Popular Post PhantomFear94 Posted December 19, 2019 Popular Post Share Posted December 19, 2019 (edited) So personally, I've played just about everything I physically can this year and have made my own personal reflections on my favourites of the year. I like reading about people's GOTY but also other reflections - indie of the year, surprise of the year, and less honorably disappointment of the year. Bearing in mind this is a personal list, these are my thoughts - what are yours? Give as many or as few as you like, in as much or little depth as you like. Only Rule It must have originally come out from December 2018 to December 2019 on its original system. I include December 2018 as I feel lots of games get overlooked because of this. I have one instance below where a game came out December 13th 2018, and feel that it deserves mention. -------------------- Personal Game of the Year Winner: Metro Exodus Runners Up: Resident Evil 2, Death Stranding, A Plague Tale: Innocence, Control Note: Resident Evil 2 was extremely close to winning this, but this is a personal list and I slightly prefer Metro Exodus (I'm a huge Metro fan). The open-world levels fell a little flat and I missed the depth of 2033/Last Light's morality system, but aside from that it told an incredible story, looked utterly gorgeous, and had some truly brilliant design choices. I think Dead City is one of the best linear levels I have ever played in any game period. I thought the gunplay was vastly improved, the pacing was excellent and the game more immersive than anything I've played in years. -------------------- Personal Indie of the Year Winner: GRIS Runners Up: Afterparty, My Friend Pedro Note: Personally found this year wasn't packed with quality indie games. This also relates a bit to my backlog - I haven't played Untitled Goose Game yet, and may retro-actively consider its place on this list once I've done so. I'm also not into games like Wargroove or Blasphemous, two games others rate very highly. On this basis, I've chosen GRIS. It is technically a 2018 game, but came out December 13th and feel this was SO late that it would have been omitted from most people's end of year lists last year. GRIS is my favourite indie game of the generation, period. -------------------- Personal Suprise of the Year Winner: A Plague Tale: Innocence Runners Up: N/A Note: I like looking back and considering games that completely took me by surprise, and is one of my favourite reflections at the end of each year. These can be games just not on my radar, out of my usual genre, or games I think looked very "meh" until I actually played them. My 2017 SOTY was AER: Memories of Old, and my 2018 SOTY was Planet Alpha. This year my winner is a bit more well-known, but completely blind-sided me. It looked a semi-interesting AA game I would consider in a sale for me in the lead-up. That view is completely ignorant because A Plague Tale: Innocence ending up being in contention for my GOTY. The story was brilliant, the voice acting was well-done, the graphics were impressive, and the pacing/level design was superb. I even though the gameplay mechanics were well done, a feature others have criticized. I liked how they evolved over the course of the game. I feel similar to this how I feel about Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice - a AA game that puts most of its AAA contemporaries to shame. -------------------- Personal Disappointment of the Year Winner (or Loser?): RAGE 2 Runners Up: Life is Strange 2, Wolfenstein: Youngblood, The Outer Worlds, GRID Note: I always felt RAGE 1 was a really underrated game that warranted a sequel. It didn't warrant this sequel, though. RAGE 2 was a boring, hollow world with a poor story and laughable by the numbers padding. The guns were fun to shoot, but that's all it really had going for it. Such a shame, as the series had potential. Youngblood was disappointing, but as someone who loved the series up to II and HATED II, I wasn't surprised. Finally, yes I've put Outer Worlds in here. A lot of people will disagree with this I'm sure. It's a solid 7/10 or even 8/10 for me, but having seen my fiancee play it front to back I feel it's greatly overrated. I found thin on the ground even when played properly and not through speedrun, and whilst I feel it was going for a purposely refined take on the Bethesda RPG it lacked a bit of personality for me (humour and all). I also found its premise very unoriginal and its world only semi-engaging. There were things I liked, and I think it's a good game I'll probably go back to max out, but it wasn't close to the top of what I played this year personally. Edited December 20, 2019 by PhantomFear94 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LucianaRosethorn Posted December 19, 2019 Share Posted December 19, 2019 (edited) GOTY 1. Code Vein 2. Remnant From The Ashes 3. Death End Re;Quest Indie Of The Year 1. Crystar 2. The Liar Princess and Blind Prince (only on here because it's one of the few new indie games I've played) Surprise Of The Year 1. Chocobo Mystery Dungeon 2. Metal Wolf Chaos Disappointment Of The Year 1. Resident Evil 2 2. