Hello, and welcome to part one of the side Quest Game of the Year.
You know, it's just me Dylan here today, and I'm gonna be
a bit lonely this year. Here's the thing. Last few years, last
three years, me and Dante have been doing our Game of the Years together
and he was supposed to be with me here today, but unfortunately, just
a couple of days ago, the poor guy broke his jaw literally, which
is probably the worst thing that can happen a couple days before you're supposed to
do an hours long Game of the Year discussion. So I think he's doing
alright all things considered, but yeah, he could not be here today to
do Game of the Year episode. And you know it's tricky. It's like,
do I delay the recording of this to when he's better. I don't
know how long that could be, weeks, months. I didn't really want
to wait that long. I felt like the show must go on here,
so I decided I'm gonna just excuse me a little intimate episode just me and
you the listener, and I'm gonna go through my Games of the Year for
twenty twenty three. A couple other changes you might notice here when you're seeing
this on the feeds, is that where are the best of categories? Last
two years we did this where we did best levels, best characters, best
visuals, and best music, which were long discussions where we put out a
bunch of contenders ranked them all that and it was super fun. But for
a couple of reasons. I mean one, I'm not gonna do all that
by myself. I don't think that would be nearly as fun for you or
for me personally. But you know, even before this last minute change,
already wasn't gonna do it this year, And honestly, the big reason is
that twenty twenty three, as I've mentioned a couple of times on side quests
the last few months, this pretty weak year for me in games. I
was not nearly as passionate about this offering of games this year as especially the
last two years, where I went pretty hard, played a lot of things
and just had so much that I was in love with. And you know,
really that's where the best of categories were born, is there were just
so many games that I wanted to praise and top ten wasn't going to cut
it, and I thought that that would be a fun way to break out
these honorable mentions into these other categories, so we praise individual elements of games
and talk about things that wouldn't make it into our top ten, of course,
also talking about things that are in the top ten with the best of
categories. But ultimately it just didn't really make that much sense this year because
I still made my list as I do, you know, keeping my very
detailed spreadsheet of the games I'm playing, the ones I'm looking forward to.
I would make my categories as the year was going on. But when I
look at my list here, like the best Levels category, I have like
twelve contenders this year. Last year, I think I had like forty,
and you know, when I look at these lists for all of them,
like ninety five percent of the things. In fact, when I look at
my levels, all except one of these are in my top ten anyway,
these games, so they're gonna get talked about, and it doesn't really make
a whole lot of sense to these categories. So yeah, I feel like
that's kind of what it is. Like the amount of game of the year
content I create in a given year is just gonna have to match the passion
of the year. So obviously the first time we did Best of Categories is
kind of one bigger episode with all four categories, and last year we split
them out, all the different episodes, and that worked and we were able
to fill a ton of time talking about these things in detail, and that
was great and I'm really proud of what those episodes were. But I think
it would it would feel fake this year, and I just I just don't
have the passion to do all that. So hopefully next year there are more
games that I'm passionate about in those categories can come back. But yeah,
I didn't want to give you guys kind of some half assed content and I
want to make sure that it's all there. So for what I have here
in my lists I am passionate about. I tell like, my top eight
are games I am passionate about, and then I kind of have to squeak
a couple things into nine and ten. But there are definitely a lot of
things I did love this year, or a lot of things I enjoyed,
but definitely quite a bit weaker than the last two years for me, So
I don't know. I'm kind of an outlier in that way, which is
totally fair. But hopefully when Dante's feeling better in the future, I definitely
want to bring him on a side quest and here is Top ten, just
because I'm personally curious. I know, I think he told me what his
Game of the Year is, but I'm curious what the rest of the Top
ten looks like. So we'll bring them in at some point, and then
next week's episode is going to be kind of how the last couple of years
as well, like Taylor Travis Kirkland, their games of the year, either
they just pick one or top three, top five, whatever they want to
do. Because they don't play nearly as many things as I do, their
stuff would be kind of interlaced between those best of episodes. So instead,
I'm just gonna have one dedicated episode where I'll probably you know, segue in
between these different parts, but we'll hear what their games of the year are
as well. So this week it's my Game of the Year, my Top
ten and well beyond, and then next week is going to be the rest
of the crew there and then yeah, Dante's sometime in the future could not
tell you when. That's kind of what Game of the Year is going to
look like, so, you know, maybe not quite as hype as the
previous year, but I still I think this will be very fun and looking
forward to it. So honestly, let's get right into it here. I'm
gonna do you know a couple of these kind of icebreaker questions, as I
normally do. So we always like to revisit our list from last year and
just see how do we feel about it one year later. So here's my
top ten from last year. Number ten God of War, Ragnarok nine,
Sniper Elite five eight, Neon White seven, Rogue Legacy two six, Weird
West five, Midnight Suns four, Tunic three, Elder Ring two, Triangle
Strategy, and one was Grounded. This is the first year where I actually
feel like I would make a couple shifts. Normally, my lists are pretty
set in stone, and even a year later or years later, they remained
to be the case. But I really debated after, like for the first
three or four months they started this year, I guess after recording that episode,
like man, should Triangle Strategy have taken number one? Overgrounded? Like
I really wavered back and forth on those. And it's tricky because I feel
like I'm still solid with it with Grounded at number one. It's not like
I liked that game any less. I just also love Triangle Strategy so much.
But Grounded got a bunch of new content this year, so it makes
it a bit muddy. Of course, there was a great update they added
which added a bunch of new decoration options, and like this coziness meter.
I spent tons of hours decorating in that game. And then even just this
last month, they released like an entire Forge mode for that game. People
can make entire maps, puzzle maps, combat maps, adventure maps, all
this crazy stuff. So it's like, I don't know, I've been jumping
into that game again, so it's hard to argue against it. Triangle Strategy
also had some new content this year. It was like a prologue, or
not a prologue, an epilogue, but unfortunate it was only for one ending
and not ending that I had, so I couldn't access it, so that
was a little bit of a bummer. But and then I think the other
thing that would shift on my list is the number five I had Midnight suns
Now. Of course, that game came up pretty late last year, and
so the time we recorded the episode, I don't remember how many hours,
and I was but I definitely was not done the game yet, and so
even just with finishing the game. But then also this gets made muddy because
this year there was a ton of new content for it as well, like
four new characters, which each came with new areas, new maps, new
enemies, bosses, all that stuff. So it's tricky, you know,
am I really looking as a twenty twenty two game? Where now? Is
it like just this overall thing? I think at least with finishing the game,
I would bump it up to four above Tunic there. I don't think
it would get above elden Ring without maybe that DLC is so hard to say,
it's really close, but I think I'll happily bump it into that fourth
spot, So move it up one place. I love that game so much,
love the DLC. And then the only other thing is like one of
my alvermentions is Marvel Snap, and I've still been playing a ton of that
game. I kind of waiver a couple months. I might not play as
much if there's like like, for example, the Logi season. Goddamn,
that was the most annoying season to play that game. So I just didn't
really But then like this last few weeks. Some of the new cards have
been really fun, and I've been playing a lot again, so it's tricky,
right, twenty twenty two game. I think I'm happy with it not
making it on the list, but overall, with all the new content that
it's got this year, definitely a great game that deserves one more shout out.
So that was my list from last year for the most part, pretty
solid, just a couple maybe minor tweaks in there, and then let's talk
about I'm just gonna do a very quickly rundown of all the games I did
play, and then then we'll get into that official Well, We're gonna do
a top seventeen. I'll explain why in a minute, but first here are
just the list of games I've played. So first, I kind of broke
something to a few categories. I guess we'll do updates first, So I
mentioned those ones with grounded Midnight signs, Marvel Snap, Mario Kart eight of
course also received a bunch of content this year, which maybe some of those
would have popped up in best levels if we did that category. And then
Warzone two got two new maps and actually just a third one that dropped like
a couple of days ago at the time of recording this, so I haven't
played it yet, but yeah, tons of new I love all those new
maps. I had a lot of fun kind of jumping back into that.
So once again, those have been best level contenders. But there you go.
Those are some of the updates. First up are games that I completed.
So this this is either if it's a single player game and it's a
straightforward linear situation, is the game that I rolled credits on, or if
there's like a multiplayer or non linear part to it, it's just a game
that I feel like I've played enough of a lot of in order to give
a complete opinion on it. So those games include hit Man World Assassination.
