A list of good video games
Hi, I’m sorry this is so long and poorly written. No one’s gonna read this, I get that, but writing this made me happy. I just feel like I should share it.
Don’t quote me on this, but I hear I’m supposed to be figuring out who I’m going to be for the rest of my life right about now. That’s at least what people who say they’ve figured out who they are say. I don’t know about you, but discovering something that big sounds rather exciting to me. Imagine, I could be a chemist or something. Or maybe I’ll be a basketball player! Maybe I’ll be a revolutionary student leader in an inevitable uprising of the enlightened populace. I could even be a thief, but like, a morally-sound one? Maybe I’ll have kids. Perhaps I’ll be happy. The only drawback I can see, really, is having to be one thing forever. I mean, what if by the time I enter the workforce, everything about chemistry has already been discovered? I think it would be boring then to be a chemist. Judging from just the past year, changing to be different things at a (sometimes uncomfortably) quick pace proved to be more than interesting. Last year, I graduated high school and became a university student. I stopped trying to play games on a Mac and started actually playing games on a PC. I became single (ladies ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)). I was in a featured role in a theatre production. I was happy, and I was sad. Perhaps it’s more the excitement of just being something rather than being something forever. I guess that’s why most people aren’t too excited about this discovery. I mean, what if I discover I’ll work in advertising forever? Eesh. Despite the one, big, red, pulsating, downside to being something forever, I don’t think I’m too scared. Probably because I know I won’t be stuck on one thing. Surely, I could definitely work in advertising for the rest of my life (but for the love of God knock on wood), but I only need to press a button to be anything I want to be. Maybe it’s not always real, but it definitely always makes me a real kind of happy. Here are the not-so-real things that I was in 2017 that made me that kind of happy. Welcome to WatchMojo.com, and today we’ll be counting down our picks for the Top 10 Video Games of 2017.
Now, if there’s two things that most, if not all, of the games on my list have done especially well this year, it would be game style and emotional impact. Game style, in this essay’s case, is the ghostly, essential quality of a game that makes it unique and fun to interact with. It’s the screen-shake when you get clapped with a titanic sword. It’s the ticking and clicking sounds the menu makes when you highlight different options. It’s the graphics, the user-interface, the soundtrack, the story, how the game references itself in other media, all coming together to make a game feel more than a computer program. I hope this terrible explanation of what game style is will be made clearer when I get into talking about the games themselves. Emotional impact is, bluntly, how many Kleenex boxes I used during and after playing.
Each game will be graded out of 10 on the following criteria: Gameplay, Auditory Presentation, Visual Presentation, Story (where applicable), Game Style, Emotional Impact, and Fun. Note not all criteria have the same weight for different games.
10) Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator
In Dream Daddy, I was a desirable single dad. Thinking about it now, I wouldn’t mind figuring out that I would be that for the rest of my life.
Some of my friends will know this game as the one I made a big deal about streaming on Facebook Live. Dark times. Dream Daddy was developed and published by the Game Grumps and released on Steam on July 21, 2017 for Windows and Mac OS. As the title suggests, it’s a dating simulator where you date hot dads. You play a character you create who moves into a new town with your (regrettably attractive) daughter Amanda. You meet the other dads in town and waste no time trying to get into their cargo shorts (fortunately, or unfortunately depending on who you ask, you cannot date Amanda – I tried). In all regards save the subject matter, it plays like 80% of most other dating simulators out there. Like that 80%, a bulk of the game is reading dialogue boxes, choosing from four or five responses, and reading more dialogue boxes. If I was a 17-year-old young man (which I am no longer), I think I’d get pretty bored pretty quickly. However, the game shines in the overwhelming amount of charm it has.
Every dateable dad (and their accompanying families) is drawn with distinct and memorable designs that communicate their personality and representative dating trope very clearly— all in a clean, cute, and pleasant-to-look at art style. It’s both easy and terribly difficult to choose a favorite. While I’d say both the sound design and soundtrack are somewhat lacking, they at least manage to make your reading experience not totally silent. They’re fine, but not fantastic.
The same cannot be said for the writing though. Ok, it’s not fantastic. But it does exactly what it sets out to do. On the surface, it’s a comedy game. The social climate and attitude people still have towards gay relationships, especially with older people, makes that clear from the outside. However, the game never falls into mockery. Dad jokes and social ineptness are aplenty, but only because the characters and situations call for it. It’s adorable, most of the time. All that, and the game manages to squeeze in some surprising heart in themes of family, neighborliness, and of course fatherhood. The game even betrays its own hearty-heart atmosphere to *SPOILERS SPOILERS* and then he opened the door only to find *SPOILERS* and *SPOILERS SPOILERS* who turned out to be *SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS*! Throw in a healthy amount of Pokemon Red-inspired minigame, and you’ve got a warm and fuzzy package.
Dream Daddy is nothing less than what it should be, but it can be a teensy bit more. It picks a job, which is in this case being a dating simulator for fathers, and does it. Dream Daddy is corner-smile-inducingly charming and novel in the best way possible.
In Tooth and Tail, I was a revolutionary rat rebel. Together with my squirrel comrades and chameleon hired blades, I bathed fields in bourgeois blood. Rat bourgeois blood.
Tooth and Tail is a fast-paced real-time strategy game developed by Pocketwatch Games released on September 13, 2017 for PS4, Windows, and Mac OS. You take control of one of four rodents, each a leader of a WWI Soviet Union-era inspired factions. You conquer farms, amass your army of forest critters, and take out whatever-colored-coat wearing opponents you’re up against. It works, trust me. What makes this game special in this climate is how it can make something as nose-bleedingly hectic as the RTS genre accessible, fun, and shockingly good to play with a controller.
