I looked at Octopath and thought it might be worth a punt, but read some reviews and realised it wasn't.

AJ wrote:

I looked at Octopath and thought it might be worth a punt, but read some reviews and realised it wasn't.

I think the reviews acknowledge the fact that the industry now, is very different to the epoch the game seeks to invoke memories of.

It's also not the most original game released this year.

But for all that, it's the game I've played the most since BotW.

1. Slay The Spire
2. Gris
3. Dead Cells
4. God of War
5. Football Manager 2019

Haven't played enough RDR2 to truly vote for it

There's like 9 votes so far.

Let's go reverse order count down stylee aw yeah! Let me just say that I have played no real AAA titles this year, this is why my list of games looks like it does. Kthx. 

Honorary mentions:
Subnautica - It's really great, but I haven't played enough to say if it's better than any of the following. 
The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit - I wish Life is Strange 2 Episode 1 and you could switch places. You are a more interesting and likeable character. You didn't force paranoid cop shootings against minorities and trump voter racism on me in the most laughably basic manner ever and expect me to thank you like you just gave me the A5 Wagyu Beef of storytelling. 

5. Dragonball Fighters Z
Seriously, this is the first good Dragonball Z game. I mean seriously. Arc System Works who I am EXTREMELY biased towards basically wrote a love letter to DBZ in fighting game clothes. Arcsys at this point have the best cel shader tech in the business if you want 3d models to look like actual 2d things, they have used this in conjunction with copying frame for frame and pose for pose a lot of iconic character animations and moves. If it weren't for the fact that this game has a bajillion Gokus in it, and that it didn't really get much traction in my local circles of online movement, it might be higher up in the list. It's fucking great. Buy it on sale and then complain at me because you can't figure out how to play it and everyone online beats you and you have no idea what is happening. 

4. Dead Cells
I really enjoyed metroidvania crossed with roguelike elements with nice aesthetics and audio. It's only at number 4 on my list because I am a little babby who cannot clear 1 cell mode yet and that I have also been ruined by the Binding of Isaac and it's glorious array of weapons and synergies. I wish more roguelikes would understand that synergies between different items really encourage you pick up and try different things. I think in Dead Cells you do suffer sometimes from the game letting you play in your preferred playstyle pretty much every single run if you want to. Isaac still the gold standard as far as item synergy goes for me. 

3. Soul Calibur 6
OMFG Rouj what the fuck are you doing voting for this dogshit pile of tits and ass and fanservice and shame. I'll tell you what I'm doing, I'm enjoying the fact that for the first time ever this game appears to have ever so slightly toned down the T&A (slightly) while trying to make itself more approachable for new players. Character move lists are stripped down somewhat (Escape crying in the corner somewhere about some move Cervantes doesn't have anymore) which makes it less of a pain to learn your character and how to play against others. Also this game features 2B from that there Nier Automata as a guest character and holy fuck she might be one of best done guest characters in a fighting game of all time. Also character customs are back (although not as extensive as 4 or 5, but you can still make some pretty okay silly men for fighting with). Also also they did a great job overhauling a lot of characters to make them more distinctive from one another and build in interesting new mechanics for characters like 2B's scanning mechanic, Zasalamel's curse and time stop mechanic, Yoshi's fucking amazing soul stealing schtick, etc, etc. Buy it on PS4 then play with me and Escape and share in our mutual sodium when we get rung out or don't tech grabs or lose to some crazy bullshit.  

2. Return of the Obra Dinn
1800s nautical high seas mythical murder mystery boiiiiiiiii. The most creative and original game I played all year was basically Guess Who on steroids and made to look like you're playing it on an old mac/speccy/cpc/ibm wotevs. If you only buy one game on this list, buy this one. You will not believe how much detail you can apparently wring out of a low resolution, monochrome boat and ships register. Kissy face emoji for days. 

1. Before the Storm (Epilogue episode I guess since that came out this year, but I'm using it as a technicality to just vote for the whole thing mwahahahaha). 

I'm not even gonna preface this with anything. I know you're out there fucking screaming at your device calling me a cheating prick for thinking this a legit vote. The bar for writing in games is so low that Life is Strange had people creaming themselves and that game falls apart after smelling it's own farts, jamming overt Twin Peaks references in your face and dialogue written for teenage american college girls by a couple of french guys who clearly are using TV and Film as their source material. 

Before the Storm (in all episodes apart from Epilogue) is like watching someone's Dad playing cricket with their kid for the first time and the kid lobs a weak underarm pitch and then the Dad smacks the ball into the adjacent county for the lols. The little kid would be Dontnod who did Life is Strange and fucking Daddy is Deck Nine, a developer that took the weak writing and contrived bullshit they were thrown and just smashed it out of the park for the prequel. 

Do you want to play a game where you watch some teenage american girls kind of falling in love and have it not be utterly eye rolling or vomit inducing, and at the same time as that is going down, the game basically comes in with quite good character development that manages to take characters from a starting point and leave them as the assholes and jerks you encounter in Life is Strange without it seeming contrived? Yeah you fucking do, it also has a sick bit where you play dungeons and dragons and it gives you some shakespeare (well, close enough) and it does it well. 


Dontnod of course, like the child who just watched Daddy smash that ball out of the park, then decide they can do that too and demand a go at batting for the Epilogue episode of Before the Storm, and end up fucking up their own protagonist by confirming that she is in fact the unforgivable jerkoff that they made ambiguous in the first game. I dunno how anyone who plays Life is Strange and then Before the Storm could possibly prefer it to BtS or prefer Max to Chloe by the end, AND THAT EVEN INCLUDES THE FACT THAT CHLOE IS A SHITTILY WRITTEN QUASI MARY SUE FOR THE NEAR ENTIRETY OF LIFE IS STRANGE. 

Before the Storm is the strongest second installment of a franchise I can remember since Streetfighter and/or Fallout. You should play it, apart from Reg who already told me he hates it.

voted for captain spirit we need to have words

It's okay, I don't get out much.

Edit: found an even bettar gif

I mean, at some point I'm going to do my year in musical plebland post so like, prepare your buttholes.

Andy wrote:

dynamiteReady wrote:

Did no one take to Octopath Traveller?

I tried the first demo, and it made no effort to help me understand the battle system. I get the feeling the terms it used are JRPG staples, but they need to realise some of us haven’t played JRPGs before. (Xenoblade Chronicles 2 had the same problem. I tried the second demo, and never felt like it was ever going to let me play. Just endless, endless dialogue. I was already fucking bored, and realised that the final product would have that seven times over. If a game is going to go that much out of its way for me to dislike it, I’m willing to let it succeed in that mission.

Yeah. It's preaching to the choir, which is why I'm not going to champion it.
Just thought it was a good place to see if there were other fans.

Hollow Knight is currently 6th best GotY 2017 and 2nd best GotY 2018.  What a game!

I'm taking that as a win of some description for Hollow Knight.

Bob wrote:

Didn't really gain any traction until Switch.

42 points last year with all the other great games out and 27 points this year so far with weaker competition. Hmmm

Well I was only trying to make it easier for simple people who can’t follow rules.

Oh no, Elf. What a catastrophe. It’s a total disaster, given how fucking important this is, and how much is riding on it.