You could also consider that to be an update. I'll talk about that one
later, Resident Evil for a remake, plus the Separate Ways de'l see Coffee
Talk two, Hibiscus and Butterfly, Redfall, Tara Nill, The Tartarus Key,
Pseudo Regalia, Starfield, Sea of Stars, Counterstrike two, Cocoon,
Amnesia, The Bunker, Super Mario Bros. Wonder Allen Wake two, Jussant,
Super Mario RPG, Hard Hat Wombat, Kirby's Return to Dreamline De Luxe
and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. And then next up are the games that I
dabbled in. So a lot of these are that were on game Pass and
I played for like an hour or less, or games maybe I played that
on twenty four hour stream. Games that I've just barely touched the surface of,
but I've at least held the controller and played. Those would be Minecraft
Legends, Exo, Primal of Zero ninety nine, Party Animals, Disney Speedstorm
for the Motorsport, Monster Hunter Now, Lampladers League, Mighty Doom, Warriorware,
Move It, Mortal Kombat one, Venba, Headbangers, Rhythmoyal War Tales,
Tom mccartt Remnant two, and Lies of p And then the games Stuck
in the Middle. So these are games that I've played a lot more than
dabbled with them. I've played a ton of them, but I just haven't
finished them quite yet. And those games would be Fire and Bloomen Gauge,
Hi Fi Rush, Hogwarts, Legacy, most Alena, Advanced Wars one plus
two, Reboot Camp, Legendzelda, Tiers of the Kingdom, Diablo four,
Planet of Lana, and A Space for the Unbound. So I think that's
a total of forty seven games I played this year, so I think last
year I was up at like sixty five ish, So I've definitely played a
lot more last year, but I think back to twenty twenty one, I
had around this number, So this is a pretty solid number. Close to
fifty games. That's a lot of games to play. There's only a few
that I feel like I would have really climbed into my top ten had I
played more of them, and those zones would be Texas Chains on Maascar.
I've had a ton of fun playing that, unfortunately, just haven't played in
a couple of months. Just hasn't worked out or me and the rest of
the crew. I've lined up a weekend or a night to play more of
that, and I know they just dropped some new content for it, so
I want to get back in there. And I think if I had played
it consistently, if we had got more of those nights together, it would
have squeezed in at number ten or nine. But unfortunately, I just feel
like I haven't played in a couple months and didn't quite make it. On
War Tales is one that I was actually looking forward to for a couple of
years. It was on my wishless very much looking forward to it, and
I jumped into it and it was a little disappointing, but then it was
also just super hard and I played for like an hour Zone game pass and
like just died, like my whole party got wrecked, and like, okay,
it just kind of killed my hype on it. And I also,
to be honest, I don't think I was really in the mood for it.
It's a very D and D type game, and there's another D and
D type of game that I know I'm gonna be playing in the near future
here, so I just didn't feel like investing all that time in it.
But I definitely want to have returned to at some point. Similar brote for
Lamplighters League, which is a really cool, cool tactics game. It has
like the incredible sort of art style. It's really cool, and it just
honestly was not in the mood for any more tactics games this year, and
so I didn't play very much of it. But I feel bad because I
know that after the game came out a week or two later, the dev's
or something, there was an article that was like Players League, you know
didn't really do very well, and I don't know. I want to be
there to supporting because I feel like I'm kind of the ideal person that they're
looking for, the ideal demographic, but it just the timing for it was
not quite what I was looking for. So definitely what I want to revisit,
also on game Pass. And then also last all these games are actually
on game Pass, so easy to revisit ones is lies of p and honestly,
for souls like games, I really needed to be in the mood to
want to play them. And I feel like I played so much Eldering last
year that it kind of burnt me out for at least a year or two,
Like maybe in twenty twenty four I'll be ready for another Soul's like game.
But in the couple hours I put with into Liza Pe, the game
was super super good, visually very impressive. I was shocked at how good
it felt and the UI and everything just felt so much like a Soul's game,
which is a compliment, Like I don't mean that in that it's derivative,
it obviously is very close to. It's the things that what is the
world I'm looking for. It knows that it's close to Dark Souls and Bloodborne,
but I feel like it still has its own identity. It was really
really good. It just was not what I was looking for in this moment.
So those are maybe the four that I think, had I put more
time into, would have climb to that top ten. And then here are
the games that I games I wish I played, And I'll explain all these
as I go through. So the big one is Balder's Gate three just to
go home game of the Year the game wards. I bought the game last
night and installed it. It f only came to Xbox after Game Awards,
and that was another thing I debated. Okay, do I delay this episode
so I can spend some time with Balder's Gate? And I guess there's kind
of two ways it can go. One is I play the game and I
don't really like it that much and it doesn't make it in the top ten.
And then I just delayed the episode for no reason, or I love
the game so much and it's one of those games that I probably need to
invest, like basically everything I've heard at least sixty hours before I'd feel like
complete enough to want to do the game of your episode and put it somewhere,
And honestly, I just I didn't really want my December to be only
playing this one game and grinding through it in the way that I did with
like Starfield in September. I just didn't really want that. There's other games
I want to be playing this month, So I'm gonna be playing Balder's Gate
three, but I'm I'm gonna take my time with it, and I've already
kind of missed the boat on all of the conversations on it, so it's
all good. I don't feel like I need to play it right away,
but look forward to In side quest, I'll say sometime in January is probably
when I'll talk about that game, when I've played more of it, and
at that time i'll definitely retroactively tell you if it would crack into that top
ten. I feel like it will. That's the only reason I feel like
I wish I did play it, But I'm happy with or I'm okay with
skipping it as of today. The other one, Spider Man two, I
don't know have a PS five yet, so I couldn't play it. But
yeah, I love twenty eighteen Miles Marles kind of let me down. But
I I feel like Spider Man two would be a return to form. I
don't think it would be. I'm trying to think. I don't know if
it would quite crack my top five. This base purely off speculation. I
think it would absolutely make it my top ten. I just don't know if
it'd be a top fiver. Octopath Traveler two, I really like that first
game. Never finished it. From everything I've heard, any issue I had
with the first game is like resolved in the second one, and then the
second one is just so much better. So I want to play it at
some point, But honestly, I just I know it's a long ass game,
and I just when it came out earlier in March, whatever it was,
I was not in the mood for it. So at some point in
my life I'll play it. But I also, even back to last year
I played Live Live Ent Triangle Strategy, I think I was a bit burnt
out on the two DHD stuff. So maybe when that Dragon Quest three I
think remake is coming out in that engine, I'll check out that one.
But I needed a bit of a breather here. You seeing a lot of
burnout from last year. I played a ton of games last year, so
I think it bled over to this year me wanting to play a little bit
less Pickman four. I played one and two this year when they got released
on the Switch, and I loved one, didn't really care much for two.
But yeah, I think Pickman four looks looks amazing at some point in
my life when it maybe goes on sale, if it ever does, I'll
definitely check it out. Dead Island two. I don't know where this one
it would rank. I don't know if it'd be a top ten contender,
but it just looks like so much fun. I've been every sale that's happened
since the game came out. I've been like checking the prices to see if
it's at a point where I want to pick it up. Not quite there
yet, but I'm really excited to play that game. Wargroove two, also,
what I feel bad about is like an indie, indie game, and
I want to support it, and I love the first war Groove, but
honestly, it came out a few months after Advanced Wars. I was a
bit burnt on tactics, and Wargroove is essentially an homage to Advanced Wars,
and I just I wasn't really to pick that up, especially when I'm still
playing through Advanced Wars and I have been the last couple of weeks. I've
even jumped in and done a couple more maps, so just was not the
right timing for it, but I want to check it out. And then
the last one is a game called Shadow Gambit The Cursed Crew, which I
only heard about recently, and yeah, everything I heard about it is like
this is like an isometric kind of multiplayery, so not multiplayer. We have
multiple characters version of Dishonored. So it's like, well, that's obviously my
cup of tea obviously right up my alley. But yeah, just time time,
time time. I couldn't really make time for it here in the last
month or two, and uh yeah, so at some point I'll check it
out as well. Looks great, seems like my cup of tea. So
yeah, I think that's it for the preamble, and with that I can
kind of start looking at this at this list here. So as I said,
I made a top seventeen here, so obviously the seven or sorry,
top sixteen, sixteen to ten, I guess sixteenth storry to eleven, I'll
kind of race through those a bit quicker, and then the top ten will
be the top ten. The reason I've done it this way is that when
I was making my lists once again the last couple of years, I've said,
like, man, so so many games are right on the press spice,
that top sixteen seventeen was so close. I was like, sad I
couldn't include them in the top ten. That's not really the case this.
It's more so that my top eight is very solid, and then that like
nine to ten, I'm kind of like putting things there, but honestly,
like nine to sixteen are all kind of even in this bucket, and it's
not like I'm sad necessarily that I can't include them in the top ten.