Its mechanics feels like a shaved-down and waxed bastard child of Red Alert. You control your rat rebel scum and have one button to rally a single type of unit you select, and another button to rally all of them. This sets up a scope and limitation for the game to work perfect without a mouse and keyboard while still retaining a layer of strategic depth. How each unit is unique and fulfill a role no other unit does any better, maps are procedurally/randomly generated, and the fact that the deck of units you get to start a match are usually selected at random all make for a gameplay style that does not tire easily (but may admittedly be a bit simplistic at times). It’s still a blast to watch your snooty cult leader mouse’s enemy’s farms be razed by your horde of frogs tied to sticks of dynamite in one fight, only then for your mortar-defended fortress to be broken down by ragtag farm girl rat and her fleet of sparrows with machine guns and a giant flamethrower-wielding boar.
Now, what I’m describing probably sounds like if Watership Down and George Orwell’s Animal Farm had a child but got even bloodier and had more guns. It basically is, and its fantastic. Like I mentioned, the game goes for this WWI, Russia in the summer, drunk around the campfire, “I’m gonna take a dump in this rusty can then use it to eat my rations,” sort of aesthetic, and it really really works. From its digitally-painted character art that looks straight out of a communist Russian propaganda piece, to it’s muted color palette, incredibly clear pixel art, and some of the best use of soft bloom lighting I’ve seen in a while, it totally nails its desired visual tone. Throw that into a badger’s tin pot with a soundtrack comprised of live strings and a chorus of drunken animals that sounds like it was recorded straight from a campfire, and you have a damn pleasing package.
Tooth and Tail is probably one of the most underappreciated releases of the past year, but just like the hungry proletariat, it should not be ignored.
In Opus Magnum, I was a court alchemist. But also a programmer. And also kind of an ass.
Opus Magnum is a programming puzzle game developed by Zachtronics and released for Windows and MacOS on December 8, 2017. In it, as the antisocial Sherlock-type of an alchemist for a wealthy family in an alternative, steampunk, feudal future, you construct borderline Goldberg-esque machines to create a given chemical structure. It’s a lot more satisfying than it sounds. In fact, that’s the perfect word to review it with. Satisfying.
One is given a hexagonally divided grid, a list of machine parts, and an appointed product. It’s then the player’s choice to do what they like, experimenting, failing, slotting together parts, and setting instructions for the machine to make what look like atomic structures if atoms were as big as marbles. Each piece costs a certain amount, takes up a certain amount of space, and each instruction takes up a tick of time, so the job of optimizing your arms and levers becomes the game, not so much simply solving the creation process. It is the best feeling in the world to see your machine evolve from a mess of gears and pistons to a sleek, efficient, cheap flame-retardant-making contraption.
It’s not only the gameplay of course that’s so satisfying. I must give special mention to the sound design, because every kuchunk, whirr, chnkwhizz that your creations make make for a tactile, almost ASMR pleasurable experience.
Despite being released only relatively recently, its spot on this list should speak of how much turning lead into gold has impacted me.
7) What Remains of Edith Finch
In What Remains of Edith Finch, I was sad, 17, recently orphaned, and pregnant. Thank God I’m only one of those things in real life.
It’s Not Breaking and Entering if I Used to Live Here: The Game was developed by Giant Sparrow and released on April 25, 2017 for PS4, Xbox One, and Windows. In it, you are Edith Finch and definitely don’t break into your ancestral family home and learn more of your tragic family member’s tragic histories. What this is is probably the crowning glory in the growing trend of story-rich “walking simulators,” which are usually more story/movie than game. But what makes Edith Finch so good is its ability to be a story that can only be told through the medium of video games. That in itself makes it fantastic.
The game is built as a number of what are best described as playable vignettes, each dealing with a certain member of the Finch family, with some house exploration and out-loud introspection from Edith in between. The vignettes come about when Edith finds something that her family has left, perhaps a diary or a note from a hospital. Each playable section varies drastically from one another, and yet it always feels cohesive. One sees you conducting a synchronized swim team of bath toys, another walks you through a 1960s style Marvel horror comic book, and in one of the game’s most powerful moments, you find yourself chopping off mackerel heads at a cannery.
What makes these moments so moving isn’t the gameplay itself – although, how the game makes you move your mouse or controller to mimic menial tasks does play well to immerse one further. It is, however, how the game makes the simple interactivity essential to totally digesting the themes and emotion that makes it so special. bIt manages to justify its existence as a game, and not a book or a short film, in this way. It’s really only something you have to experience to truly understand what I mean.
There are so many things I could talk about, like the voice acting and the design of the house you explore, and the incredible use of text, but writing something after a month of being on Christmas break is exhausting and this section is long enough.
I’m sure it sounds as boring as I feel like I’ve made it sound, but it’s one of those things that you just need to experience for yourself.
In Pyre, I was a magic basketball coach in purgatory. All because I knew how to read
Pyre is a fantasy pseudo-sport RPG developed by Supergiant Games and released on July 26, 2017. Supergiant Games has an almost perfect track record. They’ve made both Bastion and Transistor in the past, some of the most pleasant, well-rounded games I’ve played. So when I saw that they were coming out with another game, I was sold on name alone. That’s usually an awful idea, but let me tell you that Supergiant delivered.