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice 3. World War Z Edited December 19, 2019 by LucianaRosethorn 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MandA60VISE Posted December 19, 2019 Share Posted December 19, 2019 I've only played two games released this year unless I'm forgetting something. My game of the year is AI: The Somnium Files. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kaltezhan Posted December 19, 2019 Share Posted December 19, 2019 While I managed to keep up with major AAA releases, I haven't checked much indies. Still catching up on some older releases. Game of the Year: Days Gone. The game has its flaws, but Bend Studio really put their effort here. They patched things (played on Pro, so I haven't felt that many performance bugs), added tons of free DLC and new game modes. I found it a very complete game, with long story, engaging gameplay and a couple of fun side content. People found the side missions a bit repetitive, but I thought they were very coherent with the world lore. And I gotta praise the challenge mode. When the first three Horde, Bike and Stealth were released, I thought the other 9 would be essentially the same, but they managed to keep it creative, with different strategies across it. I remember getting Gold on a Horde, and then jump to another Horde thinking "ok, just do the same stuff you did there...", and got completely obliterated. So yeah, GOTY + amazing studio support. Honorable Mentions: Sekiro, Control Indie of the Year: Concrete Genie. Can it be considered an indie? I think I haven't checked any true 2019 indies, so I'll put Concrete Genie here. The game is just gorgeous, and gameplay is different and fun. A real family delight, my grandma loved it. Surprise of the Year: Death Stranding. Ok, this isn't a surprise, but still, a new game genre! I knew the story would be awesome, but I wasn't expecting the gameplay to be so addictive. Currently working on my Platinum. Fail of the Year: Concerning the 2019 releases, I'm not disappointed with anything I've played so far! Can't wait to check on A Plague Tale on 2020. Just gotta get through the holidays and finish those damn deliveries! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoldenShaka Posted December 19, 2019 Share Posted December 19, 2019 I've only played 3 games from this year. Even with other great games from previous years, the most entertaining one remains the same. So, my GOTY is A plague tale: Innocence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ninja-Sara-X Posted December 19, 2019 Share Posted December 19, 2019 (edited) GOTY Anthem (Unpopular opinion I know) Indie Of The Year Fight'NRage Surprise Of The Year World War Z Remnant From the Ashes Disappointment Of The Year Generation Zero Edited December 19, 2019 by SnowingInAugust Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OverHypedG Posted December 19, 2019 Share Posted December 19, 2019 GOTY Borderlands 3 Indie Of The Year Concrete Genie Surprise Of The Year The Outer Worlds A Plague Tale Disappointment Of The Year Ghost Recon Breakpoint 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fr_0zt Posted December 19, 2019 Share Posted December 19, 2019 (edited) GOTY Death Stranding ? A plague tale: Innocence Control Days Gone Metro Exodus Indie A plague tale: Innocence ? Surprise Remnant: From the Ashes ? Disappointment - Still have to get KH3, BL3, SW: JFO, Gris, Afterparty and a couple others so the list could change a bit. Great year tho. Edited December 19, 2019 by Fr_0zt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EcoShifter Posted December 19, 2019 Share Posted December 19, 2019 (edited) While I have 2019 games, I almost entirely prioritized older releases from the backlog this year, so there truly won't be much here. And... some of these will/have been said again in that awards topic. Game of the Year Team Sonic Racing Indie of the Year N/A (Ideally, it have been Indivisible if I choose to play it this year.) Surprise of the Year N/A (Ideally, Code Vein.) Disappointment of the Year Crash Team Racing: Nitro Fueled Looking forward to playing a lot of 2019 games in 2020. Edited December 19, 2019 by EcoShifter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoldenShaka Posted December 19, 2019 Share Posted December 19, 2019 Best game: A plague tale: Innocence Best indie: Indivisible Dissapoinment of the year: Monkey king Hero is back Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DEI2EK