Elle (Before Your Eyes)
We're going to go through this in a bit more detail later, but I'll say this for now. Elle is a mother in a bit of a bad situation, and Sarah Burns earns her spot on this list by nailing the gravity of it all.
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Best Voice Actor
Voice actor was a bit more difficult to fill up this year, especially given that I wanted to only have any given game take up one spot in a given list if at all possible, but I managed!
#5): Robert Fleet as Leonardo (Resident Evil: Village)
Leonardo is only in Village for maybe 5 minutes maximum, but I legitimately put voice actor Robert Fleet down on my short list of candidates because of how impressed I was by how he handled his handful of lines.
#4): Jon McLaren as Star-Lord (Guardians of the Galaxy)
Not only do I think Jon McLaren is a superior Star-Lord compared to Chris Pratt just on voice quality alone, but I also truly respect the effort McLaren put into the game's variety of emotions. He delivers his quips with the right degree of douchery, and when the time comes for the character to have a serious heart-to-heart with someone else, he also delivers there.
#3): Steven Kelly as Galerius/Jack Ayers as Ulpius (The Forgotten City)
While Sophia Roberts was the standout member of The Forgotten City's female cast (everyone else was great, but Roberts was just noticeably better), the male cast is largely on the same level of excellence. Literally any of them could have earned a spot on this list, so I decided to just grab the two ones I'd say were the best and have them share a spot. As much as I hate to say it, though, I'm going to have to delay the discussion of Jack Ayers as Ulpius to a later category. It's not that I'm trying to avoid spoilers, I just really want to talk about his performance in the best context possible, so just keep that in the back of your mind as you continue. For Steven Kelly's part, he just sells Galerius' infectious optimism and good naturedness, and you just want good things for him when he talks about himself.
#2): Eric Edelstein as Richard (Before Your Eyes)
If I ever need a voice actor to play the part of the stereotypically aloof, but majorly helpful in crisis situations kind of dad character, I'm looking no further than Eric Edelstein. Seriously, this guy understood the assignment when he took on the role of Richard Brynn. The earnest way he tries to explain how he got their cat's gender wrong? The equally earnest way he compliments his son by asking "how do you know so many words?!" The 100% equally earnest way he tells his wife (in response to a new piano piece she wrote) "It makes me feel like maybe if the indescribable darkness I feel can be captured that perfectly...maybe it's not so indescribable?" Edelstein nails every line, and that contributes more than you might imagine to the emotional punch of this story.
Voice Actor of the Year: Max Mittelman as Ryuji Sakamoto (Persona 5 Strikers)
Yeah yeah, we all love Ryuji, but is Max Mittelman really worthy of the prestigious honor of Voice Actor of the Year from a small outlet with maybe 5 consistent readers? Just because he once again plays a character we all love? Well, my argument is that Ryuji gets taken to new territory in Persona 5 Strikers. For one thing, his status as a comic relief character is amped up bigtime, and with it, Mittelman's performance. His sense of comedic timing and tone in this game is even better than it was in the base game. The clearest example that comes to mind is an exchange in which Ryuji laments the fact that he and the other phantom thieves don't have a harem of fangirls constantly following them around and cheering for them. At this moment, Joker has a couple of dialogue options. One of them is to do a high pitched voice and yell "eeeeeeee! Ryuji!!!!!" If you have Joker say that, Ryuji responds with an immediate "NOT YOU!" with so much force in it that you can just tell he was expecting his best friend to pull something like that! But there's also an internet famous moment where he finally drops the f-bomb in the heat of passion defending Sophia from insults, and boy can you tell that Mittelman put his back into that one! Yeah, he was playing the same character we all know and love, but he took his performance above and beyond for this spiritual successor, and he's officially my Voice Actor of the Year for 2021!
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Lamest Character
Most of the categories in the character awards are of the positive persuasion. But with every good, well-written, well-acted character, there are unfortunately characters who are just, as the category name suggests, lame. Whether because they're stupid, they're poorly-written, they're big old wimps, or some combination of all of the above or reasons I've yet to list, every character on this list was one of the single lamest characters 2021 had to offer.
#5): Dani's Friend (Far Cry 6)
Notice that I don't even refer to this character by name, nor could I find a picture of him. That's strike 1. Strike 2 is what little he does in the story. Imagine this: you live in a fascist island nation and you've laid out the groundwork for you and your friends to escape to America. You see a bunch of soldiers oppressing people on the streets below you, all of them blissfully and fascistfully ignorant of your existence in this moment. Do you a) keep your stupid mouth shut, b) keep your stupid mouth shut, c) keep your stupid mouth shut, d) keep your stupid mouth shut, or e) scream "F*** CASTILLO" as loud as you can at the soldiers, alerting them to where your friends are and getting shot in the head and killed as a result. Dani's friend chose option e. I guess there had to be something to add tension to the game's opening couple minutes, but the fact that Ubisoft decided to try and build this tension through a character who makes decisions as stupid as this is mind-boggling.
#4): Ethan Winters (Resident Evil: Village)
#3): Midgi (Demon Turf)
#2): Husband (12 Minutes)
Lamest Character of the Year: Zoe (Road 96)
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Best Animal Character
As you'll eventually see if you even remotely know me, this category exists for one reason and one reason alone this year. The best animal character is quite specific: only non-anthropomorphic animal characters are eligible, so it's literally only the characters that are 100% animal on the whatever-it-is furry scale.
#5): Toy Poodle (Demon Turf)
[Couldn't find a pic] It's a tiny dog that sits on your head while you perform advanced platforming maneuvers, what else is there to say?
#4): The Chinchilla (Omno)
[Couldn't find a pic] Well, it's not actually a chinchilla, but boy does it look like one. Plus, without it, I might've ended up getting lost in Onmo's world.
#3): The Mastiff (Necromunda: Hired Gun)
#2): Kammy (Guardians of the Galaxy)
Animal Character of the Year: Chorizo (Far Cry 6)
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Best Love Interest
I've never been called a sexist or anything like that for doing this category, but at this point, it's become a tradition to open this category up by mentioning that this isn't a "Hottest Girls" list. Rather, this list is all about characters who fit their role as love interest the best, regardless of what form that might take.
#5): Chloe (Before Your Eyes)
#4): Evelyn (Emily is Away <3)
#3): Wife (12 Minutes)
#2): Fernando (Wife Quest)
Love Interest of the Year: Lenri (Impostor Factory)
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Best Supporting Character
Often the best characters in their respective games, supporting characters tend to offer more fleshed-out personalities than the protagonists they support. By not being the eyes through which we view the world, these characters can offer different perspectives or just make us feel warm and fuzzy inside. These are the supporting characters who did the former, the latter, or something inbetween in 2021.
#10): Philly (Far Cry 6)
#9): Stan and Mitch (Road 96)
#8): Bill (Impostor Factory)
#7): Anatoly (Backbone)
#6): Mom (Chicory: A Colorful Tale)
#5): Drax (Guardians of the Galaxy)
#4): Elle (Before Your Eyes)
#3): Mat (Emily is Away <3)
#2): Ryuji Sakamoto (Persona 5 Strikers)
Supporting Character of the Year: Galerius (The Forgotten City)
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Best Antagonist
As we've seen with games like Far Cry 3, a good antagonist can elevate a game to extreme degrees. Likewise, as we've seen with games like Mass Effect: Andromeda, a bad antagonist can make a mediocre game worse. In either case, the stakes of a story are tied solely to the villain, so it's up to them to sell those stakes. Whether by being ultimately sympathetic characters dragged down dark paths or by being so despicable that you can't wait to shoot them in the face, these were the villains that carried their weight this year.
#10): Raven Beak (Metroid Dread)
#9): EMMA (Persona 5 Strikers)
#8): Morgana (Wife Quest)
#7): Cassandra Bloodworth (Backbone)
#6): The Lord of Doors (Death's Door)
#5): The Corruption (Chicory: A Colorful Tale)
#4): Lady Demitrescu (Resident Evil: Village)
#3): The Author of the Rule (The Forgotten City)
#2): The Universal Church of Truth (Guardians of the Galaxy)
Antagonist of the Year: Bembe Alvarez (Far Cry 6)
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Best Protagonist
As I always say when opening up this category, the protagonist is the pair of eyes through which we view the narrative world. They can be reliable, unreliable, questionable, it doesn't matter. In any case, they're vital to a game's story being a success. With decent enough side characters or villains, a game with a lame protagonist can be salvaged (look at Resident Evil Village, for example), but the odds aren't great. These are the 10 best protagonists of 2021.
#10): Me (Emily is Away <3)
#9): Samus Aran (Metroid Dread)
#8): Kena (Kena: Bridge of Spirits)
#7): Joker (Persona 5 Strikers)
#6): Peter Quill A.K.A Star-Lord (Guardians of the Galaxy)
#5): Howard Lotor (Backbone)
#4): Mia (Wife Quest)
#3): Alfredo (Chicory: A Colorful Tale)
#2): The "Oracle" (The Forgotten City)
Protagonist of the Year: Quincy (Impostor Factory)
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The Aspect Awards
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Best Writing
A game's plot can be as good as it wants, but if it doesn't have good writing to back it up, it's going to fall flat. There's a reason why Kingdoms of Amalur is the namesake for the "Worst Writing" Dishonorable Mention, after all. That game had an excellent, original story, but it was bogged down by some of the worst writing I'd ever heard. So, disregarding whatever quality these games' stories might have had, these were the games that had the best writing this year.
#5): Emily is Away <3
It's always amazing to me that lone developer Kyle Seeley always manages to write teenagers 100% better than the hacks at Dontnod ever do with their terrible Life is Strange games. You never find any cringeworthy lines like "are you for cereal?" in an Emily is Away game. This time around, Seeley develops three separate characters each with their own consistent tones, and it's his best work yet!
#4): Before Your Eyes
Before Your Eyes was a risky story to tell. One wrong move in the writing, and the story would go from legitimately heartbreaking to emotionally manipulative. It was a fine line to walk, but GoodbyeWorld Games managed to make it work.
#3): Guardians of the Galaxy
There's a lot of writing in Guardians of the Galaxy, enough to ensure that any given setpiece moment will interrupt a conversation without fail. A lot of it can tend to be one-note in terms of tone, and not all of the jokes land as well as they should. But the fact that, with so much writing, most of it is consistently good is worthy of praise!
#2): Impostor Factory
I hate to keep defaulting to this, but Impostor Factory is a Kan Gao game, so what did you expect? If I had to offer a bit more commentary, I would say that this particular game has more lines that hit me in my feels than past games, and more of the humor clicks with me this time around. However, besides those little bits of humor that worked this time, Gao's particular humor style still doesn't really click with me, which keeps it from winning the #1 spot.
Greatest Writing of the Year: The Forgotten City
An investigative, narrative-driven game like The Forgotten City lives or dies because of its writing, and lead director Nick Pearce didn't win an Australian Writers Guild award for the Skyrim mod that this game started out as for nothing! We already discussed this a bit in the opening category of the character awards, but all of this game's 20-something characters are incredibly well-written, down to the most screentime-deprived cast members. But beyond that, the specific plot points and the details that make up the truth of the game's world are all interconnected so seamlessly and cleverly that, despite the plot twist being an ultimately predictable one, it's still a good plot twist in that while the breadcrumbs are right there for you to see, you won't see them until you're looking back after you've learned the truth. It's a lot like Bioshock in that regard.