You take the role of The Reader, someone who can decipher an ancient book for people trying to escape exile with the contents of the tome. You help them conduct what are called Rites, a ritual that allows for the exiled to redeem themselves. Rites play out as a sort of basketball-football-dodgeball hybrid where you have to get an orb into your opponents Pyre. Each of member for your party, like any good roleplaying game, has unique attributes to mix and match when you choose three representatives to participate in each Rite. Now, believe me when I say I have little to no interest in sports games. Maybe it’s just a stigma that was bred in me growing up the nerd but they always seemed so boring. That said, I wasn’t too excited about Pyre’s gameplay before its release. It was completely different from their too past games, both being isometric brawling RPGs in some form. I was, though, pleasantly surprised at how actually fun plunging my friends into magic fire to free them of their banishment was. It was a sports game at its surface, a game that rewards good positioning and quick decision-making. But its blend of RPG elements like unique character abilities, equipment, and strategic party management all made for something special. There’s an ongoing motif in its game design is the sacrifice of your best players, and the game builds itself around that concept. Scoring a goal with one character will bench them for the next play, leaving you with two of your heroes to outplay your enemy’s three. Or how when each cycle of the Rites conclude, your selected strongest character will ascend and leave your party. They’re unique gameplay ideas, but they don’t stop at being novel and come together as something surprisingly deep, expressive, and fun.
Of course, you can’t talk about a Supergiant game without talking about its presentation. Pyre is beautiful. It has a bold, colorful, art style that is so, for lack of a better word, alive. The character art is wonderfully hand-painted, bringing characters straight out of gypsy tales to life. The characters and elements are animated just as they should be, with the giant demon Jodariel’s heavy, slow stomps and the wyrm knight Sir Gilman’s slick and quick dives, character is communicated without a single word. Each environment is illustrated so perfectly, with the indoor of your party’s caravan having a dark, lived-in, storybook sort of appeal and the overworld being a cross between stained glass, those Irish Cartoon Saloon movies like Song of the Sea, and something all its own. The arenas the Rites take place in have this intense, flowing, neon glow to them that makes just looking at the game fun on its own. The shapes and effects that pop out when a certain character feels very strongly about something in dialogue scenes make me feel tingly inside. This is really just scratching the surface.
It’s not just candy for the eyes, either. Every little glimmer sound of some magical shopkeeper or the squeaking and uneven shuffle of the caravan as it wheels its way around a world much too beautiful to be a place of punishment. There’s almost no voice acting in the game, save the eccentric voice of the sky that plays the role of sportscaster, but the technique of jumbled but very deliberate sounds in place of any real spoken language serves its purpose perfectly. Most notably, of course, is the music. Supergiant is known for their amazing soundtracks, and Pyre does not drop the magic star energy orb. It has a good mix of live lute, harps, guitar, chimes, cymbals, and things that sound a lot like a harpsichord that bring back memories of being a medieval gypsy on the road, even if I’ve never been that before. Then the game pulls a 360 on you and you get a heavy, chugging, rock when the Mad Max-inspired pack of hounds challenge you to a fight, or remixes a familiar song and throws in some angelic vocals just to make you cry a little harder that you will never see your favorite harpy waifu after you send her off from the world of the exiled. All this ties together for one impeccably stylish game.
If the game takes place in its world’s version of purgatory, then give me a list of sins I can do and sign me the hell up.
In Cuphead, I was a 1930s-era rubberhose cartoon character. And I died. A lot.
Cuphead was developed by StudioMDHR and released on September 27, 2017 for Xbox One and Windows. In it, you restrain yourself from smashing your controller after dying to a living candy-castle’s jaws of death or a devil flower’s incredibly stretchy face for the hundredth time. You take control of the titular Cuphead, a young lad with a (wouldn’t you know) a cup for a head on his quest to call in actual Satan’s due from characters who owe the devil their souls. It’s a 2D run-and-gun, bullet-hell platformer with a focus on taking down a wonderfully assorted slew of bosses. The shooting is fun with responsive controls and a fairly customizable moveset. Mechanics like Cuphead’s sideways dash and his in-jump parry give enough options in the thick of things to at the very least try to survive. And that’s what you’re doing for a majority of the game, trying to survive. It turns out that it’s honestly not too difficult to kill the enemies you’re put up against, but it would be an understatement to call surviving the fights difficult. The screen fills with quick moving UFO zaps and slow moving golden cat totems and unpredictably flying horseshoes, and those kill you. A lot. Even then, with the more than noteworthy difficulty, the game never feels unfair. Learning how to survive a fight, just barely executing your plan, and seeing that flashy “KNOCKOUT” screen is an incredible feeling. You just need try about sixty times. Did I mention I died a lot?
It’s a fun game, but even if it wasn’t, it would probably still make this list for one unmissable reason: it’s a masterclass in game style. What it sets out to do is capturing the 1930s’ stretchy, exaggerated, surreal, borderline un-kid-friendly animation style, and Cuphead kills it more than Grim Matchstick the meteor-spitting dragon kills Cuphead. Which was a lot. Did I mention I died a lot? Each character and flying projectile was hand drawn and animated, something you almost never see in video games, all with such attention to detail you could swear they came right out of a Mickey Mouse cartoon. Many characters move like they’re in that phase of matter between solid and liquid, then others stretch and squish in a perpetual dance to the ragtime band music that I could swear my life on having heard in a Betty Boop episode. It absolutely nails the brass and bass sound of the music of the era, charming and exciting, with a crackling filter that makes you almost feel the vinyl in your hands. The almost demonic jibberish the ingame shopkeeper speaks has the ghost of a voiceline recorded by a man who probably worked at the factory and wore suspenders and one of those hats those guys from the Newsies wear. The browned cardboard and heavy use of Futura’s grandfather make the UI feel like you pulled it right out of an antique store. Any screen in the game, desaturated just a tad, could easily be mistaken as a good Saturday morning for Little Tim. I cannot express enough how fantastically executed Cuphead’s game style is. It is beautiful, surprisingly readable, insane, and accurate beyond words.