Posted December 19, 2019 Share Posted December 19, 2019 I bought a lot of games released in 2019 but haven't actually played them yet. I've only played 5 games from 2019 actually. Best game: Trails of Cold Steel 3. One of the best in the entire 9 game series and has me waiting excitedly for Cold Steel 4 Disappointment: KH3 i guess, it could have been so much better than what it was, it just felt rushed. Hopefully this new dlc fixes most of the issues i have with the game but i don't consider it as good as either kh1 or 2 really 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Together_Comic Posted December 19, 2019 Share Posted December 19, 2019 Games I've Played Released in 2019 Kingdom Hearts III Jump Force Return of the Obra Dinn Game of the Year Return of the Obra Dinn Indie of the Year Return of the Obra Dinn Surprise of the Year Return of the Obra Dinn Disappointment of the Year Kingdom Hearts III Looks like a sweep for Indi Darling Return of the Obra Dinn, though to be fair the competition wasn't exactly stiff. That being said I think that if I included all of the games that I've played this year, I would still go for Return of the Obra Dinn as game of the year. It's great. Lucas Pope just has this talent for making ostensibly boring premises into engaging gameplay. Who would have thought that my best experience from the year would be from playing as an insurance adjuster. Conversely Kingdom Hearts III was a big disappointment. I think part of it was from the build up of waiting 11 or 12 years for this thing to get what effectively amounted to a not very satisfying conclusion. I didn't hate the game, and there were certainly parts of the game where they remembered what was exciting about the game (mainly the combat system), but there was a big disconnect that felt like 2/3s of the game was completely disconnected from the last third. Just disappointing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhantomFear94 Posted December 19, 2019 Author Share Posted December 19, 2019 (edited) 1 hour ago, Fr_0zt said: GOTY Death Stranding A plague tale: Innocence Control Days Gone Metro Exodus Indie A plague tale: Innocence Surprise Remnant: From the Ashes Disappointment - Still have to get KH3, BL3, SW: JFO, Gris, Afterparty and a couple others so the list could change a bit. Great year tho. Aside from Days Gone the rest of our Top 5 is the same, just in a different order. 14 minutes ago, Together_Comic said: Games I've Played Released in 2019 Kingdom Hearts III Jump Force Return of the Obra Dinn Game of the Year Return of the Obra Dinn Indie of the Year Return of the Obra Dinn Surprise of the Year Return of the Obra Dinn Disappointment of the Year Kingdom Hearts III Looks like a sweep for Indi Darling Return of the Obra Dinn, though to be fair the competition wasn't exactly stiff. That being said I think that if I included all of the games that I've played this year, I would still go for Return of the Obra Dinn as game of the year. It's great. Lucas Pope just has this talent for making ostensibly boring premises into engaging gameplay. Who would have thought that my best experience from the year would be from playing as an insurance adjuster. Conversely Kingdom Hearts III was a big disappointment. I think part of it was from the build up of waiting 11 or 12 years for this thing to get what effectively amounted to a not very satisfying conclusion. I didn't hate the game, and there were certainly parts of the game where they remembered what was exciting about the game (mainly the combat system), but there was a big disconnect that felt like 2/3s of the game was completely disconnected from the last third. Just disappointing. Obra Dinn was a 2018 game (October). It would have entered the Top 5 for me too if it was Dec 2018 onwards. Edited December 19, 2019 by PhantomFear94 Formatting Issue Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Together_Comic Posted December 19, 2019 Share Posted December 19, 2019 5 minutes ago, PhantomFear94 said: Obra Dinn was a 2018 game (October). It would have entered the Top 5 for me too if it was Dec 2018 onwards. Yeah, I knew I was cheating a little ??. I only included it because you mentioned ResE 2. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhantomFear94 Posted December 19, 2019 Author Share Posted December 19, 2019 1 minute ago, Together_Comic said: Yeah, I knew I was cheating a little . I only included it because you mentioned ResE 2. No hate, I bent the rules slightly with GRIS (although as I said it was SO late in 2018 I felt it was fair). All for fun (although RE2 was January 2019) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EIdain Posted December 19, 2019 Share Posted December 19, 2019 (edited) Not played a tonne of new releases this year but I'll give it a go.Game of the Year: Thronebreaker - The Witcher Tales Much like The Witcher 3 it's incredibly well written, great cast of characters, does an excellent job of sucking you into the games world. It has a beautiful art style too which I'm a sucker for. Nailed everything the game strives to achieve.Honorable mention: Apex Legends Best gameplay of any Battle Royale out there, had a lot of great accessibility features that made it really easy to play with others, even without a microphone (many of which were immediately copied by the games competitors). Shame about some of the technical issues, also had some miss-steps with events and micro-transactions that prevent me giving it top honours. In addition it had stingy progression at launch, as well as having a pretty lacklustre selection of skins - although glad to see these have improved a lot over the course of the year.Indie: N/A I'll get around to Gris eventually. Hoping for Hades to come to PS4 in the new year too.Surprise of the Year: Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order I wasn't expecting too much from this after a weak showing at E3 and some mediocre trailers. The previous EA Star Wars games didn't help matters either. Ended it up being my favourite game of the year. For Respawn's first take at a non-FPS game I thought it was very well done, really enjoyed the metroidvania style level design too. Some technical issues and frustration with the blocking/parrying system stop it from being the best game of the year for me.Disappointment of the Year: Anthem Didn't buy the full release, but after playing the the beta and seeing the mess that followed I wasn't going to. Such a shame cause I really enjoy a good looter, maybe Bioware can turn it around in time. Edited December 19, 2019 by SorryWeAre0_o Spelling Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rally-Vincent--- Posted December 19, 2019 Share Posted December 19, 2019 2019 has been my Year of the Year. No year in 2019 has been better than 2019, it even came out on Jan. 1st. Got a lot of game time in it, I probably won't finish it before Dec. 31st. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Feral Posted December 20, 2019 Share Posted December 20, 2019 Haven't played many new games this year. GOTY - Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order Indie - N/A Surprise of the Year - Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order Disappointment of the Year - N/A Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yuna4353 Posted December 20, 2019 Share Posted December 20, 2019 OK so I don't know if switch games so I'm kinda choosing two games for my GOTY just in case Game Of The Year- Fire Emblem Three Houses (if counting switch games), or Judgment (if not counting switch games)- FE 3H introduced to one of my new favorite franchises and now I just look up to it and a really good game. Judgment is out of my love for yakuza and it is a very nice spinoff Indie Game Of The Year- N/A I have personally not played many very indie games myself need to. Suprise Of The Year- Persona 5 and 3 dancing games (they came out in America last December so I guess it counts), Not a really big rhythm fan myself but these were fun games to play and plat while I am a really big fan of all the music. Disappointment Of The Year- Cathrine Full Body- I mainly just don't like the gameplay of this game but its story is interesting enough and it makes me want to go for the endings but its gameplay is what disappointment me (thank god for safety mode). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KiraBobbySan Posted December 20, 2019 Share Posted December 20, 2019 I have played about 10 new releases this year, I'm not one to usually buy games at full price when they first come out, so I feel like if we did this type of list/ recognition next year, with a year delay to catch up, it would prove more accurate. But here is what I have so far: Personal GOTY - Death Stranding Runners Up - Resident Evil 2, Blasphemous, Layers of Fear 2 The choice here was easy to make for me. Like Red Dead Redemption 2 of last year, Death Stranding was the one game that stood way out ahead of the pack and delivered in almost ever aspect (pun not intended). It has everything going for it, and.... I could make my case here, but I already wrote a long review for the game on my brand new blog, when I say brand new, I ,mean I just launched it earlier this week. So it needs some major touching up, as well as adding content. This isn't necessarily a plug because I wanted to wait until I fix it up better, but everything I would want to say about Death Stranding I have already said right here: https://themadnessofdionysus.wordpress.com/2019/12/17/death-stranding-2019/ Personal Indie of the Year - Blasphemous This is also an easy