But I guess I'm just trying to frame it that way where it's like,
honestly, any of these games from sixteen to eleven, I could have made
a case for them being nine or ten here because that is such a free
spot for me this year because it's once again kind of a weaker year.
So that's why I wanted to do it this way. But yeah, and
then I think that top eight is like very solid, and those are games
that I that are kind of big, top tier sorry games for me.
So let's go from the bottom here. So once again, this is not
really ordered, but I kind of have them. I wrote them in this
order, so we'll go with them in this order. So Hard Hat Wombat.
This is a game I didn't talk about in side quests because it came
out well I don't actually know when it came out. I think it came
out somewhat recently, and I didn't pick it up at launch. This game
I heard no one talk about. The reason was on my radar is because
one of the I think there's two creators of it, I don't know one
of them. One of their name. The other guy is Andy Hull,
who was the programmer of Spelunky HD. You know, one of my favorite
games of all time and interesting, like just a quick backstory like after Spelunky,
he could have worked on Splunky two. He was offered that choice,
but said he wanted to go make his own weird, interesting games. And
I'm glad he's done that because one, I wouldn't change the thing about Splunky
two. That game is perfect. But then also he's made two games since
then and one of them was Dunklords, which I talked about back in twenty
twenty. I think when that came out, I love that game, super
fun. And then this is his next one, so working in collaboration with
someone else, but this is a two D platformer kind of block placing game.
Very simple, very cute aesthetic. You're playing as this cute little wombat
with a hard hat on, and he's very adorable. It's very goofy,
like you're putting down like pooh blocks, like those are what the first blocks
are, and then you're putting other things. He's like eats a sandwich,
then he creates a block. It's pretty funny stuff, but just a very
solid puzzler. I really had a good time with it at every new world
introduced new can so it always kept itself fresh, wasn't too long, wasn't
too hard, and a really good variety of puzzle types. Like you have
levels, you have to build a certain structure and figure out how you can
make that work without blocks following or getting destroyed, and then you'll have that
same thing, but then there's like dynamite blocks. You kind of have to
envision what the structure is gonna look like. After the dynamite blows up,
so that makes an interesting challenge. There's kind of more adventure maps. You
have to just make it from point to point B. There are maps you
have to destroy a bunch of enemies. It's it's really good, really good
variety, really fun game. Yeah, really really enjoyed it. I think
there's if there's anything that drags it down, there's at some point it's gonna
be a bit tedious kind of going back and forth to go fuel up on
more blocks then come back to your area. Not a huge complaint by any
means, but that was kind of the one hold up. And I don't
know in terms of puzzle game, there's a there's a puzzle game that's a
million times stronger than it this year, so we'll talk about that later on
spoiler that's in the top ten somewhere. So there was that one, and
then I'm going to kind of lump these three together, three big Nintendo game.
Looking at my top ten, I don't think I have a single Nintendo
game this year. I have won. I have won Nintendo game in my
top ten this year. So we'll get to that one later. But the
three that were kind of on the cusp were Super mar RPG, Supermar Bros.
Wonder and Tears of the Kingdom RPG. I really enjoyed going back to
that one. I don't think I if you listen back to our reviewing me
and Travis did, I don't have any wild new thoughts in the second half
of the game. But I just had a really great time with it.
I love the characterization of like Bowser Gino is super cool, Like Booster is
now one of my favorite like weird Nintendo characters. I feel like mechanically though
it's it felt like it was like satire to me, like it was making
jokes about other games in that genre. To a point that works for extent
because it's a short game, it works, but then also like on the
depth of mechanics, it just felt like it was a bit weaker, and
I felt like the game was really easy in the second half and wasn't really
technically that interesting. There's certain mechanics that you you just don't really engage with
that all. So I don't know. I had a really good time with
the adventure of it, but it to me it lacked that JNA say quad
to make it into the top ten and also to me remakes remasters weird.
Normally, I've just discounted from my lists completely. I want to room for
fresh stuff. This year, I kind of needed anything I could get,
So there are spoilers some remake remaster situation making it into the top ten,
but RPG, not that I've played the original, but it felt like maybe
a bit too close and that way, I didn't want to bring it into
my top ten. Super Mario Bros. Wonder Really not much to say here.
It's just a very solid two D Mario game. Had fun playing through
it. After rold credits on it, I didn't really have much interest to
go back to those additional worlds or go get all the coins and whatnot.
But it was super solid. It's super good. The variety given by the
Wonder Wonder Flowers, I guess, was really cool. I like the new
power ups. I like that you have a bunch of characters that can pick
in the game, a lot more variety in that way, even though they
all kind of played the same except for Yoshi's and Nabbit. But yeah,
I you had a really good time with it, super fun, but didn't
have that that caliber for top ten for me. And then here's the King
this one, I feel like I kind of have to explain because people might
be mad or confused as to why it's not making in the top ten.
For me. I'll try and be sustinct with this, but there's a few
reasons. So one, I felt like the game really drags at the start.
I mean, I love the first Sky Island, like the tutorial,
but then afterwards, I feel like there was so many moments when the game
kind of blocked your progress. You had to either like progress a certain quest
or you can't do this thing until you've beat this dungeon. But none of
that's really telegraph so I'd be exploring, but then I'd run into these walls
all the time where the game just stopped me from exploring and said, oh,
yeah, you could do all the you could do ninety percent of this
thing, but you can't actually get the reward or see the final part of
it because you haven't done ab other thing halfway across the map. And that
just felt bad, and that happened multiple times, and instead I was like,
Okay, well, I guess this isn't an exploration game in the way
that Breath Wild is, and it just felt too linear because of that I
don't think that's how that game should have been built. It's like the games
all about being nonlinear. Maybe they felt like Breath the Wild was so much
that way. They want to do something different, but didn't work for me,
And also didn't like how weak you were at the start of the game,
especially coming off by a Breath of the Wild, how close that game
feels like I wanted to be, like, at least twice or three times
is more powerful to start of that game, it just felt annoying having to
grind out a bunch of shrines to get enough. Hell so you don't get
one shot by half the enemies in the world, So that was kind of
annoying. And there's a lot of repetition in the game. You know,
there's these you have this guy support a sign and that's like everywhere in the
game. It's like, yes, you can skip that. But I just
feel like there's so much content in the game that is coming across that was
reused or so close to something that I've done before that it just felt like
why am I doing any of this? Like why is this here a hundred
times instead of just two or three times in new and creative ways? Shrines.
There's of course some good ones, but for the most part, I
think they're pretty weak. Once again, like Breath of the Wild, I
only ever got to one temple or I forget what they're called, but it
was the flying one with the tornadoes, and I thought it was really poorly
designed, really uninteresting. That was one of my biggest complaints with Breathworld was
that the ancient or divine beasts and the shrines kind of sucked in This game
didn't really improve on that. So those are kind of the negative parts of
it. And then I think maybe the most damning thing I don't know,
I don't feel as passionate about this as those other negative points, is that
I think ultrahand and FEUs are really fun, cool abilities, but not enough
of the game was incentivizing me to use those things in creative or interesting ways.
And yes, you know, there's a thousand videos on Reddit and YouTube
and whatnot of people making all these crazy creations, and for some people that's
fun, but I think I need a bit more guidance or like reason to
do those things, and there just wasn't really enough of that in the game
for me. So those are the reasons why I didn't make it in my
top ten or why I kind of fell off of it after I don't know,
twenty twenty five hours. At some point I will go back to it,
and I've heard has really great ending and I should see more of it,
but I'm just not really that compelled to, to be honest. I
think here's the reason it's even all in my honorable mentions at all is because
there are some moments that are amazing. I really love building, and there
are some moments that I created, some really freakish contraptions or weird setups to
get across gaps that were super fun, and I just wish the game had
more of that. I think the Fuse is a great addition to the game.
I really like the weapon durability and Breath of the Wild. I'm on
the positive side of that, but I think there's no argument that Fuse.