Despite it’s almost unwelcoming difficulty, Cuphead knows exactly what it is and manages to be so much more. As a package, with it’s fantastic visuals, audio, and self-awareness, Cuphead is to die for. Did I mention I died a lot?
EMOTION: 9/10 (I mean, rage is an emotion)
In Horizon Zero Dawn, I was a tribal robot hunter. Now, I doubt they have shampoo in the post-apocalypse, but goddamn my hair looked good.
Horizon Zero Dawn was developed by Guerilla Games and came out on February 28, 2017 for PS4. In it, you play Aloy, a blazing redheaded outcast-turned-hero on a mission to avenge a tribe that shunned her since birth. You explore snowy mountains, forests, deserts, and ruins of a present day American city in a killer-robot-induced post-apocalypse. Taking on 20-foot-tall dinosaur death machines with your bow and arrow, Aloy traverses an expansive open-world. This world, I feel, is the star of the game. The map is huge, fitting in diverse amounts of scenery like snow-white fields, sandy canyons, and overgrown cities. You meet all types of people from the Native-American-inspired Nora tribe, to the Persian-Japanese hybrid Carja, and the heavy metal almost Nordic Oseram. Despite its size, the world is packed with things to do. Hunting small animals for food, treasure hunting robot flowers and ancient mugs, and of course doing battle with huge steel monsters are just some of the things you can do on your journey. I think even just admiring the views can be fun enough. Horizon is one of the few games where I actively found myself stopping and literally whispering words of amazement at how gorgeous and realistic the graphics of a game are. The sun shines beams through tree cover, grass dances in the wind, and goodness me does Aloy’s hair look fantastic.
Horizon’s world isn’t only fun to run around in, of course. Spearing the metal deerlike Grazers and luring the lethal machine-gun armed robo-tiger Ravagers into electric trip wires feel fantastic. The combat is fast-paced and expressive, as Aloy is given fluid running, sliding, and rolling movement mechanics and can arm herself with a variety of different weapons from bows to grappling hooks. It’s fun to be able to opt into precisely shooting off weak spots on the cargo-carrying crablike Shell-Walker or tying it down with my Ropecaster to immobilize it. The vast variety of enemies and ways to approach taking them down makes combat fun even if it’s to no quest’s actual end.
It just gets better when you actually are on a quest, as it opens up interactions with all sorts of characters, leads you to discover more of the well-crafted world, and gives you more opportunities to listen to Aloy’s wonderful voice acting.
If you couldn’t tell, it seems most of the games on my list so far have been smaller, very focused games. Scale can be overwhelming for me, but Horizon knows exactly how to deal with scale. It’s a big game, and is big fun.
In Injustice 2, I was Wonder Woman. And Superman. And Batman. And Harley Quinn. And Scarecrow. And The Blue Beetle. And Hellboy. And-…
Injustice 2 was developed by NetherRealm Studios and released on May 11, 2017 for PS4 and Xbox One and on December 1, 2017 for Windows. It’s the sequel to Injustice: Gods Among Us, a 2D fighting game featuring a roster of characters from DC Comics. You pick one of an awesomely curated list of heroes and villains to punch it out with another hero or villain. It’s a good time.
Injustice is the reason I bought a PS4. I am a huge comic book fan, so playing a game that prominently features my favorite characters and wasn’t a cruddy mobile infinite runner or one-button brawler is basically a dream come true. As it’s the second in the series, it wasn’t hard picking up relatively quickly. What I love about NeatherRealm fighting games is how it balances accessibility with depth. It’s no short of enjoyable being able to practice my own skills against computers, but still be able to have fun with my cousins who never picked up the game before. Granted, spamming long ranged gunshots and lightning bolts at your opponent from across the screen can be problematic, but the amount of unique and familiar characters there are to play around with can let a starving fanboy like me overlook competitive nuisances like that. I just want to play a game where I can get Gorilla Grodd to slam Green Lantern into the ground, ok?
And that’s really what makes the game for me. It’s not the best balanced competitive fighting game out there for sure, but the fan service is more than enough for me. With an almost perfect roster, perhaps with one too many Mortal Kombat characters but a perfect amount of Teenage Freaking Mutant Ninja Turtles, I still squeal when I get that delicious sass from Hellboy right before he pounds Brainiac’s face in. Bringing these characters and interactions to life is something the game does terrifically. Every character has hundreds of voicelines and some of the best facial animation I’ve seen in a game—period.
It all just makes my little nerd heart sing.