choice because I have been anticipating this game for a while now. I discovered it a little too late in order to have been a backer on their Kickstarter which is regrettable because some of those perks looked awesome. I really like these type of metroidvania style games, and the lore and gothic tone made this one very special and unique. It was like religious perversion horror, and the designs in the game were amazingly nightmarish. Gameplay wise, it owes a lot of influence to Hollow Knight for specific mechanics. Personal Surprise of the Year - Layers of Fear 2 Honestly, this wasn't much of a surprise, but nothing really surprised me too much this year, at least positively (had my fair share of disappointments though). I liked the original Layers of Fear but always felt it could be drastically improved upon. This one does that and its a much more polished version and I really dig the artistic horror vibe that both games featured. A sort of delving into the mad genius of artists, and using the ever changing landscape of the game to represent their psyches. Personal Disappointment of the Year - Rage 2 Runners up - A Plague Tale: Innocence, Days Gone, Metro Exodus Like I mentioned, I have had a fair amount of disappointments this year. Now, just to note, to be disappointed in a game does not necessarily make it a bad game, just that it did not meet personal expectations. With that also said, Rage 2 is unequivocally a bad game, my runners up, not so much, especially Metro Exodus which was a good game, just not on par with its predecessors. Rage 2 was so damn uninspired, not a single unique aspect to it, just a mash up of so many other more successful post apocalyptic games. The story was shit, the action/game play was okay (fairly standard for FPS), the RPG elements were kind of terrible and pointless (not like you could make unique builds or something). As far as colorful apocalypses go, I could have sworn this would win compared to what should have amounted to a DLC in Far Cary New Dawn, but alas, even that was better. I also wanted to include the games that I want to play that I have not yet done so that were released this year: Devil May Cry 5 Man of Medan Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order Gris Blair Witch The Outer Worlds Borderlands 3 Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice Control (My most anticipated of what is left to play) Medieval Concrete Genie Remnant: From the Ashes Life is Strange 2 Probably a few others, but these were the most notable that stuck out in mind Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonesey46 Posted December 20, 2019 Share Posted December 20, 2019 GOTY Days Gone Indie of the Year Ori & the Blind Forest (Switch release) - This is an old game now but it launched on Switch this year so I'm counting it. This is the first time I've played it as I've never owned a Microsoft system. Surprise of the Year Far Cry New Dawn - it wasn't even that good I just ended up enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would. Disappointment of the Year BORDERLANDS 3 - Holy crap what a disappointment. The game plays fine but the world, environments, characters, enemies, story (especially story) are just so DULL. I had high hopes for this game as a big fan of the franchise and it just didn't do it for me. Runner up: Wolfenstein Youngblood. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jboorad-124 Posted December 20, 2019 Share Posted December 20, 2019 I haven't been able to play a lot of games from this year but from what I've played/seen I'll say this GOTY: Resident Evil 2 Indie of the year: Untitled Goose Game (haven't play much of any indie games so I'll go with this one because I'll probably get it soon) Surprise of the year: Jedi Fallen Order I've never been a fan of star wars and I knew EA has been trash recently, but I played this at a friend's house and thoroughly enjoyed it and may be willing to get it in the future. Disappointment of the year: World War Z This game was hyped up to be great but it had only a few missions which were all pretty meh, and the pvp was pretty mediocre as well. My friends and I only played it for a bit before getting bored. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhantomFear94 Posted December 20, 2019 Author Share Posted December 20, 2019 (edited) Awesome views guys, keep them coming I'm having a good time reading everyone's opinions. Interestingly enough, I played almost everything I wanted to compared to others. 2020 I'm going to have MASSIVE backlog problems; getting married, travelling, finishing my masters and looking for a house ? 