It just takes that and iterates on it in such a creative way that made
it even more enjoyable. And then you know, there's this one's a pro
and a colm, But I think the overworld that was pretty bored by for
the most part, not that I can remember every square enter Breath of the
Wild but it just felt a bit too samey to me in terms of the
biomes, in terms of not having that same like, I don't know what's
over that cliff, you know, maybe it's something a bit different than what
it was in Breath and Wild, but I still felt like generally I kind
of know what the map looks like, and exploring it again and getting these
towers again, even though they changed a little bit, just didn't really do
it for me the second time around. And I think for the the sky
Islands part of it, there were some that are fantastic. I in my
best levels category, I had that tutorial section with that whole sky island up
there. I thought that was a fantastic section, And I wish the game
had a bit more of expansive regions like that that were maybe a bit more
linear, but offered some really cool building challenges with you know, a little
room for error because of the fact that you're in the sky and if you
fall out, you're gonna be gone from there. So yeah, I think
some of the sky Islands and some of the challenges and puzzles there of trying
to you know, skip the stones, trying and get between them was really
interesting. But then other times it just became perhaps a bit tedious or a
bit too much of like, Okay, do I have enough stamina to do
this? I guess I'll try and find out the answers no, and then
it just like wastes a bunch of time, and then to get back to
that spot takes a long time. So just been a And then for the
Dark Underworld, I think the first like maybe five or six hours I spent
there was really great. I loved the vibe, I loved how kind of
terrifying it was. I liked learning how it works, and then you have
all sorts of fun contraptions to work with down there. But I think after
a while it became a bit too samy. And yeah, so I'm sure
there's some cool things down there for me to find still, because it's like
a tons there's tons of it, but I think after a while it kind
of kind of wore off. So yeah, definitely some great moments in this
game, some of my favorite maybe individual moments of cool creative gameplay, but
overall package, I was pretty unimpressed with you as the Kingdom, which is
which is too bad. And I'm curious to listen to other game of your
podcast and see where people rank on it, because obviously it kind of got
decimated at the Game Awards, only took home Action Adventure, And yeah,
I'm curious where other people are going to feel on it now that there are
a few months removed from it. But yeah, I think for me it
was I had a good I had like maybe a week initial it's weird,
it roller closer to a bit, and it kind of just fell off a
cliff for me. So that's that one. Spent a lot of time talking
about that one, and then the last one here or I guess, sorry,
two more in my I guess Honorable Mentions category one Hogwarts Legacy. If
you go back to our view, you might be a surprise that I'm even
mentioning this at all, because I was definitely the most negative there. But
there are still some amazing elements of it. I think the game is beautiful,
sounds great. I loved exploring some of those towns. Really just beautiful
game. I really liked some of the quest structure, of some of the
school things, taking classes and making friends. I thought some of that stuff
was great, and I wish the game was more about that instead of this
big world ending narrative. I wish it was more about just school life and
that sort of thing. I think the customization of this game is fantastic.
The way you can customize your character and you know, just the ability to
put on like whatever clothing you want and you can still have the best stats.
All that sort of stuff is good. And you know, there's definitely
elements that were a bit lackluster. It felt a bit too checklist open worldly
for me. I didn't really care too much for the combat. I thought
it was fun, some of the puzzles were pretty weak. I think it
maybe a bit too bloated. I think it would have been a bit better
if it was a bit more refined in that way. But the reason it's
here for me as a mention is because, weirdly, it's a game I
revisited often, or I wanted to revisit often. So I say that because
you know, it's hard drive space these days, pretty hard to come by,
and so a couple of times I do uninstall this game, but then
I found myself reinstalling it, and I want to jump back in there and
mess around with some stuff and just just I don't know, late night,
just play for an hour and explore, do another quest or two, and
yeah, it just is one of those games that I just found myself like
revisiting every once in a while, and I think I'll keep doing that.
So I still haven't rolled credits on it, but it's because it's like I
just want to go do quests with friends, even if that's not progressing the
main story and whatnot. So yeah, I definitely worthy of an honorable mention
there. And then the last one I was actually just playing this last night
is a Hitman World of Assassination slash Freelancer. So let me explain it.
At the start of this year, well, I guess even going way back,
so hit Man three when that came out, that was in my top
five of twenty twenty one. When that came out, the game you can
import hit Man one in two levels into it, which is cool, right,
And then at the start of this year they kind of rebranded that so
it's just called I guess hit Man World Assassination. That's kind of the trilogy
of games all in one package, so not too much of a change there.
But then when they launched that, they had a new game mode called
Freelancer and Freelancer is essentially kind of like a roguelike sort of mode put on
top of the game, where you're taking different contracts, You're going to these
different levels. It completely randomizes the targets you're gonna have these I forget the
name of the Essential'll do like three or four lead up missions into a bigger
mission, and that one has like you have to find out who the target
is. And it just adds essentially infinitive replayability on a game that already had
so much replayability. And I played all the maps at least ten times through
beating them in different ways, taking up the targets in different ways, getting
all these new unlocks, and they added just so much more infinite replayability on
it with this Freelancer update. It is huge. It is worthy of a
shout out here. Beyond just an update for a game, it is truly
a contender for one of the best games released this year. Even though it's
technically not a new skew, it's more of a mode you also have like
a house. You're kind of your safe house and you're unlocking stuff there a
lot of it's visual, but then also a couple of new mechanics that'll help
you progressing those levels. It's just amazing. I think it honestly, in
terms of enjoyment, it's probably in the top ten, But I just wanted
my top ten to consist more of newerish things, I guess, but yeah,
Freelancer is amazing, and yeah, never like that game was already so
good and it's like, how do they even make it better? I don't
even know how they do it. It's amazing. I'd love to say a
couple of new maps come to it. I know they're probably pretty busy with
James Bond over there now, but I'd love to still see a new map
or two because the factor that I'm with Freelancer, Wow, just infinite replayability,
so super super good. Uh, let me take a breather here,
I'm talking a lot. Let me catch my breath. I'll be right back
and then we will get into the top ten. Okay, we are back.
We're into the top ten. So, as I mentioned, I always
like to kind of do this where there's there's certain tiers for my top ten,
and so right now it's nine and ten kind of in this pocket in
the bottom er once again, could have been interchangeable with these games I just
talked about to some extent, and then we get into it and I think
i'd say maybe eight, seven, maybe six are kind of in a bit
of a tier, and then there's the next tier of like five, four,
three, and then there's like the top two. The top two are
kind of in their own stratosphere. I guess atmosphere. I just read a
book on space recently. I should know the different layers of our atmosphere,
but I don't, so that's kind of how it is. There's maybe like
three tiers within this, so starting at number ten, taran nil. This
is a game that when I first played it, I didn't really think it
would make in my top ten by the end of the year. But I
think I played it sometime in the summer, but yeah, I guess just
there wasn't enough things in the fall that kicked it out, so it ended
up staying here. This game has really nice visuals. It's quite calming,
and it's essentially a I want to call it like a reverse city builder,
where essentially you start it with a wasteland and you are bringing it back to
life by putting down these machines that generate water or generate grass, eventually getting
bringing trees and flowers and all that kind of variety into new biomes. And
then you have this kind of last step or once you've brought in that environment
back to a certain extent, then you start to bring in certain lifes You're
trying to find, like, Okay, a bear needs like berries next to
a river, next to trees. So if you can find somewhere in your
world that you've created mixture of those, you can bring bears back into the
world. And then then you got to bring like wolves and deer and all
these things. But then I think what the coolest part about it is is
this last step where after you've done all that, you've re brought the biome
back to life, brought in animal life, then you have to remove your
part of it. You have to take out all your machines, all your
contraptions that built that stuff in the first place. Now that the biome is
self sufficient, which is like this whole puzzle on it in terms of how
you can space things. It's not as easy as it sounds, so's it
ends up being a really interesting kind of city builder. But you're not really
building cities more of like a environment builder but then also like a puzzle game
at the same time. So yeah, it's it's just a really really great,
really innovative game. And yeah, there's kind of these different biomes.
You know, they got the classic icy biome, the classic kind of hills,
and so you have these, you can have like a volcano sort of
setting, so you get some different challenges that you eat each of those as
well. So there's definitely more I can go back and do, so I
definitely want to go back and check out more of this game at some point.
But yeah, super solid, really cool, really beautiful game and really
calming. So definitely a big recommendation for me on that one. Number nine,
and this is the one Nintendo game in my list this year, and
that is Advanced Wars one plus two reboot Camp. So I've never played the
original Advanced Wars, so you got to maybe take this with a grain of
salt in terms of like how different is this from those original games? Does
it deserve to be in here? Is it too much for a remaster versus
a reboot as they call as they call it remake. Who knows where it
is on that, But yeah, for me, I think it just it
stood above the rest of these games, so I wanted to put it in
here, and honestly, I think, you know, the visual style,
it's bundling two games in a one. I don't know how much new maps
and that sort of stuff is in there, but I felt like there was
enough here that it definitely is worthy of it. And yeah, I think
this is I guess, looking at my list, is the only game in
my top ten that I haven't beat. Well, I guess a little disclaimer
on that. I beat Advanced Wars one. That campaign I'm still working my
way through two. Two is a bit like more hard and crazy, and
I think that's a really cool structure to it. Or one. It's like
pretty straightforward for the most part, and there isn't a whole lot of variety
in terms of like there's a good map priety and challenge variety, but in
terms of the goal of each level is for the most part of the same.
