Tag: Sword & Shield

My 100 Favourite Games of All Time (20-11)

Welcome back to my 100 favourite games of all time series! Top 20 time! This is where the games hit that upper rung of being genuinely incredible, I hope you enjoy entries 20 through 11!

If you haven’t read the previous instalment in this series, please do so here, and here’s the first entry if you want to start from the entry 100.

SPOILER WARNING!

Just a heads up that there will be full SPOILERS for every game I’m going to talk about in this series, so be careful if I talk about something you don’t want spoiled.

Let’s not waste any more time!

20 – Super Mario Odyssey

Release Date: 27th October 2017
Developer: Nintendo Entertainment Planning & Development
Publisher: Nintendo
Platforms: Nintendo Switch
Metacritic Average: 97%

It’s a game about throwing your hat and possessing creatures to complete platforming challenges.

As you’ve probably guessed by this point on the list, I didn’t grow up playing the Mario games. I had one on the Gameboy, but I didn’t really get much out of it at the time, much preferring Wario Land instead. So when people would talk about games like Mario 64 being the greatest of all time, I never quite got it. I could understand the appeal, but I didn’t see what put in the upper-echelon of gaming. Then, Super Mario Odyssey was released, and I decided this was finally the time I’d sit down with a Mario game and see what makes them so great.

Literally everything. That’s what makes them so great.

Nintendo’s design philosophy is one that I wish we would see more of the gaming industry today. Every time Nintendo start to make a new game for one of there core franchises, they sit down and work out amongst themselves what they can do that’s new and interesting. They don’t see the point in making another game that’s like Mario 64, because they’ve already done it…what would be the point in doing it again? I love that way of thinking because that’s almost exactly what I strive for in my creative endeavours. Naturally, it doesn’t always work, there are always going to be some stumbling blocks (looking at you, WiiU), but it also means that we get absolutely incredible unique titles like this one.

If you want a more in-depth look into Cappy’s mechanics in SMO, then I highly recommend checking out Mark Brown’s video on the subject, but I’ll just say that it made platforming in that game completely different some any other 3D platformer I’ve ever played, in the best possible way. I usually prefer my platformers to be 2D, because I’m not very good at 3D platforming. However, every mechanic in SMO is designed in such a way that it makes the platforming easier, while still being fun and interesting.

Combine that with some of the most creative mechanic, world and creature design I’ve ever seen, and you’ve got yourself an adventure that never stops being fun and is always ready to throw something new your way to keep you hooked. It’s got so much death and quite literally several hundred different challenges for you to try your hand at. As far as I’m concerned, this is the game that exemplifies what makes Nintendo the world’s best game developer.

19 – Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag

Release Date: 29th October 2019
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal, Ubisoft Milan, Ubisoft Kiev
Publisher: Ubisoft
Platforms: Playstation 4, Playstation 3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo WiiU, Windows
Metacritic Average: 88%

It’s a game about pirates.

(From my Every Main Series Assassin’s Creed Game Ranked article)

Remember that one time, when Ubisoft just thought “fuck it” and made a pirate game for no reason? Good times.

Counting Black Flag in a list of best Assassin’s Creed games almost feels like cheating, because let’s face it, it’s an Assassin’s Creed game in name alone; that doesn’t mean it isn’t brilliant though.

I don’t think I’m alone when I say that my favourite part of Assassin’s Creed III was the sea battles. The team at Ubisoft clearly thought the same because the next game, Black Flag, was entirely about the sea battles. They stumbled upon an entertaining style of gameplay, and to their credit, they leaned all the way into it, to make an absolutely fantastic game.

Every battle you got into with the boats felt like an all-out war. The scale of it all combined, with the vibrant colours of the Caribbean, and the extremely well-designed soundscape made every single encounter feel like a chaotic and epic fight. Pile on top of that, extreme weather conditions, a wide variety of weapons at your disposal, and the ability to board your opponent’s ships – which causes a massive battle in quite a confined space – and you’ve got yourself a formula that never ceases to be fun to play.

The world was also exceptionally well designed, with the towns being bright and colourful, but not so big as to feel too big and also having enough variety in the environment, so all of them felt distinct. The random islands and plantations were also great additions, with things continually sidetracking you (in a good way) when you’re poncing about on the open seas.

Black Flag, has a relatively big open world, but by no means too big, and the game is very carefully designed for touring you through it at a very steady pace. As such, you never feel overwhelmed at the amount of stuff there is available to you. Speaking of stuff, unlike most of the other open worlds in this franchise, Black Flag’s world is very densely packed with a great variety of stuff to do. Be that hunting down collectables, hunting animals for crafting, playing board games, throwing harpoons at sharks or firing on every British ship you see. There’s never a dull moment when traversing the world; and even if you do get bored, you can make your crew sing sea shanties to keep you entertained.

Once again, the story was perfectly fine. It doesn’t stand out to me as any kind of exceptional storytelling, but it also never did anything to piss me off or turn me against the characters which, in a game like the Assassin’s Creed series, is all I really want.

In a way, I’m quite glad this ended up being a one-off for the franchise because I honestly don’t see many ways in which this formula could’ve been improved, as the boat-based mechanics in subsequent games in the franchise have proven. Black Flag was a rare instance of a game I can honestly describe as unique in its gameplay, and at the end of the day, it’s just an absolute blast to play.

18 – Celeste

Release Date: 25th January 2018
Developer: Matt Makes Games
Publisher: Matt Makes Games
Platforms: Playstation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Windows, Mac, Linux
Metacritic Average: 94%

It’s a game about climbing a mountain while dealing with anxiety.

(From my Favourite Old Games I Played for the First Time in 2019 article)

Celeste is an absolute master of controlling the difficulty. It’s undeniably a hard game, and that’s part of what initially put me off. However, it’s when you push through that difficulty and carry on in spite of everything that the game is throwing at you that you come to see Celeste for what it is: The most perfectly paced game in history.

Every room in Celeste is designed so that you can almost see the extensive amount of play-testing and tweaking that went into every jump. Every challenge feels so carefully crafted to give you the exact right amount of hope and despair as you throw yourself into it over and over again and their own, every single room is a masterclass in level design. However, the real magic of Celeste comes from stepping back and looking at how the game is threaded together.

Every single room prepares you with the skills you need for the next, it’ll teach you a technique or idea, and you’ll spend multiple attempts getting through it. Then, when you come to the room immediately after, the game asks you to take what you just learned and re-learn it slightly differently to solve a new challenge. This persists chapter to chapter as well, with each chapter giving you a new mechanic to play about with and understand as you go.

The way each level is designed forces you into the mentality of pushing forward despite hardship, which is so incredibly clever when you consider the themes and ideas behind the game’s narrative. The way this tale is told of living with and overcoming, anxiety is so beautifully and thoughtfully done, because it’s so low-key and yet feels entirely heartfelt, while insightfully addressing a severe mental health condition.

When you combine the overarching themes with the incredibly colourful and engrossing visual style and the absolutely mindblowing soundtrack, the game can take control of your mental state and align it with exactly how Madaline feels in the story using its level design as the primary tool.

Not only is Celeste one of the most mechanically sounds and fun games I’ve ever played, but it goes above and beyond to say something meaningful using those mechanics, something which has stuck with me ever since I finished it.

17 – Descenders

Release Date: 7th May 2019
Developer: RageSquid
Publisher: No More Robots
Platforms: Xbox One, Windows, Mac, Linux
Metacritic Average: 78%

It’s a game about riding a bike downhill very fast before wrapping yourself around a tree.

(From my Game of the Year 2019 article)

First available on Steam Early Access in February 2018 and I picked it up a couple of months later, and since then it’s become my 2nd most played game on Steam at 604 hours, beaten out by only Skyrim and the weird thing is, I’m not even entirely sure why I play it so much. I certainly wouldn’t describe it as an addictive game, but what I think is it’s a straightforward game to play.

By “easy to play” I don’t mean the difficulty of the game itself, I mean it’s a game that I’m never “not in the mood” to play. In the way that I play it (very casually), I don’t really have to put much thought into it, so it’s become what I play when I don’t want to play anything. I’m someone who finds it very hard to just sit and watch something for example, so what I will often do is put on something I want to watch on my 2nd screen and then play Descenders, almost in the background, while I watch it.

That’s not all Descenders is good for, because it hits that sweet spot that PopCap games were always brilliant for, where you can play it casually and do reasonably well, but also you can spend time honing your skills and mastering the game to pull off some incredible feats of skill that I could never even dream of. The procedurally generated nature of the levels means I’m never just “going through the motions” when I play. I can’t just rely on muscle memory to get me through each level I have to learn to adapt to the terrain that’s currently in front of me, so I don’t wrap my body around several trees at several hundred kilometres per hour.

It’s a game that has complete mastery over its movement, the bikes feel light and nippy while manoeuvring it in the air and on the ground feels forceful and satisfying. The way you glide down the hillsides, doing jumps and flips and spins the whole gives this incredible feeling of flow that gives you such a rush as your performance in the environments becomes more fluid and streamlined.

Descenders is a game that came together in a way I honestly never would’ve expected to make it a game that I’m going to be playing on-and-off for a very long time.

16 – Terraria

Release Date: 16th May 2011
Developer: Re-Logic
Publisher: 505 Games
Platforms: Playstation 4, Playstation 3, Playstation Vita, Xbox One, Xbox 360, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo WiiU, Nintendo 3DS, Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android
Metacritic Average: 85%

It’s a game about adventuring and building.

It’s hard to accurately define precisely what Terraria is in a single sentence. It’s a bit sandbox, it’s a bit builder, it’s a bit RPG, and it’s a bit adventure. On the surface, if someone were to describe a game to me like that, I’d expect it to be a bit of a mess, but somehow Terraria manages to mash all of its ideas together really cleanly. I originally wasn’t all that interested in it. I think it had to contend a lot with the perception from many critics that it was just ‘Minecraft but 2D’. However, over the years, through several major content updates, Terraria has proved itself to be something entirely different from that and something rather unique when you look at any of the genres it fits into.

Unlike most sandbox games, Terraria has a distinct sense of progression as you play in your world and you won’t even realise it at first. I had the wonderful privilege of going into the game almost completely blind, so the feeling of accomplishment throughout every milestone was so great. Every time I thought that I’d reached the limit of what the game had to offer, I’d find out that I’d barely scratched the surface. Oh, you defeated the Eye of Cthulu? Congratulations on completing step one of 300. Ah, so now you’ve gone to hell and defeated the Wall of Flesh? That’s nice, but you’re not even halfway, mate, come back when you’ve killed the horrific being that is literally the God of the Moon.