37 minutes ago, jboorad124 said: I haven't been able to play a lot of games from this year but from what I've played/seen I'll say this GOTY: Resident Evil 2 Indie of the year: Untitled Goose Game (haven't play much of any indie games so I'll go with this one because I'll probably get it soon) Surprise of the year: Jedi Fallen Order I've never been a fan of star wars and I knew EA has been trash recently, but I played this at a friend's house and thoroughly enjoyed it and may be willing to get it in the future. Disappointment of the year: World War Z This game was hyped up to be great but it had only a few missions which were all pretty meh, and the pvp was pretty mediocre as well. My friends and I only played it for a bit before getting bored. A lot of my friends really liked Jedi, people who despised other Star Wars games recently. Good to see so many being surprised by it. I'm getting it for Xmas! 7 hours ago, KiraBobbySan said: I have played about 10 new releases this year, I'm not one to usually buy games at full price when they first come out, so I feel like if we did this type of list/ recognition next year, with a year delay to catch up, it would prove more accurate. But here is what I have so far: Personal GOTY - Death Stranding Runners Up - Resident Evil 2, Blasphemous, Layers of Fear 2 The choice here was easy to make for me. Like Red Dead Redemption 2 of last year, Death Stranding was the one game that stood way out ahead of the pack and delivered in almost ever aspect (pun not intended). It has everything going for it, and.... I could make my case here, but I already wrote a long review for the game on my brand new blog, when I say brand new, I ,mean I just launched it earlier this week. So it needs some major touching up, as well as adding content. This isn't necessarily a plug because I wanted to wait until I fix it up better, but everything I would want to say about Death Stranding I have already said right here: https://themadnessofdionysus.wordpress.com/2019/12/17/death-stranding-2019/ Personal Indie of the Year - Blasphemous This is also an easy choice because I have been anticipating this game for a while now. I discovered it a little too late in order to have been a backer on their Kickstarter which is regrettable because some of those perks looked awesome. I really like these type of metroidvania style games, and the lore and gothic tone made this one very special and unique. It was like religious perversion horror, and the designs in the game were amazingly nightmarish. Gameplay wise, it owes a lot of influence to Hollow Knight for specific mechanics. Personal Surprise of the Year - Layers of Fear 2 Honestly, this wasn't much of a surprise, but nothing really surprised me too much this year, at least positively (had my fair share of disappointments though). I liked the original Layers of Fear but always felt it could be drastically improved upon. This one does that and its a much more polished version and I really dig the artistic horror vibe that both games featured. A sort of delving into the mad genius of artists, and using the ever changing landscape of the game to represent their psyches. Personal Disappointment of the Year - Rage 2 Runners up - A Plague Tale: Innocence, Days Gone, Metro Exodus Like I mentioned, I have had a fair amount of disappointments this year. Now, just to note, to be disappointed in a game does not necessarily make it a bad game, just that it did not meet personal expectations. With that also said, Rage 2 is unequivocally a bad game, my runners up, not so much, especially Metro Exodus which was a good game, just not on par with its predecessors. Rage 2 was so damn uninspired, not a single unique aspect to it, just a mash up of so many other more successful post apocalyptic games. The story was shit, the action/game play was okay (fairly standard for FPS), the RPG elements were kind of terrible and pointless (not like you could make unique builds or something). As far as colorful apocalypses go, I could have sworn this would win compared to what should have amounted to a DLC in Far Cary New Dawn, but alas, even that was better. I also wanted to include the games that I want to play that I have not yet done so that were released this year: Devil May Cry 5 Man of Medan Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order Gris Blair Witch The Outer Worlds Borderlands 3 Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice Control (My most anticipated of what is left to play) Medieval Concrete Genie Remnant: From the Ashes Life is Strange 2 Probably a few others, but these were the most notable that stuck out in mind My opinion entirely, but prioritize Control and GRIS if you can. Both are extremely good and quite original - GRIS taken <5 hours to platinum and is an utter masterpiece IMO. If you're a completionist, Control will be getting 2 pieces of DLC content with trophies in 2020. You've just reminded me to put LiS2 as a disappointment; compared to 