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Best Cutscene Direction
Originally conceived to give 2018's God of War praise in an area I didn't normally talk about, this category celebrates games where thought and vision went into the creation of their cutscenes. Given how much cutscenes seem to dominate game storytelling these days, it's an incredibly important thing to get right, and these were the games that did it best in 2021.
#5): Scarlet Nexus
Most of the time, Scarlet Nexus is lazy with its storytelling and just does the whole visual novel-style thing. However, in the handful of 10-second cutscenes we get, the action is pretty solidly choreographed and makes the game feel more like an anime, so credit where it's due.
#4): Impostor Factory
Basically the whole game is a cutscene, and much like with Quincy as a character, a lot of this game's greatest moments are so great because of how Kan Gao chooses to frame them. He always manages to have the camera pan across a grand reveal in such a way that the emotions flow into you exactly as fast or slow as he wants, and much like with everything else, it's at its best in Impostor Factory.
#3): Kena: Bridge of Spirits
The cutscene direction in Kena: Bridge of Spirits excels largely because the developers knew how to direct these moments in a way that emphasizes the quality of the animations the best. A lot of time this means just having the camera stay in one spot and letting that animation speak for itself, but a key aspect of good direction is doing what's going to make the scene look the best, so it works in this context.
#2): Resident Evil: Village
I have one main example to describe the cutscene direction in Resident Evil: Village, and it's a bit on the gruesome side, but it's not like I'm gonna show pictures or video or anything. Actually, I believe I've already referred to it: the part where Ethan is strung up with hooks impaled through his palms. During this cutscene, we know Ethan needs to get himself down, so when the camera angles up to his right hand and the hand starts to move, we can immediately tell that he's going to get down by pulling the hook up through his hand and out from the space between two of his fingers, so it establishes the gruesomeness before it even happens. So many horrible things happen to Ethan's hands throughout this game, and every time that kind of thing happens, it's framed in exactly the right way to make us as uncomfortable as possible.
Cutscene Direction of the Year: Guardians of the Galaxy
Much like with Kena, the cutscene direction in Guardians of the Galaxy has mainly one focus: make the humor work as well as possible. The main example that comes to mind happens fairly early on in the game. Having just gotten out of the quarantine zone (which they weren't supposed to be in in the first place), the Guardians are confronted by police ships. Star-Lord orders Drax to hide the space llama they found so that there would be no proof of illegal activity aboard the ship if they searched. Most cutscenes in the game are in 3rd-person, but for whatever reason, this one begins in first-person. Star-Lord talks to the police chief on the ship's main terminal, smooth-talking his way out of trouble, when all of a sudden, Drax enters the field of view holding a giant box full of illegal tech and not-so-subtly whispers that there was no room for both the illegal tech and the space llama, all while the police chief looks on from the video feed. The decision to have this cutscene be in first person made that moment gut-bustingly funny, and the game maintains this focus on humor framing throughout.
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Best Quest
Best Quest has been out of the spotlight for several years now, simply because I haven't had the patience for RPGs as much since Doom 2016. But this year I wanted to bring the category back and just think really hard about what constitutes a quest. So, here's what I came up with!
#5): Major Persona Missions (Persona 5 Strikers)
Over the course of Strikers' runtime, Lavenza will occasionally tell you that she senses a powerful persona somewhere in a dungeon you've already visited. Your mission (if you choose to accept it) becomes to find this persona and defeat it in battle so that you can use it yourself, giving you a definite advantage against tougher enemies. Not only do these quests come with great rewards in both experience and strength, but the actual battles against these personas tend to be pretty exciting!
#4): Ymir's Speed Trials (Wife Quest)
Ymir's Speed Trials task you with getting all the way through a level within a set amount of time. Doing so requires thorough knowledge of the level and full mastery of your skill set. While these trials are never incredibly challenging, it's always a positive rush when you manage to cross the finish line in time to get your reward...which is another picture in the gallery, but so what? It's still a reward for a job well done.
#3): The Election (The Forgotten City)
This quest is more or less the culmination of many quests before it, and the objective is simple: get Galerius elected as Magistrate. It's a multi-step process where you have to set certain gears in motion across loops to make it so that the men of the city (this is ancient Rome, remember) decide to vote for him, and as someone who only wants positive things for good old Galerius, I enjoyed this quest immensely.
#2): Chapter IV (Jett: The Far Shore)
The final chapter of Jett: The Far Shore is where the s*** really starts to hit the fan. The scout party have to raise a comm link to reconnect with the orbiting party before the end of the day, but the dreadwaves have become stronger and more frequent, and Mei has to take down a Kolos before she can even get started thinking about that! This is also the mission where the game's ever-escalating sense of science fiction wonder hits its high points, as Mei and company jett across the land fighting a new kind of creature: a sentient being made up of two columns of vertical lasers that seem to form feet originating from the sky that zap everything around them with lasers. It's all just so freaking cool, and it was a hell of a way to close out this excellent game.
Quest of the Year: Trophy Time Trials (Demon Turf)
If you aren't one to try to get on leaderboards, the trophy time trials of Demon Turf probably aren't going to be any more special to you than the ones in Wife Quest. I know that I wasn't a leaderboard person before, but as I started trying to improve my times in each level, I started to realize how many little hidden ways of doing things there were, and this stoked my curiosity. Suddenly, what was once a matter of beating a combat section as quickly as possible became "I wonder if I could just jump as high as I can, do a glide over to that pillar, then release at the exact right time to get a wall jump off so I don't have to beat this combat section to make the platform appear?" The levels in the game, as I've already alluded to, are laid out in such a way that a clever player can come up with a hypothesis and execute it if they're skilled enough, and I found the challenge and the creativity I could express in my solutions to be some of the most fun I've had all year! Did I mention I got the world records in the Port Manteau and Baby Ocean levels? Because I did.
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Best Enemies
Unless a game is devoid of combat, gameplay can live or die off the quality of the enemies you fight within its systems. Take the original Borderlands, for example, which received critical flack for its lack of enemy variety. Sure the gameplay was polished, but you were just shooting the same braindead, contextless enemies for the whole runtime. So these were the enemy types that most impressed in 2021.
#5): Others (Scarlet Nexus)
#4): Yaran Soldiers (Far Cry 6)
#3): Monster Girls (Wife Quest)
#2): Shadows (Persona 5 Strikers)
Enemies of the Year: The Blight (Ender Lillies: Quietus of the Knights)
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Best Boss
Since the dawn of gaming, bosses have served as the occasional test of your skills, and as such, their quality is paramount to making the whole game experience work. Whether a boss exists to determine how well you've mastered a certain ability or mechanic, or whether a boss exists for the sake of a general knowledge test, they tend to make up some of any given game's greatest moments. So, these were the 2021 bosses that stuck with me the most.
#10): Karen Travers (Scarlet Nexus)
#9): False God Demiurge (Persona 5 Strikers)
#8): Tiana, Queen of the Fairies (Wife Quest)
#7): The Demon King (Demon Turf)
#6): The Author of the Rule (The Forgotten City)
#5): The Final Kolos (Jett: The Far Shore)
#4): The Witch of Urns (Death's Door)
#3): Chozo Soldiers (Metroid Dread)
#2): The Hunter (Kena: Bridge of Spirits)
Boss of the Year: Ulv, The Mad Knight (Ender Lillies: Quietus of the Knights)
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Best Weapon
Weapons, being the primary way we engage with a game's systems, are understandably important. But there's more that goes into a good weapon than you might think. It has to feel good to use, but in order to feel that way, all sorts of technical details (such as audio design) have to be on point. Furthermore, a weapon must be useful. This doesn't necessarily mean it's the most powerful weapon in the game, but a truly good weapon has a use, whether that be offensive capacity or supportive benefits. These were the weapons I enjoyed using most in 2021.
#10): The Staff (Kena: Bridge of Spirits)
I''m a bit of a sucker for weapons that also serve as additional weaponry. The cane whip from Bloodborne, the pistol that turns into every other gun type from Control, those kinds of thing just hit me where I live! So, needless to say, Kena's staff, which also serves as a bow that shoots magic arrows, was right up my alley.
#9): Silenced Sniper Rifles (Far Cry 6)
It's become a bit of a meme that the best way to win in any Far Cry scenario is to use a silenced sniper rifle. That meme, like stereotypes, is based on truth. So, while it's never a surprise that the silenced sniper rifles in a Far Cry game are fun to use, a good weapon is a good weapon.
#8): Diana's Bow (The Forgotten City)
While there aren't many enemies to shoot with this bow, the real attraction here is the versatility of its use. Anything you shoot with this bow will turn to gold, so how will you use that? Do you have a townsperson who requests something extremely valuable in exchange for doing what you ask of them? Why not visit the farm and turn a goose's eggs to gold, then give this townsperson that? The possibilities for use are endless.
#7): The Overwhelmer (The Ascent)
I'm not normally a fan of the big miniguns in shooting games, specifically because of how much I value freedom of mobility. However, in the case of The Ascent, there's no movement penalty for using large guns, so I was all about using the minigun codenamed "the Overwhelmer!" This is largely due to the quality of the sound samples used in its firing noises. I was playing with a mouse and keyboard, not a controller, yet I could have sworn the mouse was vibrating just from the sheer quality of the gunshot sounds. It felt good to use, and it killed enemies fast, what else is there to talk about?
#6): Screw Attack (Metroid Dread)
It's kind of cheap because it's basically an instant kill on anything you touch simply by jumping, but hell, a certain Italian plumber has been getting away with that for years, so screw (attack) it! Basically, after a certain point, Samus unlocks an ability that lets her jump infinitely, and if she lands on an enemy in this mode, it usually kills them instantly. Not only is it fun to use, but it makes traversing through larger environments a lot speedier, which is always welcome in a game that requires any amount of backtracking.
#5): The Shield (Wife Quest)
Move over, Captain America! Vibranium is nothing compared to whatever Mia's shield in Wife Quest is made out of! This thing reflects any and all attacks from any and all enemies, to the point where the best strategy for some enemies is to just hide behind your shield and let them kill themselves. Of course, in the main game, this isn't actually all the feasible because use of the shield drains your mana, but in the God Mode you unlock as a reward for beating the game for the first time, you can sweep the entire game's roster of enemies just by using this beast of a buckler!
#4): Personas (Persona 5 Strikers)
Much like Pokemon, Personas each have their own type weaknesses and type advantages. However, there's also no limit to the kinds of skills they can learn, as long as they have the space for them. So just like in the base game, in Strikers, you can fuse personas together and manipulate their skills to generate monster personas that can cover just about any enemy type. Normally, that's not my thing, but I find the whole persona system so interesting that I 100%-ed the compendium in the "Royal" version of the base game this year after completing Strikers. So, combine this compelling fusion mechanic with the new realtime combat system Strikers boasts, and you've got yourself an even better version of the weapons you're familiar with from Persona 5.