2) Doki Doki Literature Club
In Doki Doki Literature Club, I was JUST MONIKA JUST MONIKA JUST Ḿ̜̩͙̻̻̳̰̯̜͟͞Ǫ̢̰̱͙̖͔̯̣͡Ń̴͙͇̩͈I̸̟͎̹͍̲̺K̪̠A͙̱̮ ̵̬̖̟̮̠͖̪̱̩J̸̬̪̲͓͎͓U̻̻̩S̷͔̼͙T͇̮̬͖͖͟͡ ̰̦̮̣̟̞̤͇͝M̪̜͓̠̬͟Ǫ̛͉͕̯̦̼̻̠͉͉N̲͓I̶̡̠͓̝̘̤̣K̢̰̲̙̠̝̱̳̲͟Ą̧̪̣̗ ̴̠̖̘̪J͎̦̻͍̳͚̗͚͟U̶̡̧̯̠̖͓̪̬Ş͈̫͙͉̙ͅŢ̷̪̻̬͍̱ ̴̢̳͝M̻̱̖̫͕O̵̢̖͍͕̖̫̪Ņ̭͉͝Ḭ̪͢͝͠K͉̰A̪̹̫̪͓͖̩̼/͠͏̤̭͔̬̩̖̱̗͢/̠̦̞̜/̨̨̻͙͇̱/̧̣̥̀/͚̟̟̯̳/̷͏̢͕̰͕̪/҉̱̞͇͜/͉̜͉̜͢/̫̭̦͎̥̪̘͡͠/̪͕̗/̶͎̭̩̠̫̼̦/̶͍̰̟̪͟͝/̨̛̣͉̬/̧̹̫̖̰͎̟̟͙͡/͓̪͇/̢̤̤̙͔̜̝͍̰/̶̧̱̗̮͍̰̲/̢̙̬͕̯̘̭͈̟̱/҉̖̫͖͙̝̱͡/͙̟̯̼̞̱̱̪͜͟/̡҉̦̫̦/̸̛͕͚̝/̞̥̫͠/̗̤͓̹͢͝/̴̥͔̰̭̮/̵̨̯̦̤̣̲/͎̭/͏̪̰͍̦ͅ/̨̹̹̜͚̼̪̳̜̙/͏̘̯̥̜̱ͅ/̴̘͎̻͚̹͚̪͍͜/̷̛̭̀/̴̮̣͈/҉̸̼̳/̙̝̩̱̜͇̯̞̠͝͡/̼̬̼̤̻͔̰̺̲/̲̝̖͕̦͔̠̻̀͜/̼̜̙̝̲͎̣/̛̦̥̤̞̰͍͚/̸͈͚͍͇̱/̨̪̦͕̲ͅ/̴̰͇̘̦̭/͏̧͔͎̬̦…͎̻̰̦͔͙̘͉͞…̬̝̲̩̼̪͡͝…̧̛͕̝͔̗͓̜…҉̸͚͇͉͟ͅ…̢̙̘͖͡…̴̨̙̞̘̳̹̱…̛̪̟̬̟̻̀͢…̸̦̰̪͍͓͉̭̱́…̺̲͎̘̜͠…͍͇̳…̖͉̫̝̱̣̹…̫̣̼̥̺̭̖ͅ…̸̟…̡̞̻̱̮̖̮̺̕͡…͈̭͖̮́͞…̧͈͖͍͈͚̦͉͎…̺̱̮̠͈͟…̢̡̼͈͇̳̰͍͍́…̴̯̻̳̞̤̳͡…̨̰̬̪̳̳̰̙͞…͈…͕͎͔̰́…̶̳͞…̴̜͚̟̝̤͇͖̜͡ͅ…̸̲͇̯̖̪̝͈͞͠…̦̳̪̕…͏͉͍͙̺̕͢…͔͇̳̜͚̤͉͉̘͟…҉̗̮̙̝͓…̨̛̹̮͉͔̪…̬̮̜̰…̖̟͟…̸̸̝͇…҉̲̙…͔̙͔…̰̕͜…̸̻͕̻́…̮̣̜̻̺̫͉͚ͅ…̞͚͕̩̜͍̻́…̵̮͔̺̬͍̙…̲͉̬̺̱̖…̶̱̹̥͎͞…̳̟̩̹̜͞…̹̖̫͉͇…̵̨̤̺͘…̷͎̜…̸͉͔̟̺͎̩́.̞͎̺̣͇̮̹̫̟͟.̴̝̣͕̺̘͓̲̭̱ Doki Doki w͉̟a̹ͅs̠ ͔d̠̫͔͜e̴̪̟͙͓v̩̤͉̳̝e҉̠̰͍͚̪l͈͓o̟̗̭͈̰̜̗p̠̯̱̬e͚̟̠̼̟̬d̝̟̳ͅ ̰b͘ỳ̟̯̟͍͉ͅ ͙̺̙̳ͅD̘͠a̳̙̯ṉ̭͟ ̗͓̦̟̖͈S̹̬̙̼̞͚̱a̯̣̩͓͍l͙v̩̥͞a͉̱͉̥̲̱͠ͅt̪̫̖͙͖̝͡o͖̼̱ ̞͔̜̥a҉̩͎n̵͖̫̻̙̣̻̳d̵͓̮͇̰̥ ̺̲h̰̦̗͉̫͖̰is team and was released on September 22, 2017 for Windows and MacOS. It’s a v͖̥̯͓͓̞͝i̭͈̭͉s̴̱̤͙u̵͉̲̻̦a̡̱̭l̰̻̣͓͚ ̦̳̣̳̫n̝̠̖o̘͝v̺̼̤̱̹̗e҉̲͚ͅl̠̟̫͇ ̪̠̠͍͝ dating sim a̗͈͕̫̬͈b̙̫̯o̯̠͇̕ut joining the school literature club and m̴e̼̮̬̖͟e̩̹̩ͅt҉̼͓̪̠̟̼̦į̳̯͎̹͚n̯̟g̨̞̺͖͉̳̩̗ ̳̮̭͚̥ f͈͕͎͖̘͓̤͕͚͚̺͓͇̟͜͡ͅͅo̵̯͔̫̥̻̤̫̣͇̪̯̲̲͈̼̩͢ͅų̴͓̠̗͈̤̼̙̹́͞ṟ̨̛̱̘̯͈̙͕͈̥̯͉͎̰̻̩̙́͟ ̫̥̦̖̳͕ͅs͏̬̞̟͇w̤e͏̦͕e͕̩̣̩͉ț̝̮ ̗̼̤͔͎͠g̵̱͔̜̮̬̻͇i̴̻̻͓̬͇ṟ͕̯͙̟̟̹͜l̢͕̞s̠̞͕͙͝.̵͉̺ ̰͔̪͎ͅ
I swear to you I’m not just being lazy with this one. Please, if you want to know more about this game play it for yourself. Doki Doki is one of those things where the less you know about it prior, the better. It’s free, and only takes about 4 hours to complete. This game struck me down, man. Haha, a cutesy anime girl dating sim visual novel thing made me cry, funny. I, the soft-hearted, fragile, emotionally dependent young lad that I am, have no shame in loving this game as much as I do. I swear, I recommend this game with all my heart. At least I would, if I still had one after this game rIPPED IT OUT OF ME.