I was always exploring and discovering new things, and all of it was paced in such a way that there were never any dull points that had me just grinding away at resources in the hope that I’d uncover something new. While I never quite got into the building mechanics like I did with Minecraft, I still can’t deny the complexity and variety that is on offer for those that want to go down that route; I’ve seen some gorgeous creations in the community.

15 – Thomas Was Alone

Release Date: 30th June 2012
Developer: Mike Bithell
Publisher: Mike Bithell
Platforms: Playstation 4, Playstation 3, Playstation Vita, Xbox One, Nintendo WiiU, Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android
Metacritic Average: 88%

It’s a game about friendship and jumping…and also a little bit about the nature of self-aware AI.

Told you I’d be talking about Mike Bithell again.

Although the story told in this game isn’t as complex as in either of the “Circular” games, there’s a whole bunch of other factors that put Thomas Was Alone above its descendants. Namely how every single mechanic is designed to feed right back into the nature of the story.

First up is the fact that this game isn’t just a load of text boxes that you click your way through, there are real game-mechanics here, and they’re executed suberbly. None of the game’s puzzles are particularly difficult, but I don’t think they’re supposed to be. Instead, they’re a tool for seeing these characters relying on each other’s abilities to feel their bonds growing as they help each other to reach the end of each level. Even the designs of the characters are so perfect, they’re literally just coloured rectangles, and yet it’s able to perfectly capture the personality of all of them.

Personalities that are fleshed out through some genuinely fantastic narration that happens throughout every level. Read by the wonderful Danny Wallace, the whole story has this warm feeling to it, like you’re being told a sweet bedtime story. Even when the story is touching on some more tragic or serious elements, it’s told in such a way that you never have any reason to question your protagonists and their bonds change and grow.

Thomas Was Alone is what I would argue to be the second-greatest story ever told in a video game (more on the best in the finale). It has total control over the tone of the plot, the characters and the player’s emotions at every moment, and I always take joy in revisiting it.

14 – Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood

Release Date: 16th November 2010
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Publisher: Ubisoft
Platforms: Playstation 4, Playstation 3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, Windows, Mac
Metacritic Average: 90%

It’s a game about stealthy stabbing.

(From my Every Main Series Assassin’s Creed Game Ranked article)

It’s got a little bit of everything without having too much of anything.

I’ve talked a lot throughout this article about the “formula” of Assassin’s Creed, which is the general: Viewpoints, 5 different types of collectables and about 100 of each one, way too many weapons and vague stealth mechanics, (this would later become almost every Ubisoft game as well, but that’s a discussion for another day). I generally view this formula as a bad thing, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be fun. While too much can be a bore, the right amount of small tasks dotted all over the open world can make for an extremely compelling game for a habitual completionist like me, and Brotherhood is the closest thing I’ve found to a perfect version of that formula.

The open world is big enough to have plenty of variety to it, but not so expansive that it feels bloated and pointless. Traversal of the world feels fun and fluid, with parkour mechanics that Assassin’s Creed have always been good at, but it mainly feels like the world was handcrafted to make running around Rome’s rooftops extra fun. Even when you wandered out into the outskirts of the city, the vast plains felt like a breath of fresh air and galloping about the place on horseback was just as fun.

There was a considerable mission variety, not just in the main story, but with side missions too. Each of the three guilds had different styles of missions, which were solid enough to flesh out the relevant characters while staying pretty brief and not overstay their welcome. Leonardo’s missions are also great fun, playing with all the weird toys, including a tank, so I don’t have anything bad to say about that. However, best were the Lairs of Romulus which were a series of levels almost entirely based around fun parkouring challenges, with impressive scenery and a great variety in the mini-stories surrounding them, they’re my favourite set of side quests in the whole franchise.

The visual design is excellent, with every section of the colour palette being used in one place or another in the game. Ezio’s red and white outfit from Brotherhood is far and away from my favourite protagonist outfit, and every other character had colours and styles that seemed to perfectly match their personality. Speaking of characters and story, it’s still nothing overly special, but it’s definitely the best the franchise has done. Cesare is the best villain from this series as far as I’m concerned, and Ezio is also the best protagonist because he’s the only one I don’t hate at least a little bit.

Brotherhood is simply where all of the features and styles that make the Assassin’s Creed formula what it is come together in just the right way. I firmly believe that if you took all that was good about Assassin’s Creed and refine it to a point, you’d end up with something that looked pretty similar to Brotherhood. It’s the game that I will always go to when I need reminding of why I actually love this franchise deep down.

13 – Moonlighter

Release Date: 29th May 2018
Developer: Digital Sun
Publisher: 11 bit Studios
Platforms: Playstation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Windows, Mac, Linux
Metacritic Average: 84%

It’s a game about murdering monsters by night and then selling their loot by day.

Have you ever wondered how, in RPGs and the like, the shopkeepers around the world are able to get ahold of incredibly rare and powerful loot that you, the adventurer, often struggle to find? Well, as it turns out, they’re just as bad-ass at cave-diving as you are, and Moonlighter proves it.

As I’ve said previously in this series, for me to take an interest in a roguelike/roguelite, it has to do something special, and I’d argue none are more special than Moonlighter. On the one side, there are the dungeon-crawling elements of the game, which are excellently done. The combat feels weighty while remaining very fluid and every dungeon has its own host of unique and interesting looking enemies that make me want to press on just to see what new things are around the next corner. Although, what I’m really interested in is the stuff they leave behind when I slice them up because that is the stuff I can use for the other side of the game, the shopkeeping.

This is where I went from enjoying Moonlighter, to loving it. When you’re running your shop, it isn’t as simple as setting out your goods and waiting for people to come and throw money at you. Instead, you have to use your knowledge of various other items in the game to assign an appropriate value to each item. You then must watch for your customer’s reactions to your prices, to determine if they’re too low/high and adjust accordingly. Each day in the shop doesn’t last all that long, so it doesn’t drag on, but you’ll be constantly occupied as you split your attention between making sure your shelves are always stocked and watching your customer’s faces to find the perfect prices for your goods.

On top of this, Moonlighter avoids the trap that puts me off so many other roguelikes, which is that it doesn’t overwhelm you with an infinite amount of content. There are four dungeons (each unlocked by beating the previous one), and each dungeon had three floors before a boss fight. On top of that, your end goal is staring you in the face the whole time, the final dungeon holding some ancient secret, which will only be unlocked after beating the four other dungeons. Moonlighter sets you up right away so that you know why you’re doing everything which keeps me motivated to push forwards, instead of getting bored of the ‘infinite’ nature of things, something I wish more games in the genre would strive for.

12 – Pokemon Sword & Shield

Release Date: 15th November 2019
Developer: Game Freak
Publisher: Nintendo
Platforms: Nintendo Switch
Metacritic Average: 80%

It’s a game about becoming the world champion of rural England.

(From my Game of the Year 2019 article)

Firstly, when it comes to the towns and routes in the game, I thought they were absolutely beautiful and captured a lot of different feelings from phases in British culture. There’s Motostoke, the industrial, victorian town; Wyndon the modern-day metropolis that we all know and (kind of) love today and then there were towns like Ballonlea that felt like something out of an old fairy tale. The visuals in this game were bright, colourful, and an absolute joy to behold.

As for the Pokemon, while I certainly wouldn’t rank it among the best new roster we’ve received for a generation, It’s most certainly nowhere near the worst. I’ve already talked about the Pokemon I loved the most, but there were a whole host of other new Pokemon added in this game that I really love the look and feel of.

While the story itself was nothing special by Pokemon standards, it was paced quite nicely, and I thought the climax was quite a cool sequence, not Ultra Necrozma levels of cool, but cool nonetheless. I enjoyed my interactions with any character not named Hop or Leon. I also thought the difficulty was rather nicely done, I didn’t exactly struggle at any point, but there were several points in the big battles that I felt were a bit touch-and-go, and I was forced to think about what I was doing a bit harder than I usually have to in Pokemon games.

I’m undoubtedly biased towards Pokemon as a franchise, but that doesn’t change the fact that I had loads of fun with this addition to the series. It was a Pokemon game that ticked all the boxes in terms what I need to have fun from a Pokemon game and in terms of visual spectacle, I think it’s the best we’ve seen so far. If the lack of a national dex was the only thing keeping you away then implore you to reconsider because this is still just as brilliant of an experience as Pokemon always has been.

Pokemon Sword & Shield have certainly become more controversial entries into the franchise than most, especially amongst the online fanbase, however, I think it’s a perfect encapsulation of everything I love from the modern era of Pokemon games. While Sun & Mon was a lot more visually interesting, I think the pace of the gameplay and the sheer force of personality and character on display in Sword & Shield is exactly what I adore from the franchise in the modern-day.

11 – Black and White 2

Release Date: 4th October 2005
Developer: Lionhead Studios, Robosoft Technologies
Publisher: EA, Feral Interactive
Platforms: Windows, Mac
Metacritic Average: 75%

It’s a game where you play as God and throw bunnies around with your giant God-hand.

All aboard the nostalgia train! Black & White 2 is the first game that I remember truly loving. I’m sure my parents will attest to the fact that when I was younger, I would play it non-stop. There was a short period where we didn’t have it installed on our family computer because it was playing up and I wouldn’t stop bugging my parents about getting it back on there so I could play it again. Even to this day, I make sure that I play through it at least once a year, and I have so much fun doing so.

I don’t usually like city-building games very much, and I’m not the biggest fan of real-time strategy, yet this game is a mix of those two things. If I had to guess, I think it’s the free-form nature of the game. There are minimal restrictions as to how you build up your cities or what tactics you want to use to conquer your enemies. There’s something about the freedom of playing as the literal hand of God and planning out these grand cities full of a variety of buildings that all have a unique charm to them that I just can’t get enough of. Also squishing tiny men with rocks and feeding their corpses to my giant pet cow is pretty fun.

That’s the thing with this game, it’s got so much charm and character that fills me with warm feelings of happiness. The way your people react to every action you make, or the personality that’s poured into every animation of your creature. Pour on top of that the overwhelming waves of nostalgia I get from playing it, and we’ve got a game that I’ll never get tired of, no matter how many times I play it.

And there you have it! Thank you very much for taking the time to read this post, just ten games left to go! Please, let me know what you think of these games, either in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo. Finally, make sure to come back here this weekend, where I’ll be covering WWE Summerslam!