#3): Magic (Death's Door)
Magic in Death's Door has four forms: arrows, fire, bombs, and a grappling hook. That last one should be self-explanatory as to why it makes magic a good thing. For the other forms, though, it's all about their accuracy and sense of impact. Despite the game's isometric view, your spells will always go exactly where you tell them to, which makes the constant switching between magic and melee attacks flow far more smoothly than one might expect from such a humbly developed title. Furthermore, there's always a great sense of impact when these spells land (especially in the case of the bomb) due to a couple visual tricks such as ever-so-mild screen shakes. Sometimes the particle effects that help fuel this sense of impact obscure your view of the action, so it's a bit of a double-edged sword, but still fun to use and satisfying to look at nonetheless.
#2): The Western Merchant (Ender Lillies: Quietus of the Knights)
Of all the spirits you can equip in Ender Lillies, there was no spirit that I found more useful than the western merchant. Sure, there were spirits who did more damage or had better range, but the spirit of this flying crow was practically one of my mains throughout my time with the game. His use is simple: you activate him, and he flies around in the background, leveraging constant barrages of energy at whatever enemies or bosses are in front of you. In especially difficult boss fights, this effect was crucial to my success, as I could always guarantee that I was whittling the boss' health down even when I had to retreat from an attack or if I couldn't get to a faltered boss in time to deal extra melee damage. The merchant doesn't have enough uses to stay around for the full length of most boss battles, but his efforts helped me get them down to at least their final stage with staggering regularity.
Weapon of the Year: The Grapnel (Necromunda: Hired Gun)
While guns are, of course, the main weapon of Necromunda, I found that the in-game grappling hook was actually my greatest ally. See, one of the many janky aspects of Necromunda is the fact that the entirety of the game's budget went into making the gameply as fun as possible...regardless of whether or not it makes sense. Most enemies can be one-hit-killed by grappling onto them and instigating a melee attack..and even the enemies that this can't be done to....actually can have it be done to them if you try again...so with that in mind, swooping around the battlefields with the grappling hook, constantly one-shotting everything and always landing exactly where I wanted to land (thanks to how smartly the hook was programmed) was far more of a blast than just shooting at people could ever be! Thanks for the jankiness, developers!
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Best Established Setting
Normally I just do one "Best Setting" category, but this year I found that there was a pretty clear need for two smaller lists. Half of the items on my shortlist for Best Setting were "established" and half of them were "overarching." I'll explain what I mean by overarching when we get to that category, but for now, here's what I mean by "established": these were settings that either had given names, were self-contained enough to not really need a name, or had no specific name, but existed someplace identifiable on Earth as we know it.
#5): Veles (The Ascent)
#4): The Village (Resident Evil: Village)
#3): Picnic (Chicory: A Colorful Tale)
#2): Necromunda (Necromunda: Hired Gun)
Established Setting of the Year: The Forgotten City
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Best Overarching Setting
On the other side of the setting spectrum, we have the "overarching" settings. This one is a bit more straightforward in how it can be described: If the only descriptor I can think of for a setting is "the world of { game name}" or a vague reference to a setting that exists in fantasy (such as "the kingdom" or "the planet" or "the country", those are overarching settings. And these are the best ultimately vague settings of 2021!
#5): The Kingdom (Ender Lillies: Quietus of the Knights)
#4): The World of Wife Quest
#3): The World of Death's Door
#2): The World of Impostor Factory
Overarching Setting of the Year: The Planet (Jett: The Far Shore)
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Biggest Disappointment
No year is free from disappointments. Even in a year as good for gaming as this one, there were still enough disappointments for me to be able to fill a full 10-item list. Whether it's a full game or just an aspect of one, these were the 10...things...that disappointed me the most in 2021.
#10): Kena: Bridge of Spirits PC performance
Kena: Bridge of Spirits was created primarily as a showcase for the power of the Playstation 5 hardware, so needless to say, it's a monster of a graphical presentation. However, the port to PC came with a couple small, but nonetheless noticeable little hiccups in the performance department that kept it from being as good as it could have been.
#9): The Ascent technical problems
Being published by an indie studio, some degree of jank is often expected in games like The Ascent, but the unfortunate side effect of having created a game as gorgeous and fun as this is that any jankiness just hurts more to experience. It's hardly a cause for a massive loss of points, but it's definitely worthy of a spot on this list.
#8): Scarlet Nexus plot twists
A couple years ago there was an anime on Amazon PrimeTV called "Babylon." It was the single most gripping crime drama I'd ever seen, and it centered on a single premise: what would happen if a country suddenly legalized suicide? It featured some of the most jaw-dropping "no f***ing way!" plot twists, excellent political maneuvering and double crosses, and a torture scene that had me sick to my stomach and down in the dumps for days despite having nothing happen on-screen, no screams from the victim, and only the implications of drawn dotted lines on the body and the reactions of someone forced to watch on a phone. Excellently done stuff, all around...except for the last few episodes which break away from all that entirely and instead have the world leaders spend a few days determining that if they want to determine whether or not the suicide law can be considered "good," they had to first fully define what "good" is. The last few episodes were just characters we'd never seen before debating that topic. Oh, wait, I was supposed to be talking about Scarlet Nexus, wasn't I? Oh well. I'm still salty about that, but the reason I bring this up other than to complain about Babylon is to say this: Scarlet Nexus is Babylon if it sucked from episode 2 and just kept getting worse and worse. What could have been an excellent mystery about extraterrestrial forces attacking the colonies of earth quickly spiraled downward into a convoluted web of time travel, moon colonists, and evil clones. So much wasted potential.
#7): Ender Lillies cardinal sin
For those who don't know, what I consider to be the cardinal sin of game design is this: taking damage from making physical contact with enemies who aren't on fire, covered with spikes, or other reasonable justifications for why you'd get hurt by touching them. Ender Lillies, as good as it is, commits this sin, and it actively makes a couple boss fights unfairly hard.
#6): Wife Quest cardinal sin
Unfortunately, Wife Quest also commits the cardinal sin of game design. But what makes it earn one spot higher on this list than Ender Lilies? Well, after you beat the game for the first time, you unlock the uber-challenging extra mode that plays more like a retro game. In this mode, you don't take damage from touching enemies. So, the developers straight-up proved that they know how to generate challenge without breaking the cardinal sin, but they did it anyway in the game proper. That's a paddlin'!
#5): Jett: The Far Shore's handling
It's no exaggeration to say that Jett: The Far Shore could have been in consideration for the top spot on the GOTY list if it had just handled better. But as it stands, gameplay is a bit of a chore because of the dual problem of the controls not being great and the button prompts requiring a hold instead of a press.
#4): Backbone final act
Backbone is another game that could have been in consideration for a high place on the GOTY list if it just hadn't tripped at the finish line. Not only does protagonist Howard suddenly get infected by an alien parasite that causes him to kill Anatoly and start spewing existential nonsense about being the void or some crap, but it turns out that the reason Cassandra Bloodworth was having her fellow creatures cut into pieces to be served as meat to the apes that rule society was so that women would never again have to kill to gain power....like, what? It's not like this game's story isn't political! Themes of classism are rampant throughout the story, but never once are women portrayed as having it particularly bad! Why Cassandra's motivation couldn't have been tied in with the rampant themes of classism, I don't know, but as a result of this lackluster ending, Backbone is a shadow of what it could have been.
#3): Necromunda progress wiping
As I tried launching one of the later missions in Necromunda, my computer suddenly crashed. When I loaded the game back up, I found that all of my gameplay settings had been saved, but there was no longer any evidence of there ever having been a save file there. I looked through all of my local files for the game, and I could, again, see that my settings had been saved, but there were no files to indicate that I'd ever actually played the game. I ended up going through the whole game again and eventually finishing it, but it's safe to say that the constant threat of having to start all over was not a small disappointment.
#2): 12 Minutes
Few games have seemed to have so much potential and failed as viciously as 12 Minutes. In the leadup to its release, the marketing was excellent, and it seemed like it was going to be a "Best Story" contender. But what we got instead was a frustratingly obtuse point and click adventure with nonsensical logic, and pretty much the worst story I've ever seen in a game that prides itself on its story. Seriously, this garbage story for garbage people is so embarrassingly bad that infamous hack writer David Cage would probably look at the hack writer of this game and ask him "are you sure you don't think that's a little bit ridiculous?" I didn't enjoy a...minute (hahaha)...of 12 Minutes, and while it isn't the #1 spot winner for this list, if I had to point to a game as a whole that was the most disappointing, this would be it with no contest.
Disappointment of the Year: Far Cry 6 ending + realizations afterwards
I don't feel like talking about Far Cry 6's horrible, pointless ending, so I'll just say to look it up if you're curious. But to say that it caused a game I actually enjoyed playing to have a terribly sour taste in my mouth would be a wild understatement. Seemingly every day after I finished playing and reviewing Far Cry 6, the game would continue to do nothing but sour in my mind. The realization that Chorizo was the only aspect of the game with any passion to it, the realization that basically the entire game was nothing but a soulless cash grab with no thought put into it, and the realization that I'd basically been played for a sucker by Ubisoft just kept on eating away at the objective enjoyment I felt while playing. As I was putting together the calculations for these lists, it felt like any time I needed to bump something off to make room for a character or aspect from some other game, Far Cry 6 would be first on the chopping block, and I found myself feeling more and more glad as its overall allocated points got lower and lower as I worked. That shouldn't be a feeling I have about one of my favorite moment-to-moment gameplay experiences of the year, but it's what I felt. That's how terrible and pointless the ending of Far Cry 6 ultimately makes the whole game out to be. I'm glad that I got to play with a cute virtual wheelie dog, but Ubisoft should be ashamed of themselves for this.
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Most Rewarding
This is a brand new category I came up with this year, and I feel like it's pretty self-explanatory, but I'll give a brief blurb about it anyway. Basically, what I'm trying to call attention to in this category are the games that most rewarded players for actively engaging in or exploring their worlds, or even just for the simple act of playing the game. So these were the games that I felt were the most rewarding to play this year.
#10): Guardians of the Galaxy
Being a mostly linear game, Guardians of the Galaxy doesn't have many paths that aren't beaten. But the few that it does have lead to cosmetic items from the comic books that speak to a genuine love of the source material on the part of the developers, and it's always nice to come across a new outfit in a game without having to pay extra!
#9): The Ascent
In a lot of games like The Ascent, after a certain point, you start trying to avoid enemies as much as possible. In this game, however, enemies drop so much loot that it's impossible to want to miss out on a fight! Guns, health packs, you name it, you can get just about anything by charging headfirst into battle!
#8): Metroid Dread
The actual rewards in Metroid Dread (like any Metroid title) are pretty standard fare: ammo and health upgrades. But you know that pretty much from the beginning, so it's less about the rewards themselves and more about the act of having your curiosity rewarded. Metroid Dread excels at this at every turn. If you experiment with the environment, you're going to be made to feel smart for doing so!
#7): Necromunda: Hired Gun
Necromunda wears its Doom Eternal inspiration on its sleeve, and thankfully, this extends to its tendency to reward players as well! After you finish any given level, you're granted a whole bunch of different new guns with different modifications, and practically a full jewelry shop's worth of trinkets and doodads that give you small buffs. This happens every level without fail, and it happens every time you replay levels as well. It's like the developers stop you after you finish and say "hey, thank you so much for playing our game! Heres a bunch of free stuff you can play with!" I always love to see it!