GAMEPLAY: 0̶̤͈̥1̫̗͠͠͡0̩̰̖̮͖͙͠1̸̠̭̹/10
AUDIO: 9̢͉88891̰̬̺̤̜̬̞͓́͞0̮͔̟͚͇/10
VISUAL: 2͗ͫ͊̉ͨ̅͒͏̩͚̝̯̀2̄̈́̇̃̀ͧ̓̚҉̛̥̣̤̳̺̮2̩͈̺̘̝̂2̸̥̗̩̅̈ͦ̿̃̽̋͑̕2͔̭̲͇̩̅̑͌́2̛̯͈͇̮̯̫̫͖͎̅̇ͭ͗̈́2̯̹͖͉ͦ̂̃̽ͪ̽ͨ1̯͙̮͔̦͉̼̓ͯ͆0̶͉͓͈̩̬̙̝͂̄̏̎̍͋͞/10
STORY: 8̴̞̰͙͉̂ͨ̈̓ͪ̚͞9̢̰̣͕̐ͣ̿ͭ̒͆̈́̚͟ͅ9̨̡͖͉͉̮̥̒̋́9͔̳̯͍̟̳̟̪ͧ̉̎̒ͨ͒͢͠9̠̦̗͛ͬ̔ͭ̊̚͘̕9̡̛̻̳̯̄̌̌̑9̴̠̜̱ͥ̎̏͠9͚̜̦͗ͮ͑͋ͬ̆́̐͠9̵̼̭̭͉̗̱̯̍ͫͬ̾ͩ̀9̠̻̦͕͖ͣ̋̾͐͠9̴̝̼̰͚ͬ̾̈́9̷̷̱̩̲ͬ̈́̂̾ͦ̊̇̀9̷̢͕̱̽ͤͪ͋ͬͤ9̧͍̺̳̹͓̅ͩ̓̌ͤͨ͌͜9̝̘̆̇ͣ̀͡9̴̛̫̊̍͢9̸͔͇̋ͥ̆͆̿̎̅̅9̲̫̬̥̭̘̳͒͂̈̀͢͞9̢̞͕̟͚̗̙̿́9̢̦̣̗͖͇̭̲̫ͨ̏̈́̎͠/10
STYLE: 1̷̸͎̙͈̫́8̸̻̞̣̹̥͢8̷̹̝͉̰̼͖̜̘2͖̬͙̲̻̠̱͡2̡҉̬͉͕͈2̖͍̕2͓͖̮͉̜̤̺̳̮4̸̛͎̭̣̘/10
EMOTION: 9̉ͤͮͥͫ̈́̊̀͌͌̉͛̉͒́͒̚҉̭͍̻͖̭̟͉͡9ͬͧͣ͒́͏͈͓͕̯̦̤̠̱͔͙̘̠̺̟͜͝ͅ9͐ͣ͑́ͫ͛͐͐҉̥̣͚͎̳̲̜̪̰̕9̴͇͎̪̭̗͔͗̅ͩ̚ͅͅ9̡͕̫͚̗͙̘̞̝͓̘̜̱̺̤͋̑̽ͣ̂̃ͦ̀ͨͭ͌̓̕9̨̮̠̮̗̩̦̘͇̅ͩͤͣͭͬ̇͗̀̚9͓̩̖̳̤͈͓̦͖͔̫͙̳̊ͯ͑̀̉͋͛̋ͫ̀͟9͉͎̫͍͙̙̭̾̋̊̓ͯͤ̈́ͯ͌ͯ͆̽̋ͤ͝9̸̧̛̙̤͚̬͙͓̘͖̗͖̻ͩͮͧ̚̕͟ͅ9̶̢̳̹̼͓̼̖͇̩̓ͣ̒̉́̀͡9̷̸̮͎̲̦ͣ̈ͫ̈́ͬ͐̔̏̈̽̔̍̄́̚͘9̴̡̯̩̖̩̼̥̮̦̜̺̦̙̼̮̰̟̠̇ͮͣ͌ͭͥ͂̕͢9̷̟̪͖̦̭̒ͣͫͩͣ̇ͨ̓ͦ͗̓͆ͯͪ̿̀́̚̚̚9͈̱̟͖͔͕̖̝̙̟̱̥͎̰̎̄ͦ̆ͩ̀̎̏ͪ͟͞͠͝ͅ9̷̷̷̨͖̯͓̣͚̜̞͖͚͆ͮ͗ͩ̋͒̂̉̆̂̀ͅ9̧̛͕̥͇̪͉̗̞͇̲̫͚͈͑̅̈̀̔̄̒9̊̊̇̽͑ͩ̒̓͗̃ͥ͛҉̧̨̝͖̭̖̝̥̠̤̝͉̦̩̤͠͝9ͩ̈̈́͆ͧͥ͂̽̂͊̚͏̳͚̹̫͎̲̖̰͉̲9̸̵̗̤̰͙̗̜̮̞͕̘̰̗̏͌̍̓ͥ͂͒̈̓̔ͣ̈́͌9̶̱͖̻͇̰̮͚̥̿̂ͦ̀̉́͝9̴̵̴̪̟̞͇͇͔̣ͨͧͫ̐̌̂̆̀ͧͥ̌ͧͭͣ͛ͣ́̚9̧̩̪͔̠̙̣͔͎̹͔̩̖̭̭̦̳̿̑͐̉ͥ̇͛̂̓̍͞ͅ9̷̦̝͕̘̳̞̫̜̦̺̩̬̪͉̻͉̼͛̂̔̐̒̔̾͒̋͒̎̊̍̈͌̄̕ͅ9̉ͨͤͨ̉̒͒̅̉ͫ̾҉̖̺̫̫͍̱͓͓̺̦̹̣͕̣̞9̢̛̙̯̙̗̖̙̫̝͚̰͚̥͓̦͈͔̽ͦͨͩ̚̕͘͟9̛͒ͣ̈́͐̏̊͒̀ͤͧ͒̆ͧͤͪ҉̵̧̡͔̗͓ͅͅ9̸̨̛̩͚̝̠͓͇̹͖̣̠̣̤̩̩̪̈͌̀̎ͯ̋͑́̚͝ͅ9̥̤̠͎̜̗̩̙͎̼̤̳͇̠ͮͣ͋̽͑ͦͫ̓̉̅͞9̸͎̟̘̭͆̈ͥͫ̃̆̓͗̊͒̀͢9ͭͭ̊̋̒͂҉͏̶̣͎̗̟9̛̥͙͔̬̫̙̬̦̤͓̦̲̺͕̞̫͈̜̂̐͊̇́ͭ̉̓̎ͨͦ̒͂̓ͩ̎̀͟9̋ͣ̓̅͏̸̢̣͚͚̯͇̖̲͙͈͓̞͕͈̤̫͢͠9̓ͪ̃͊̎̋̈́ͣ͘҉̗̭͇̹ͅ9̾̽͒̒ͮ̿ͭ̔͗ͣ̑̒҉̵̺̦͇͍̦̘͕̖͎̱͝͡9̴͍̦̭̤̻̘̭̳͔̦̠ͦ͆͒͆͂͋ͦ̆̓̏ͫ̏̇͑̚͘͞9̡̜̯̘͈͕̣̜̻̮̩͉̬̠͚̳̿̊̈́̄̓ͅ9ͩ͌ͫ̉̉̌ͦ҉̲͖̣̰̗̗̝̘̝̺̜̲̼͈͇̠͙̪ͅ9̗͖̞̱̬̗̥͎͙̟̙̦̭̳͚̋͑̒́̀̂ͣ͝9̴̍̿̀ͩ̉̆̒͠͏̸̨̱̠͈̙͉̳͎͇̦̺̗̭̫̫̞̤̝̪9̨̛̛̤͔̬̖͎͕͕̪͕̇ͣ̉͌̈̽͌̆͑͐͑ͭ͊̓̿̾̓͂̅͘͞9̊ͮ́̆ͯ̎͏̴̴͖̻̩̗̗̭͙͚̲͔̳͚͉̰̦̩̼͚͢ͅ9̴̡͔͎̩̱͋ͨ͐ͣͨ̐ͬ̀̕͟9̛͇̱͖̪̱̲͈̽̍͋͂ͯ͋̌͝͝9̵̠̞̻̙̥̠̻̱͕̗͍̭̜͚̲̘̔ͥ́ͭ́͘͝9̸̶̵ͭͤ͒ͧ̑̓ͫ̋̅͒ͮͩ͜͏̖̩̹̩̙̤̳̣̪̩͔͉̱̰̫̦̭̮͚9̄ͮ͋̈̅ͨ̾ͣ͂̃̒̃͏̶̧̡̩͚͚͎̠͓̮̱̫͕͉͇͙̝̘9̵̤̣̩̜̘̯̞̦̙͍͑̓̅̂̅͆ͭ̾͂̕9̶̰̰̰̙͔̟̰͙̪͈̱̹̳͍̠͖̂ͬͬ̂͛̆ͧ̓̽ͤͨ͟ͅ/10
Sadly, I wasn’t able to finish Night In the Woods. I did enjoy what I managed to get through though. It has this wonderful, paper-cutout sort of style that was very easy on the eyes. Its small-town atmosphere and well-written characters made a flat, sarcastic, anthropomorphic cat girl feel more relatable than most actual people. Just as well, it had that post-coming-of-age confusion sort of story arc that really resonated with me.
