[Awards] Game of the Year 2022

There weren't a whole lot of new games I played this year, it was mostly old ones. Because of this, I actually played so many old games I lost track of them! There won't be an "old games of the year" post or section because of this, at least not a long one. Let's get that out of the way!

They Include but are Not Limited to:
FFX

The remakes of RE 1-3, as well as 4, 6, 7, and 8.

Uncharted 1-4

FF7 Remake

EarthBound

And the first 2 Kingdom Hearts

I also played Tales of Phantasia for the first time, and my final verdict on it is: A technically impressive game for the time with a fresh new combat system as well as cool music and graphics, but the story sucks and the act of playing it isn't fun. Lots of times you just kinda have to figure out where the fuck to go because nobody tells you other than "We need to find/do the thing!", the encounter rate is too high meaning you need to constantly stock up on Holy Bottles to lower it, much of the balance is awful as some boss fights are easy and some are balls hard, and the last few dungeons including the final one are a huge pain in the ass. I'm aware that this story was massively cut down from what they wanted to do, showing maybe a third of the story they wanted to tell. But that's the problem, what we've ended up with is lame. Dhaos should be a good antagonist, he was once a fair ruling and peace loving prince of an alien world who was just doing what he had to in order to save it and the people of the protagonists world treated him horrible and corrupted him, but in the end all the lives he took were still in service of saving his home planet. Good shit! I woulda loved it if you learned any of that in game outside of a fucking exposition dump after you beat him! They had to make books and stuff that explained all the character they didn't give him in the actual game. It opens with a quote from a fictional character that says "If evil exists, it lurks in the hearts of men.", alluding to the theme of the game that the true evil was greed and violence and hatred and all that stuff. It made Dhaos a monster and it's what allowed people to later be manipulated by him. But you barely get any of that in the game itself. That's to say nothing of the paper thin heroes whose characters do not ever evolve beyond their simple archetypes, or the lousy romance they shoehorn in. I swear to god, Arche and Chester fall in love, after having two scenes where they interact with each other and do nothing but insult one another, implying that I guess they were both just being tsundere. It sucks.

Later Tales games are way better and they had to start somewhere, but what a rough start!

Now on to the new games:

Best Game I'm not in the Mood for Right Now:

Chrono Cross: Radical Dreamers Edition

I love Chrono Cross... but I need to be in the mood for Chrono Cross. It turns out I just wasn't when it came out. But, it's a great game and this is a nice release! I don't care for the new models and art, but luckily you can turn them off. It's sucks and is retarded that the new portraits are tied to the new models so you can only turn both on and off, but it's not as much of an issue for me since like I said I don't care for the new models either. I like the new art way less, it completely lacks the charm of the old art and just doesn't look as good in general, very sterile, almost generic. Still, hey, it's Chrono Cross, love it or hate it. I'd recommend it if you haven't, just to see if you pick up what it's puttin' down, or if you can't dig it.

However, this release also includes, for the first time in the west: Radical Dreamers ~Le Tresor Interdit~

What this is, is a text adventure game that is a prototype of Chrono Cross, sharing settings and characters and even some plot points. You play as Serge, who goes with Kid and Magil to Viper Manor, in the hopes of finding the Frozen Flame and getting revenge on the villainous Lynx who killed Kid's foster mother. If that sounds familiar, much of that is true about Chrono Cross. This game also features Lord Viper's daugther, Ridell, and the old man who was once the leader of the Acacia Dragoons. Oh and the Einlanzer is an important sword and sister sword to the Masamune. 

The game plays kinda like a visual novel but with battles. Text describes where you are and what options you have, and you choose which option you wanna take. Which way do you go, which book do you look at, where do you check for something; stuff like that. In battle, you have a bunch of options as to how to fight, do you wanna try to tackle the goblin or dodge the goblin for example. Each time the battle will start to play out differently and you'll need to gauge the situation and choose which will allow you to avoid damage and cause it. You have invisible HP only really able to be quantified with how Serge describes his situation after the battle is over. If he says he's banged up but could be worse, it's about half. If he says he's in bad shape and needs to be careful, he's low. You can find both through certain story events and randomly from some of the encounters you can have, ways to heal yourself, but they're limited.

