Well 2019 was pretty good. Not as strong as some of the amazing years we've had recently, but that's fine, the hardware generation is winding down. I had a great time playing old games if I'm honest, Xenoblade Chronicles X being my favourite game this year. But I also replayed Diablo 1 on GoG, and I replayed Divinity OS1 yet again, for a change of pace from constantly replaying Divinity OS2. And I played even more Dark Souls because that's what I do. But let's get on with the list. I'll try and restrain myself from writing any Isabelle x Solid Snake fan fiction this time around but I can't make any promises.
1. Sekiro Shadows Die Twice - [PS4] Well, I went and did it again. Every year I give game of the year to the "Soulsborne supremacy." I gush over whatever Fromsoft masterpiece happened to come out that year and declare it to be GotY,
bing-bang-boom. It's a really easy decision because they...usually make the best game each year and I guess 2019 is no exception, or I wouldn't be writing this paragraph. But when I played (and enjoyed) Sekiro early on in 2019 I came away thinking I would probably be giving the GotY to some other game I would end up playing later on, like Outer Worlds or Fire Emblem
. I know, I know...
Blasphemy. But let me take a moment to explain why.
I'm a soul man. Each night I lay down in the bed of chaos, and wake up with a praise the sun gesture before downing my morning estus. I go about my business collecting pyromancy tomes or whatever, listening to the cryptic dialogue of the various spooky npcs in my vicinity. "My final warning... What could that mean?" I ponder, as I walk past a bunch of cool gothic stuff that was probably copied from
Beserk, and so on. The point I'm getting at is that
I'm really into souls. Souls is love. Souls is life. So a few out there who are just as hollow as me will appreciate what I'm about to say, and a lot who like souls but don't quite live it probably won't, but I'll just say it anyways: The multiplayer is the soul of souls.
Whether it's helping newbs out in an epic boss fight, hanging out with your bros as you put together an interesting new build, or straight up invading and murderizing others in pvp, the multiplayer of souls keeps the games engrossing and exciting for years after you've fought every enemy and found every secret. And that's how it's always been since Demon's Souls - that game opens with an epic cutscene full of knights and dragons and skellingtons, but which also shows phantoms of players entering one another's worlds to team up against the demonic hordes. I've embraced the unique multiplayer experience that only these Fromsoft style titles can provide and been rewarded with games where there's never a dull moment. I can still remember the giddy terror I felt the first time I got invaded in Demon's Souls 10 years ago like it was yesterday!
So when word of this cool Fromsoft ninja game emerged, my initial excitement quickly gave way to disappointment over the absence of invading or summoning. A game with souls quality combat and level design is always a pleasure, but if I can neither protec nor attac the other people playing the game, I can replay it a few times to try different strats and see different endings I guess, but the fun stops there. There's just no getting around that my entertainment dollar value can't reach the levels of games like Dark Souls III or Bloodborne because Sekiro has no multiplayer.
Nor should it, as it happens. Multiplayer in Sekiro could never work. The game has stealth gameplay, a grappling hook arm, skill trees and complex combat mechanics even less suited to internet latency than parrying and backstabs. When you fight an opponent in Sekiro, you're often performing numerous parries, or deflections as they're called, one after another, trying to match the varying rhythms of their incoming strikes. It's thrilling and intense, and the exhilaration you feel as you turn back each wound-up whirl or blazing fast thrust of their blade is what Sekiro is all about. Every one of these perfect parries rewards you with another flash of orange sparks and the resonating clang of steel repelling steel, culminating in the moment when you overwhelm your enemy and break their posture before you brutally execute them. It's game-of-the-year caliber combat that will have you enthralled.