Game of the Year 2019

2019 has been a bit of an odd year for games. There have been several high-profile releases scattered throughout the year like there always are, but I think that when we look back at gaming in 2019, it will be remembered as the year that set up all the super-hyped releases in 2020.

Despite that – as I mentioned in my favourite old games article – I played more games in 2019 than I ever had in a single year and that is just as true for new releases. While there might not have been much on a massive scale like Cyberpunk or Animal Crossing promises to be next year, there are undoubtedly some all-time favourites for me that came out this year.

Just to clarify, Early Access games will not be included on this list as I don’t think it’s fair to judge an unfinished game, I will instead consider them for “Game of the Year” in whatever year they leave early access. Also, I’d like to make a quick disclaimer that there are some games that I think look brilliant, but never found the time to play. Games like Baba is You and Superliminal are ones that I want to play as soon as possible, so will likely be showing up on my “old games” list at the end of next year.

So join me as I talk about the best of what the world of gaming had to offer in 2019.

SPOILER WARNING

As you probably expected, there will be major spoilers for most, if not all, of the games in this list. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

11 – Cricket 19

Release Date: 8th May
Developer: Big Ant Studios
Publisher: Big Ant Studios
Platforms: Playstation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Windows
Metacritic Average: 73%

It’s ok Americans, you’re excused from this one.

So this one’s probably not one anyone expected to make this list (myself included), but I really wanted to feature it on this list because cricket is a sport that has almost never had a competently made game for it. I had a brief discussion about this with my dad (an avid cricket fan) and we came to the conclusion that the best cricket game up until this point was Stick Game’s Stick Cricket which was a free browser & mobile game made over a decade ago.

While I certainly wouldn’t consider myself a fan of cricket, there are many sports I can’t stand watching that I enjoy playing virtual versions of, so when I saw that the reviews for this game didn’t call it a total crock of shit I was eager to try it out. The first thing that struck me was the sheer level of detail that went into how you approach every match in the game. If you’re in batting then you have to not only consider the basic stuff like the type of shoot you’ll do and where it’ll go but also the little details like where you’re going to position your feet and how you’re going to step towards the ball and it’s a very similar situation on the bowling side.

This year’s world cup final aside, I’ve never enjoyed watching cricket, I don’t find most sports very entertaining, but cricket especially bores me to tears whenever I try and watch it, so imagine my surprise when I found myself reacting with all the vim and vigour you’d expect from a match-day pub crowd while playing a match in this game. Every ball became a nail-biting affair, whether I was batting or bowling and all of that is thanks to the fact that the detailing has allowed for both a realistic and more exciting adaptation of the national sport of these fair isles.

Unlike many of the previous attempts at cricket games, it’s obvious that Cricket 19 had a lot of love poured into it from people who knew a lot about cricket and while there are rough patches that need to be ironed out, this is the first time that I can say there’s a cricket game out there that does the sport justice.

Now we just need a competently made Rugby game and we’ll be set.

10 – Hot Lava

Release Date: 19th September
Developer: Klei Entertainment
Platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux

Hot Lava is a game that knew exactly what it’s audience wanted from it and leaned into it entirely.

The Floor Is Lava was always the ultimate game to play when you were a kid, it combined the rush of doing something you’re not supposed to with the endless desire to concuss yourself that plagues all children of primary school age, but it had a problem, you were never really allowed to have much fun with it. There was only so much jumping between the sofas you could do before your mum came downstairs with a look of horror as to what you were doing to her lovely living room, and playing it during the 5 second moments when the teachers weren’t looking your way on the playground just wasn’t the same. I always dreamt of being able to play the game across the whole size of the playground, I imagined the amazing courses I could set up for me and my friends before I would inevitably slip on the first jump, gently graze my elbow and cry my way home.

Hot Lava is essentially that fantasy…only without that wimpy prick ruining it for everyone.

Mechanically, it’s a fairly simple game. It’s got all the features you’d expect a parkour game to have, where it really shines is in its level designs. The school setting makes for a great feel for the game as you’re bouncing around all over the place, but each level is finely crafted to make the most of its mechanics at every turn. Even levels that focus in on a specific gimmick are able to keep things varied throughout, slowly turning up the difficulty so the game scales perfectly with the player’s skill level. Then, once you’re done with the official levels, there is an ever-increasing number of community-made maps out there which range from the impressively creative to the frustratingly difficult.

I had so much fun leaping from table to chair in Hot Lava, it was able to properly capture that feeling that you always wanted to get from playing The Floor is Lava as a kid.

9 – Trine 4: The Nightmare Prince

Release Date: 8th October
Developer: Frozenbyte
Publisher: Modus Games
Platforms: Playstation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Windows
Metacritic Average: 81%

As I mentioned when I spoke about my most anticipated games for Q4 2019, I talked a bit how I love the Trine series and while Trine 3 was somewhat disappointing, I was still hopeful for the new entry into the series. So now I’ve played it, I can safely say that the series is still going strong.

Ditching the 3D side of the game was definitely the right way to go, as it just didn’t quite work, especially when the potential for level design in 2D was far from exhausted, as this game proved. The level design here was just as good as it always has been, every level feels like a logical progression of mechanics, following the same design philosophies that the 2D Mario games do, only this game plays around with some more complex mechanics that make each level last for about 30 minutes instead of 5, but all 30 of those minutes are engrossing stuff.

The pacing in each level has been notably improved, the team seem to have really nailed the balance that needs to be struck between puzzle-platforming and combat. The game’s combat system is extremely basic, which is why it’s used so sparingly through the levels, which is the perfect way to break up the flow of gameplay, so the whole thing feels more like an adventure and less of an endless series of puzzle rooms.

Speaking of the puzzles, they were as spot-on as always, the game didn’t go overboard with new mechanics this time which allowed for a big variety of puzzles that combine features I was already familiar with, with the new ones that got introduced in a very well-paced manner, so I never felt overwhelmed. The puzzles themselves were fantastically designed, I would never breeze through a puzzle, but I also wouldn’t be stuck on it for ages, most puzzles are designed in such a way to make you think about the mechanics you’ve been given in an abstract way. All of the elements in play react to each other differently, so after playing around with any given puzzle for a bit, that “eureka” moment will finally strike and you’ll be able to progress.

As always, the game looks absolutely gorgeous. Trine understands it’s visual style flawlessly and is able to make just about any environment look absolutely beautiful. Not only do the environments look good, but there’s such a wonderful variety of places that you explore as well, which is a big improvement on the older games of the series, where a lot of the environments could feel a tad samey.

Trine 4 is able to look at its predecessors and remove the flaws while keeping what made it great to begin with, which is such a difficult task, but one that the people behind this game were clearly up to.

8 – Slay The Spire

Release Date: January 23rd
Developer: MegaCrit
Publisher: Humble Bundle
Platforms: Playstation 4, Nintendo Switch, Windows, Mac, Linux
Metacritic Average: 89%

The Roguelike/Roguelite genre is one that I have become truly and thoroughly burnt-out on over the past couple of years. There are so many around the place now that it’s a formula I’m tired of seeing, so it takes something pretty damn special from the genre to make me take notice, enter Slay The Spire.

Slay The Spire looked at the standard Roguelike formula and distilled it down to it’s most basic elements, the rooms you encounter are all very simple, they’re either a fight, a treasure, a quick event, or a shop then it decided that the best course of action would be to slap a deckbuilding, turn-based strategy on the top of it and see what comes out. The result? The most engaging Roguelike game I’ve played in years.

Every battle in Slay the Spire feels tense and to the wire, not because the game is necessarily harsh, but because you’re always reliant on the cards that come your way. It strikes the perfect balance between getting you to think a few steps ahead, while still forcing you to take chances, chances that don’t always pay off. I remember countless times where I’d come up with a plan, but it would rely on drawing the right card at the right time and when it didn’t work it was heartbreaking, but succeeding made me feel like a tactical genius.

The three different decks in the game are also brilliant for allowing you to adjust your play style, without massively overturning the formula of the game. Each character has it’s own unique mechanic that is open to massive amounts of experimentation,  which is something I had great fun with. As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t consider myself to be very good at most games, but Slay the Spire had such a smooth learning curve that I felt like I was improving with every single victory.

Slay the Spire is a game that took a genre that I love, combine it with a genre I’m tired of and make something that feels new, exciting and tonnes of fun to play, this is the kind of innovation that I’ve been looking for in the roguelike genre for ages and I desperately hope we see more of it in the years to come.

7 – Katana ZERO

Release Date: April 18th
Developer: Askiisoft
Publisher: Devolver Digital
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, Windows, Mac
Metacritic Average: 83%

One of my favourite things a game can accomplish is to be one specific thing while disguising itself as something else. To explain what I mean by that, let’s take a look at Katana ZERO.

When you star Katana ZERO, the impression I got from it is that it was going to be a fast-paced hack and slash, where you slice your way through waves of enemies feeling like a katana-wielding action hero and while the second part of that statement is true, Katana ZERO is in fact not a hack and slash, but a very clever and high-octane puzzle game.

The goal of each room is to introduce every enemy in the general vicinity to your Katana, usually by separating them from most of their limbs in the process, but if you go charging madly into every room, you’ll most certainly fail almost instantly. Instead, every room in the game is cleverly designed to be “solvable”, with a distinct order and pattern in which you need to show everyone their own spleen before removing their head in what can only be described as a “flourish” of blood. Every time I entered a room, I would instantly scour the whole place looking for the one weak spot where I could start my slicing rampage, running through a mental checklist every time I failed and restarted a room, which gave incredibly satisfying feeling when my master plan was executed to perfection.

What makes Katana ZERO stands out though, is the fact that it has that element of chaos to it. I could make the most ingenious plans ever, but that doesn’t mean I was good enough to pull them off perfectly all the time and that was where the game was at its most fun; when plans went wrong. Once a plan went wrong, it would be easy to just take the death and try again, but I think doing that takes out a huge element of the sheer joy that this game brings you when you improvise. Admittedly, my improvised plans very rarely bore fruit, but that didn’t stop it being an absolute blast when I missed my second strike, which sent me sailing into a room of armoured guards, causing me to panic, throw a firebomb which killed the armoured guards but alerted everyone within a 5-mile radius to my presence, at which point I went on a killing spree, slicing every neck I could lay my eyes on before finally being gunned down.

In addition to that…well…clusterfuck, the game has simplistic but masterfully styled visuals with great uses of colours and effect to create a depressingly beautiful cyberpunk dystopia, a feeling only helped by the brilliant choices that were made with the music, which helped elevate the already fantastically designed boss-fights to epic clashes and nail-biting encounters.