It's a fun game for what it is, can be beaten in about 1 sitting, but is a fairly unique SNES game with a lot of cool ass pixelart and good music, as well as a killer atmosphere. The story is interesting even if it's never followed up on, and it has multiple endings to get just like Chrono Trigger. It's a cool game!

And it's great to have it here in western territories. I own a reproduction cartridge of the Aeon Genesis fantranslation from 2004, but it was never officially released in english until now... or released physically at all. It was put out via the "Satelleview", which was some kind of satellite based download service Nintendo did in japan, which offered several games. That's right, they've been doing digital downloads since the fucking 90s. I think Sega had something like this, was it called "Sega Channel" or was that something else? Either way, crazy to think about but yeah.

This might still be digital only, which is why I'm glad I have the repro, but it's still great that we Burgerlanders and Bonglanders can now play this game officially as well.

Blast From My Past, but also Worst Port:

Alan Wake Remastered

So uh, it's Alan Wake. There's not a whole lot more to say other than that. I like Alan Wake a lot, almost entirely to do with things other than it's gameplay, which is a solid foundation that is fun at first but kinda gets old fast. The design and structure of the game doesn't elevate the mechanics, rather it makes them get old. You're gonna be wandering around the woods for a while shooting dudes after you destroy their Darkness Shields with your flashlight or flares and then finally you'll get to a new story segment. The best parts of the game are basically walking sim parts like in your Sony Movie Games. It's a game that has a lot of personality and heart that kinda makes up for it's shortcomings and is something I find endearing but you might not. Like most Remedy games, aside Max Payne which people kinda universally love. I played this back around when it came out I guess, on the Xbox 360 back when I had one of those. I liked it then, I like it now, but it definitely is a western game of that era. Still, it's nice to revist it it!

What isn't is the issue with this port, which is that it has a "graphics mode" which makes it stutter and causes my PS4 Pro's fan to go into maximum overdrive(see I made a Stephen King reference because this game is inspired by King's work) and sound like a jet plane taking off. Performance Mode is great though, runs at a solid 60 FPS and looks just fine to me, in fact I couldn't tell the difference really between the two modes. Probably some kind of specific lighting thing. 

The big problem is, base model PS4s and Slims don't support these modes, you just get the one. And it barely fucking runs. It doesn't stutter, it chugs. Basically unplayable. 

So good job assholes, if you didn't upgrade or just buy a Pro as your first like me, you're screwed. Well unless you have a 5 I bet it runs great there, but who the fuck does aside youtubers? Literally the only people I can confirm have one is people who bought scalped units or youtubers who had the money to buy it on launch.

Dunno how it works on the xboxes, bet it's fine.

"Bare Minimum Effort" Award:

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII: Reunion.

I don't have a lot to say about this. It's Crisis Core, it's got a lot of story problems but it's also got a fantastic ending that it absolutely sticks the landing on and makes up for a lot of it's issues with. Zack's a good character, the gameplay is fun for a PSP game, and overall I like it even if I got problems with it. 

And this is just that game, but with fancier graphics. 

Honestly I woulda preferred a straight remaster instead of creating new graphics, because that's practically what this is. They quite literally just added a new coat of paint over this. The controls are the same, the cutscene animations are the same including the awkward "definitely a PSP game" stuff, they reused ALL the FMVs from the PSP version which are slightly pixelly from compression artifacting, it's just so lazy. A lot of the assets are also straight up reused from Remake. The things that are different are: The voice acting, which isn't as good so I turned on japanese VO. The graphics. The Buster Sword now comes with a stance change you can activate. Battle animations look different. 