And yet the combat isn't carrying this game all on its own. While that is indeed what sets Sekiro apart, the other great stuff Fromsoft is famous for is all here. This is a game set in a magical version of medieval Japan, with amazing level design showcasing glorious castles, run-down temples, snowy valleys and mystical villages. You'll be swept away by this combination of the historical and fantastical, and probing deeper will reward you with secrets, treasure, or just the pleasure of seeing the attention to detail From puts into every little thing. The npcs are really well designed. Intriguing and mysterious, they all have their goals and secrets that are often hinted at or implied in the usual From style, instead of being told plainly. To complete their arcs, you'll sometimes have to read the meaning behind their words or investigate the surrounding area for clues. Or you could go ahead and spy on their conversations, just like a real ninja would do many hundreds of years ago. All this adds up to an immersive world populated by great characters, along with enemy and boss designs that are sure to impress.
Forget bionic commando, I'm a bionic shinobi!
But Sekiro is not for the faint of heart. People like to say the Fromsoft souls style games are hard and I think they tend to exaggerate. I feel like a bit more precaution and careful observation goes a long way in reducing the woes many experience when they struggle through Fromsoft's games. What's more: many of the skills you learn in Dark Souls mostly transfer over to Bloodborne and vice versa. This is not the case in Sekiro. While the underlying mechanics are basically identical, once elements like the posture system are added, you're actually left wanting to "unlearn" the habits you've built playing souls, throwing caution to the wind and adapting to your enemy's rhythm and moveset up close and personal as the sparks fly. It's a game that demands much from the player, including ninja level reflexes and the willpower to stare death in the face without flinching as you wait for just the right moment. But when you do
exactly that, and see the look of shock on a boss's face as you STOMP his lightning-fast lunge into the ground with a perfectly timed Mikiri Counter, it's incredibly satisfying.
Sekiro is hard all right, and it also gave me my biggest scare in a game for most of the year, until I played the RE2 Remake. After a grueling battle against a giant ape boss who pewped in his hands and threw it at me, I felt immensely relieved after cutting off his head in a victory animation, giving me a sense of accomplishment and finality that made me relax completely. A few seconds later,
Bubbles got up off the ground, picked up his head in one hand and a sword in the other, and started lurching towards me all weird and zombie-like, slashing away with the sword. I believe I said something along the lines of "get fucked" as I ran hard in the other direction, terrified.
I want to congratulate From. They've made another amazing game that I think is the best game of the year,
AGAIN. But it's the least enjoyment I've squeezed out of any of the soulsborne style games, except of course for
Namco Bandai's torch lighting simulator. As incredibly stylish and cool as Sekiro's world is, as straight up epic as it is to hear steel clang loudly against steel over and over as you deflect your enemy's relentless onslaught of attacks... I just can't love it the way I do Souls and Bloodborne. But hey - that's fine. Sekiro is Sekiro. And for guys like me, Elden Ring is right around the corner.
2. Fire Emblem Three Houses - [Switch] I've loved Fire Emblem since the gba games, so I was super pumped for our first Fire Emblem on a home console since 2007. But I've had some growing concerns, since things have been getting very character focused and fan-servicey in recent games ever since Awakening was a smash hit. I enjoy a bit of fan service but I've also felt like Fire Emblem was starting to lose its way, and it might be good to go back to a simpler, more traditional Fire Emblem in the classic style. Well, too bad. It's just like you've heard: Three Houses merges Fire Emblem combat with a
Persona style life simulator at a
Harry Potter style school for learning magic and what have you.
So everything is ruined and the game is awful now that the strategy gameplay has taken a backseat to having tea parties with cliche anime characters, right? Right? .....well....thing is....The characters are really, really well done you guys. Like,
really well done. They don't look like much to start with, but each of them is an individual with their own personal story to unravel, funny or interesting traits, and well written dialogue. Even characters you hate are well crafted versions of someone you hate, rather than some half-assed character with no impact. You will love these characters, and if you doubt it, just take a look at the insane meme culture that has sprung up around this game. People are absolutely infatuated with the cast of Three Houses. My house, the Black Eagles, had the comically evil schemer Hubert, a traumatized hikikomori in Bernadetta, and a motivationally challenged nap-time loving genius in Linhardt, just to name a few.
Just what are we even doing anymore, Fire Emblem?