Katana ZERO is a game that strikes that perfect balance between careful & tactical planning and total chaos that makes for an incredibly focused and fun game, all tied together with a clever story that keeps you interested and invested in the world all the way to the credits.

6 – Unheard

Release Date: 29th March
Developer: NEXT Studios
Publisher: NEXT Studios, Bilibili
Platforms: Playstation 4, Windows, Mac
Metacritic Average: 72%

Out of all the games on this list, this is the one that I’d imagine the fewest people have heard of, because this almost passed me by too, so let me explain.

At its most basic level, it’s a mystery-solving game, however, the method by which you solve these mysteries is what makes this an absolutely exceptional game in my view. Instead of searching the scene and interviewing witnesses after the fact, you get to see the 5-15 minutes in which the crime happened, except you don’t get to actually see the details. What you get is a floor-plan view of the building in which the crime took place which you can wander around as you play through the events of the scene and the only tool you have to work out what happened is sound.

You can see the outline of where everyone is at any moment, but you can’t actually see their form, you can only hear their voices. Using this information you must work out who everyone is, and answer specific questions about the crime. I can’t really be more specific without giving away partial solutions to some of the puzzles, but the way in which the game gets you to hear every conversation in a level to slowly fill in all the blanks is so very innovative and clever.

The game typically starts you off in each scenario listening to one conversation that will give a rough outline of what’s going on, but naturally, there are other conversations going on all over the scene at the exact same time and each conversation slowly fills in all of the blanks. In every conversation, you listen to you’ll learn something new about the scenario that slowly allows you to draw everything together and hit that euphoria of the “eureka” moment when you nail your target.

The game makes sure to give you just the right amount of information so that everything you need to know is there, but without explicitly giving you all of the solutions. I found myself taking notes on every level, creating a list of suspects and slowly ruling them out as I went along until the true culprit reveals themselves.

The mysteries themselves are very well thought out, for example, you’ll have to locate a stolen painting and work out who stole it, but there are also a number of fakes that other people have stolen, thinking they’re the real deal and it’s your job to use the conversations around the scene to piece together a chronology of who committed the first theft in order to determine who holds the real painting.

At £5 the game is absolutely worth it for the 5 puzzles (plus 1 as free DLC) that total to about 4 hours of game time. This is one of the most enthralling and unique puzzle games I’ve played ever and it perfectly captures the feeling on solving a mystery, so if you’re into that sort of thing, this game is a must-have.

5 – Beat Saber

Release Date: 21st May
Developer: Jaroslav Beck
Publisher: Jaroslav Beck
Platforms: Playstation 4, Oculus Quest, HTC Vive
Metacritic Average: 93%

I’ve loved VR for a long time and Beat Saber is probably my favourite VR game I’ve ever played. The concept is so simple as it’s just like any other rhythm game, except you’ve got to move your arms to hit the blocks instead of just pressing buttons in time with some music.

This game as a mastery of its sound design, making sure that every slice of a block has an extremely satisfying sound to it, helping to create this cool factor as you slice left, right and centre, even when you know that to anyone watching outside of the headset, you just look to be flailing around wildly. Even the sounds and music on the menus create an intense sense of atmosphere as you stand in what seems to be the most neon warehouse to ever exist.

A lot of VR games that I enjoy are games that I think would still work fairly well without the VR component. While games like Job Simulator and Budget Cuts would need some tweaking, I don’t think the VR element is specifically what makes them as good as they are. Beat Saber is very much the opposite, I’ve never particularly cared for rhythm games, nor am I all that good at them, but when you take that concept and put it into VR suddenly it becomes one of the most all-out fun experiences I’ve ever had.

I don’t know what part of how my brain works causes this, but I am so much better at Beat Saber than I am any other rhythm game I’ve ever played. I’m miles away from being among the best of course, but I can play on the higher speeds and difficulties and not struggle massively as I play and I think the sense of pure fun the game as injected into it is a big part of that.

On top of all of that, it works as an exercise game, but it doesn’t frame it as one. I’ve never got along with games like Ring Fit Adventure or Wii Fit because they make sure to let you know you’re doing exercise the whole way through, but in Beat Saber you just start flailing your arms and suddenly you’re drenched in sweat and have lost about 20 pounds without even realising it.

Beat Saber is a game that realised the massive potential that an existing genre of games could have in VR and made sure to tailor the experience perfectly so that it couldn’t possibly work without it and that is fundamentally what I believe makes a good VR game.

4 – Descenders

Release Date:  7th May
Developer: RageSquid
Publisher: No More Robots
Platforms: Xbox One, Windows, Mac, Linux
Metacritic Average: 78%

I’ve talked about Descenders a couple of times already this year and it’s safe to say that my love for it has not diminished in the slightest.

It was first available on Steam Early Access in February 2018 and I picked it up a couple of months later and since then it’s become my 2nd most played game on Steam at 539 hours, beaten out by only Skyrim and the weird thing is, I’m not even entirely sure why I play it so much. I certainly wouldn’t describe it as an addictive game, but what I think is it’s a very easy game to play.

By “easy to play” I don’t mean the difficulty of the game itself, I mean it’s a game that I’m never “not in the mood” to play. In the way that I play it (very casually), I don’t really have to put much thought into it, so it’s become what I play when I don’t want to play anything. I’m someone who finds it very hard to just sit and watch something for example, so what I will often do is put on something I want to watch on my 2nd screen and then play Descenders, almost in the background, while I watch it.

That’s not all Descenders is good for, because it hits that sweet spot that PopCap games were always brilliant for, where you can play it casually and do fairly well, but also you can spend time honing your skills and mastering the game in order to pull off some incredible feats of skill that I could never even dream of. The procedurally generated nature of the levels means I’m never just “going through the motions” when I play, I can’t just rely on muscle memory to get me through each level I have to learn to adapt to the terrain that’s currently in front of me so I don’t wrap my body around several trees at several hundred kilometres per hour.

It’s a game that has complete mastery over its movement, the bikes feel light and nippy while manoeuvring it in the air and on the ground feels forceful and satisfying. The way you glide down the hillsides, doing jumps and flips and spins the whole gives this incredible feeling of flow that gives you such a rush as your performance in the environments becomes more fluid and streamlined.

Descenders is a game that came together in a way I honestly never would’ve expected in order to make it a game that I’m going to be playing on-and-off for a very long time.

3 – Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

Release Date: 18th June
Developer: ArtPlay
Publisher: 505 Games
Platforms: Playstation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Windows
Metacritic Average: 84%

I’d never got around to playing a Castlevania game before, but they always seemed right up my street, so when I heard there was a game coming out made by the original creator of Castlevania in the style of Castlevania (but not officially called Castlevania because Konami doesn’t like using the historic franchises they own) I knew I had to check it out and I was absolutely blown away by what I found.

Bloodstained constantly keeps you on a journey of discovery. The items, enemies and powers it’s possible to acquire/encounter mean you’re always going to be finding something new and the map itself is packed with an almost overwhelming amount of variety. Every area feels extremely different to the ones that surround it and they’re all just the right size so that once you get comfortable in an area, you’re thrown right into a new one.

The combat system is wonderfully designed, it took a little getting used to, but once I got the pacing of when I should be striking and dodging I had so much fun with it. Every room presented a great challenge and I had a lot of fun trying to work out how best to tackle each combination of enemies that got thrown my way. It nails that balance of enemy design, where every enemy is easy on its own, but when a bunch of different ones are thrown together, it creates a great challenge.

That was also a game that reminded me how amazing boss fights can be, because not since NieR Automata have I had so much fun fighting bosses in a game. They follow that ethos that so many, typically old games do in that every boss has clear and recognisable patterns that are easy to dodge/counter and the skill comes from being able to react to them in time in order to deal out the damage. It’s a game that makes sure that every single failure and death I experienced was because I wasn’t skilful enough in order to pull it off, not because I got unlucky.

Bloodstained makes sure that every room and every enemy teaches you something, not necessarily something about the mechanics, but about what is the most optimal way to fight. This sense of pushing forward and constantly getting to experience new stuff is what pushed me towards achieving 100% completion without even realising I was doing it until suddenly I was 95% there and had to get that last little bit.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is a game that is constantly pushing you deeper into it using its world & enemy design along with its combat system to enthral you in its world and give you the best Metroidvania experience I’ve had in many years.

2 – Pokemon Sword & Shield

Release Date: 15th November
Developer: Game Freak
Publisher: Nintendo
Platforms: Nintendo Switch
Metacritic Average: 80%

If you’ve followed my blog for any length of time then you were probably expecting to see this on the list somewhere and here you go, number two, it’s becoming a bit of a tradition for Pokemon games actually.

I was very excited for these games more or less all year, I can’t deny that the lack of the national dex was a tad disappointing, but once I had the game in my hands and was playing it, that fact becomes little more than a tiny annoyance that I barely ever thought about.

Firstly, when it comes to the towns and routes in the game, I thought they were absolutely beautiful and captured a lot of different feelings from phases in British culture. There’s Motostoke, the industrial, victorian town; Wyndon the modern-day metropolis that we all know and (kind of) love today and then there were towns like Ballonlea that felt like something out of an old fairy tale. The visuals in this game were bright, colourful and an absolute joy to behold.

As for the Pokemon, while I certainly wouldn’t rank it among the best new roster we’ve received for a generation, It’s most certainly nowhere near the worst. I’ve already talked about the Pokemon I loved the most, but there were a whole host of other new Pokemon added in this game that I really love the look and feel of.

While the story itself was nothing special by Pokemon standards, it was paced quite nicely and I thought the climax was quite a cool sequence, not Ultra Necrozma levels of cool, but cool nonetheless; and I enjoyed my interactions with any character not named Hop or Leon. I also thought the difficulty was rather nicely done, I didn’t exactly struggle at any point, but there were several points in the big battles that I felt were a bit touch-and-go and I was forced to think about what I was doing a bit harder than I usually have to in Pokemon games.

I’m undoubtedly biased towards Pokemon as a franchise, but that doesn’t change the fact that I had loads of fun with this addition to the series. It was a Pokemon game that ticked all the boxes in terms what I need to have fun from a Pokemon game and in terms of visual spectacle, I think it’s the best we’ve seen so far. If the lack of a national dex was the only thing keeping you away then implore you to reconsider because this is still just as brilliant of an experience as Pokemon always has been.