#6): The Forgotten City
The Forgotten City is in a similar rewarding vein as Metroid Dread in that it isn't necessarily the rewards that make it great, it's how smart it makes you feel for trying things out to satisfy your curiosity. In an earlier category I mentioned the prospect of using Diana's bow to turn goose eggs to gold and giving those eggs to a townsperson in exchange for the information they can provide about x, but it needs to be stressed that the game doesn't tell you to do that, nor does it even hint at it. Rather, this person just asks for something valuable, so it's up to you to use your noggin and try and figure out what could be valuable enough and how to get it. And here's the real kicker: I didn't even know this was a possibility until one other reviewer pointed it out. Why? Because my own curiosity lead me somewhere else, where I was able to get what I needed without even asking this person for it in the first place! No matter what you do, if you're trying things out and seeing what works, the game will reward you for it.
#5): Wife Quest
Being a decidedly old-school kind of game, Wife Quest is filled to the brim with secret treasure chests to find in every level of every world it takes you to. This way of rewarding players, however, is a little different than any we've talked about before. See, the rewards themselves aren't exactly that standout, and most of the time you don't find them by trying to sate your curiosity. Rather, it's the simple feeling of obtaining these rewards. When you open up a row of like 7 large chests, the coin sounds that follow are just so crisp and satisfying that you want to hear them again. So, finding these chests becomes more of a "feeling" kind of reward than an actual one. But beyond what you find in levels, the game also rewards you with two new game modes after you complete it for the first time. So, suffice it to say that this is one of the single most rewarding games that came out in 2021, and from a studio of maybe three people, no less!
#4): Demon Turf
There are essentially two major ways that Demon Turf rewards players for not just rushing through the game: the unlockables and the leaderboards. By completing side objectives, you earn different kinds of candy that can be spent in exchange for cosmetic items such as different color hair or clothes, pets that sit on your head, and mods that give you certain buffs like faster movement. And the leaderboards reward players who invest the time to become extra-familiar with a given level's layout and maximize all of their skills to try and beat the level as swiftly as possible with proof of their hard work. Hell, in the time since reviewing the game and me writing this blurb, I've obtained two actual world records on two of the levels in this game, so thoroughly does it reward a skilled player who pays attention to things! But there's actually one final reward to talk about, and that's your reward for reaching 100% completion. Once you've done absolutely everything there is to do, you're rewarded with one final super-hard set of platforming challenges set in a vault where the ground is made up of gold coins, and if you beat all these challenges, you're rewarded with a God Mode. The fact of the matter is the Demon Turf is one of the reasons I even thought to do this category this year, so naturally it's gonna earn a pretty high spot!
#3): Resident Evil: Village
It feels a little cheap to have Village up this high, given that a survival horror game kinda needs to be rewarding in this way to work, but I mean, they could've easily not done it well! Being, as I said, a survival horror game, ammo is scarce, as is pretty much every resource you might need. So, it's really as simple as this: taking the time to carefully explore the environments rewards you with the tools you need to survive. Like I said, a little cheap because the game simply wouldn't work if that weren't the case, but whatever.
#2): Death's Door
Taking your time when rooting through the many environments of Death's Door yields two major things: seeds and health/mana upgrades. The upgrades can eventually make it so that you take more hits before dying or have more uses with your spells before you have to start dealing melee damage again, while the seeds give you more possible health refills if you find yourself in a tight spot. Given that there's a fixed amount of both of these, having a good time in Death's Door is contingent upon taking at least a bit of time to truly engage with the word. You can also find collectible items that can open up new secrets as well as some new weapons that can be obtained by solving puzzles, if you're into those kinds of things (I am), but suffice it to say that the way the game primarily rewards you is more than enough for the second place spot on this list.
Most Rewarding Experience of the Year: Ender Lillies: Quietus of the Knights
I 100%-ed Ender Lillies, but that wasn't the original plan when I was playing it. Rather, I just went through the plot, occasionally stopping to smell the roses. However, then I got near the final boss of the game, and I happened to pick up an item that gave me an extra healing "prayer" (think of it like an Estus Flask in Dark Souls), and I immediately thought, "wait, you can get that?" From there, I started scouring the world for extra charms and spirits I could equip, and I have to say, my final loadout going into the final boss was largely made up of useful things I found while reaching that 100% completion. You never know what you're going to find when you pick up an item on the ground. Some items contain major buffs, some contain minor buffs, some just make certain actions more convenient. What you use is going to depend on your play style, but you never really know what your play style is going to be until you've looked everywhere and know what items you want to equip! I literally don't think I would have even beaten Ender Lillies without taking time to let it reward me for exploring its world, and my experience was made all the better because of the unpredictability of the rewards it gives you. Earlier I said that Demon Turf was one of the reasons I even decided to do this category this year, but Ender Lillies was the main reason. It is, as you now know, the most rewarding experience of 2021!
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Best Moment
We've come at last to my favorite category for every single year! The Best Moment category is always fun for me because I get to gush about the moments in gaming that really stuck with me for whatever reason, and I get to do so completely unhindered. With that in mind, I know this whole article has been a landmine for spoilers, but there's nowhere where this is more true than in this category. You have been warned! These are the moments in gaming for 2021 that were my absolute favorites.
#10): The Election (The Forgotten City)
On the day in which you arrive in the titular city, it happens to be time to decide who the next Magistrate will be. In the running are Sentius (the current Magistrate), and Malleolus, his opponent who believes the golden rule is make believe. However, influence events correctly and you can make it so that Malleolus drops out of the election and Galerius takes his place. From there, your quest becomes to get Galerius elected. If you love this character like I do, it should go without saying that getting to see the best character in the game elected as Magistrate is satisfying!
#9): Encountering the first Kolos (Jett: The Far Shore)
After the introductory chapter, you find yourself in a mountain valley on the surface of this mysterious new planet, prepared to help the team establish their home base on top of a nearby peak. However, as preparations are underway, a type of fauna in this world known as a "Kolos" appears. It makes itself known slowly by emerging from behind a mountain in the distance, and as it reveals more and more of itself, it proves to be significantly larger than any of the nearby mountains. Never since the original God of War trilogy has there been a more epic sense of scope introduced over the span of a couple seconds, and it sets the stage for further jaw-dropping moments over the course of this narrative.
#8): The Dollhouse Reveal (Resident Evil: Village)
The entirety of your time in the doll house is all about setup. You're trapped in a creepy basement with no weapons and no ambient noise, and you find yourself jumping at shadows expecting the scary stuff to happen at any moment. It's a lot like Amnesia: The Dark Descent in that way. For the vast majority of this level, there's nothing to really worry about, but a first-time player doesn't know that, and Capcom was clearly counting on that being the case. Part of what makes the eventual reveal so great and so lauded by literally everyone (including the impossible-to-please Yahtzee Croshaw) as one of the best horror segments of all time is the way it forces you to brace yourself for what you (wrongly) believe is coming. It seems like it's going to be clear: people call this level "the dollhouse", there are dolls everywhere in the house area before you get trapped, the villain of this segment is a doll, and you spend all your time while trapped tinkering with mannequins. Clearly this is a setup for a weeping angels kind of thing where you get perpetually jump scared by mannequins who move when you aren't looking, right? That's certainly what I thought. So when the actual monster appeared: a giant, writhing, greasy, deformed, demonic blob of barely recognizable infant features letting out the most disturbing screeches ever, my blood froze, and I spent a second just too terrified to make Ethan move. When I regained control of my faculties, I was legitimately running from this thing because of how scared I was by it. I can't think of a better horror setup and payoff than this one off the top of my head.
#7): Breaking the last Promise (Guardians of the Galaxy)
I've made vague references to being surprised by the heart I saw in Guardians of the Galaxy throughout this article, and this moment is one of the many moments that made me feel that way. Towards the end of the campaign, Star-Lord's not-confirmed-but-highly-suspected-to-be-his daughter, Nikki, remains trapped as the current figurehead of the universal church of truth, having been preyed upon by the church's usual leader due to the shock of having recently watched her mother die. Being a heavily traumatized 12-year-old child, she believes in her "promise" more than anyone, so desperate is her wish to be with her mother again. But the fate of the galaxy rests on this young girl being able to reject the promise and come to terms with her trauma, and that becomes the responsibility of Star-Lord to try and make happen. Let's be clear: while a superior version of the character, this game's version of Star-Lord kind of comes off as a massive douchebag. So it becomes all the more touching when he's able to get on Nikki's level as someone she believes to be her father (and as someone who has done nothing but be shocked and disturbed by the prospect up until now), acknowledge her suffering, and give her a pep talk about how he can't force her to reject the lie, but he knows she's strong enough to do it. My heart was legitimately touched by this, and it's another reason why I will die on the hill of "Chris Pratt's version is a joke."
#6): Rescuing Fernando and Credits (Wife Quest)
The ending and credits sequence for Wife Quest is basically the exact payoff that players needed! Basically, once you've rescued Fernando, you get to watch him and Mia go on just..the cutest of cutest of cute dates in all the environments you traveled through on your journey as they gradually make their way back home to their humble farm. Honestly, just getting to finally rescue Fernando and watch Mia give him a kiss probably would have been enough, but for a game like this, where so much is said about the love between these people, getting to actually watch these people be in love with each other (as the monsters you've spent the full game maiming just boil with jealousy) is a reward that just makes the whole experience so much sweeter!
#5): The Truth (Impostor Factory)
If I had to nail down a protagonist for Kan Gao's games, it would probably be one of the two scientists at the forefront of the action: Dr. Neil Watts. Neil serves as a vector for Gao's sense of humor, which never quite clicks with me, so his role in these stories has always been the slightest bit lacking. Fastforward to Impostor Factory: a game that features none of the staple characters from a Kan Gao game. You get to watch an entirely separate love story in an entirely different setting, and fall in love with entirely different characters. But then, the truth is revealed: these characters whose love you've been invested in are none other than Neil's parents, and the whole game is basically Neil utilizing his knowledge of his company's memory-based technology to posthumously give his mother (who died when he was little) and father (who had to raise him without the love of his life) the life they never got to live. Not only does this whole game give an otherwise borderline annoying character some undeniable humanity, but from this point, we actually get to see the wonderful future he envisioned as his parents' best life. We get to see Lenri and Quincy watch their son get married and have children, we get to see them send their grandchildren off to college, and we even get to see them watch their grandchildren get married and start lives of their own. And all the while, we know it's not the life that Lenri or Quincy actually had, but we get to see two souls in need of a break get to have one last hurrah before fading into the afterlife forever. Oh, and all the while, we get to hear "A Reality Somewhere," which I referenced in the "Best Soundtrack Piece" section.