As for the actual strategy gameplay: it's totally awesome. I've only played through once on hard difficulty, classic mode so far, as I'm waiting for all the DLC before I play through the other routes, but it's been a blast. Many tweaks and additions have been made that make everything feel fresh while the combat still feels like good old Fire Emblem at its core. I particularly enjoyed the inclusion of huge boss monsters that require multiple characters working together to take down. Couple the engrossing combat with the upgrading and re-classing you can do with these characters you so adore, and you've got one of those games where you plan to go to bed after doing 1 more mission and next thing you know you've done 3 missions and you look up and it's 3am. Some people have complained that the game is too easy, but I thought it was fine on hard mode classic, and there is now a "maddening" difficulty setting you can try as well. Just know that the epic final missions greatly increase the challenge and will really test you. On that subject, if a mission doesn't tell you a turn limit, that means the turn limit is 100 turns! I found out the hard way as I struggled through the game's ultimate mission, having to make a mad dash for the final boss when I got a '10 turns left' warning, barely edging out the victory at the last possible moment.
With these fun characters and such great gameplay this is all sounding like a game of the year contender. Add to that what can only be described as incredible music and Three Houses is looking very strong indeed. But it has flaws holding it back. The visuals for one, are not that impressive. More importantly though, there's a problem with Three Houses that greatly hurt my enjoyment. I guess we'll call it an issue with story tone. To explain, I will have to go into spoilers for my team,
Edelgard and the Black Eagle Strike Force. Or as I came to know them,
Evilgard and the Black Asshole Strike Fascists.
The early part of the game sees you teaching all the students about warfare under the supervision of the church, and pits you against an obviously evil crew of spooky necro-bros, but the late game sees you serve the political interests of your chosen house leader. Edelgard's dream is to build a crestless meritocracy. What's a crest? Royal Descendants of legendary heroes of ancient yore can bear a sort of birthmark tattoo that gives them combat bonuses and the ability to wield holy super weapons. But this also can turn them into political pawns of the church and lead to them being assassinated or creepily experimented on, and Edelgard is herself a victim of such torture at the hands of an evil duke from her empire. She has been hardened by her traumatic past, and subsequently her goal is to bring down the entire structure of society and establish her own regime where she replaces lords and the church with a crestless meritocracy. So I guess a kind of capitalist system that values ability and performance over birthright. I can see some obvious problems, like in a meritocracy, won't the people born with crests still be advantaged and outperform others because of their innate abilities, so evildoers would still experiment on little kids with crests for power? But overall, her goal and her motivation are understandable. So how do you go about fulfilling her vision?
Spoilers spoilers spoilers
you kill everyone. Two whole thirds of the charming kids you know from school die brutally by your hand, and you watch the light fade from their eyes and hear their heart wrenching final words of regret as sad music plays in the background. Uhh, okay? These are nice people who just don't agree with you, many of them your friends, some of them even remarkably virtuous, but there's no negotiation or compromise, and no mercy. If you dare to oppose Edelgard's utopian vision of overthrowing the church and installing a crestless meritocracy,
yousa gonna die.
At this point, I'm super bothered but I'm still on board. This has become like a very mature story with some heavy shit, but if you do everything right and pull it off, it'll be really bold and impressive. But they don't. For this to work, The Black Eagles would have to be a kind of "Slytherin" house with more people like Hubert, a ruthless, ambitious killer. Basically the game would need to acknowledge that what you're doing is bad and what that must make you. Instead, when you're not murdering your pals from school, you're the
happy super best friends club, still having tea parties, cooking meals together and maxing out your support levels with funny or tender moments between your quirky, charming house members. The tone is all wrong. It's as if conquering the world in a sea of blood is just another different but equally valid perspective. Although I've yet to play the game from the other house's perspectives, I imagine I still have to kill all my friends in those as well. I'm hoping in self-defense at least?