1 – Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Release Date: 26th July
Developer: Intelligent System, Koei Tecmo
Publisher: Nintendo
Platforms: Nintendo Switch
Metacritic Average: 89%

I’d never played a Fire Emblem game before Three Houses and I didn’t even have any intensions to buy it until I did so on a whim in early September and I am so glad I didn’t miss out on this absolutely joyous gaming experience.

The Turn-Based Strategy combat in this game is extremely refined and taps into that part of my brain that games like XCOM and Civilization created that loves deep strategic thinking in games. The usage of middle-aged weaponry (and magic) gives the battles a very different type of strategy to what I’m used to, I usually tend to play quite defensively in turn-based strategies but the need to get up close and personal with your opponents means you’re not afforded that luxury and it leads to some very tense situations that require a deep level of strategic thought to resolve.

Weaponry and classes each unit has access to gives a nice level of variety too, with each melee weapon allowing for slightly different possibilities in combat, alongside the ranged and magic weapons/abilities meaning each unit has to be treated very differently in battle in order to get the optimum performance out of them.

That’s not what made this game so special to me though. That’s not the reason that, as of the time of writing, I’m currently about to reach the conclusion of my 4th playthrough of this 45-hour game. What makes Fire Emblem: Three Houses such a wonderful game to play are its characters.

You play as a professor at an academy where the various future lords, nobles & knights of the land learn their craft, this naturally means you have students and you get to know these students so incredibly well throughout the course of the game. Every single part of every character is dripping in personality and while it’s true that many of the characters are a bit one-note, when there’s so many of them and they’re all constantly interacting and bouncing off of each other, then you don’t even notice.

Over the course of the game, I grew to understand all of the characters and how they operate in the same way that any teacher does when they have the same class for an extended period of time, you get to see them grow and develop as people and I genuinely care about all of them and their progress. This feeds back into the gameplay and combat because it’s not just faceless armies that you’re sending into danger, it’s your students that you’ve bonded with and have a whole future ahead of them and when one of them dies, that failure – YOUR failure – weighs on you.

The game’s branching narrative is brilliantly set up, forcing you to choose your house less than an hour into the game, with only a base-level understanding of the students you’ll be taking under your wing. It was what pushed me to dive right into my 2nd, 3rd & 4th playthroughs because I had to know what happened to all of these characters that I’ve grown to love.

The feature characters for each line in the narrative are very well-developed as well and there are some genuinely brilliantly written scenes in every path. This was a game that understood that the emotional weight of its story came not from the events happening, but how those events affect the characters. Every scene is written in such a way to draw you into the lives of its characters and that level of investment bleeds over into every other part of the game, whether you’re teaching them on their skills or sending them into battle.

Fire Emblem: Three Houses is that perfect mix that captures exactly what made me fall in love with Octopath Traveler last year. Its characters are flowing with personality that never fails to make me smile and the gameplay has a deep level of strategy that I just can’t keep away from and it’s absolutely the best gaming experience I’ve had in 2019.

So that’s it! Those were my favourite games in 2019! Thank you very much for taking the time to read this, please, let me know what games you loved this year either in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo. Finally, make sure to join me back here on Saturday, where I’ll be talking about my favourite comedy shows!

My 10 Favourite Generation 8 Pokemon

It’s been just over two weeks now since Pokemon Sword & Shield were released to the world and to put it simply, I had a lot of fun with these games. I want to give it a bit more time before I make any judgement calls on how it fits into my ranking of the generations, but having played through the game twice now I can confidently say that these games were what I wanted them to be and I really like them.

Naturally, when it comes to a new generation of Pokemon, one of the biggest factors that contribute to how much I get out of the game, is the Pokemon themselves. Not counting regional variants, Generation 8 has (so far) given us 81 new Pokemon and there’s a huge variety in all of these new creatures. Naturally, there are going to be a handful of Pokemon that rise to the top and stand out to me as the best of what this generation has to offer, and that’s what I’m discussing today.

SPOILER WARNING

This list will contain story spoilers for Pokemon Sword & Shield and also contains Pokemon that have not been officially revealed or referenced anywhere outside of the games themselves, so if you wish to remain unspoiled then maybe give this one a miss for the time being.

10 – Orbeetle

Maybe it’s because of the altered visual style, but almost every Pokemon Galar has to offer feels very different from that of the previous seven generations. That’s something which isn’t always for the better (see the abominations that are the fossil Pokemon) but Orbeetle is a case where it works to its benefit.

For the longest time, the regional bugs have been lame. Don’t get me wrong, I like Butterfree & Vivilon as much as the next guy, but when it comes to viable team members for the whole game they don’t ever make the cut. Vikavolt from Alola had the chance to turn that around, but it was unfortunately hampered by the fact that it couldn’t evolve until one of the final areas of the game. Orbeetle is a Pokemon that takes the usefulness, strength and cool design of Vikavolt and removes the stupid restriction on its evolution.

The first thing that struck me about Orbeetle is how sleek it looks. Psychic typing isn’t what I would’ve initially guessed for this one, but I think it works with the design. It’s a Pokemon that feels a little off in its design, but kind of in a good way, the fullness of the red is very striking and draws your eyes away from its body, which makes for quite the surprise when you notice it. I personally would’ve liked its body to be a little fuller, but the sharpness of its limbs and intimidation factor on its face is brilliant.

When I first caught Blipbug on Route 2, I wasn’t expecting it to remain in my team for very long, but sure enough, it proved me wrong and Orbeetle stood proudly alongside me when I entered the Hall of Fame.

9 – Runerigious

Sword & Shield played around with the idea of adding evolutions to already existing Pokemon and I love the stuff that came out. Instead of doing what Generation 4 did and adding unnecessary third stages onto Pokemon like Rhydon, it combined the concept of regional variants and new evolutions in fun way that I thought added a new layer to how the world of Pokemon works.

Unlike all of the other Pokemon on this list, I’m yet to have a chance to use Runerigious in any capacity, I just think it’s a really cool looking Pokemon. The way it’s body looks like a series of puzzle pieces is such a cool concept and the simplistic art on its body adds loads to that effect. Something about the red, white & black colour scheme really brings the whole design together to create a creepy feeling Pokemon, which is exactly what you’d expect from any evolution of Yamask.

8 – Dragapult

I mean come on, it fires it’s pre-evolution out of cannons it’s head, how can you not love this thing.

Whenever a new generation of Pokemon comes about, I always worry that the region’s pseudo-legendary is going to be ridiculously over-designed. Hydreigon and Kommo-o are examples of Pokemon that, while cool looking, are a bit much in terms of the elements in their design, so I was very pleased to see that Galar’s pseudo-legendary took a much more minimalist design.

I love the concept of a lizard-like Pokemon with something extra to it and the choice to make it a ghost type and have it hover was probably the best decision the design team could’ve made. Its body seems like that of a normal lizard Pokemon but then you get to the head and realise that it looks more like a glider than a creature, which I know sounds stupid, but it’s something that absolutely works for this design.

The colour choice is perfect too, there aren’t many Pokemon that have a gradient running through its body and there are even fewer that pull it off well, but Dragpult manages it, the darkness of it’s upper-body and head give these creeping feeling of danger and add that important intimidation factor, while the slow lightening of the tone down its tail creates this ghostly presence that makes it an all-round very threatening Pokemon.

7 – Eternatus

When I saw how similar Zacian & Zamazenta were in regards to the basic elements of their design, I was very interested to see what kind of Pokemon would round out the trio, because surely it had to be something wildly different right? Well, I was right, but I didn’t realise just how different it would end up being.

I liked how it kept the red & blue colour scheme of the main duo, but instead cranked the saturation all the way up on the colours, as it’s colour scheme feels very fully. I also really like the very jagged design, the way it looks almost like a skeleton or fossil goes along with its theme of being a creature that’s lived on the earth for 10’s of thousands of years and potentially even longer out in space.

It has this incredible sense of presence about it, despite not actually being all that big and even though it is a little on-the-nose, I enjoy the concept of it being the mighty dragon for the sword and shield to slay. It’s not the perfect legendary by any means, but I think it works as the third member of this trio.

6 – Boltund

Look at that face, that is the face of a good boy.

When Yamper was first revealed, I liked it, but I had no intention to ever put it on my team and for my first playthrough, I didn’t, but when I realised it had an evolution, and that’s evolution look like THIS, I knew I had to have it with me for my second go-round and sure enough, Boltund is best boy.

Yellow and Dark Green aren’t colours that I would’ve thought could work well together, but the placement of them on Boltund’s body makes the yellow more of a framing device for the green that covers the majority of its body, so I think it works.

The design of its face is the exact traditional representation of dogs when it comes to animation and the wideness of its eyes makes it seem like such a happy Pokemon all the time. I can imagine it running around happily, doing all the things you’d expect any other dog to do, only with lightning powers, which is an instant improvement.

5 – Zacian

Ok, I know that screenshot doesn’t have it’s “crowned” stuff, but that’s Pokemon Camp for you.

Even though I’ve ragged on Zacian & Zamazenta for being very similar before, when it came to putting this list together, I realised there were a whole bunch fo key reasons I preferred Zacian over its counterpart.

Firstly, I’m a sucker for swords, especially ones that look like ancient artefacts like the one Zacian holds in its mouth during battle, then you look at the other crowned features like that around its head,  and the “wings” sticking out of it’s back and it creates an extremely regal-looking Pokemon, aided by its general expression & posture. On top of that, I think Zacian’s body as a whole looks nice and sleek compared to its counterpart, the ribbons and tail add a nice sense of flow to the design, and the light blue & light red pairs up better than the fuller blue & red on Zamazenta.

As a whole, I would say Zacian fits in more with a trio like the legendary beasts than as a cover legendary, but that doesn’t stop it from being a design that I love the look of.

4 – Thievul

Wow, the Route 1 Pokemon really were something else in this generation.

Before anyone says it, I’m well aware that one of the reasons I probably like this Pokemon so much is how it’s design elements resemble that of Absol’s, but let’s put that to one side. When I found out that this generation was going to be based on the UK, I was sure there would be some sort of urban fox design for a Pokemon, but I didn’t know they’d do this great of a job with it.

What I love most about this design is the colours, the shade of orangy brown is just right to keep the feeling of a fox, without having to go with a brighter orange while the white of it’s chest makes everything around it stand out, all framed nicely by the sparing use of black. I also love the idea of it being a thief, since urban foxes in the UK are known to go rummaging through bins and steal just about anything left out on the streets at night. The “mask” around its eyes is a great indication of this. I would argue the little “cartoon thief” moustache was a bit much, but I still find it cute in a way.