2) Marvel vs Capcom: Infinite
Like I said, I love comic books. And I love video games. So, a fighting game with more of my favorite characters crossing over should be right up my alley, right? Well, totally! I love the MvC series, but this newest release was a disappointment. The actual systems and gameplay is actually really really good, and is in a wonderful spot right now after tuning down Dante and the Reality Stone, but unfortunately a would-be good game was let down by a mediocre roster of characters and some really ugly art design decisions. Oh well.
3) League of Legends Preseason 8
A bit of a weird one to include, I know, but the changes made to the awful Runes and Masteries system made me come back to a game I haven’t genuinely enjoyed in months. But now nobody wants to play with me because all my friends are playing Destiny 2 now. I’ll stop there before I start ranking.
This didn’t come out last year, but bear with me. Like I said earlier, I finally got myself a Windows computer. The first game I bought for it was Overwatch, and for the better half of the year, it was my go to pastime. I haven’t been playing it too much recently, but I can’t deny that it and its characters hold a very very special place in my heart.
5) Every Nintendo Switch Game
Look man, I don’t own a Nintendo Switch, but I hear nothing but praise for the likes of Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey. They look sick, I just wish I could play them.
In Persona 5, I was a Phantom Thief.
Persona 5 was developed by Atlus and released on September 16, 2016 in Japan and April 4, 2017 in the West for the PS3 and PS4. It’s the (rather counterintuitively) the sixth main series title in the Persona franchise, a spinoff of the Shin Megami Tensei series. I suppose it’s a classic turn-based JRPG with elements of life simulators and visual novels, but it turned out to be so much more than that for me.