Now I get that Rhea, the leader of the church, is evil and she's done some nasty stuff. It's not foreshadowed especially well, but once Edelgard starts invading and killing everyone, Rhea suddenly becomes cartoonishly over-the-top evil, as if she was trying to
out-evil Edelgard so Edelgard can look good in comparison. But Rhea being evil too doesn't erase what Edelgard has done to those school kids. And the world was more or less peaceful and orderly under Rhea's system... am I supposed to trust Edelgard will do better than the current status quo? Her plan doesn't even seem that thought out! After she abolishes the current royalty system, people born with crests are still going to perform above regular people in a merit-based system, the same way intelligent or athletic people out-perform average people. What's she gonna do then? Kill everyone with a crest to make everything "fair?" There's no reason to believe she wouldn't go that far, after what she's already done. Even...the little babies with crests? And you yourself bear a crest, Edelgard von Hresvelg. Are you gonna off yourself to make a perfect society? Funny how uncompromising totalitarians never think their rules should ever be applied to them. I know Rhea is evil because I saw her turn into a giant dragon monster. But in a way, I saw Edelgard turn into a tyrannical dragon too, if only figuratively.
Edelgard is just the new Rhea. People with different ideas and beliefs to you are always gonna exist. It isn't her vision of a crestless meritocracy that makes Edelgard evil, it's what she's willing to do to achieve it. To Dimitri and Annette and Leonie and Ignatz and Mercedes and everyone else.
Don't worry Petra. Sensei will teach you the language of love.
So yeah....Great game! I wish the tone of Edelgard's arc was more suited to the weight of its events. Or, you know, that she didn't kill everybody. Maybe Nintendo needs to go back to stories with blue haired sword guys fighting necromancers and demons for a while. Or maybe I'm the one that needs to chill. What do I care if the world's burning when my ESL assassin waifu babe Petra is bringing all dat juicy thiccness to our afternoon tea parties?
3. Astral Chain - [Switch] If "Platinum action game starring anime future cops" sounds like a home run, that's because it is. If that doesn't sell you right away, you may not be aware just how much Platinum continues to perfect their patented pure platinum player experience, and how much they've improved at enhancing that experience with additional gameplay types and other things that compliment their much praised battle mechanics.
The hectic combat gameplay is top tier. All that good stuff Platinum is known for is there, like a "witch time" style mechanic where a perfect dodge buys you a moment of slow-mo to do a cool countermove. Remember all the slicing stuff from Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance? That's here too, plus a bunch of other crazy mechanics. But the latest addition is really cool. You control your legion, a monster buddy, by moving him around using a chain. An
Astral chain, if you will. With this chain you aim your legion's attacks, wrap up enemies and trap them, and even catch charging enemies by stretching it out, so you can throw them on their ass. It feels great and adds a memorable signature mechanic to Astral Chain, which is welcome, even if the plethora of combat options available to you in the game is already somewhat dizzying even without it.
Beyond the core action gameplay, there is a surprising amount of game here to sink your teeth into. This is not a case of great action and half-assed filler in-between to stretch the length of the game out. Platinum have put in a lot of effort to build a cool future anime world, complete with Japanese flavoured cyberpunk cityscapes and run-down residential areas. And you're a cop, so you gotta solve crimes in this cool bladerunner-like setting. Since this is a video game, you know what that means: using your tech to generate holograms that recreate crimes so you can hunt for clues. While lots of games do some version of this, I felt like it worked pretty well here. It might just be done better, or it could also be that when you have such strong foundational battle set pieces as the core of your gameplay, supplementing that with a variety of detective clue hunting stuff doesn't feel like you're scrambling to give the player something worthwhile to do, it just feels like a nice change of pace. They're letting things cool down so they can build up to the next epileptic seizure inducing display of lasers and explosions properly.
And there's gameplay variety even in your detective work. You'll track scents with your dog-legion, take notes to compare with other detectives as you try to crack cases together, chase down perps doing a runner so you can wrap them up in your chain, and so on. All of this 'beat cop' stuff in these cyberpunk alleyways is set to cool music that's super chill and moody, while the music that scores your battles is blood-pumping and intense. Outside of the cop stuff, Astral chain also has puzzles, minigames, achievements with rewards, costumes to unlock, stealth sections, a photo index, you name it. You can even build a shelter for the cats you find during your adventures in a dusty high-rise apartment building, and just hang out with them there listening to emo beats while you stare off into what might be the last sunset ever in this post-apocalyptic dystopia because
we anime now, baby!
