Favorite Games of 2017

So, I wanted to put together a list of my four favorite games this year. I am not saying that these were the best games of the year, merely the titles that I personally got the most out of. This is filled with bias from my own personal tastes in games, and what I consider important to the medium. Something like Super Mario Odyssey, which was a solid and enjoyable Mario title that delivered exactly what it promised, just isn’t enough for me anymore. I’m looking for unique experiences, or things that advance genres or the medium in general that were made with love, care, and quality.

4. Tales of Berseria

Probably the only game on this list you haven’t played, or possibly even heard of, Berseria came out at the beginning of 2017 and got lost in the hype train around releases like Zelda and Horizon. Having not really enjoyed the last two games in the “Tales” series, I really wasn’t expecting much going in. I was so happy to be proven wrong.

You are the villain of the story, you’re the character the nations and people of the world are in fear of. The person you’re trying to kill could have been the hero of his own game. The twist is that he did something so horrible and terrible to you that you feel justified in getting your revenge, no matter the cost. The game gives you full context as to why the main character, Velvet, is doing the things she is and it is incredibly engaging to see what transformed her into what she is, and how she changes along the way. Your party is made up of misfits and rejects, who all have their own motivations for journeying with you and stand as solid characters on their own. It is an amazing story.

While there are a few other games where you are the bad guy out there, most treat it with levity, or never really push the boundaries. In Berseria, you burn down towns, you murder people, you have some pretty fucked up shit done to you while being surrounded by enjoyable and interesting characters. It also helps the overall experience that the core combat and gameplay remains solid throughout. This was a unique story, and one I feel is totally worth experiencing.

3. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

I’ve been noticing a trend lately where people seem to be almost pivoting on their opinions about Zelda. Sure, it is getting GOTY awards left and right, but my conversations with people and what I see online seems to be turning around. The game had flaws for sure. There were like six enemy types, the dungeons were convoluted, inventory management was a mess, there was a lack of variety in the open world activities. You could nitpick the game for days, but the things it did to push the genre forward, and the things it absolutely nailed, cannot be ignored.

First and foremost, the game respected me as a player. I wasn’t bogged down with tutorial missions or explanations, I was given the keys to the car and told to just “Go”. So much of the game was just left for me to discover on my own and I greatly appreciated this. Did you know that all the shrines in the game had birds flying above them to help you locate it? The game never told you little things like this, but your experience wasn’t lessened by missing out. But if you did discover it, you felt clever and rewarded. The game has countless examples of this, little tiny moments where you feel smart as a player for figuring something out.

It also removes one of the biggest issues I have with 3^rd person open world games, and that is the “checklist” approach to content and collectables. You can’t open a GTA or Assassins Creed game without seeing the same 8 activities copied and pasted in every region, with some sort of counter or checkbox to track your progress. Even Horizon, as good as it was, suffered from this. These types of games are often plagued with tons of collectables and cluttered maps which serve no other purpose than ticking off boxes. Zelda had no minimap markers for shrines or seeds until they were discovered. All you had to go off was your own curiosity when looking at the map for unique landmarks, or your radar to give you an initial bearing. You do have a list for the memories, but that was to give you a clue as to where to go. You didn’t get a giant map marker or a dotted line trail to follow, in the end it was still up to you to explore.

This game moved the genre forward in a way that we will begin to see in 2018 as other open world titles begin to emulate it. If nothing else, it deserves recognition for that. It also helps that on top of it all, the game was a blast to play and was incredibly memorable.

2. Nier: Automata

I can’t tell you how many reviews I have seen over the years that have gone something like this:

“While the core gameplay is very fun, the story and systems aren’t very interesting. 8/10”

So, to see a game like Automata get scored in that range tells me that people played this game for eight hours, slapped a number on it, and moved on to the next review they had to rush out the door.

Nier is a game that doesn’t even take the time to acknowledge its amazing gameplay. It has too much personality, world building, and story to get through to spend time dwelling on how seamless it can transition from side scroller, to action game, to top down shooter. Combat is consistently thrilling and entertaining, as the game continues to throw incredible boss encounters and gameplay segments at you. There is a substantial amount of freedom in how you approach combat with different weapon types, and builds you can take for your character. Combat is every bit as thrilling as a “Devil May Cry” or “Bayonetta”, and it is just the ground floor that the rest of this masterpiece is built on.

The game is essentially three segments. You play as a specific character in the first and second, and bounce between two in the third. The second segment is the game’s weak point, and the point I initially walked away myself. It is a retelling of the first segment from your partner’s point of view. While there is some unique info you gain, about 70% of the playthrough is repeating the same things you did in the first segment. 

The second segment can drag on a bit, but if you manage to get through it and get to the third segment, you are rewarded with one of the most unique and memorable experiences in gaming. I say that completely free of any hyperbole. The game utilizes the medium itself to present concepts and emotions that wouldn’t be possible in any other form of entertainment.

Take everything I have described and add on an amazing story about free will and individuality, the best soundtrack in decades, and amazing art direction, you have a title that I feel everyone needs to play. This write up may feel a bit limited, but to expand on it any more would be doing you a disservice. Just play it.

1. Persona 5

As I was playing through Xenoblade Chronicles 2, I had quite a few people ask me if they should pick it up and I had to keep saying “No.”. Not because XC2 was a bad game, but because it was a very classical JRPG, complete with all the tropes you would expect, a very slow-going story, and a complicated combat system that punishes you for not playing efficiently. Unless you know what you’re getting into and have the patience for a game like that, I don’t think it is worth your time. Persona 5 on the other hand, is a JRPG I would recommend to absolutely anyone, and was without a doubt my favorite game this year.

This is a game that has its own identity and voice, with personality and style visible on every screen capture. You play a Japanese High School student in modern day Tokyo who moonlights as a supernatural vigilante, going into the minds of terrible people and forcing them to confess their crimes publicly. You must balance your limited time each day between your school responsibilities, personal relationships, or making progress in the mind palace of the adult whose heart you are trying to change. Should you ask Makoto out on a date, or should you progress deeper into the dungeon? What about mid-terms? Those are coming up and you haven’t studied! Along the way you pick up other broken and interesting people to join you on your adventures in what ends up being a very human and wonderful group of companions.

All the game systems are connected in this beautiful web that makes the time management piece so compelling. Increasing relationships in the real world makes those people stronger in combat, or grants a passive bonus. Getting better at combat allows you to progress faster in a dungeon by spending fewer resources, which in turn gives you more time to spend socially. There are so many choices you can make, and none of them feel wrong. As far as game design goes, it is an amazing feat to pull of something like that. The whole experience is wrapped up with the best UI design I have ever seen, a stellar storyline, and a brilliant soundtrack that only adds to the game’s personality.

The gameplay is an addictive loop, and I love every broken soul who joined me on this adventure. A general litmus test I run on myself to see how memorable a game is involves listing off all party members from memory and I can still do that for P5 in a heartbeat. This title is an absolute testament to amazing game design. You can see the thought and attention to detail that went into every aspect of this game. It is a complete package.