I did this last year, and once again, I must explain that when I say “Old” games, I just mean games that didn’t come out in 2020, most of them only came out over the last few years, it’s just hard to phrase it succinctly in a title. My 2020 Game of the Year list will be coming out on New Year’s Eve, and if you missed it, last week I started summarising the wrestling world in 2020 with my AEW Match of the Year list.
In 2019, I said that I played more games than I’d ever played in a year before, and if I didn’t break that record this year, I certainly came close. For a reason that I’m sure you’re far too aware of, I’ve had a lot more free time on my hands this year, so games have naturally been one of the things to fill the gaps. As such, I played a good chunk of the games from previous years which passed me by. Sometimes it’s because I didn’t own the right console, or I didn’t gain any interest in it until long after the hype had died down, or sometimes it’s just because there were so many games coming out that I didn’t have the time (or money) to play them.
As I promised in the summer, I will be using these end of year lists to update my 100 Favourite Games series I released over the summer. So, if I think a game was good enough to make that list, I will state what position I would place it at the end of the entry for that game, meaning the list will always stay up to date.
Regardless of the reasons, here’s the list of some of the best “old” games that I played for the first time this year!
8 – Bastion
Release Date: 20th July 2011
Developer: Supergiant Games
Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
Platforms: PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Xbox One, Xbox 360, Nintendo Switch, Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS
The world of Bastion is gripping. Visually it’s very odd but very interesting. The colours are vibrant and seem full of life, and yet the atmosphere and the tone is one of despair and isolation. It gives us a world that is utterly lifeless but uses a full colour-pallette to show us how recently it used to be full. What ties this strong feeling together is the narration. The downbeat and gravelly voice of the narrator gives a couple of weird feelings. Firstly, he feels hopeless, like you’re futility fighting against a world that is desperate to end, and yet, he tells the story like it’s already happened, which suddenly becomes a lot more meaningful if you picked the ‘ending’ that I did.
The gameplay isn’t anything special by modern standards, but it is a lot of fun. The melee combat feels meaty enough to keep pushing forward with it, mostly thanks to the brilliant sound design that arises when you hit things. The ranged combat has a surprisingly high skill ceiling if you really want to sink your teeth into it, but still functions perfectly well if you aren’t very good at it. Combine this with the rolling & dodging mechanics which are simple, but satisfying, and you’ve got a system that will easily keep you engaged for the 6-10 hours you spend in the game’s world.
The story is very sombre, and yet it has its hard-hitting moments. It didn’t blow me away like some of the best stories in games, but it definitely left me with something to think about, which is better than most others. Ultimately, I don’t think it left a massive impression on me, but thinking back, I’m definitely happy I played it.
7 – Dicey Dungeons
Release Date: 13th August 2019
Developer: Distractionware
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, Windows, Mac, Linux
I’ve spoken here and there over the past couple of years that I’d lost interest in the roguelike/roguelite genre. However, between this list and my Game of the Year list (spoilers), I think it’s about time I retracted that statement because it’s pulled me back in this year with some real quality stuff. This is just one example.
In my Game of the Year 2019 list, I included Slay the Spire, talking about how the deck-building aspect completely revolutionised the roguelike gameplay style in my eyes. I still think deck-building is excellent for the genre, but Dicey Dungeons takes it one step further and becomes one of the most unique games I’ve ever seen in this genre. The idea of dice being your weapons is something that seems like it wouldn’t work on paper, but it was implemented so perfectly, that I’m amazed no-one had come up with it already.
Keeping the dice as your constants and allowing you to chop and change your equipment whenever you want was the perfect way to go because it helps remove large portions of the randomness that comes from using dice. The array of weapons and abilities works wonderfully with the randomised elements of rolling dice because there’s always something that will work no matter your luck. Yes, there’s still the general consensus that rolling higher is better, but as long as you’ve prepared your equipment properly, you should still be able to get by with bad rolls. It does what any good roguelike should do, where the randomised elements give you fun and challenging scenarios, rather than completely determining your fate.
Throw on top of that a cutesy art style, witty writing and quirky yet cute sound design, and you’ve got a game that I’ll keep coming back to for a game whenever I’m in the mood for a quick dungeon dive.