The game really is anime tho. I mean that in both the good and the bad way, and mostly the good but there's no denying the main plot is the usual end-of-the-world-anime fare, with every scientist and guy in a suit double crossing everybody and transforming themselves into bigger and bigger monsters because
something something Evangelion. If that doesn't deter you, go for it. Like I said, it's anime in a good way too, so you'll be treated to insane battle cutscenes, goofy labrador police dog mascots and tsundere vending machines.
Platinum gets an S+ from me with this one.
4. The Legend of Zelda Link's Awakening - [Switch] I just don't have it in me to be objective or reasonable about this game. Link's Awakening on the Gameboy in 1993 was
my first Zelda. And unless your first Zelda was the Wand of friggin' Gamelon you know what that means: it's a cherished memory that's stuck with me all these years because it showed me just how amazing games could be. I was a particularly lucky boy, to have such a great Zelda game as my first, and I can easily recall memories of being stuck wandering around for ages before being thrilled when I finally figured out a puzzle that opened new paths, or playing in bed late at night with a torch to illuminate the Gameboy's dim screen. One has not yet lived until they've pushed a block into just the right place to be rewarded with that famous Zelda chime.
If you weren't as fortunate as me, I'll explain: Link's Awakening was a Gameboy game that is somewhat similar to
A Link to the Past on the Super Nintendo. It's a story where Link gets shipwrecked on the mysterious Koholint island and must figure out how to wake the mythical wind fish if he wants to escape.
But therein lies the conundrum. Spoiler alert and all that, but throughout your journey it gradually becomes apparent that the island, and everyone on it are all the windfish's dream. So once you wake him, yeah you can return to your world, but everyone you've met along the way will cease to exist. Sweet little Marin singing her songs in the village. Those crazy kids playing catch that give you tips. Your pal the owl. All the friends you've made will become nothing more than a sweet memory of someone
who never even existed in the first place. There was an extra layer of meta stuff going on here for me as a boy, because I never wanted the game to end. I was completely enchanted by my first Zelda, and as it became clear I was nearing the final dungeon, I would stall the experience by wandering off collecting seashells and rupees and the like. I guess your first Zelda being akin to a sweet dream that has to end at some point is an apt comparison.
The "claymation" art style is a great choice. There's something so quintessential about the original's iconic sprites, their perfect pixels convey so much so purely, but if the game is to be updated, this cute, cartoony style suits Link's Awakening well. After all, it's a game that doesn't take itself too seriously - you walk Chain Chomp from Mario around like a doggy on a leash, and learn to play the mambo from a fish. Most amusing of all for me was the moment you convince the female lead, Marin, to accompany you. Every treasure or weapon Link finds he hoists above his head in a moment of thrilling discovery. "You got the Hook Shot! You got the Boomerang!" Well, when Marin decides to journey with you to Animal Village, Link holds her up to the heavens in the exact same way as that triumphant jingle plays, and then the classic Zelda overworld theme kicks in. "You got Marin! Is this your big chance?" It's a moment that delighted me with how silly it was when I was a kid, and it made me smile ear to ear this time around too.
I smiled a lot playing this remake. It's really well done. But no game can recapture the magic of your first Zelda. The first time you spend hours lost in a dungeon before finding some cool new weapon that changes everything. The first time you volley a boss's energy blasts back and forth with him in a high stakes tennis deathmatch. The first time you find yourself trapped in a room and notice one of the torches isn't lit and decide to try igniting it...You'll do these kinds of things in future Zeldas, they'll be fun,
but it can never be like that first time. At some point, we all gotta wake the windfish. And then there you are, in the middle of the ocean, free to move in any direction except backwards. You have to let the island, and the past, go. This saltiness...Is it the seawater, or am I choking back tears?
I won't, Marin. Never, ever, ever...I promise.