#4): Traveling (Impostor Factory)
In the "Best Love Interest" section, you may recall me mentioning a brief argument between Lenri and Quincy that Lenri has to cut short to go to work, but promises that they'll continue discussing later. Well, this argument actually results in her being late to the big demonstration she was supposed to head. As she pulls up into work, she finds that a coworker had to take her place in using the technology, and, as she sees his body being hauled off, realizes that she would be dead were it not for her husband raising his concerns. So she rushes home, abandoning work entirely, bursts through the door, and tells Quincy "I want to travel the world with you." For the first time in her life, she allows herself to do the things she always wanted but never allowed herself to do, all because of how healthy this couple's relationship is. We're then treated to a cutscene of this couple seeing all the wonders of the world, all the while with Quincy being the lovable dork he is (think "covering Lenri's eyes while viewing Michelangelo's David" kind of lovable dork). It's just so, so lovely.
#3): The True Story (Before Your Eyes)
In order to accurately describe this moment, I first need to give a bit of setup, so bear with me. In Before Your Eyes, you play as Benjamin Brynn, a person who has recently passed away. Your soul is fished out of the water of the afterlife by a wolf in a boat who promises to bring you before the gatekeeper of paradise, but that he needs to know your story so that he can give you a proper sales pitch to convince the gatekeeper to let you in. So, the game is basically just Benjamin (or Benny, as he's usually called) reliving his past and us getting to know who he was. He started out trying to be a concert pianist as a child, but he was rejected from music school and ended up getting sick and having to stay home from school for a year. In this time, he took up art as a skill, and as he aged, he became an accomplished artist who was able to give his mom some of the nicer things she never got to have. Then, one day, his mom passed away, and he spiraled into a deep depression. Eventually, however, through hearing the piano song his mom wrote again, he was able to put all of his passion into one final piece in dedication to her. From there, we have our setup, and the wolf begins putting together his grand oratory retelling of Benny's life, only, the sentient birds around the boat gradually start saying the word "liar" at increasingly high volumes. After briefly losing his temper, the wolf tells us this means we've been lying to him, and the story isn't true. So he once again asks Benny/us to tell his story, but this time, the real one. If you were paying attention to that blurb, you may already know where this is going, because, as the wolf more or less says: "healthy kids don't have to stay home for an entire year." The whole first half of the story is true, but Benny didn't survive whatever illness kept him at home. That's not the moment I'm talking about here, all of that was just the setup to get where we're going with this discussion. While sick, Benny was given a typewriter and asked to write about what he wanted to do when he got better. So, as we re-live this particular part of Benny's life, we see that the story, exactly as the wolf had begun practicing, was written in this moment. Benny had made up a story about the life he thought he would live if he got better. It begins with "Benjamin Brynn was born in a loving home filled with loving parents in a quaint village by the sea" (remember that). After writing this story, he hands it off to his parents, but his mom is oddly silent about it for a long time while his dad reassures him that she loved it. At this point, we return to Benny's spirit and the wolf, having just come across the gatekeeper, and the wolf asks Benny to tell his story one more time. This brings us to one last visit to Benny's past. His mom walks into his room and tells him that she loved his story, but wasn't too much of a fan of the version of Benny that served as its protagonist. So she offers to read him her version of the story, based on the child she's known for all 11 years of his life. And the story goes thusly:
"Benjamin Brynn was born into an ordinary home to an ordinary mother and father in a small town by the sea. His mother was a composer, or, at least that's what she dreamed she'd be. So, when her own dreams didn't pan out, she began to dream for him. But then, when he was just 11 years old, he got sick, and was forced to stay inside for an entire year. And in that year he began to worry that he hadn't lived enough, so he made up a story, of the great life he thought he wanted to live, which only made him forget the great life he already had. How he had filled a new home with light and joy and promise. How he met a girl, his neighbor, who felt all alone in the world, and made her feel okay again. And how, even when he was sick, he still gave his parents hope. How he reminded them of exactly who they were, after they had almost forgotten. So when he knew he was going to go, he was okay, because he'd already lived a great life. A full life. And he was everything he needed to be. Just as he was."
If you want to know why Sarah Burns won my Voice Actress of the Year award for her role as Benny's mom, you can feel free to look up the ending on youtube and listen to the sheer love in her voice as she reads this story. Her performance combined with the music and the heartwarming, loving message she's trying to give her son made me bawl my eyes out straight into a horrifically violent nosebleed, so impactful was this moment. I was getting teared up just listening to it again while I was transcribing it in that last paragraph. After this moment, where Benny remembers the love he was surrounded with in life, the gatekeeper lets him through, and he passes on into paradise.
#2): Quincy's Surprise (Impostor Factory)
Remember when I was talking about Quincy as a character and I mentioned him giving Lenri his jacket, then being too busy celebrating how smooth he was to notice she was saying she wasn't trying tot get him to do that? That happened right before the moment in question. See, before this moment, Lenri had turned down Quincy's declaration of love, saying that she would always be too absorbed in her work, so she wouldn't be able to travel the world like he always wants to do. Then, he leaves for a long, long time until he finally calls her and asks her to meet him and to "dress well" (resulting in the aforementioned "smoothness" celebration). So, donned with Quincy's jacket, Lenri follows him up a flight of stairs and finds models of all the wonders of the world waiting for her, all made from crude materials like pizza boxes and whatnot. Being the hopeless romantic that I am, I found myself internally squealing and letting out frequent, static "d'aww"s. It's just SO cute, just so so so cute I can hardly stand it. So, Quincy takes Lenri through a "tour" of these wonders, remarking how he built each of them ("I had to eat soooo many pizzas to make this one!"). At the end, he and Lenri end up on a park bench nearby resuming their conversation from before Quincy left to embark on this endeavor, and he uses this grand gesture as a way of saying it doesn't matter if she is, as she says, "like the sky, only getting to view the wonders of the world from afar." Why? Because, in Quincy's corny lovable dork words, "maybe I can be the Earth to your Sky?" So, with all of this, Lenri finally allows herself to break down one of her walls and accept Quincy's embrace...I swear, if Kan Gao doesn't have a girlfriend, there's no hope for any of us!
Moment of the Year: The Canon Ending (The Forgotten City)
Assuming you're able to get the author of the golden rule to abolish it and free all the townsfolk from the underworld, you end up back in modern times and manage to get out of the ruins with Al. While Al is boarding up the trap door that leads to the ruins, you meet back up with Charon and have the opportunity to talk a little bit more about how things went down the way they did. Once you're done, Charon does her duty and ferries you back to civilization, whereupon we skip ahead in time by a fair amount. After the timecard vanishes, you find yourself walking through a museum exhibit all about the ancient cultures that were represented in the titular city and see Al at the end of the corridor. He welcomes you and makes some brief conversation about what you've been up to all this time, then mentions that there's a bit of a surprise for you waiting, so you should go ahead and enjoy the exhibit. You barely get five steps into the exhibit before a familiar bald head turns around and calls out to you as their "old friend." It turns out to be none other than Galerius, of all people! When you ask him what he's doing here, he mentions that when Charon went to ferry all the townspeople back to reality, she dropped them off in the modern age instead of ancient Rome, and that the gang is basically all here! So after you finish catching up with Galerius, you get to wander through the museum and see what everyone you've gotten to know and love over the course of this game has been doing since being dropped in the 21st century. It's such a joyous experience: all the good people have had good things happen and all the bad people aren't there because bad things ended up happening to them...well, Desius is still here, but you get to give him advice like "invest in DVDs", so there's still justice in the world! But by far the greatest part of this meet and greet is when you catch up with Ulpius at the end of the hallway before the atrium. Remember when I said you were going to have to wait to hear my reasoning for giving Jack Ayres part of a spot on the Best Voice Actor category? Now it's time to explain it. See, a necessary step in reaching this ending is preventing Ulpius from committing suicide. At the time, he's gotten himself locked in debt bondage and the love of his life has gone missing, so after watching him jump off a cliff in the first loop, your task becomes finding a way to stop him. When you meet back up with him in this ending, he properly expresses his gratitude. He starts talking about how he and his girlfriend have finally been able to open that little vineyard they always dreamed of opening and how they spend every evening drinking their wine and watching the sunset. "I see this wonderful world with all its beauty, and I just keep thinking...what if I'd lost hope?" He tells you, as "One Night Awaits Everyone" plays in the background. He continues to talk about how much he would have missed out on had he gone through with making the terrible mistake he planned to make, and his final words to you are "Thank you...I...wouldn't be here without you." I was already on the verge of happy tears by the time I reached Ulpius, but this line is what finally drove me over the edge. Jack Ayres clearly understood the assignment, as the specific lengths of the pauses, and the feeling that he's going to start choking up at any moment all come together to really make the true meaning of that line: "I wouldn't be here without you" hit right between the eyes. For a moment, he wasn't just a character. He was a suffering person who I got to help out of a terrible situation, and because of my work, he was getting to live the life he could only dream of having as a servant in debt bondage. But even that isn't the end of this moment's goodness. After talking with Ulpius, all there is left to do is meet up with Al in the atrium, where you're overlooking a crowd of other museum goers just talking amongst themselves. Persephone appears by you and Al and you catch up with her for a bit, and after bidding her farewell, she asks you "one more thing...do you remember all those golden statues scattered around the city?" And when you answer yes, she responds, "good, because they remember you!" as the camera once again turns around to the crowd of museum-goers below you, now giving you thunderous applause. You didn't just save the handful of people you met, you saved the god-knows-how-many people who had been enslaved in the city across all of time: A feat no hero of legend had ever been able to accomplish! I've known since I got this ending that there could be no other choice for Moment of the Year 2021!
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The Big Picture Awards
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Most Unique
Innovation is an aspect that isn't as common as it used to be in gaming. Don't get me wrong, unlike what folks like Yahtzee Croshaw think, games don't have to be innovative to be good, and just because a game is innovative doesn't automatically make it good, but it's still a much rarer thing these days than it used to be. So every year, I like to take this time to point out the games that I thought pushed the envelope in interesting ways. These are the most unique games of 2021.
#5): Before Your Eyes
Before Your Eyes has, by far, the most unique method of interaction with its story that I've ever seen: it uses your webcam to track when you blink, and blinking causes the story to skip ahead, regardless of whether you're ready or not. It's fitting given the subject matter, but I can see it being annoying if you play with that mode on.
#4): Chicory: A Colorful Tale
Of all the zen-and-chill-out games I've played, I don't think I've ever played one that mixed its chill-out mechanics with legitimate boss fights. Chicory is a first in that regard, and when you combine that with the creativity of its hint system, you've got one of the year's more creative titles.
#3): The Forgotten City
What makes The Forgotten City a standout title in terms of its creativity is specifically its choice of subject matter. This is the first time I've seen a game create such a historically and culturally-informed narrative in such a convincing way. I've always called BS on people who say "Assassin's Creed teaches history," so this may very well be the first ever game I've played that boasts such a clear dedication to historical accuracy
#2): Road 96
What Road 96 achieves is arguably one of the biggest achievements of the year: it's a roguelike that doesn't feel like a roguelike. The story always progresses consistently, and the randomness of the events actually works in the narrative's favor! I've heard things like that said about roguelikes such as Hades, but this is the first time I've experienced that kind of thing personally, so kudos to Road 96!
Most Unique Experience of the Year: Jett: The Far Shore
There was no other choice for Most Unique Experience of the year. It's not even close. From the culture of its people, to the flora and fauna of the planet, to the whole lexicon of ritualistic terms, to the made up language the characters speak, everything about the world of Jett is created from the ground up to be as alien and mysterious as possible, and the result is a game that more than gets by on that alone despite some issues with gameplay!