6 – My Friend Pedro
Release Date: 20th June 2019
Developer: DeadToast Entertainment, 22nd Century Toys LLC
Publisher: Devolver Digital
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Windows
This was the very first game I played in 2020, so I definitely got things off to a rip-roaring start.
My Friend Pedro is just a bunch of light-hearted fun…shooting a bunch of people…in quite brutal scenarios…while doing flips! The combat system is simplistic by design, you just point your gun and start shooting, but that allows the real star of the show, the movement system, to shine all the brighter. Taking the term ‘twin-stick shooter’ to its logical conclusion, the ability to control each arm independently adds all the complexity this game needs. It means you can think about two targets at once while staying on the move as much as possible.
The movement is very floaty, but I think that makes it feel very smooth. The game moves at quite a fast pace, and running around gives you just enough time to think about what you need to do before you get pummelled. It can be a little overwhelming at first, but the game is good at easing you into it, and once you get a better grip on it, the possibilities are endless. Getting through the campaign was fun enough, but the game rewards you heavily for making narrow movements and risky plays, the kind that are likely to get you killed but feel amazing to pull off correctly.
It’s a game that understands what makes it fun and just lets you run wild with it. If you want to shoot for perfection, it will facilitate that, but if you just want to have a blast mindlessly shooting stuff while flipping around the place like a badass, the game will let you do that too.
5 – The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Release Date: 3rd March 2017
Developer: Nintendo Entertainment
Publisher: Nintendo
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, Nintendo WiiU
Full honesty, I’d never played a Zelda game before this one. Well, not properly, anyway. I had A Link to the Past on Gameboy Advanced, but I never got very far with it because I was about 6. So I came into Breath of the Wild pretty fresh, and I now understand the unique feelings this franchise has compared to Nintendo’s other headline franchises.
What captures me about Breath of the Wild is how it can play with some very serious gameplay elements, while still feeling incredibly light-hearted in tone, and not have that weight down on the thing. The sound design is the most significant part of this to me. The combat music is light and bouncy with how the chords jaunt through the track. It’s not necessarily ‘happy’, but it does give me the feeling of the fight not being too severe or menacing, which is something I really like. The little touches in how a lot of the enemies around the world react you make them seem almost cute in a way, which helps make the whole world incredibly endearing.
Outside of that, it does the classic Nintendo thing of taking a well-established genre and putting a unique little twist on it. In this case, we have open-world games. It conforms to a lot of the tropes, with plenty of tasks and side quests to keep you occupied, but where Ubisoft directs you to these objectives very clearly, Breath of the Wild is more open-ended. Doing it this way put the exploration of the world as the top priority, which makes discovering things all the more rewarding, even when they’re the shrines which are relatively easy to find.
On top of that, the combat is satisfying and has a surprising amount of versatility once you sink your teeth into it. I know the breakage of weapons is a controversial inclusion, and I’m not entirely decided on it myself, but I can’t deny that it forced me to use strategies I otherwise wouldn’t have considered. The magic abilities are interesting too, as most of them function as a platforming/puzzle-solving tool and have use in combat. The balance between them is surprisingly well-refined and gives you so many options once you understand how to use them.
It’s one of the more unique feeling open-world games out there, and it pulled me into a franchise that I’d never really cared about before now.
Place in 100 Favourite Games List: 86
4 – Far Cry 5
Release Date: 27th March 2018
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal, Ubisoft Toronto
Publisher: Ubisoft
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Windows, Google Stadia
The Far Cry series and I have had a bit of a love/hate relationship up until now. For the longest time, Far Cry 3 was one of my favourite first-person shooters, and I thought it was brilliant. Then, Far Cry 4 came out, and I hated it, I thought it was boring and frustrated me in all sorts of ways, so, when Far Cry 5 came out, I still had the bitter taste in my mouth and decided I wasn’t going to bother with it. However, this summer, when Ubisoft announced Far Cry 6, they put Far Cry 5 on sale for just £7, so I thought I may as well go for it, and I’m glad I did because Far Cry 5 is the best Far Cry game.
Where previous Far Cry games had a weird way of restricting you, especially in missions, 5 does away with all of it and makes it completely open. Previously, things like the bases you had to take over were entirely optional, despite being the most fun part of the game, you could do the relatively boring story missions and barely touch them. 5 does it differently though, 5 realised that taking down the bases, hunting and doing random encounters was by far the most fun part of the game, so it made it the whole point. There are missions, but now those are the optional things, as it all boosts your progress towards the few critical missions that will lead you to finishing the story.