3 – Grookey

One of the things that I was most disappointed about in this generation was the evolutions of the starter Pokemon. I like all three of the basic forms, but when it comes to the 1st and 2nd stages, I can only honestly say that I like one of them and even that one I’m not a massive fan of. I get what they were going for, but I think keeping the final evolutions restricted to a single type was a bad call and put unnecessary restrictions on their designs.

That said, I love Grookey.

It’s just an adorable little monkey that likes to hit things with sticks and in a way, deep down, I think we can all relate to that. Its body is just the right shade of green to give the impression of a cheerful Pokemon, while the brown and yellow are there to break up what is a fairly basic colour scheme and highlight aspects like the tail and ears.

I don’t really have much more to articulate as to why I love this Pokemon, I just think it’s adorable, I can imagine sitting around, playing with it as it cheerfully jumps about the place.

2 – Corviknight

If you’ve ever read anything I’ve written on Pokemon then you’ll know I love the regional birds of each generation (except Pidove, which knows what it did) and I generally hold these Pokemon up to a pretty high standard. So, when this generation’s regional bird was revealed to be a jet-black armoured raven of death with glowing red eyes, it’s safe to say I was pretty satisfied.

This thing looks like an absolute killer and I love it. The armour covers most of the body, but it’s still applied in a way that makes sense, still allowing it’s limbs to be shown, revealing they’re the exact same colour as the armour itself. It was a tad worrying when these games were initially revealed as it seemed like the entire region was going to be based very heavily on Arthurian legend, however it turned out that this was pretty much the only Pokemon that conforms to it, which makes it awesome; even if I did nickname mine “Gisborne” which is the wrong English myth entirely.

1 – Nickit

Take everything I’ve said I love about Thievul and turn the cuteness up to eleven.

When I encountered Nickit on Route 1 during the first few moments of proper gameplay, my heart melted at the sight of this thing and I knew it was staying with me until the end. Everything from its expression to its shape, to its colours, is brilliant and it makes this Pokemon a real work of art as far as I’m concerned.

The more I look at this more detail I notice, like the little tear marks around its eyes and an adorable timid smile that it likely uses to trick the victims of its theft. Then there’s the way that the black highlights on its feet look like little boots to make sure its prints can’t be tracked, alongside the smokelike imprint on the base of its tail from where it’s been dragging it along the ground; not to mention that the tail itself looks like a lovely little pillow.

It’s a Pokemon that ticks pretty much all my boxes of what I love from a Pokemon design: Quadruped; Mostly dark colours with light contrasts; Perfectly fits its theme and just the right mixture of cute and cool, this Pokemon was always going to end up topping this list.

So there you have it! Those are my favourite Pokemon from Generation 8 so far. Thank you very much for taking the time to read this list, please let me know what your favourite new Pokemon are, either in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo. Finally, make sure to come back next week as we’re going to be looking back at the best and worst parts of WWE from the past decade!

Every Cover Legnedary Pokemon Ranked

With Pokemon Sword & Pokemon Shield just 6 days away from release, it’s fair to say that I’m pretty damn excited. Thanks to Game Freak keeping their cards relatively close to their chest this year and my painstaking effort to avoid any and all leaks like the plague, I’m going into the game this year not really knowing what to expect outside of what I’ve already seen (which is all stuff I like).

One of the main draws for new Pokemon games is the Pokemon that are designed to literally sell the games to you, the cover legendaries. These Pokemon are the ones that sit on the cover of the game (usually the feature legendary of the game) and will often have a pretty heavy hand in the marketing of the game and deciding which version people buy; unless you’re a nerd like me who always buys both.

However, in a franchise with coming up on 1000 different creatures, some were never going to capture my attention in the same way others were, so here’s my ranking of every cover legendary Pokemon.

NOTE: A couple of caveats before we begin. Firstly, the Kanto starters aren’t on this list because, although they have been on game covers, they’re not legendary Pokemon and secondly, Zyguard isn’t on this list because, although it is part of the main Kalos trio, it never made it onto a game cover for whatever reason. Finally – and this one is important – as I mentioned above, I haven’t seen any of the leaks that have come out in the past week or so, so if I say something speculative about Sword & Shield that one of these leaks has already confirmed PLEASE DON’T TELL ME because I want to go into these games as blind as possible.

Finally, if you want more Pokemon content from me, then check out my rankings of every Pokemon generation so far!

With that out of the way, onto the list.

17 – Kyurem

So there’s a couple of things that contribute to Kyurem coming in last, first is the design. Visually, I don’t think Kyurem is anything interesting to look at. There are cool elements with the jagged icicle shaped body, but that is pretty overwhelmed by the copious amount of grey that covers its whole body. I understand that it’s thematically appropriate but that doesn’t stop it being a boring colour.

Then there are the hybrid forms which admittedly improve Kyurem’s look and I like the idea of it mechanically, unfortunately, I think that both alternate forms look worse than Reshiram and Zekrom respectively so I can’t see it as much of a positive. Then there’s the fact that, for many years, Black 2 & White 2 were the only main-series games that I hadn’t played (I only bought and played a copy for the first time a month ago) so I’ve not had much of a chance to have any real experiences with Kyurem outside of Black & White’s post-game.

Kyurem has some cool points, but ultimately whenever I look at it, I can’t help but feel underwhelmed.

16 – Reshiram

Ok, I should probably mention at this point that I like Gen 5, I honestly do, but the cover legendaries were really weak.

The colour scheme can fit the theme all they like, but the fact of the matter is, one matted colour is boring, especially when it’s just white. Reshiram’s general look has a nice majestic streak to it, I think the wings could be a bit smoother but I like the overall look and I especially like the tuft of…is it hair? on the back on its head that looks like a trail of smoke. Unfortunately, the colouring pulls it down a lot for me.

On top of that, there are the feet which really don’t seem like they fit in with the rest of the design. The point of the gen 5 legendary duo is that they’re supposed to be opposed to each other, with Reshiram having a smoother, more elegant design, but the feet really jagged and seem out of place compared the rest of the Pokemon.

There’s a lot to like about Reshiram, but I just can’t get past the boring colour scheme and general lack of cohesion in the style on its body, it would only take a few minor tweaks and I really think this could’ve been a great design.

15 – Necrozma

Necrosma suffers from many of the same problems that I’ve mentioned already in the previous two entries, but there’s a couple of features that go a long way to redeeming Necrozma in my eyes.

First of all, there’s the fact of just how unbelievably different Necrozma looks compared to every other legendary Pokemon. The whole point of Necrozma is that it’s quite literally from another plane of existence, it was sealed away in Ultra Space for so long that looking at it is so very alien without being overbearing about it. Then there’s it’s Ultra form, which looks like an absolute monster, honestly, if I’d ranked Ultra Necrozma separately, it’d be near the top I can tell you that.

That said, it still suffers largely from the single colour problem that I’ve already expressed my distaste for and I’m not the biggest fan of its hybrid forms with Lunala & Solgaleo as, much like with Kyurem, I think they look worse than their original forms. I didn’t think these problems would drag it down as much as it did because I still really like Necrozma, but when I compared it to all the other legendaries, it just didn’t hold up.

14 – Zekrom

I promise this is the last time I’m going to talk about boring colours.

For my problems with Zekrom, you can pretty much just parrot what I said about both Kyurem & Reshiram, except Zekrom has a couple of nice features that those two don’t. For one thing, although it is entirely black, there’s at least more than one shade of black on its body, which is nice, then there’s this seemingly pure evil look it seems to have with the shape and expression of its face which I think looks cool.

Its hands and feet look a bit weird, but the hands at least fit in with the design of its wings, which also fit really well with the jagged design to go with its electric typing. The tail is another thing I really like, as it looks a lot like a battery where it stores most of its power and I especially like the neon blue colour it glows when it’s charging up an attack.

Ultimately, Zekrom suffers from the same issues as it’s Gen 5 brethren, but its cool factor is significantly higher in my eyes, which brings it above the pack just a little.

13 – Kyogre

This is where the order of this list gets a little iffy because I don’t have much in the way of negative things to say about Kyogre, so putting it below a few other Pokemon on this list comes down to minor elements and gut feelings more than anything else.

What drags Kyogre down for me is the relative simplicity in its design. The colours are much more favourable to that of the Pokemon I’ve discussed so far, but its body is still almost entirely a single colour, having its massive blue body broken up only by the occasional red line. That said, the colours that were chosen for this design still make Kyogre somewhat interesting to look at and it feels like there’s a lot more character behind the design than in previous entries.

Kyogre is also helped out by its Primal form, which adds a whole new layer of detail into the design and boosted it up significantly in my estimations. I really love the much deeper blue of the primal form, along with the glowing lines on its body that make it look exactly like what a creature from the beginning of the Earth’s lifespan would look like. Even without the extra form though, Kyogre succeeds at being a good looking Pokemon while staying true to its themes and origins.

12 – Lunala

One thing I really liked about the Generation 7 cover legendaries is how strikingly different they looked. In all other generations (including Gen 8) the legendaries always had the same sort of feel to them even when they’re colours were quite different, Lunala however, feels worlds away from its counterpart which is something I love.

In terms of intricacy in the visuals, this ticks the boxes. The way the gold frames its whole body while the glorious purple wings are detailed by the occasional white mark makes it look exactly like I’d imagine an embodiment of the night sky would look like. Once again, the problems I have are fairly minor. For one thing, I’m not a big fan of the shape of its body, I know it’s the Moon Pokemon, but there’s something a bit off-putting to me about how…well…round it is; silly I know, but I can’t quite get past it. Also, I don’t think the look of its face quite fits with the calmness and elegance of its design, the eyes and teeth seem a bit too sharp and evil-looking, which is something I don’t think fits the rest of the design.

11 – Groudon

Groudon suffers from almost the exact opposite problem as it’s counterpart Kyogre, as where Kyogre borders on too little detail, Groudon borders on too much.

Groudon is a very intense feeling Pokemon, everything about it is sharp and vicious, from the lines of spikes on it’s head to the very same lines of spikes on its tail, Groudon is a Pokemon that is extremely intimidating to face down. The colours help add loads to this feeling, with the red jumping out at you, being cut up by the black lines and eyes that are filled with menace. The problem I have with Groudon is that all of this detail becomes a bit much after a certain point, there are a lot of the black lines to the point of overkill and its whole body is covered in spikes everywhere you look, again, to the point of overkill.