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Best Developer
Needless to say, a game simply cannot exist without a developer behind it. Sometimes these developers give in to greed and overmonetize their games. Sometimes they create legitimate works of art. Sometimes they're well-meaning, but don't actually put out good products. In any case, these 10 developers were the ones whose games stuck with me and whose passion was most clear!
#10): Kyle Seeley (Emily is Away <3)
Kyle Seeley, developer of the Emily is Away saga, is a bit of a one-trick pony, but boy can this pony trot! He just has such a clear grasp of how to craft top-tier nostalgia for people my age, so I always feel connected to his games, and this year's latest offering is no exception.
#9): Greg Lobanov and Friends (Chicory: A Colorful Tale)
All you have to do is look at any given frame of Chicory to know that its developers loved what they were making. That would've been good enough, but the fact that the game itself is quite good as well just makes my heart feel warm! I always love to see a passion project that goes well.
#8): Jonas Manke (Omno)
Speaking of passion projects and my love of seeing them go well, it's kind of a crap shoot if passion projects from solo developers land with me or not. Enter Jonas Manke, the sole developer of Omno. His excellent eye for puzzle design and restraint in scoping his project makes Omno a truly, truly impressive piece of work!
#7): GoodbyeWorld Games (Before Your Eyes)
The team at GoodbyeWorld Games couldn't have been more clearly invested in the story they wanted to tell. As I've alluded to a couple of times, if this narrative hadn't been handled as carefully as possible, it could have easily entered the realm of the emotionally manipulative. However, the team clearly dedicated a great deal of time making sure that all their emotional beats were justified and executed in such a way that they never felt like they were looking at their watches waiting for you to cry.
#6): Superbrothers (Jett: The Far Shore)
From what I understand, Jett: The Far Shore was in development for a not insignificant amount of time, and if that's the case, then I can tell what the majority of that time went into. Superbrothers was focused on crafting a science fiction experience like no other, and all you need to do is pick up Jett for a couple minutes to realize that they succeeded in their goal. Unfortunately, this came at the cost of some technical and gameplay shortcomings, but I have to admire them for so flawlessly accomplishing what they set out to do.
#5): Acid Nerve (Death's Door)
Let's face it: anyone can make a soulslike. It's been proven time and again to the point where the market is now flooded with this subgenre of games! But to make a seriously good soulslike that understands what makes their gameplay and worlds so good? That takes talent, and normally it takes a group of more than a handful of people. Yet Acid Nerve's skeleton crew managed to put out Death's Door, the single best soulslike in ages (maybe the best one, but the jury is still out on that).
#4): Modern Storyteller (The Forgotten City)
As many already know, The Forgotten City started out as a mod for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, which was solo-developed by lead director Nick Pearce. After that mod ended up winning an Australian Writers Guild award for the quality of its story and writing, Pearce assembled a small team of developers and founded a brand new studio, Modern Storyteller, to attempt to bring that mod to the next level as a standalone game. He and his skeleton crew worked for (I believe) five years on this project, consulting with historians and other experts along the way. As a result of these many years of hard work and dedication, the team at Modern Storyteller developed what has become something of a cult classic in 2021!
#3): Pippin Games (Wife Quest)
Somewhere down in Brazil, there's a team of three, maybe four friends who presumably make games in their spare time with minimal budget and maximum passion. That team is, of course, Pippin Games, the group behind this year's most hidden of hidden gems, Wife Quest! For those who don't know, Wife Quest currently goes for around $6 on Steam, and last time I checked, the official Pippin Games facebook page has less than 10 followers. Both of these things are crying shames. For one thing, Wife Quest is worth far more than $6, and these passionate, talented folks are objectively deserving of more attention. Not only are Pippin Games basically giving this game out for a far cheaper price than they needed to, but for your money, you get perhaps the best value-for-money proposition of 2021. If a developer is so proud of their game and so in love with the experience they've crafted that they're willing to put less food on their tables so that cost won't be a barrier to entry for potential players, they're a developer worthy of a high spot on this list even if their game isn't as good as this one ended up being.
#2): Fabraz (Demon Turf)
Fabraz had quite a task on their hands in making Demon Turf, but you could be forgiven for not automatically knowing what I mean. There's not much immediate, obvious history to be found if you look Fabraz up, but if you were to look up the game's publisher, Playtonic, you might find that they were responsible for a platformer that came out a couple years ago to almost universal critical panning, especially given that the game in question was the result of a kickstarter campaign that more than made its money back. The game in question was none other than Yooka Laylee. Promised to be a platformer from some of the developers who worked on Banjo Kazooe, Yooka Laylee was largely criticized for being old-school in all the wrong ways, so suffice it to say that Playtonic would face a great deal of scrutiny if they tried to develop another game. So, with the responsibility handed off to Fabraz, the responsibility of putting out an actual high-quality platformer was also handed off to them. Demon Turf is the result of this no-doubt high-stress environment, and I have to say...if this team is so talented that a game as excellent as Demon Turf is their first attempt produced in a high-stress environment, I can't wait to see what they can do on subsequent, lower-stress attempts!
Developer of the Year: Kan Gao (Impostor Factory)
If you put a gun to my head and forced me to tell you who I'd label as the most consistently good storyteller in the game industry, the first thing I'd say is "what the hell, dude, I would've told you that without the gun to my head!" and the thing I'd say after that is "Kan Gao, duh!" From To the Moon to Finding Paradise to this year's offering, Impostor Factory, Gao has done nothing but outdo himself with every game he puts out. He's seemingly always thinking about how he can up the ante. To the Moon experienced almost unheard of indie success as a tearjerking love story. Finding Paradise succeeded in telling a far more deep story at the expense of some of the lovey dovey aspects of its predecessor. And Impostor Factory combines the best aspects of both games: telling by far the sweetest love story Gao has every told in a way that also gives us something to think about when it comes to how we spend our time on this earth. While Gao does have a handful of people working alongside him on these projects, the final results are always unmistakably his work from the music to the characters to the sense of humor that almost never clicks with me. I'll consistently tell you (whether you threaten to shoot me or not) that Kan Gao is the best storyteller in this industry, and this year, he's also the best developer.
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Best Story
With our transition to the "Best Story" category, we come to one of the penultimate categories before the Honorable Mentions and the final GOTY list. There are two ultimate sides to making a game experience good: story and gameplay. One side can make a game good without the other side pulling its weight, but a game is ultimately at its best if both sides coalesce. These were the games with the best stories to tell in 2021!
#10): Persona 5 Strikers
Persona 5 Strikers does tell a pretty standard JRPG story about some seemingly realistic evil actually being the work of a malevolent god, but at the very least, as with the base game, we get to experience this tried and true narrative structure with a cast of characters we love!
#9): Backbone
Like the previous spot winner, Backbone has the unglamorous task of trying to tell a unique story in a pretty predictable genre: the anthropomorphic animal mystery genre. Oh, certain types of animals are being murdered and sold as meat? Hmmm...I wonder what kinds of animals might be responsible? But nonetheless, Backbone succeeds in making this plot as believably "human" as a plot like this can possibly be.
#8): Wife Quest
I believe I speak for anyone interested in this hobby when I say that we all know the saying "your princess is in another castle." Even for people my age, who never played the original Mario games, the sentiment behind this sentence is nonetheless a thing that's easy to understand. Well, Wife Quest makes a similar statement, but with an important twist. See, the statement Wife Quest makes is "your prince is in another castle." But unlike the games of yore that inspired it, Wife Quest justifies its runaround treatment of the player by making it so that it's not just one villain who wants the main character's love interest, but rather a whole cabal of villains all waiting their turn!
#7): Chicory: A Colorful Tale
Indie games have something of a reputation for literally always being about mental health. At first it was an incredible way for smaller developers to talk about hard to talk about subject matter, but as the years have gone by, so many indie games take this route that it's basically just indie developer shorthand for "I didn't know what to make the game about." Chicory, on the other hand, actually decides to base itself around a character having to deal with a character going through a depressive period. It centers its story about how to be a good friend while still having healthy boundaries, and if there's one aspect of mental health that actually doesn't get talked about enough, that would be it.
#6): Emily is Away <3
The year is "High School Back in My Day." I weigh approximately 50-60 pounds less and I actually enjoy spending time socializing with other people, so naturally I'm on Facenook (not a typo) all the time after school. Kidding aside, this is more or less the premise of Emily is Away <3. You play as a high school student in the throngs of senioritis, and you spend your days chatting with your friends Emily, Evelyn, and Mat. Because this is high school, needless drama ensues because of course it does, and it's up to you to navigate through this drama and come out with as many friendships intact as possible. It's the kind of story people live through every day, but it's still a good, well-written one.
#5): Guardians of the Galaxy
It starts off as a pretty standard day for the titular Guardians: with a little bit of contraband retrieval in a restricted area that ends with them in police custody. But before too long, what starts out as a heist gone wrong grows into an epic intergalactic journey to save the entire galaxy from an evil cult that would enslave all life: a journey full of monsters, aliens, and telepathic Russian dogs. Just another day in the life of a superhero!
#4): Jett: The Far Shore
The holy books of the people in Jett tell of a planet more suitable for habitation 1000 years worth of space travel away. This planet is their divine right, as evidenced by the presence of "the hymnwave," a mysterious signal that beckons to these people from the planet in question. But what is the hymnwave? Is the planet truly as habitable as the author of these books declares? These are the questions that a scout group about to undertake the first ever voyage to the source of the hymnwave seek to answer. You play as Mei, a devotee of the holy book's author, and a member of the scout team for the unique insights your devotion will lend you in navigating this new world. Upon arriving at the planet after 1000 years in cryo sleep, you and the other scouts venture forth into the world to try and establish the beginnings of a colonization effort. The planet is mostly as the holy book describes, but many, many secrets lie in waiting.
#3): The Forgotten City
"The many shall suffer for the sins of the one": this is the foreboding message inscribed on the walls of the titular city: a pocket of Ancient Rome seemingly separated from the empire and filled with golden statues seemingly running from some unknown terror. But that isn't where the story begins. You play as an average joe in modern times who wakes up on the banks of the Tiber River in Italy one day with basically no memory of how he got there, and only a mysterious woman named Karen to fill him in on the details. After agreeing to head into some nearby ruins to look for a man who had evidently woken up on the same riverbank not long before you, you find him not only dead from suicide, but also much further along in age and turned completely to gold. Beside him is a tablet with a warning: there's no escape if you go through the portal to the past. But because this is a game, you find said portal and end up nearly 2000 years in the past, in a version of these ruins now bustling with life (though still filled with terrified-looking golden sculptures). Upon your arrival, you're brought to the local Magistrate, who is eager to explain the "golden rule" to you. He repeats the foreboding message I opened this blurb with, and explains that what this means is that if even a single person in this city commits a single sin, everybody will be turned to gold. The many statues that litter the marketplace and living quarters serve as the proof that this threat is real. After explaining the rule to you, the Magistrate makes a confession: it was him who opened the portal, but he doesn't remember doing it. This can only mean that somebody in the city is about to break the golden rule, necessitating him performing the ritual to open the portal and start a time loop in the first place. From there, he grants you permission to enter any home and ask any question of any of the citizens, and tasks you with determining who is going to break the golden rule, and stopping them from doing it. Doing so will mean that the portal will never have opened, and you'll be thrown back to your time. So you set out into the city to meet all of its people, learn what makes them tick, and determine once and for all who is going to be the death of all of his/her neighbors...if you dare to tell me that that isn't one of the coolest story concepts of all time, I'm going to call you a liar!