And then I think Advanced Wars two comes in and like every level is
some weird win condition or some weird format or some weird new enemy type that's
only used in this one level, And so it's really cool. It's kind
of like here, use one as like the extendedtorial, and then two is
where the game goes kind of crazy, and so that's where it's been really
enjoyable. And yeah, there's just tons in here, which is why I'm
still playing through it months later. And yeah, it's an easy one to
revisit because it's like, what do I want to play right now? I
don't if I want to jump into this, don't want, I don't know
if I want to jump into that. Let me just do one Advanced Wars
map. It spend a half an hour doing that, and uh, yeah,
really enjoyable, especially from a huge tactic span of course triangle strategy.
But it sounds both my top ten last year. I love Ironblem even though
Engage, as you noticed, didn't even get an normable mention for me here.
But yeah, Advanced Wars really really fun to finally go back this,
especially after playing War Groove and loving that kind of tactics game play style and
then Advanced Wars wanting our advance was going back to the kind of creator of
this genre or the sub genre in first place. It was a really really
great time. So shout outs to Advance Wars. And yeah, now we're
getting into the top eight. So number eight four, this is where we
get into i'd say, the kind of the next tier. This is where
we jump up. And these are the games that were definitely locked in my
top ten. There's no way these ones are falling out unless you know I
played some balder skate probably something like that. So number eight here is gonna
be Amnesia the Bunker. Pretty under the radar game, I would say,
But yeah, so I talked about this, well, I've talked most of
these games on Sidequest, so I won't say that every time I talk about
these. But this game is essentially like a mini version of Prey twenty seventeen,
where it's you're progressing through this bunker. You're kind of starting more or
less the center of it. You're working your way into these different areas.
You're slowly discovering more of it, you're getting more resources, but you're gonna
have to backtrack a lot. I think the lighting system in this game is
fantastic, the way you're kind of daisy chaining these lights throughout this bunker,
and so you'll have this moment where you click one light on and then it
will light up a whole bunch in the row and the light is what keeps
you safe in this game and helps you see and not be too terrified.
And then you have your weird little bay blade type light where you have to
charge it up, but it makes so much noise. I thought the horror
element of this game was good, where for the most part, it's very
telegraphed when there's gonna be a scary thing, so kind of the opposite of
Alan Wake, which I mean I don't look has that, but it also
has a ton of jump scares. The bunker never does that. You always
know when you're making too much noise, or you know, okay, if
I blow this barrel up, it's gonna make huge sound. I know that
monster is gonna come running, so you can make that, but then go
hide in a closet or something. So there's still unexpected things that happen.
But for the most part I like that in terms of scariness, I was
able to kind of predict when something freaky was gonna happen, so I could
kind of mentally and physically prepare myself get into a nice cozy, comfy spot.
Lots of creativity here in terms of how you navigate through the world,
getting down certain doors. There's so many ways to get through a door in
this game, in the same way that Prey has that. I think the
atmosphere is really good. I'm generally not a fan of the setting, but
it really really worked for me. Here a lot of notes that was reading
to get more info in these characters. So yeah, just a really really
solid game, you know, solid five six hour playtime. Really enjoyed it
from start to finish. I think it lacked maybe a little something extra,
or maybe some big moment towards the end, or maybe a more interesting,
like main narrative. I don't know what would have taken this game from eighth
up to the top five up to even higher, but I don't think it
needed too. Like this is like just a perfect little October horror experience for
me that was pretty small and succinct and just really had super fun gameplay,
very immersive, all that kind of stuff. So yeah, I really really
loved this game. It was super good, and you know, it put
the rest of the Amnesia games back on my backlog, where you know,
I played a little bit of Dark Descent back in the day, but now
that I'm super into horror games and after playing this I'm like, man,
I want to go back and check out this whole series of games and see
what the other settings they have and other gameplay things. So really really solid.
Number seven here is Pseudo Regalia. This game has I'm gonna say this
three times in this in the rest of this this game has like my favorite
aesthetics of the year until the next game that I mentioned. But yeah,
I think this game has a really great art style, kind of has this
sort of PS one or N sixty four or sort of polygone element to it,
and that the color schemes I think are really great. This graininess that
really is it's very intentional. And then the music is fantastic. There's not
a ton of songs in this game, but each one is just oozing with
atmosphere and vibes to it really really great. Either it's you know, unsettling
or maybe a bit heroic or like maybe even a bit goofy at times.
So I really really love the aesthetic of it. But this is essentially a
three D platformer Metroidvani type of game. Interestingly, there's no map in it,
but I think that was actually a good thing for me because the movement
was so good in this game feels so freaking good that I just found myself
cruising around the map looking for places to go or if I had to backtrack,
It's like, okay, but now I can go through it so much
quicker because I'm better at the game, because I know shortcuts, and so
even not having a map, I found that there was no problem because of
the scale of it. This is another game that's you know, short and
sweet, and yeah, the just the way I guess, the the cadence
of which you're getting new abilities a jump, slide or a dash, or
upgrading your dash, or even just discovering other pressy moves that you didn't even
realize you had the whole time. Just every time you get one of those
new things that layers with all the other things in such a way, you
get them at such a good pace that, Yeah, the game is just
constantly unfolding and getting more and more complex and more and more engaging and fun,
and you just feel so freaking powerful you feel like you break the game.
There are certain moments where it feels like, okay, this is probably
the intentional thing. If I get like really cheeky here, we're like,
okay, I could do a little air dash into a wall jump here,
or to a wall ride and to a wall jump grab this ledge. Maybe
I can kind of cheek be cheeky and squeeze out this area sooner than I
normally would. This game has that all over the place where I don't even
know what the intentional root is for some of these things. Is it just
feels so good in that way, and then it's a bit more freeformance design
and uh yeah, I just had a great time with this from start to
finish. So highly recommend for any three D kind of platform or fans.
There's combat in the game. It's very it's used very sparingly. I think
that's one of the weakest parts about it is that that just like a final
boss fight. Uh it's a very movement based boss fight. It's like,
I don't think that's a good way to There's multiple games that do this where
you have a game that's like a big puzzle game or a movement kind of
game, then you end it with like a big boss fight, and it's
like there's another way to other ways to end your game. You know,
there's a game that there's ways to fit your genre more. But I think
the final boss fight in the game was pretty hard, but it wasn't It
wasn't too bad or anything. So yeah, I really really love to shoot
over Regalia. Check that out. Moving into number six, this one I
quite literally finished last night. I really wanted to get get it finished before
doing this episode. Even without finishing it, it was still in my top
ten, but finishing it dumped it from I think probably the ninth spot up
to number six here and that is a Space for the Unbound. So as
I just mentioned, this now is my favorite aesthetics of the year in terms
of the the art and the music of it. I think this is my
favorite soundtrack of the year. So good, so much in here. Like
on Spotify, its split in like three separate albums, and then each of
those, like there's certain themes in the game that really, you know,
you hear them a lot because they're in these main areas. Then there's moments
in the game where it will have like a variation or a remix of that,
and all those are really effective but just super good. If you at
the very least listen to a Space for the Unbound music, it is super
duper good. Did I even say the name of the game earlier space for
the unbounds number six, I think I did. And then in terms of
the visuals of it, like the Aert is so good in this game,
for the animations, for the characters, the shading and this kind of maroon
color and this teal white a maroon like trifective colors that I used so often.
It looks amazing. So such a beautiful game. And yeah, this
is kind of like a I guess you'd call it like a point and click
adventure game with I guess a bit more involved controls. You're like moving left
and right interacting with things rather than just like clicking where to go. So
yeah, just a little bit different. So I guess it's a bit more
fun to play than a typical point and click adventure. But it has that
same sort of ethos of gameplay, like, oh, you gotta go find
this item and then click on this one thing with this item, and then
we'll get this interaction which moves on to the next thing. A lot of
you know, that sort of thing, simple puzzles in that way, but
some of the puzzles are really really well designed. There's a ton of mini
games in here, some combat ones as well. The combat is usually just
like a timing thing rather than like, here's a punch button. And I
think it works. I think it doesn't overstays welcome in that although I think
if there's any complaint I have about this game, it is on the pacing
side of it. I think this game is I'm gonna say, even like
an hour or two longer that it needs to be. It's about ten hours
long, and I think you really could just shave some time off there to
make it a bit more succinct, and some of those elements with gameplay that
maybe got a bit tiresome by the end could have not been that way if
you just took out a bit more. I think for me, particularly the
ending, like it feels like you're going into the ending and then there's like
another section, and then there's another section, and then there's another section.