Groudon’s Primal form is slightly different to Kyogres as instead of adding depth and detail, Groundon’s Primal form simply serves to add more boldness to everything that’s already there, ramping the intimidation factor up to 11, making Primal Groudon look like a monster to end all monsters. Groudon’s design can be a bit much, but at the end of the day, I’d rather have an over-designed Pokemon than an under-designed one.

10 – Lugia

This is where things get difficult because, from this entry onwards, I honestly adore all of these designs.

Up until now, I’ve criticised the more simplistic designs, but Lugia is the exception to this rule as I think it’s the lack of detail in Lugia that makes it so beautiful. Whoever coloured this thing knew exactly what they were doing because even though there are only three colours on its body all three are the perfect shade and in the perfect places. The white paired with the pale blue on its stomach gives this calming and majestic vibe, which goes along with how Lugia has always been presented in the Pokemon world as a fairly chill Pokemon. Then there’s the dark blue around its eyes and along it’s back that add just the right amount of sharpness to it that you still get the vibe of an all-powerful Pokemon.

The only real criticism I could level at it is that the “wings” essentially being giant hands is a tad goofy, but I find even this facet of its design somewhat endearing. Lugia proves to me that just because a legendary Pokemon has a simpler design, doesn’t mean it can’t fit the bill of a legendary Pokemon.

9 – Suicune

Suicune is a Pokemon that always feels a little out of place amongst the cover legendary group, as it’s technically a member of the secondary trio of the Johto region instead of a main-feature legendary. However, it’s on the cover of Crystal so that makes it a cover legendary.

Suicune isn’t actually my favourite of the legendary beast trio, but it’s definitely the one that I think works best for the cover of a game. The other two beasts look a bit rough compared to Suicune, Entei has a regal feel to it, but the colours don’t quite work for the cover a game and while I adore Raikou, it’s a bit sharp and messy. Suicune doesn’t have these issues though, it’s sleek and elegant in every aspect of its design.

Once again, the combination of white and a faded blue create an elegant and calming feel when you look at it, combining well with the diamond pattern along its body. The cape is a feature that would’ve worked in almost any colour, but the soft purple is perfect for creating this feeling of the wind flowing all around Suicune’s body, to the point where the cape almost looks to be in motion in every still image it features in. Finally, there’s the brilliant detail of its tails that act as ribbons along its sides. Suicune would’ve been a beautiful looking Pokemon without the ribbons along its side, but somehow the addition of such a simple feature takes the design to a whole other level.

Suicune is a Pokemon that had every element designed for a specific purpose and it all came together to make a Pokemon that could never be relegated to merely a secondary legendary trio, it had to make a cover.

8 – Palkia

If you’ve ever read anything Pokemon related by me before, you’ll know I love Generation 4 and it’s cover legendaries are no exception.

Palkia has this aura to it of a creature that is eternally angry about something. There’s something about the way its face is designed that makes it look like a Pokemon that’s absolutely furious at all times. The multiple sharp edges around its eyes and the way its body looks like it’s plated with some kind of space-metal give off this aura of an eternal guardian that’s really not happy about the whole situation.

The dark shade of pink that outlines every part of its body looks great too, it gives the white/grey that covers most of its body a greater sense of character and helps it to stand out in a legendary trio that is already very colourful. In fact, my main complaint about Palkia’s design is that there’s not enough pink on its body.

One of my favourite things about legendary Pokemon designs is how the designers are able to take the same design elements, apply them to 2, maybe even 3 Pokemon, and create Pokemon that all have the same feel while looking distinctly different from each other and Palkia is the perfect example of that. If I didn’t know Dialga & Palkia were part of a trio, I’d instantly group the two of them together because so many elements of their designs tie them together, even though Palkia looks nothing like Dialga at first glance.

7 – Solgaleo

I wasn’t until writing this list that I realised I tend to prefer quadruped Pokemon to biped ones. I’ve always preferred more animalistic Pokemon anyway and being a quadruped really adds to that feeling and Solgaleo is perhaps the best example of that.

On one level, you could argue Solgaleo is just a lion, however, I would argue that it’s actually a cosmic super-lion with a body of metal that would kill you as soon as look at you; and who doesn’t want that feeling from their legendary Pokemon. Solgaleo takes the animal it’s based on and takes the emotions and auras that we associate with that animal to whole other level, creating a beast that looks genuinely terrifying in the best way possible.

Tangentially, this is where I think the new Zacian & Zamamzenta fall down in their design slightly. I refrained from including them in this list because pre-release stuff is all we have on them so far, but right now all I see in their designs in that they’re slightly fancy wolves, they don’t do what Solgaleo does here which is amplify the design of the animal to create something special.

Solgaleo’s whole body looks like it’s been welded together, with marks and dents all over its legs that create a feeling of a Pokemon that gets in fights a lot. Then there’s the face, which has just the right amount of colouring on it to bring out the full effect of mane while keeping the ferocious look it has on its face. The semi-sphere for blue around its eyes only serve to highlight just how striking the rest of the facial design is, your eyes are instantly drawn to it before letting you take a look at everything that surrounds it.

If you’ve ever wondered what was the “right way” to design an animalistic Pokemon, this is the way to go about it.

6 – Ho-Oh

My love for Ho-Oh comes for many of the same reasons I love Solgaleo; it’s an animal I already know and love, but infinitely cooler looking.

What makes Ho-Oh so great of a design to me is the colouring. It’s bright and bold without being too in-your-face about it, it walks up to the line of garish, but stops just before it in order to make the second coolest looking bird Pokemon to ever exist (ain’t no-one surpassing my girl, Talonflame). The dark orange instantly makes it stand out, especially against its counterpart, Lugia, but its boldness is quickly softened by the white and light green on the tips of its wings, which are such a nice touch.

I never would’ve guessed that light green would’ve been the best colour to go with that shade of red/orange, but it grounds the design in a way that it definitely would’ve been missing with a bolder colour. Then there’s the golden highlights on its head and back that frame the whole design perfectly. Also, I don’t normally mention this, but its shiny form looks amazing.

Compared to most of the other cover legendaries, Ho-Oh is still a fairly simple design, but it has complexities in just the right places in order to make a Pokemon worthy of the “Gold” version.

5 – Yveltal

I did not expect that I would end up liking either of the generation 6 legendaries this much, but here we are.

Both gen 6 cover legendaries feel very different from all the others. I know that’s an odd thing to say since all of them are different, but Xerneas & Yveltal feel an extra step away than the rest. Maybe it was to do with this being the first generation to feature 3D models as standard, but whatever it is, I like it.

Yveltal is another bird Pokemon, but it’s a slightly wrong bird and it’s wrong in all the right ways…my head hurts. What I mean is, it has a lot of the elements you’d expect a bird Pokemon to have – tiny feet with sharp claws, massive wings and a pointed face – but it warps them slightly so they’re all a bit off. The wings aren’t made of feathers, their long strips that seem to be part of its body and giant claws on the end instead of talon feathers; it doesn’t have a mouth, only horns and very angry looking eyes and its tail looks exactly like its wings. It’s all slightly wrong, which makes for the feeling of a very warped Pokemon, which is exactly what Yveltal is supposed to be.

Red and Black is a colour scheme that I’ve always loved the look of and this is the perfect Pokemon for it, this Pokemon looks genuinely evil and I think it’s a wonderful design, I couldn’t think of anything better to embody death.

4 – Rayquaza

We need more green legendaries, I’m sick of the shade of red vs shade of blue versions we’ve got in all but two generations so far.

Rayquaza is a Pokemon that’s subtle in its complexity. Its body shape is incredibly simple, it’s literally just a straight line but the design is able to cram jus the right amount of detail onto that straight line that it’s got a great sense of beauty to it. I’m not the biggest fan of the colour green, but it really works here because it’s very striking in how different it is, both in comparison it’s trio-mates, Groudon & Kyogre, and against every cover legendary as a whole.

The green is highlighted by yellow, red and black, which on paper sounds like a horrible combination, but each of the colours is used sparing and in the right places to stop everything crashing and falling apart. The red on its talons that stick out act almost as go-faster stripes and then there are the yellow patters that stretch across its body, keeping with Kyogre & Groudon’s designs of the ancient & tribal looking patterns on their body.

In a twist from the Gen 3 trio, I actually like Mega-Rayquaza less than I like regular Rayquaza, the glowing golden ribbons that come off its head are a brilliant inclusion, but the rest of the design just seems a bit much to me. Outside of that, Rayquaza is an absolute winner of a Pokemon that deserves its status as the head of the weather trio. Wins the award for the best name too.

3 – Giratina

I’m going to be honest here, this top three was tough to order.

I talked a little while ago about how Yveltal looked like pure evil in its design and how Solgaleo looked terrifying. Well mash that sense of evil and terror together and that’s how Giratina makes me feel. The wonderful red & black colouring is back again, only this time it’s mixed in with grey & yellow highlights to bring a new level of pop to the design and somehow make it look even more menacing.

Its alternate form is undeniably great, but weaker than it’s origin form in my opinion. The alternate form still keeps the terrifying-looking face and I adore the design of its wings, but the shape of the body feels a bit off and I don’t think six legs quite work for the design. The origin form is a whole other story. The shape of its body changes to be that of something I can’t even really describe, with yellow spikes sticking out from a grey body that is covered with black & red stripes, as giant black and red spikes stick out from it’s back acting almost like terrifying shadow arms.

I don’t know about you, but that’s certainly way better than anything I could’ve imagined for Pokemon’s embodiment of the ruler of the underworld. Giratina manages to be all this, while still staying true to the design elements of the creation trio to form a Pokemon that lives exclusively in the nightmares of children.

2 – Xerneas

Xerneas is a prime example of a Pokemon that “grew on me” over time.

Maybe it’s because I was a stupid teenage boy at the time, but “life-giving rainbow deer” didn’t quite strike a chord with me when I first saw it, however over time I’ve come to love Xerneas as one of my all-time favourite Pokemon. Aside from the fact that it was the first Pokemon I ever had any real competitive success with, Xerneas’ design is the definition of a majestic looking Pokemon.

First things first, its horns are rainbows; quite frankly that should be all that’s necessary for an explanation, but I’ll go on. The shape of its face is interestingly designed in such a way so that it still keeps the sharp look of Yveltal’s face – thus keeping them on the same theme visually – but the narrow snout and rounded chin are able to make what is almost an identical face seem kind and benevolent instead of menacing. The darker shade of blue matches up nicely with the black of it’s lower body, where its tail is an adorable little puff of fur and its legs are shaped so gracefully and I absolutely love the way this thing moves.