#2): Before Your Eyes
I basically already laid out the entirety of the story for Before Your Eyes in the Best Moments section, so I'll refer you back to that!
Story of the Year: Impostor Factory
A young man named Quincy arrives at a mansion at night in the middle of the pouring rain, having been invited to a shindig. However, he doesn't really remember why he was invited, or why he even showed up. Upon entering the mansion, he meets a woman named Lenri, who seems suspiscious as all get-out. After some unrelated shenanigans involving a time loop and a couple murders (and I know you don't believe me when I say "unrelated" shenanigans, but trust me), Lenri once again appears and, with a snap of her fingers, makes people disappear and reappear. If you've been reading all the blurbs about this game, you're likely scratching your head. It's because all of this is basically the setup to the actual story. When Quincy is understandably confused by the godlike power Lenri just demonstrated in front of him, she brings him to a doorway and says it will all make sense if he goes through it. As he goes through it, it becomes clear that basically this whole thing is a simulation, but the answers he was looking for were, in fact, on the other side. As he continues to make his way through the space beyond the door, he begins to witness Lenri's life: her sickly childhood, her early abandonment of any kinds of adventure in favor of trying to leave a mark on the world, and of course, the moment a lovable dork named Quincy came and sat next to her in the library in college. He sees the life he and Lenri lived: their sweetest moments, their travels across the world, the unthinkable tragedy they faced when Lenri became pregnant, and, being a sickly person, it was clear that a choice was going to have to be made. He sees that choice ultimately turn out ok, but at the cost of their son growing up with several developmental disorders including an inability to walk. He sees the moment their son, at maybe age 10 maximum, passed away in his arms. And he sees how Lenri is using this simulation to try and make everything right. That's just one facet of this story, so you may still be scratching your head, but I think that's a pretty good summary.
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Best Gameplay
On the other side of the equation, we have gameplay. Games as a medium ultimately exist for the sake of their moment-to-moment gameplay, but always benefit from a strong story. However, as I stated in the introductory blurb for Best Story, one side isn't necessary for the game as a whole to be good. So, with that in mind, these were the games that boasted the best gameplay experiences in 2021!
#10): The Ascent
I'm not normally a fan of twin-stick shooters, but The Ascent is really something special in its genre. Not only does the shooting just feel really good to do, but the game controls excellently, and the action is fast paced enough to never make the act of just holding down the fire button get stale.
#9): Wife Quest
Wife Quest is a fairly standard retro sidescrolling hack-and-slash game, but it brings to the table a fair amount of extra trappings. For one thing, it features an excellently-balanced magic system that gives the player a lot of freedom in their moment-to-moment decisions. But in addition to that, it also features a tangible, visible sense of progression as you upgrade Mia's abilities.
#8): Kena: Bridge of Spirits
Don't be fooled by Kena's Pixar-esque graphical style. What might appear on the surface to be a game intended for kids is actually a lot more difficult than you might expect. If I had to give a brief summary of the gameplay experience, I would have to be the most stereotypical critic of all time and say that it's akin to something like Dark Souls. You don't really have much in the way of damage upgrades, so survival in Kena is contingent on knowing the game's systems and mastering your timing.
#7): Ender Lillies: Quietus of the Knights
Gameplay in Ender Lillies can, if you really really think about it, be compared to that of a deck-building card game. Over the course of the game, you gain access to many, many spirits (which serve as your attacks) and trinkets (which serve as your buffs). You have two separate loadouts of three spirits each, and your ability to equip trinkets is determined by the amount of "slots" a trinket takes up. So, in this way, before setting off into the world from a rest area, you build up a "deck" of sorts to try to give yourself the best edge possible against unknown odds. It's a bit of a convoluted way to get to the point, but the point is that what makes the gameplay in Ender Lillies so strong is the sheer variety of playstyles you have at your disposal, and how far you can take any given playstyle if you know how to use it well enough.
#6): Metroid Dread
As I write this, I haven't sat down to 100% determine whether what I'm about to say is true or not, but I'm going to say it anyway: Metroid Dread may very well be the fastest-paced 2D game I've ever played. Whether in boss battles or totally normal enemy encounters, it seems like you're always hitting just about every button on your joy-cons as quickly as you possibly can, not out of desperation, but out of knowledge earned through experience. As a fan of fast-paced gameplay ever since Doom 2016, I never really think about 2D experiences in these terms, but Metroid Dread has shown me that with the right developers, gameplay can reach unprecedented heights even if there's no z-axis to move along.
#5): Necromunda: Hired Gun
Given that my Game of the Year for 2020 was Doom Eternal, it perhaps stands to reason that I would also enjoy Necromunda, a game that basically rips off my 2020 GOTY in every aspect except the setting. That's kinda all there is to it: Necromunda, though obvious in its influences, is a respectable recreation of those influences. Were it not for the jank that accompanied its limited budget, I daresay Necromunda could have climbed even higher on this list.
#4): Resident Evil: Village
As somebody who values sense of control above most aspects of gameplay, it might make zero sense that I'd place Village this high up on this list. After all, if Jett: The Far Shore didn't come out this year, I might say that Village was the worst controlling game of the year. But unlike in Jett, that lack of handling comes with a sense of purpose in Village. Ethan Winters is just some guy, so of course he's not going to be able to keep every type of gun focused on their targets 100% of the time. Even if he was a hardened veteran, having the kind of control that twitch shooters have wouldn't have been ideal for a horror game. So, not only does it make sense that your ability to control Ethan would be a bit substandard from a lore perspective, but the game also makes it work by having basically every enemy be slow enough so that it doesn't matter. Sure, you're going to be struggling to line up your shots, but at the same time, enemies move slowly enough and change up their movements at a conservative enough rate that you're at least not going to miss your target entirely most of the time. That might seem like I'm damning the game with fake praise, but this actually helps keep the balance between entertainment and desperation just where it needs to be as well.
#3): Demon Turf
In my review of Demon Turf, I referred to it as perhaps the single greatest platformer I've played in years, and that includes the likes of Super Mario Odyssey. I've already spoken about the game's incredible sense of control in an earlier category, but it bears repeating that few games this year felt as good just to move around in as Demon Turf did. It didn't matter whether I was just going through a level for the first time or whether I was restarting a level within the first few seconds for the fiftieth time in a row because I'd already screwed up my strategy to get a better time on the leaderboards. Every single solitary second I spent with Demon Turf was a second that felt good. In fact, were it not for the supremely weak combat system, I'd say it would easily be a shoe-in for the top spot.
#2): Death's Door
If Acid Nerve demonstrated anything in their efforts going into Death's Door, it's that they truly understand what makes a soulslike good. Combat in Death's Door, like that of any soulslike worth its salt, is swift, responsive, challenging, skill-based, and most importantly, fair. You are absolutely not going anywhere in this game if you aren't, as the adage goes, "git-ing gud," but unlike a lot of games where this adage gets tossed around, "git gud" really is the answer, not just a cop out to say you didn't bang your head against the brick wall enough times. When you die in Death's Door, you can almost always understand exactly why and account for it in your next attempt. The bosses are especially good examples of this principle in action. When I was fighting the Witch of Urns, for instance, I ended up dying towards the end of the fight because one of her attacks suddenly took on a secondary effect that caused more projectiles to fly out. When I finally beat this boss, it was because I had committed that change in attack styles to memory and actually adjusted my movements accordingly. This took a bit of practice, but I was never failing because the boss was unfair, I was just not adapting as smoothly as I could have been. So, needless to say, Death's Door is the good kind of challenge, and it's definitely deserving of a spot this high up this list.
Gameplay of the Year: Persona 5 Strikers
It has always been a testament to Persona 5 that it remains one of my favorite games of all time despite having a gameplay style that I really don't click with all that much (turn-based combat). Strikers, on the other hand, takes the strategy-centric combat of the base game, adopts it for a classic Warriors style 1-vs-1000 gameplay loop, and takes the whole concept of persona usage to its logical conclusion. Gameplay in Strikers is, hands down, the fastest-paced gameplay offering of 2021, beating Metroid Dread by a hair simply because of the added scope. In any given moment during a battle, you'll be knocking hordes of enemies up into the air with persona abilities like Sauron and those soldiers in the prologue to The Fellowship of the Ring, having all party members leap into the center of the arena from wherever they are to beat up on one big enemy, swinging around lamp posts to swirl nearby enemies around, leaping up on top of dangling debris to knock it down, leaping up to high spots then kamikaze-ing into a cone of damage on the ground, unleashing ultimate moves once you've filled up a gauge, and so, so much more. The chaos of battle makes it more than a little difficult to actually play with strategy in mind, and little details tend to get lost in the shuffle, but if you're like me and you don't really mind that, then I daresay Persona 5 Strikers might be the most well-crafted pure gameplay experience of 2021 for you, like it is for me!
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Honorable Mentions
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And with that, we come once again to the Honorable Mentions section! As I always make a point of saying, this isn't your standard kind of honorable mentions dealio. Rather than being a space for games that didn't make the cut for the GOTY list, this is actually more of a space for categories that didn't make the cut to be their own, full lists. Either that, or it's for categories that I could do full lists for, but either I couldn't be bothered or its too much of a tradition to have them be honorable mentions at this point. As always, this section comes with a few DIShonorable mentions as well, so let's get started with the first honorable mention, the one that I always start this section off with!
Samus Aran award for Strongest Female Character
Named after the original strong female character, the Samus Aran award recognizes the...female...character...that was the strongest...yeah, it's pretty self-explanatory, but it's also one of the original Honorable Mentions that I came up with in the first year I did them, so I've been doing this bit for years upon years and eventually you run out of creative ways to introduce the award. Without further ado, the winner of the Samus Aran award for Strongest Female Character is...
Mia (Wife Quest)
Yeah, there's commentary to be made about how maiming women who touch your husband isn't exactly the healthiest way of showing your displeasure, and Mia is definitely strong in a way that the Bechdel test would frown on, but I mean, come on! She's practically a heroine of myth with the lengths she goes to and the challenges she overcomes for the sake of her true love. 2021 was more full of candidates than most prior years, but at the end of the day, I still believe that Mia stands head and shoulders above them all.
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Gears of War award for Most Raw Fun
Another one of the classic Honorable Mentions from back in the day, the Gears of War award for Most Raw Fun is a place for fun games that aren't necessarily all that polished to shine. While "Best Gameplay" focuses on a bit more of an objective analysis of a given game's systems, this Honorable Mention eschews all of that in favor of just focusing on the sheer fun factor. And the 2021 winner of the Gears of War award for Most Raw Fun goes to...