So maybe a bit too a bit too long, but still like this is
one that I kind of had a weird situation with where I started this back
in August and played through play half of it, and then Starfield came out
and I stopped playing it completely, and then I just started revisiting in the
last week here. And normally for like a narrative focused game. That might
be a bad way to do it, but I found this is a really
fun game to revisit in that way, and I'm really glad I did revisit
it because the ending is amazing. There are some story plot twists or reveals
that happened near the end that are so strong, and just the last half
an hour of this game is amazing and super emotional. And you know,
it's a game about depression, so it's very dark and intense at times.
But yeah, I could not say enough good things about this game. It
is such a triumph, such an amazing game, and yeah, I highly
recommend it. It's if you're looking for a good, good narrative focused indie
with beautiful art and music, this is definitely the good place to go to.
And you know, they're kind of under the radar, sort of one,
I would say for the most part, so a space for the unbound.
Let me take a quick sip of water here and I'll get into my
top five. Okay, so we're into the top five here, and this
is where once again another tier break sort of happens. We're climbing up into
the top echelon of games. Number five here is where I have Alan Wake
two. I think five, number five and four somewhat interchangeable. But for
today, I'm okay to put Alan Wake two here. I'm gonna start with
the negative here and then we can talk about the positive. The negative for
me is that the this game had a very because of bugs and bugs alone,
had a very weak start and finish, and so obviously that sucks.
Like I feel like, if you're gonna have a buggy game, you maybe
want that stuff to be kind of somewhere intermingled in the middle, rather than
setting a bad first impression or ending on a sour note. So when I
first started the game, there were tons of audio bugs. Quite literally,
the audio stopped working completely during the opening cut scene of the game. You
know, it's a weird story horror game. Like, I'm like, is
this intentional? I played for FO This is definitely not intentional. I had
to hard close the game bowed back up, and then the first couple hours
there were tons of audio issues, But that stuff seems to be all patched
now. I there was a couple of updates and then I didn't have any
audio issues afterwards, but still it kind of soured the start of the game
a little bit, and then the end of the game. This was really
unfortunate. So I I thought I was pretty close to that in the game,
but you never really know. This game is pretty trippy. So I
was playing late, late, late at night on a Saturday, and I
thought, like, Okay, I think I'm pretty close to the end.
Like I think I'm gonna see credits here. I was playing You're playing through
and eventually I was in the section with Saga and it's you're kind of going
through the subway whatever, and the game crashed. Uh, And it was
like it was late at night. I'm like, okay, I think I'm
near the end, but like, I don't really know, so I'm just
gonna I'm just gonna call it at night and I'll come back and finish this
tomorrow. And then I came back, and you know, anytime a crash
happens, it's like, Okay, I don't know where the last auto save
was. I don't know when I saved last. I don't auto saving is
probably pretty good in this game. I don't think I'll lose much progress.
But there's this section, and this happens a lot in this game, Alan
Wake, where you're doing the ct a certain thing over and over again in
an intentional way, like the game's looping or spiraling, winking and doing things
back and forth, going back through areas, backtracking, and so I was
like, okay, I think I did this section. I couldn't quite remember
exactly where I left off after the crash, and so I loaded back in.
I like went up the staircase, went and righted this object. I'm
like, okay, I think I did this last night, so I'll like
skip this cut scene and move on to the next thing. But then the
credits rolled. I had just skipped the final cut scene of the game beca
because I, once again, because of that repetition, I'd just done something
very similar to this. Then you have to do it again. So that's
where I thought I had done it. So it sucks right where this kind
of took the window to the sales of the ending a little bit. Of
course, I went to YouTube right away and watched the final cut scene,
so I still saw it, but I didn't have that same experience with it.
It's like, partially this is a user error of me skipping it,
but also it's because of that freaking crash and if the game didn't crash,
I would have literally walked up the staircase and finished the game right then and
there. So it's too bad. It kind of ruined my thoughts on the
ending a little bit, just a bit. But then honestly, the ending
is very cliffhangary, and I definitely wanted a few more questions answered. So
I think there's a couple things. My negative stuff comes from just the very
beginning opening glitches, and then just that slightly disappointing ending, half caused by
the glitch, half caused by what the actual ending is. Negative is out
of the way, Let's talk about what I love about this game and why
it's a top fiver for me this year. This is one of the most
bold Triple A games I've seen in a long time, just in terms of
the storytelling of it, in terms of using mixed media, of having it's
a video game for some and foremost, but then having a live action video
sections that you're watching. Some of that stuff is like within the game.
Sometimes it will like take it for the full screen, so it feels like
a TV show for a bit Quantum Breaking, and then other kids it's like
you're just watching a screening game, but it's a real live action footage.
And then there's like the use of music in it of you know, this
is slight spoiler here if you don't want to get spoiled here, but like
there's a full, like thirty minute long musical sequence in this game, which
is amazing, in which they honored at the game boards, which I loved
seeing that again there. But even after every chapter there's like a music video
that plays with a really nice music and so I think the idea of mixing
these different styles works really well. There's a ton of trippiness in this game
visually in terms of like certain images overlapping over top each other, and like
really it's like a brain tea, like messes with your mind in a really
really cool way. This game is beautiful, Like actually that opening section,
anytime I have to go through the woods, the forest, just the amount
of detail, how much the wind blows to these bushes and trees looks amazing.
So yeah, the game just esthetically is dripping with style. I love
its take as a sequel because I played the first aund way back in the
day, but it's like it's been so long, I don't really remember anything
about it, but I think the story this game works perfectly for that perspective
as well as you know, being having tons of references for people who did
play that game recently and remember some of those things in those characters. But
for me, someone who's very foggy on it, it's still really worked narratively
that it's like this is actually ten years later in the world too, so
that was really really great. The game has a really great writing for the
most part, and I think it's like either you have Alan who's writing is
cheesy, but it's like intentional, So that's really good that you can intentionally
write cheesy writing from a different writer's perspective, like the layer the inception layers
on that is insane. But yeah, other than that, like the writing
is really good, the acting is great. The story is really really interesting
and really weird and compelling, and I'm definitely feel like I'm missing some parts
of it because it is so weird and confusing, but it's still really worked
for me for the most part, And I think like Saga was the biggest
success for me here. I liked Alan's sequences, but I think Saga was
the standout character of the two for me, and yeah, I think the
only other maybe I don't even want to call it a negative. I didn't
really the combat in this game, but you could just put it on story
mode, and then the comment became really fun because I was just one shot
every enemy and I just felt really powerful and really cool, and I liked
it that way, and so I liked that that was an option for me.
So if I wasn't I wasn't really big in the combat, I can
kind of just opt out of it. I think that's a great thing that
like Tunic did last year too, where you can just turn on god mode.
I'm like, I'm playing this game for the puzzles, I don't care
about the combat. Let me put on god mode in the game. Let's
you do that. I think that's amazing. So that definitely worked for me
too and Alan Wake two, so that was something that was kind of dragging
on me with some of the difficulty, and I was like, we know
whatever, I'm just gonna go on easy mode and explore this story in this
world. So yeah, I love the saying of this. I love the
story, and yeah, just a couple hiccups along the way, unfortunately,
but for the most part, like such an interesting game, and I'm so
glad that it is getting the praise it deserves and it didn't slip under the
radar because I think it very easily could have. Number four is going to
be Cocoon. I don't think I'll have too much to say on this one.
Honestly. It's just a really freaking great puzzle game, really really good.
One of my favorite puzzle games of all time, because the puzzle deadline
is super good. It's like it's that easy. Another game was really good
scale. It's like has a perfect length to it. I didn't have a
single dull moment. Every puzzle in this game I thought was interesting or cool.
I love that, you know. When I saw the trailer for this
game, I thought the idea of going into these different orbs, which taking
into these different worlds and bring orbs within orbs and all that stuff. I
thought it would be kind of maybe more split up into levels where it's like,
Okay, here's this level, here's the setup. You have three orbs,
figure out this puzzle, but it's like this one continuous, longer adventure.