On top of that, if you actually decide to do a mission, they’re a hell of a lot more fun than they used to be. Whether you’re leading a tame bear around a forest, pulling off a helicopter heist, or defending a mansion from wave after waves of enemies while rock ‘n’ roll music backs you up, they’re an absolute blast. Even the mandatory missions are more bearable, as they focus more on telling you the story than getting you to gun down a corridor of enemies over and over.
Speaking of the story, while it’s still nothing world-class, it is surprisingly engaging. The Seed family are genuinely unsettling villains with a kind of muted charisma that is sure to put you on edge around them, they’re a realistic kind of psychopath with fantastical abilities, and that makes them terrifying. It doesn’t give you the most satisfying conclusion, but it knows the story it wants to tell and sticks to its guns. It didn’t blow me away or anything, but I’m still able to remember it 6 months later, which is better than most games.
Far Cry 5 finally understood what made 3 so much fun and it executed it as best it could, and it took me from not giving a shit about Far Cry 6, to probably picking it up on launch day next year.
Place in 100 Favourite Games List: 74 (replacing Far Cry 3)
3 – Sayonara Wild Hearts
Release Date: 19th September 2019
Developer: Simogo
Publisher: Annapurna Interactive
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Windows, Mac, iOS
I wanted to put this at number 1, I really did, but I played too many incredible games this year.
Sayonara Wild Hearts is a weird hybrid of so many different kinds of media. It’s definitely a game, but you could also watch it as a movie, and perhaps even experience it as a play/concert. Regardless of how you feel about that, what is definitely true is that the beautiful journey it took me on is the kind I’ll never forget.
This is a game that gives you it’s basic premise pretty early and gives you only the most straightforward framework for the story it wants to tell, then it lets the game speak for itself, rather than actually telling you anything. The story forms naturally through the gameplay and the music. As well as through the progression of the difficulty and through the visual design of the world. It has mastery over its tone and knows precisely how to design every nook and cranny of the game to communicate this story to you, investing you deeper and deeper until you become absorbed in the narrative completely.
The music is the star of the show here, so I’ll talk about that first. It boils the pop genre down to its essential elements, removes all of the over commercialised stuff that litters the charts and creates a soundtrack that is the purest essence of the story being told. It doesn’t align with my taste in music at all, and yet, I have it on my Spotify playlist and listen to it regularly because it was perfect for the game. It distilled the tone of the world and narrative and conveyed it in pieces of music that took you all over the tonal spectrum, but were a perfect fit for the story at the moment it played. It’s an outstanding collaboration between game and sound design that I haven’t seen done this well in a game ever.
On top of that, the gameplay is top-notch. It’s relatively simplistic, and yet, the level design knows how to get just the right amount of challenge out of it. You won’t struggle too much in this game (because you’re not really supposed to) but it will have you thinking on your feet and pushing yourself to take risks to get a good score and complete challenges. The levels have a huge variety in their gameplay, both through obstacles you face and the method with which you traverse the level. It always keeps you on your toes and blows you away slightly from time to time.
Sayonara Wild Hearts gets in, gives you one of the most memorable experiences in gaming, tells you a genuinely touching and relatable story about recovering from heartbreak and gets out. It will stick in your mind for months, have you humming its songs and pull you back in to re-experience it time and time again.
Place in 100 Favourite Games List: 24
2 – Among Us
Release Date: 15th June 2018
Developer: Innersloth
Publisher: Innersloth
Platforms: Windows, iOS
I went back-and-forth in my head for weeks over which order to put the number 1 and 2 entries in this list, but when I came to write it, this is where Among Us landed.
Perhaps one of the most unexpected hits of the year, but one that was desperately needed given the circumstances. Among Us takes an already successful formula and expands upon it to make the most of what doing this in a virtual space can give us.
I’ve always loved this style of social deduction game, I don’t know what it is about me specifically that it appeals to, but I just get so much out of solving a mystery/avoiding detection while everyone around me is doing the same. The board game I’ve inarguably played the most of in my life is Secret Hitler, and I have plenty of fond memories playing it at various points in my life. That said, I never found much joy in the virtual versions of these games, I always thought a big part of the appeal was being in the same room and having that atmosphere, so I never clocked on much to a game like Town of Salem.