Demon Turf
This one will probably come as no surprise given how much I've talked about trying to get on the leaderboards. There's just no way I could possibly have grinded my way up to not one, but two #1 world records in a game if it wasn't worthy of this award! The game lacks some technical polish, and the combat sections are pretty weak, but as I've been hammering home throughout this article, it just feels so doggoned good to play every second you play it, so for me, there was no other game worthy of this prestigious Honorable Mention.
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Undertale award for Biggest Surprise
I tend to have a pretty good idea of what genres I like and what genres I don't like, but every now and then, when I try t expand my horizons, I find something I really enjoy that I otherwise might not have given a second thought to. This is the purpose of the Undertale award for Biggest Surprise. Undertale looked like the kind of bleep bloop indie garbage I wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole when it came out back in 2015. But what happened when I believed its critical reception and gave it a shot? It won my GOTY, beating The Witcher 3 of all games. That's how critical expanding your horizons can be to your quality of life. And the winner of this year's Undertale award for Biggest Surprise is...
Wife Quest
When I found Wife Quest on steam one day, it was because I was looking for a suitable new entry in my long-running "yes, I went there" series where I play a cringey looking anime dating simulator (or other suitably cringey-looking games), have a laugh, and tell you if that laugh is worth your money. From the look of the game, it appeared to at least be competently made and free of actual X-rated material, so I bought it wholly expecting to laugh at it the whole time. What I found instead was a legitimate hidden gem, a game with a ton of heart and passion behind it, one of my absolute favorite games of 2021, and by a country mile, the biggest surprise of the year.
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Hyper Light Drifter award for Actual Honorable Mention Game
This is actually a brand new Honorable Mention that I came up with this year, and it serves as just the slightest bit of a spoiler for the GOTY list at the end. In its year, Hyper Light Drifter barely missed out on the #10 spot on the GOTY list thanks to Uncharted: A Thief's End, and I really thought it deserved to be recognized, but my hands were tied at the time. Well, this year I decided I would reserve an Honorable Mention to actually be what people think of when they think of one: a spot reserved for a game that didn't make the final cut, but that I think deserves a special shoutout nonetheless. And the first ever recipient of the Hyper Light Drifter award for Actual Honorable Mention is...
Necromunda: Hired Gun
It hurts that a game I had such a great time with couldn't end up making the final cut, but *vague gesturing* you can't just wipe out all evidence of a guy's progress at one of the penultimate missions and still be called a GOTY contender. In any case, I've been talking at length about how Necromunda is a respectable Doom Eternal clone, and I've also spoken at length about its technical shortcomings. While it is, by far, the least polished game of 2021, it still deserves recognition for the fact that it was my choice for the Gears of War award before Demon Turf came along, if nothing else!
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Spec Ops: The Line award for Most Important Game
Named after a first-person shooter that calls into question the ethics of militant nationalism and American interventionalism by having the player fight against American troops in Dubai, the Spec Ops: The Line award for Most Important Game celebrates the games that have something to say and say it well. Sometimes a game wins this for being an important discussion about some aspect of mental health, sometimes a game wins this for its color commentary on social issues. One thing is always certain: the winner of this award is, as the title of the honorable mention implies, important. This year's recipient of the Spec Ops: The Line award for Most Important Game is...
Before Your Eyes
The ultimate message of Before Your Eyes is one that I don't think we think about enough. Sure, we'll have games or films that come with messages like "everyone is special," but rarely do we see a message like "everyone is special to someone." In fact, not since It's a Wonderful Life have we seen this kind of message delivered as effectively as it is in Before Your Eyes. As the credits rolled and I tried desperately to keep the nosebleed I'd sobbed my eyes out into under control, I couldn't help but take the message of the game to heart: that if I died tomorrow, it would, of course, be tragic...but regardless of what kind of mark I'd left on the world, I'd left plenty of marks on my friends and loved ones. I think we'd all be a little happier with what we have if we took this sentiment to heart.
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Kingdoms of Amalur award for Worst Writing in a Game
Now it's time to go through our DIShonorable Mentions! Starting us off, we have the award that celebrates the game with the worst writing of the year! Winning this award doesn't necessarily mean the game in question is bad overall, just that the writing is bad...though the odds probably aren't in your favor if you win this award in the first place...but anyway! The 2021 winner of the Kingdoms of Amalur award for Worst Writing in a Game goes to...
Scarlet Nexus
It's like anime writers either don't know the meaning of the word "restraint" or Japanese culture is as opposed to people telling their bosses "no" as I've been lead to believe. Scarlet Nexus is a writhing abomination of disparate tones, subplots, and power of friendship BS. And that's just the story writing! The dialogue is even worse! Let me read you the kind of monologue you can expect to hear in this game: "Oh, I heard that the son of chairman Joe Sumeragi is transferring to our unit this year! Oh, that guy over there is Yuito Sumeragi...I wonder if he's related to chairman Joe Sumeragi. If Yuito Sumeragi is the son of Joe Sumeragi, then he must be the son of Joe Sumeragi (and brother of Kaito Sumeragi) that is joining our unit this year! That's gonna be interesting because Kaito Sumeragi (son of Joe Sumeragi and brother to Yuito Sumeragi who is the other son of Joe Sumeragi) is the leader of our forces, the forces that Yuito Sumeragi, son of Joe Sumeragi and brother of Kaito Sumeragi, other son of Joe Sumeragi, is joining. Sumeragi." That was only barely an exaggeration, I DON'T HAVE THOSE CHARACTERS' NAMES MEMORIZED BECAUSE I WANT TO! I've played lazy games, but there are no lazy games more infuriatingly lazy than lazy Japanese games, they're an entirely different breed of lazy. Just horrible, horrible writing.
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Borderlands award for Most Yawn-Inducing Game
Definitely more indicative of a game's quality than the previous DIShonorable Mention, this award points and tries to laugh at the game that was the most boring in the current year, but ultimately fails because it's too bored to find the energy to even laugh. In 2021, the Borderlands award for Most Yawn-Inducing Game goes to...
Scarlet Nexus
Let's say you're playing an anime game that's all about super special psychic powers and badass alien designs. In such a situation, are you hoping to see that kind of stuff actually happen? Or are you hoping to just watch the characters blankly emote while they read their lines over a still image of the action? There are so many cutscenes filled with minutes upon minutes upon minutes of dialogue (literally every line of which is bad), that the vast majority of your time with Scarlet Nexus will be spent sitting in your chair being bored out of you skull as you watch the F-grade visual novel play out. So lazy. So friggin lazy.
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Brink award for Worst Game of the Year
I'm sure this final DIShonorable Mention needs no introduction, so without further ado, the Brink award for Worst Game of the Year goes to...
12 Minutes
Whereas Scarlet Nexus at least has some good gameplay moments, not a moment of 12 Minutes is pleasant. Every second spent trying desperately to piece this horrible story together (from frustrating trial-and-error that would be more at home in a 90's LucasArts point and click adventure game) is a second where your curiosity is actively punished. Make a wrong move, and you have to start all over again, and nothing you think of ever works. Leave the pocket watch the cop is here to get on the table and hide in the closet so that when the cop breaks in, he'll see it, take it, and leave? Nope, that doesn't work. How about flicking the light switch once so that when the cop flicks it a second time he gets electrocuted into unconsciousness? Yeah, that makes sense and is totally how reality works! In a timeloop game, trial and error based on curiosity is a critical factor, and 12 Minutes punishes you for daring to think outside the box by forcing you to go through the whole gameplay loop again if you don't reach the exact conclusion that the developer had in mind. And that's before we get into this hack job of a story, where the main character just forgets that he's been sleeping with his sister and he killed their father. Whoopsie! Forgetful me, I guess! Geoff Keighley should be ashamed of himself for nominating this game for Best Narrative at the game awards. Personally, I hope we never again are graced with this hack writer's bad gameplay and story ideas. Go back to Quantic Dream where you belong, as far as I'm concerned.
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Top 10 Games
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Folks, it's now time for the moment you've all been waiting for, the reason you're even here in the first place: the GOTY list for 2021! As always, I'm going to start this off with a note about how I come to my conclusions for placement. Ultimately it's my decision where any given game goes (for example, my empirical system placed Mass Effect: Andromeda as GOTY in its year because of the amount of times I'd played it, which was absolutely not going to happen), but these systems I've come up with serve as an excellent guide for me, and most of the time I don't have to change things around too much. It all starts with a game's score when I review it: only games that score a 7.0/10 or higher are eligible. Then, on top of that score, I add additional points based on factors like how many times I replayed it, if I 100%-ed it, how great the value-to-money proposition is, etc. to create a "raw value." This typically gives me my first look at how the GOTY list in a given year will turn out by the end. Once I'm done with all my reviews for the year, I start making decisions about placements on all the lists you just got through reading, and depending on where a game or an aspect of a game places on those lists, the game earns additional "category" points (winning spot #1 on a list with 10 items earns 10 points, spot #2 earns 9, etc) with only the highest winning spot earning a given game points in a particular list, so if a game has two characters on the "Best Side Character" list, for instance, it'll only earn points for the higher of the two spots. Once all the category points are totaled and added to the raw scores of their respective games, the first draft of the GOTY list positionings are created, and I make edits if I feel they're necessary. But this year, as with most years, I was satisfied with how the ordering turned out. Or, I should say I was satisfied enough. See, as I've already said, this year was so good for games (especially compared to 2020) that I was thinking about doing a top 15 instead of a top 10. But in the end, I decided against it. There were five more games that I would consider GOTY list material, but having an extra five spots would sort of cheapen the definitiveness of this list. Keep that in mind going forward, and know that while these 10 games were the absolute cream of the crop, anything I've given a recommendation to this year is certainly worth your time and money. So, without further ado, dear readers, I present the top 10 Games of 2021!
#10):
#9):
#8):
#7):
#6):
Well folks, we've reached the top 5, and you know what that means. While every game on this list obviously gets a wholehearted recommendation from me, the next 5 games were the true cream of the crop, the top of the top, and I wish I had a third rhyme for that, but they're also just the 5 games that most blew me away in 2021!
#5):
#4):
I don't know if I've ever actually talked about it, but I legitimately love reading through/watching top 10 lists at the end of the year. It's seriously one of my favorite times of year for that reason alone. But nothing is as deflating to me as getting to the #1 spot and finding that it's shared between two games/films/albums/whatever. That, to me, sort of cheapens the experience. Why am I bringing this up here, just before I reveal spot #3? Because it was legitimately difficult to not give GOTY to all 3 of the following games. They're all so worthy of the title for such different reasons, and due to the nature of lists like these, if something comes in spot #3 or spot #2, they naturally are viewed as ultimately inferior to spot #1. I don't want that to be the case this year, so while I stand by the order I chose to set these games in (thanks to my empirical system), I want you, the reader, to understand that if spot #3 or #2 had been favored more by my empirical system and had gotten GOTY with the math involved, I'd also stand by those decisions. These next three games are all GOTY in my heart, but I like these things to be as definitive as possible, so here we go!
#3):
#2):
Game of the Year:
And with that, 2021 comes to a close. The first game I'll be reviewing for 2022 is going to be Halo: Infinite, so look forward to that, and here's hoping we have an even better year for gaming ahead of us!
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