There you go. I don't even like the new graphics either, they're kinda ugly actually. Seriously just a straight upscale of this woulda been better, but hey I guess I can just do that in an emulator lol. They kinda billed this as more than JUST a remaster, which technically it isn't because they've actually remade some stuff, but why this half-step? Either remake it on the level of like the Spyro and Crash ones, or just upscale it. Hell the latter is lazier and people would be fine with it! 

Also they apparently included fucking stock images kek:

Game of 2016:

OneShot: World Machine Edition

OneShot is a cool puzzle adventure RPG Maker game that was later expanded into an even better version that was released in 2016 on Steam, and now it's come to consoles!

OneShot is a very meta game, way more than Undertale could ever hope to be, yet it works incredibly well with how it justifies it in the narrative(well, it does in the true ending at least). An example is that while the world and it's people are just programs, protagonist Niko is not. He is from some other world, and is in this one, and you must help him leave. 

He's supposedly the chosen one, who will take the Sun Bulb to a large tower in the center of the world and replace the burnt out Sun, saving all. Of course it's not perfect, the world will still be in decline, but they'll at least have the damn Sun back until the new one goes out. The story is one of that struggle, is this even worth it?

To get Niko there, you, who are actually you Niko talks to you, have to guide him. The game takes your computer's name or your account's name on console and at the start says "You only have one shot [insert name]". You can also tell Niko it's not your name, and input your real one. Because my name is not Unopened_Letter, that's just my PSN username. 

To solve many of these puzzles, you'll have to go outside the game window, to find files the game places on your computer. One early puzzle, for instance, requires you to find a safe code in a txt file. They get more elaborate and inventive from there, and it really gives you a greater feeling of attachment to this story in addition to being mind blowing your first time around. You gotta solve these puzzles, you, with your own computer. It makes it feel less like playing a game and more like helping something the only way you can. It's cool! 

So, with this whole conceit, how does this work on console? Well, it doesn't, so for consoles you play the game in a virtual OS, on which the files are placed. It's kinda cool, because now it's like the game you're playing is this fictional computer, on which the game OneShot is installed. It doesn't have as much impact, but it is a neat way to play it. I don't recommend this version if you haven't played it before, just get the PC version in that case, a toaster could run it. But if you have, it's a neat way to play like I said.

Plus, it has some stuff like new artwork in the form of wallpapers, and character profiles to collect.

Game of 2020:

Omori Console Version

I've already talked about Omori in my last GOTY post so I have nothing much more to say, still one of my favorite games of all time and probably will remain that way. 

This port isn't bad, I'd say it's pretty good actually. It has some new optional content that I, uhh, didn't really do, but hey it's there. I did do the new boss with Bossman Hero, but that's it. I wish they'd added something to the True Route, as all the new stuff is in the Omori Route, but still. The issue I have is there's some bugs, one I encountered is beneficial, as I forgot to pick up a key item at one point but the game registered it as if I had later on. One is a minor issue, which is that upon collecting all items needed to access The Abyss, the game "crashes" and then starts up where you got the last one. The game now permanently starts up where I got the last one. It might be because I got the last one at the start of The Abyss, as it plays a scene where it opens up. This scene plays when I boot up the game, even when I'm on the route where you can't do this dungeon. It's extra weird, because when on that route, you can't load saves from the other. In addition, the game also erases all saves made in the third slot I believe, which I assume is where it stores the autosave for the "crash".

Luckily you can get to the load screen from in game so it wasn't too bad, but it's still annoying. 

But it doesn't really matter in the end, cuz it's a good game and I love it, and that's something that only happens if you do the less interesting story route which I don't recommend unless you're obsessed and wanna 100% complete the game like me. I got all the trophies.

Do play!!!