While I would argue that other Pokemon on this list are more visually impressive, Xerneas’ design comes together with the theme and feel that the Pokemon is supposed to give off in order to elevate it into something better than just something pretty looking.

1 – Dialga

I mean, come on, have you ever seen a more bold, imposing and yet somehow graceful Pokemon?

Dialga flips the design from its counterpart, using the grey armour-looking material simply as detailing in this design, as opposed to Palkia, where it seems to be its entire body. I’ve always been fairly apathetic to the colour blue, but the particular shade they have for Dialga’s body here looks beautiful, made all the more brilliant by the light blue highlights all over its body.

The way the armour outlines its body makes it seem regal with its presence, like how a medieval king wears minimal armour just because it looks impressive; only, instead of ruling a small country, Dialga is the lord of time. I particularly love the segment on Dialga’s chest that houses its gem. Not only does it put the gem front and centre where it can look it’s best, but the shape of the plate stick out and forms around its body in just the right way to draw attention towards the centre of the chest.

When designing a Pokemon to represent time, it would’ve been easy for Game Freak to create a Pokemon with giant clocks of some description, but instead, they were able to create a Pokemon that I honestly hold up as one of my all-time favourites.

And that’s my list! Thank you very much for taking the time to read this, I’m sure your rankings will look very different to mine so please let me know what cover legendaries you love, either in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo. Finally, make sure to come back at the same time next week where I’ll be ranking every episode from Series 5 of Doctor Who!

Games I’m Looking Forward to In Q4 of 2019

As we move into the 4th quarter of the year, the season comes around where we get all of the big releases in the space of about a week, which is either very exciting or very inconvenient depending on your perspective. Unfortunately, this year’s line up seems a little more underwhelming, with many of the big AAA releases like Watchdogs Legion and Cyberpunk 2077 opting to go with a spring 2020 release date instead.

That said, there a still a bunch of potentially great games still to come as we look to end of 2019 and I thought it’d be a nice idea to highlight the host of games that are set to release before the year is out, to help remind people to not look ahead to next spring too soon.

8th October – Trine 4: The Nightmare Prince

Developer: Frozenbyte
Publisher: Modus Games
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4, Xbox One, Windows, Linux

I haven’t had much of a chance to talk about the Trine series in this blog yet, but it’s one of the few series I think could be fairly described as ‘underrated’ in the eyes of the general gaming populous.

If I had to describe the Trine games in a single word, that word would be “vibrant”. The fairytale-style seeps into every pour of the game, making it ooze this charm that I just can’t look away from. The colour pallet is absolutely beautiful, with vibrant blues, greens and purples creating this incredibly serene atmosphere, although it’s not afraid to effectively use reds, oranges and even browns effectively when it wants to change that atmosphere.

The puzzle-platforming mechanics are a little basic, but that’s overshadowed by the surprisingly fun nature of the combat. It’s not a million miles a minute like much 2D sidescrolling combat, but instead, everything in the world interacts with each other in unexpected ways to create some hilarious outcomes when you spawn a box in a space where it looks like you shouldn’t be able to.

Trine 3 took the series into the realm of 3D and while it wasn’t as fun as the first two games in the franchise, it still captured that sense of charm that drew me into the series in the first place. Form what we’ve seen so far Trine 4 seems to have mostly gone back to the 2D style of game and it’s looked to have expanded its puzzle-platforming mechanics to open up a load of new opportunities for fun to be had, so if you’re a fan of the genre, or even just uniquely pretty games, this will be one for you.

11th October – Tracks: The Train Set Game

Developer: Whoop Group
Publisher: Excalibur Publishing
Platforms: Windows

So here’s a game specifically made for me and people like me.

The concept of the game is very simple: You remember the wooden Brio train sets that you’d have loads of as a kid if you liked trains? And you remember how you always wanted to build massive crazy tracks but never could? Well, this game lets you do exactly that to your heart’s content.

I played this in Early Access early last year and it’s amazing. This game will let you build any track you could possibly imagine with all the different types of pieces that used to be available (and a couple that weren’t). You can build these track on a blank canvas, or you can use a living room or bedroom to weave your tracks through.

I haven’t played it in a while as I want to be surprised by the new stuff that’s been added at launch, but when I last played there was a whole host of scenery that you could add all around the tracks, so you could build a little town for your train to go around. BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE! The pièce de résistance is the fact that you can actually get in the train and drive your train around the tracks you’ve made…I KNOW RIGHT?!

I’m well aware many of you are reading this thinking I’m weird, but the three people who had the same childhood I did are over the moon right now.

22nd October – WWE 2K20

Developer: Visual Concepts
Publisher: 2K Games
Platforms: Playstation 4, Xbox One, Windows

For many years I was the kind of person that never understood why people bought a new sports game every year when they all seemed exactly the same from the perspective of an outside observer. However, having been a WWE fan for a good number of years now and buying the new game every single year, I totally understand the appeal.

Of course, I didn’t see the point in buying a new FIFA every year, I don’t like football. I do however like wrestling and as someone who plays the WWE games for at least 150 hours every year (usually more), the value is absolutely there for me to put down $60 every time a new one comes out.

That said, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little concerned about this year’s game.

For those who are unaware, for the 6 WWE games released under the 2K umbrella so far, Yukes has been a part of the development team and this year they weren’t, leaving Visual Concepts to develop the game on their own and that fact combined with how marketing has been behaving in the build-up to launch has me concerned. By this time last year, we had a full roster reveal and multiple press events where tonnes of gameplay was shown, but right now we’ve got absolutely none of that.

Don’t get me wrong as long as the game isn’t totally broken I’ll still buy it because I’m a sucker for the series and I don’t care who knows it, but I’m definitely going to wait for reviews to be sure until I put my money down on it.

25th October – The Outer Worlds

Developer: Obsidian Entertainment
Publisher: Private Division
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4, Xbox One, Windows

So far the games I’ve talked about are ones that I’m confident that I’m going to enjoy, either because they’re part of a franchise I love, or I’ve already played some of it prior to launch. The Outer Worlds, however, is slightly different because I really want to play it, but I’m not yet sure if I’ll enjoy it.

While I’m sure I’ll get lectures from people about this statement, but the game looks to be fairly similar to Fallout in terms of its main mechanics. This is to be expected as Obsidian’s biggest release before now was Fallout: New Vegas, so stick with what you know, so it’s a game I really want to try, but it’s not guaranteed to be a hit with me. I feel this way because of my relationship with Fallout 4 (the only one in the franchise I’ve played (I KNOW, shut up)) because when I played it at launch I didn’t enjoy it at all and over a number of years I would try over and over again to get into this and it wasn’t until early this summer that I finally cracked it and started enjoying it.

My hopes with this one is that it’s like Fallout, but not TOO much like Fallout, the gameplay that’s been shown up until now looks solid, but I always find it hard to gauge whether the feel of a game fits me by watching someone else playing it, so I’ll be very interested to see what I think of this one when it releases.

5th November – Planet Zoo

Developer: Frontier Developments
Publisher: Frontier Developments
Platforms: Windows

A few years ago Frontier Developments did something magical, they went to the farthest corners the Earth, searched through miles and miles of terrain until they found the withered and dying body of the theme park building genre and somehow breathed more life into it than it had ever had before. Planet Coaster is quite simply the best theme park building game ever made (no, that isn’t up for debate) and Planet Zoo looks to do exactly the same thing to the Zoo Tycoon genre that Planet Coaster was to theme park builders.

Of course, the focus is in a slightly different place with Planet Zoo as it’s all well and good making a zoo look pretty (which I absolutely will), but none of it matters if all of your animals are underfed. This game promises to put the focus in the caring and welfare of the animals you hold in your zoo, with some in depth-looking systems that mean you’ll have to adhere to all of the top-level standards that real zoos have to. Not that it’s going to stop me from throwing two of every animal into one pen and seeing who survives but that’s on me, not the game.

If the recent beta release that people have been able to get their hands on is any indication, Planet Zoo will live up to the hype that stands before it and I believe it will be a game that is just as beloved as Planet Coaster.

8th November – Death Stranding

Developer: Kojima Productions
Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Platforms: Playstation 4

I just want to know what it actually is.

I think I got the rough gist of what the “basic” premise is from the explanation we received at Gamescom earlier this year, but I’m still not entirely clear. It’s also really not obvious what the gameplay is like since so far we’ve seen our protagonist have several conversations, fall off a cliff and…mark his territory.

As such, I honestly can’t speculate on whether or not I think I’ll enjoy this. If I had to take a wild guess, I’d say I’ll think it’s fairly mediocre, but what do I know? This could be the greatest game ever made, it could be utter trash, I don’t think anyone anywhere in the world has any idea, including Hideo Kojima.

I’m anticipating this release more to see what the reaction is from the general gaming populous when it finally comes out, not so much to play it myself. It’s definitely a game I’m keeping an eye on, but I’m going to be waiting for the reviews to come out before I consider buying it for myself.

15th November: Pokemon Sword/Shield

Developer: Game Freak
Publisher: Nintendo & The Pokemon Company
Platforms: Nintendo Switch

If I need to explain this one to you then you’re obviously not paying enough attention.

In short: I like Pokemon…a lot.

I tend to judge Pokemon games on their own scale where I compare them to each other because for me they exist above other franchises. A Pokemon game can be full of obvious flaws an annoyances, but I’ll still enjoy it because it’s Pokemon and honestly, I like it that way, I like being happy.

Unfortunately, it’s very hard to tell where each game will fit on that scale before playing it. Case in point: Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, I honestly didn’t think I’d enjoy those games all that much, it didn’t look to me like they added much to the Alola region and they’d be quickly forgotten, but boy was I wrong about that and they are easily among my favourites in the franchise.

So far out of everything I’ve seen, I like most of it. I know the fact that the national dex won’t be in the game is a sticking point for many people, but I personally don’t mind too much as long as the game we get is good fun. The whole camping set up looks like it’ll have a lot more depth than Amie and Refresh did before it and I’m gonna dedicate my life to finding all the curry recipes if it kills me.

Out of the new Pokemon that have been revealed so far, I like the look of all but one and I’m overjoyed that we’re not only getting more regional variant but brand new evolutions for old Pokemon too; any game that gives Farfetch’d an evolution is good by me.

And that’s it! Thank you very much for taking the time to read this, please let me know what games you’re looking forward to the most either in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo! Finally, make sure to come back on Saturday as my coverage for WWE’s Hell in a Cell begins!