1 it's awful, although it has its moments it's very slow and generally un-entertaining. Quite liked its endings though. Edited December 20, 2019 by PhantomFear94 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zadorvp Posted December 20, 2019 Share Posted December 20, 2019 Personal Game of the Year: Winner: Fire Emblem: The Three Houses (Switch) Runners-up: Lost Ember, Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch Remastered, Chocobo's Mystery Dungeon: Every Buddy!, Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark Notes (Winner): Just a really great Fire Emblem entry again, with several different playthrough options (not just 3 despite the name implying that) and memorable, enjoyable characters. Notes (R-u): The "losers" (aka runners-up) for this category include two new games (more on those in the Indie and Surprise sections), a remaster of an amazing PS3 JRPG, and a great co-op remake of a Final Fantasy Fables game. Personal Indie of the Year: Winner: Lost Ember Runners-up: Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark, Bee Simulator, Groundhog Day: Like Father Like Son, Stranger Things 3: The Game Notes (Winner): Lost Ember was a really fun experience for me overall due to the variety of animals, the setting, the story, and the gameplay mechanics. It's also got some stuff you normally wouldn't experience in a video game (like being a buffalo during a stampede, or flopping endlessly on land as a fish). It's not a super fun platinum though (but it does feature a great platinum image + name reference). Notes (R-u): The three new "losers" in this category include a great, but grindy/buggy bee simulator, another great time-manipulation (VR) game from the makers of The Sexy Brutale & Invisible Hours, and a surprisingly fun co-op beat 'em up game based on the third season of the Stranger Things (it's actually fairly faithful to the season too). Personal Surprise of the Year: Winner: Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark Runners-up: Lost Ember, Stranger Things 3: The Game, Groundhog Day: Like Father Like Son, Irony Curtain: From Matryoshka with Love Notes (Winner): I had no idea Fell Seal existed or was even coming out, so it was a really great surprise to discover this Final Fantasy Tactics/Tactics Ogre-inspired game on PS4. We need more of these kinds of games (luckily we're at least getting Dark Crystal in February). Notes (R-u): The newest "loser" on the list is a well-made humorous point-and-click game from Artifex Mundi, who usually just publish hidden object games. Personal Disappointment of the Year: Winner: Jumanji: The Video Game Runners-up: Assassin's Creed III Remastered, Assassin's Creed III Liberation Remastered, Deponia Doomsday, Vacation Simulator Notes (Winner): As I said on the Push2Plat podcast, I was expecting Jumanji to be awful, but I was still looking forward to it and had hoped it would be better than what it ended up being It's a low-budget clone of the Strange Brigade (which is excellent), but it has no story, no returning voice actors from the movies (except for Rhys Darby), very repetitive gameplay, and only four short maps (which still feel too long when actually played; see: repetitive gameplay). To make matters worse, it launched without online and said online didn't even launch in November as promised (it launched this month). Having played the online mode, it does make the game more fun (I was getting constant full lobbies and there were lots of matches to choose from), but it's also full of people who don't understand how to deal with the jewel or the obelisks (this in turn makes the matches either last too long or end up causing a loss on Medium/Hard difficulty). Platinum-wise it also has an unnecessarily long grind to level 30 and all experience amounts gained are the same regardless of difficulty and points earned during a match. Notes (R-u): All the "losers" are new for this category. The ACs are buggy, glitchy messes that constantly crash and they overall gave me more trouble than the originals (with the exception of pivots not being in this version of AC3), Vacation Simulator is a disappointment (though still a funny game) compared to the original Job Simulator, and Deponia Doomsday has a really annoying jackalope trophy that grinds the game's story to a halt. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
starcrunch061 Posted December 20, 2019 Share Posted December 20, 2019 (edited) I’ll edit this over time, but for now, the only one I can say is: DISAPPOINTMENT OF THE YEAR: Kingdom Hearts 3 Of course, as this might be the only game I’ve played this year that released in 2019, maybe it’s goty, too. Edited December 20, 2019 by starcrunch061 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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