However, what Among Us does is quite interesting, because it ramps up some of the more “gamified” elements and limits the discussion to one section of the game. Yes, the discussion is still the driving factor of everything, but it’s no longer the only thing you do. The virtual environments and the tasks you have to complete as a crewmate add so much to the game, even if they are just some cheap little minigames. Additionally, things like the security systems and sabotages give you elements that only truly work in a virtual game.
The virtual space allows for much greater control over the flow of information, which is the crucial factor that decides who wins and loses in these games. The focus shifts away from things like analysing people’s facial expressions or reactions to stuff, and just about the information the game provides. Solving the mystery based on how well you know your friends is fun, but it often means it can be hard to get away with things once you’ve played with someone a lot. The lesser focus on those aspects in Among Us greatly increases the replayability of the game.
Outside of that, it is simply the best virtual substitute for a social deduction board game out there right now. It’s easy to understand, it’s affordable (and free on mobile), and the ease at which you can play it through software like Discord makes it the perfect game to play with a group of friends. I’m sure Among Us’ success will inspire plenty of other developers to give it a try now. As such, I’m really excited to see what innovative concepts come out of that, because I honestly think it’s a genre that hasn’t been expanded on to its full potential, even in the board game scene.
Place in 100 Favourite Games List: 15
1 – Xenoblade Chronicles
Release Date: 10th June 2010
Developer: Monolith Soft
Publisher: Nintendo
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, Nintendo WiiU, Nintendo Wii, New Nintendo 3DS/2DS
Over the last couple of years, I’ve come to realise that I like JRPGs a lot more than I thought I did. Initially, I thought Pokemon was the only one I really liked, but then Octopath Traveler came out in 2018 and Fire Emblem: Three Houses came out in 2019, both of which ended up being my game of the year for those years. So this year, I decided to dive into more games in the genre to see what else is out there that I’ve missed. I played Dragon Quest XI, but after 20 hours of play, I just wasn’t clicking with it, and I have Persona 4 & 5 lined up to play next year, but the real standout game that I found this year, was Xenoblade Chronicles. To clarify, I played the Definitive Edition release on Switch, but from what I’ve been told by the community, it made no major changes to the original, so I’m counting it as the same thing.
What immediately stood out to me about Xenoblade is the combat system. Usually, I shy away from the ‘auto-attacking’ style of combat, which is why I never found much joy in games like Dragon Age. However, in Xenoblade, the ‘Combat Arts’ and various other systems mean that you’ve always got something to think about, and you’re never merely watching a battle. The game keeps you always thinking about your positioning, the positioning of your teammates, what type of attacks you should be using, and what’s currently on cooldown, ensuring that even in the most prolonged battles, you’re always an active participant.
The world design was also a thing of beauty. The idea of the entire map being on various body parts of this ancient dead colossus is quite the visual spectacle, and it blends with the design of each of the maps to near-perfection. I love the sensation of running around this wide-open plain, only to look up and see that it’s just a small part of this world. As much as it doesn’t make sense for it to have such wildly varying climates right next to one another, I’m ok with suspending my disbelief to allow for a great variety in environments with a lot of visually impressive areas.
The story is…a bit convoluted, and a lot of the twists were pretty obvious, but it was interesting enough to make me want to push forward, and that’s all I need. The climactic moments were absolutely crazy, and they made a lot of the bigger fights really satisfying to complete. The characters are far from the best I’ve ever seen in a JRPG, but they were all charming in their own ways, so I had a lot of fun watching them all interact.
Xenoblade Chronicles is a game incredibly densely packed with things to do, both in its world and in its mechanics and that kind of game will always want to make me push forward and see as much of it as possible. Despite completing the game over the summer, I made the decision to wait a while to play the sequel (which released in 2017), but I’m definitely going to be booting it up soon because this is a world I definitely want to see more of.
Place in 100 Favourite Games List: 14
So there you have it! Thank you very much for taking the time to read this post. Please, let me know what “old” games you got to experience for the first time this year, either in the comment below or on Twitter @10ryawoo. Finally, make sure you come back here this time next weekend where I’ll be beginning my coverage of WWE TLC!
The Strong Style Smark 