The basic premise of the Persona games root themselves in the philosophies of Carl Jung, who says someone’s “persona” is "a kind of mask, designed on the one hand to make a definite impression upon others, and on the other to conceal the true nature of the individual" Taking it one very literal step further, the characters in these games summon embodiments of their personas (usually in the form of monstrous, ghostly forms of characters from mythology and culture) to defend themselves from and defeat monsters. Believe me, it doesn’t get any less convoluted. In 5, you take control of a kid who was framed for the assault of a powerful man, and so was put on parole and forced to move to a new school. A strange power is later discovered to travel what is called the Metaverse, an alternate reality formed out of the perception (or “cognition” as the game puts it) of people in the real world. It is revealed that you have the unique power to have multiple personas. There, you find that you can use your personas to defeat monsters and infiltrate Palaces, the sites of sociopathic people’s distorted desires, and steal their Treasure to change their hearts for the better in the real world. You later form the Phantom Thieves, a group consisting of you, an anthropomorphic cat, and fellow youth, with the goal of bettering society not through force or violence, but by changing the hearts of some rotten adults. No, I’m not joking.
It is a total mystery to me, how to game manages to shine in about every aspect. 5 has the single most engaging, deep, and intuitive battle systems I have ever played. Literally summoning your inner demons to slay a sexually-offensive volleyball coach’s monstrous Metaverse self manages to be incredibly fun and dynamic, allowing for extremely customizable strategies, while never feeling overwhelming in the slightest. There’s a whole slew of options with elemental attacks, status effects, baton pass combos, All-Out Attacks, character switching, hundreds of different items, and secondary effects. Collecting and creating new and powerful personas to your liking always keeps your strategies fresh. Unlike the trap that many JRPGs fall into of having so many enemy encounters that it becomes tedious, Persona 5 somehow manages to make every fight you find yourself in feel like it’s worth it. I have not had more fun in a turn-based battle system since Pokemon Black and White, and that was 8 years ago.
Of course, setting evil Pixies on fire isn’t the only thing to do in the game. A huge chunk of the game is also devoted to living your life as an almost normal Japanese high school student. And when I say huge chunk, I mean huge. There is an astounding amount to do in this game. You can take part-time jobs, watch movies, shop, play video games (IN your video game, like a video gameception), play baseball, go to a spa, and meet up with your friends. Friends that make up a lot of my enjoyment of this game.
Persona has this mechanic called the “Confidant” (previously called “Social Links”) system. You basically hang out with your friends, playing along in visual novel-style vignettes. As you level your relationships up, you gain perks to aid you in your battle or everyday life. This would feel like one of those grindy chores one would do in any other JRPG just to help level your character up, and while you still get in-game advantages for doing this, the characters and the attachments I made with them made it a wonderful experience in its own right. There are just so many characters to love like your headstrong, reckless, and goodhearted first friend Ryuji, or hot, struggling, doctor friend Takemi, your shy, eccentric adoptive godsister Futaba, and even the adorable, reluctant high school teacher Kawakami. Each character, no matter how seemingly minor they may be at first, is so perfectly fleshed out that, if you’re a lonely, emotional teen like me, they can very easily start to make a very real dent in your heart. Not to mention the fact that you can romance some of them. I’m certain it sounds silly and maybe even shameful, but by the end of the game, I felt as if I made genuine good memories with fucking ANIME COMPUTER PROGRAMS. But I have no shame, the characters and writing were really, truly that good to me.
The writing was so good, in fact, that it made the utterly absurd premise I talked about earlier actually work. It was paced perfectly, having me in its grips nearly totally for the duration of my playthrough. Somehow, as I stole hearts and made a difference in virtual Tokyo, the nonsensical jazz about cognitions and distorted desires actually began to make sense. By the second hour, I was on for the ride. The almost 120 hour ride. Yes, my run lasted a whopping 120 hours, and yet it never let me go. It was never not fun to interact with Persona 5.
A big thing that played into that was, I kid you not, the user-interface. Every menu, every button, every small animation was absolutely erupting with the most visually pleasing style I have ever had the joy of interacting with. Lines and shapes are bold, the high-contrast red-black-white color scheme totally pops, and the animation is interesting and dramatic. It has this visual identity akin to the lovechild of detective noir and totally over-the-top 21st century comic books, but is without a doubt it’s own totally unique beast. All this is complimented by an equally stellar soundtrack. It’s this delicious mix of breakneck jazz and rock opera, making the absolute most of a heart-racing strings section, toe-tapping cymbals, an almost unintelligible but definitely passion vocal track, and some surprise electric guitar for good measure. Many of the games on this list have amazing soundtracks, but Persona 5’s is something I legitimately listen to on its own.
It just sort of feels like Persona 5 was made for me, you know? I am an emotional, extroverted, sometimes lonely, always overthinking, nerd of an arts student in desperate need of friendship. Persona got me at a perfect time in my life. I’m confused, and I don’t know what I’m going to be for the rest of my life. And yet, I’m not so scared. I can have multiple personas, as it were. I can be anything I want to be.
In the game, I stole the hearts of 8 major characters. One was of a volleyball-coach-turned-sex-offender, another was of a corrupt multimillionaire. I think another was mine.
EMOTION: Like, 7000 or something/10
I hear I’m supposed to be figuring out who I’m going to be for the rest of my life right about now. I think I have. I’m going to be a father, revolutionary, an academic, a girl, a leader, a child, a hunter, a hero, a romantic, or maybe I’ll even be a thief. I guess I’ll just be whatever I want to be.
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