I think it's cool that you might spend like, okay, an hour
progressing through the Orange orbs world, but then you like, grab the you
got the purple orb, go back out through the Orange orb. You're now
exploring the Purple orb. Maing, I bring the Orange. It's like the
way it layers together is incredibly interesting in a way. It's really hard to
describe unless you've well even if you play the games, Like I don't even
if I describe it, I'm just gonna like spoil certain puzzles. But it's
just so good. I think the continuous nature of it, rather than being
split into levels or sections and instead of just being one longer adventure, really
really worked for it and made it just feel so cohesive. Every puzzle was
like the perfect level of difficulty of maybe there's a couple easy ones, but
that's just kind of more to introduce a mechanic, but then you have a
difficult one that for me, everything worked perfectly. Was like I spent the
exact amount of time. Maybe it took me fifteen minutes, but like that's
the exact amount of time I needed for it to not be too easy but
not be too hard and to lose interest something. Every puzzle was like perfectly
curated in terms of that difficulty of it, so just outstanding, amazing puzzle
game. Cannot recommend it enough. There you go, there's Cocoon getting into
my top three. The top three here, this is the big dogs for
me. These are like the three games that I I want to call them
all timers. We'll see how that factors out. I think that will probably
be the case in the future. But yeah, these are the three games
that were really really standouts for me. So yeah, Number three for me
is Resident Evil for remake. Yeah. Like I said at the top of
this, like normally I would not really like to include remakes remasters, and
I haven't played Resonue Evil four before, so this is a full new experience
for me. Hard to truly evaluate it in that way. But I think
just because of the overall quality of the year, like I really needed more
fuel, and Resnuebal four gave me that fuel in spades. I really really
loved this game. It was such a surprise, you know, always hearing
this as one of the greatest games of all time, some people's favorite game.
I had very different expectations for what it is versus what I thought it
was going to be, and that mostly comes in through the tone. The
game is very goofy. It's like a cheesy action flick, and I wasn't
expecting that. I thought it'd be more serious or more horror y. And
there is some scary moments, but like not really. There's a couple a
couple of them, but for the most parts, it's it's more about the
action movie part of it. But yeah, I really really like the combat.
I really like the upgrades, the upgrade system of it, the inventory
management, all that stuff I really enjoy. I love all the characters in
here. I think they're all very fun, whether they are maybe with the
exceptional like some of the villains, I guess it could be a bit weaker,
but I think in terms of the main cast, like I think Ashley
is very fun. I like Leon for his cheesiness. I think Ada is
amazing and compelling. Louis, you know, he's super fun to have in
there. And yeah, I also played through the Separate Ways DLC, as
I mentioned, where you get to play more as Ada, and I think
that gave me just even more appreciation for the game, which reuses certain areas
in really creatively. You're kind of going backward through them, or it's given
you more context on what Ada was doing during these Leon sections. I've then
also exploring more and getting just other sequences and more backs, more just filling
in the world around it, which was all really great. So yeah,
it's like visually beautiful and music is super good. Like technically this game is
just super super solid, and yeah, I just had a really really great
time through it, And uh, I think it'll definitely be one that I
replay because obviously these games are very built for replayability, and I think this
is one I will check out. But I also now just want to go
play all the other Resident Evils that I missed, so I've obviously talked about
that adventure on side quest already went back and put it was an Evil too,
And I have a bunch of other ones downloaded already to be played,
so it might be a bit before I actually do replay this one, just
because I want to fill in more history of the rest of the series.
But yeah, I really really love this game. It lived up to the
hype for me that has been built up for like I don't know, two
decades at this point for people talking about how much they love Reson Evil four.
So there you go. That was number three for me and we're getting
into the big two. So these were the These are the two that I
really debated for Game of the Year. These are the August number one and
two for me, in the order. I think I switched back a couple
of times. I'm really happy with where I have it for today, so
let's get into it. Number two for me is Starfield, a game that
for a lot of people think came and went, and I don't think we'll
make it on a lot of people's top ten. It didn't do very much
of the game wards. It was one category but didn't even stand a chance
of winning it. But I this is a complicated one. I was gonna
say, I really love it, and I do. But I think,
you know, looking retroactively at my top ten lists that I've made for the
last three years, you know, doing this with Dante doing the official lists,
by far out of the top five, even top ten, Starfield is
the most flawed game or the games that has the most issues or problems or
criticisms that I can throw at it out of all those years and including this
year, even though it's at number two, so it's above these you know,
eight other games on my list, But it is a game that has
a ton of issues with it, but I think that just goes to show
how much the parts of it that I did enjoy shined for me, so
just to get some of that negative stuff out of the way. I mean,
there's obviously, like technically the game I think visually looks pretty weak at
times. Other times it does look good, but like NPC's look awful,
frame rate is really bad. The game wasn't actually super buggy for me.
I think the bugs of Alan Wake detracted my enjoyment from that game more than
Starfield's issues did. There's some other you know issues here. I think the
biggest thing for me is like exploration. I still got a lot of exploration
out of it, but I think now I don't really think i'd want to
do just free random exploration in the same way that I'll always do that in
Elder Scrolls or even I'll go back and do the same things over again in
those games. But in this game it just feels a bit too auto generated,
which it obviously is procedural generation. So that takes away from some of
the enjoyment. But the reality of the situation is I fucking love this game,
and it's the game I put the most time into this year. I
put a whole eighty hours into it, I think, and even then for
the three or four weeks afterwards, I was like, I don't want to
play more Starfield. But I was like, I got to play other games
for a side quest, for getting ready for these game of the Year lists,
but all I wanted to do is play more Starfield. But yeah,
I love it. Here are the things that I do love. But I
think the quest design in this game is outstanding. I think it's some of
the best that Bethez does ever done. There are tons of meaningful choices that
change things that were really really difficult choices for me to make, and that
is where I want to do more replayability, not necessarily the exploration. Yeah,
some really really fun quests, some really stand out kind of big cinematic
set PC sort of moments that are definitely in there as well. Yeah,
there's a ton of that stuff that I was really really impressed by, and
even some of the side quests I really had a good time with as well.
I think the RPG mechanics of this game are actually really really solid.
The character creation is really fun. I like the traits that you can have
and the background whatever that stuff's called. And I think that define and improvement
from for me Skyrim and followed four seventy six is the like RPG skill tree.
I really like the way that's worked of having like, okay, pick
a point that you want to put into and then you have to actually do
that thing to get up to the next level, and you invest more points,
you getting more layers, and then the way that kind of branches out
into the different layers of the skill tree. Just a game that even after
I was level forty whatever it was, every single level still felt meaningful because
I wanted to put that point somewhere interesting. And there's so many skills that
are way beyond like there are a ton of them that are just like ten
percent increase to damage allowed you to though there's a ton that we're like fundamentally
change the game, like just having the stealth bar on your screen, or
like doing a combat slide, or like skill points, which I think is
such a cool choice and definitely makes for more ability to replay And I definitely
can't wait to replay this game when there's a bit more content in there,
when I have a new PC and can play it on there with some mods.
Can't wait to check this game out more. I love about it.
I think the customization of the character is good, but also the ship and
outpost construction. I didn't do quite as much of that ship, not really
a whole lot, more just like a couple of changes here or there.
I'd mostly just buy cool ships that I really liked, but I did a
little bit of outpost construction, which was cool. But I think more than
that, I just loved decorating my houses in this game, buying the various
houses or decorating my outposts with all sorts of things. I spent hours.
I've probably spent like at least eight or ten hours of my playtime of my
eighty hours just decorating houses in this game. That was such a fun part
for me. I love the variety you have there, and yeah, just
really really cool. I think there's some really really great story moments in this
game. I mentioned some of those quests that stand out, well, I
don't know, I don't really want to spoil them, so I don't think
I need to mention them. But some really really great story moments. I
think a new game plus maybe let me down a little bit in terms of
the hype level of it, but I still think it's pretty cool and creative.
And then I think there's a great cast characters in here. Some of
the there's obviously the four main companions that you can marry and whatnot. I
think all of them are really good. And then there's even beyond that a
few more really interesting ones as well. So yeah, I really excited to
see the development of this game, see what happens with the updates, see
what happens with the mod scene when it hits it. And I think even
more than that, like you know, fifteen years from now, like Starfield
two, I'm very curious to see what a sequel to this game, like
a true iterative sequel, will look like. And that might even be past
like Todd Howard's days at that point, right he's gonna die. I mean
he said something like I think he said the next elist Girls is like his
last game. I don't know, something like that, But no, I
just I can't wait to see what the changes of Starfield will be in the
future. But as someone who's kind of been a big space sci fi nerd
the last couple of years, I think this was really good and Definitely there's
room for improvement, no doubt, but I think this game is doing so
much that there's no way I was gonna be able to do all that stuff
amazingly. So yeah, I don't know. That's maybe a compliment and also
kind of an insult at the same time, But that's the thing, man,
this When I played this game, I played this game. It was
the easy game of the year for me until I played more of another game,
and yeah, I just I love it. For all its flaws,
I still had a great time with this game. And yeah, there you
go. Starfield at number two. We have a ton we had to review,
a second review, and then a spoiler cast on that game, so
if you want more discussion on that, that's the place to go to hear
even more in depth thoughts on all those things, which has more spoilers in
there. And then we're into the big dog, number one and this one.