Actual New Game I Played This Year:

Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origins

Finally, a game that's actually new and not a port or remaster! Stranger of Paradise is a cool game with some fun gameplay and a neato story and that's all I really have to say about it cuz everything interesting about it is a spoiler. Well, aside from Jack being just a fun protagonist. Yeah, his sole defining character trait is he's angry and wants to kill Chaos, but they go all in on that and it makes for an enjoyable character to watch. He doesn't care about geopolitcal situations, what the bad guys are scheming, how he got here or why he wants to kill Chaos, anything. He doesn't have time for talking, politics, bad guy monologues, none of it. He straight up punches a guy in the middle of his "Oh I'm the bad guy of baddieness I'm so hardcore and threatening blarg you're a fool to fight me" speech it's great. Reminds me of Asura from Asura's Wrath, guy did not give a SHIT, he just wanted to save his daughter and get revenge. And he's a great character because of it! My favorite moment in Stranger is when Jack angrily tells someone to watch out for the lasers or whatever, and he responds "geez sorry!" and Jack says "No no, I wasn't angry, this is just how I am." It's such a fun bit, and good bit of characterization. That's just kinda how he is, it weirdly humanizes him as well as being self aware. This sort of thing is usually done to excuse bad writing, but here it's good writing. 

There's twists and turns and a lot of cool story beats, I just wish the game wasn't so difficult. I had to turn it down to easy, because I'm bad at Souls games to begin with and this plays like one but faster. I couldn't keep up at all. Apparently it's more like Team Ninja's Nioh, which well I doubt I could play that one. Only Soulslike I've beaten was Code Vein. 

Still, I had a good time and I liked it a bunch!

Survival Revival; Game of The Year:

Signalis

SIGNALIS is a surreal throwback to classic survival horror, looking kinda like an old PS1 or PC game of the time, and taking design cues from Resident Evil and storytelling cues from Silent Hill. It wears it's inspirations on it's sleeve and that's okay! It mentions everything it's inspired by in the Steam store page and what they say is indeed reflected in the game. It's Silent Hill, Resident Evil, End of Evangelion, Lovecraft, Alien/s, and Blade Runner all rolled into one with probably a bunch of artsy stuff I don't know about. This results in a game with an intriguing, surreal, and existentially scary story told primarily in notes and through strange, Lynchian scenes. A game that plays lot like a cross between an SH and RE game and is very challenging and scratches the old school survival horror itch that I kinda have at all times. It's a complex narrative full of symbolism and I don't fully understand it, but it doesn't come off as pretentious or as an amalgamation of artsy fartsy imagery that was thrown together in the hopes it would look deep. There is a concrete story in here, it's just hard to figure out. Many clues are given cryptically and are scattered about, or are arrived at via metaphors and visuals. It's tough and I haven't figured it all out, but it definitely feels like there's a specific thing to figure out and not just pure interpretation. The worldbuilding is also fantastic, it's a very detailed and complex universe, which appears to take place in future where the axis powers won, except I don't think they're even from earth originally? This results in the game world having a fantastic atmosphere and aesthetic, the art direction and "set" design is amazing. It's a cool looking game despite it's low polygon count. A variety of interesting and thought provoking themes give you, well, something to think about as you try to survive through techno-hivemind-zombies. There are issues, the aiming system isn't great and causes me a lot of trouble, and on the hardest "suvival" setting the game gets more frustrating than challenging later on, but it's still a good game with some good puzzles that I only needed a guide for a couple times. I enjoyed playing it, I enjoyed the story, I enjoyed the music. I just enjoyed this game a lot! It's creative, literally inspired, a great recapturing of what made horror games so cool in the 90s and early 2000s, and it's pretty deep and cool. Everything is a spoiler and this vague shit is all I can say, sorry.

It's my game of the year. 

And that's it for the post! Pretty short this year but again, I didn't play many new releases. I played like, one major release and that's it lol. So we're done for this year, hope I play more next year! I probably will, too, since things are already stacked. We got P4 on PS4, Yakuza Isshin, and the RE4 Remake right off the bat! But for now, Sayonara, Shadow the Hedgehog baby!

Play us out!

https://signalis-ost.bandcamp.com/track/die-toteninsel-emptiness