Once I completed the game, even before I was completed, I felt
like this was going to be number one. This might not be a surprise
if you've listened to side Quest the last few months, but I'm very happy
with this being my number one, and it's pretty much an easy lock for
number one this year, and that is See of Stars, which I just
found out today is a Canadian mid game, so shout outs to that.
I really wish they got a speech up there at the Game Awards for winning
Best Indie, but instead Neil Druckman got to talk about a TV show that
I made. But yeah, See If Stars. This game I had about
forty hours in when I finally finished it, completed it, and quite literally
every single hour of that was enjoyable. There was not a dull moment for
me in this game. I loved every second of it. This game,
much like I was saying a space for the Unbound Sudoorgalia best aesthetics of the
year. The pixel art is insanely good in this game. The color palettes,
the animations, the expressions on characters' faces, the amount of character that's
in there. The world map view like the zoomed o view versus the close
in detailed view, insanely beautiful game. The music is fantastic. There's tons
of music in there, of course, so yeah, beautiful game in that
way. Let's see, there's so many things I want to praise about this
game, so we'll just go through. This will probably be very besty the
way I talk about this game. But and I've talked about a lot ready,
of course, but I now that I've fully finished, I want to
praise it some more. So, you know, one thing that I I
found interesting was after playing Mario RPG lately, because I thought Steve Stars always
was kind of talked about as like, oh, this is a Chrono Trigger
inspired game, you know first and foremost, But I was surprised to see
just how much Mario RPG influence was in this game. There are certain references,
veryous specific things. Obviously, some of the combat system in terms of
timing attacks. There are all sorts of things that I can't wait to break
down if kirkland I ever finished this game and we can do a full spoiler
cast, I want to talk about some of those things some more. But
to see what Mario RPG did and as I mentioned, maybe being a bit
of a satire, and for Steve Stars to take all of those mechanics and
make all of them more meaningful and interesting, it was like, it's so
cool to see that, especially as especially the order of it. Of like
I've played Chrono Trigger and then played See of Stars and then played Mario RPG.
Just cool to see how it's taken a genre that has been you know,
well trodden, and it's coming out with new fresh mechanics and iterations on
mechanics that other other games have done in such a great way. The combat
never got boring for me in this game forty hours in because because of the
timing attacks, but also just the variety the effective types. The lock break
system I think is incredibly smart, turn order, the variety of characters like
I never got bored with the combat in this game, really really great stuff.
Let's see. I think you know of these games, these sixteen bit
JRPG sort of things, usually movement is pretty pretty stale, pretty clunky.
Maybe not clunky, but just doesn't it doesn't feel great to move around.
This game is an exception to that. There's tons of platforming in this game,
and the reason for that is because it's fun to move around, and
normally I hate shimming on ledges and stuff, but I loved moving around in
this game. You also have a grappling hunk, of course, which always
feels good. The puzzles, there are tons of great puzzles in this game.
I think they do a really smart thing of there any puzzle that's needed
for a main quest is not too difficult. Usually you can figure it out
fairly quickly with a couple. Couple of them are harder than others, of
course. But then there's once you've kind of complete the main game and you're
doing the side content, extra content, optional stuff, that's where some of
the like really really tricky puzzles come in. And so I think that's fantastic.
That's such a smart way to do it. You don't want to block
people from progressing the main story, but you can still have some really great
puzzles in there. So that was amazing. Speaking of after extra content,
the amount of like optional bosses in this game that are so hard to get
to or take so many steps to get to, but then have just I
can't imagine anything less than like month's work of pixel art to get to a
point where these things were put together, in terms of all the animations,
really cool mechanics. There's so much freaking extra content in this game. And
then there's like the whole Wheels, which is like this mini game where at
the taverns you can play wheels against someone. It's like this this I don't
know, a little bar game, and I love that game, and I
got so into wheels. There's a whole arena in this game. There's like
this quiz show you can go on, and then for me too, like
before I finished, like roll credits and got the true end and all that
stuff went and getting all the conscies, which is like there's a few collectibles
in this game that's kind of the main one that has an incentive to get
all these things, and I love doing that. I love trying to look
around trying to find all these conscious A couple of them I had to look
up walkthroughs to find them, but that was such a fun thing to do
as well. So it's just all the extra content in this game was stuff
I was just so excited to do, and I wasn't just doing it for
this that or the other reason. The characters in this game are fantastic.
I think that, you know, maybe the two main protagonists are a bit
lackluster, but I think they're intentionally supposed to be a bit there. May
be intentionally supposed to be kind of blend so that you can maybe insert your
own personality into them, right, that kind of blank canvas sort of character.
But then with the other characters. When it gets a bit more spicy,
maybe it would have been better if they had a bit more flavor of
those main characters. But for the most part, it's like I didn't really
that didn't really bother me because of the surrounding cast and that being so interesting.
So girl character of the Year for me. I love that man so
much, such great moments. He's such a selfless character. He's funny,
he's cool, he's confident, he's just a great friend. You know,
off games just have a great friend in them. Teaks, I think is
such a fun idea of having this kind of lower character so that once again,
if people want to opt into more story content, you can do it
through Teaks at the campfire, but you don't have to do it, and
instead it makes the game not have just tons of these additional story beats that
are a slog to get through. So smart, Sarah, SARAHI I don't
still another PRONOUNCERR name such a cool character that I think just one has like
a cool esthetic and look for the first half of the game, but then
in the second half just has all these crazy plot twists that blew my mind.
I don't want to spoil it. Cause I feel like, for the
most part the STEPSOD it has not been very spoilery, and that's okay.
Once again, I'm Kirkland. Please, if you're listening to this, beat
that game so we can talk about some of these things and spoilers. There's
so many things about this game I want to talk about. I'll just say
the character Beast, I don't just spill much about him, but I freaking
love this character too. Every character in here, I kind of forget the
name of the the mage guy, the time keeper guy, but he's super
cool as well. Even some of the villains, I think we're really compelling
because you get a lot of time with them. Some of them were a
bit more just kind of blank evil boring, but it didn't really bother me
so much. And then yeah, they get The game takes all sorts of
crazy twists in the story, in the narrative, twists on twists and twist.
There were like three or four times where I thought this game was about
to end, but then it didn't, and it blew into this whole other
section of the game, and never was that like, oh okay, one
more section. It was like, oh damn, I can't wait to see
where we're going next, and yeah, I just never wanted this game.
And to end this was like I think I spent probably three full months playing
through this game, just slowly plugging away at it, and when I finally
finished, it was like it was sad. It was like, Okay,
it's done, and I'm not gonna see this thing anymore. It was just
like it became like a familiar part of my weekly or daily routine. So
I freaking love see the stars. Amazing story, amazing combat, amazing characters,
so much extra content that is all super super good. As I said,
every single hour was enjoyable, not a dull moment, And it gave
me like forty hours, Like that's insane because you know I love Starfield.
That was eighty hours and there were a ton of hours and there we're like,
eh, okay, what's going on here? But yeah, Steve star
is just such a consistently quality game. Cannot praise it enough. Please go
play this game if you haven't. It is worth every penny. It's also
like game Pass and PlayStation Plus, I think, so easy one to go
check out. I played it on Switch and really enjoyed the the portable aspect
of it as well. So there I've done it. That are that are
there is my top ten plus plus six top sixteen games the year, as
well as some of those preamble topics. Yeah, you know, not quite
the same top ten gala that I guess it feels like it has been in
the last couple of years. But hopefully this was still enjoyable to hear me
ramble on for an hour fifteen here about my favorite games. And yeah,
just quick reminder once again, next week is going to be Travis Taylor Kirklan.
You're gonna hear their games of the year, and then whenever Dante's feeling
good, I will bring them back on a cyclist. You guys can hear
his top games of the year. And yeah, very much looking forward to
next year. I think there's a lot of fun things. We don't have
time to release dates yet, so it's a bit nebulous, but we'll see
what happens. But yeah, thank you everyone so much for listening to this,
and yeah, I will talk to you in just a few short days.
Have a good one by buy