01-11-2018, 05:50 PM
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#4
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Bang-bang! Down-down!
OVR: 28
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Pensacola, FL
Posts: 16,781
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Re: 2017 Non-Sports Game of the Year
- Persona 5 - Worth the wait, and despite some unevenness, I was hooked for a 120 hours. I really appreciated how kinetic combat felt, thanks to the addition of Baton Pass and Guns, and the incredibly stylish and pulsating visual aesthetic. Along with numerous QOL improvements and more social options, this was the most fun I had with a Persona's gameplay. Great OST, fun and more grounded cast, and some interesting narrative themes, that in hindsight, are topical.
Others in my top 10 (no order):
- Hollow Knight - There's a lot of "Metroidvania" games, but this one is definitely in the class with the very best. I feel most of these games stumble a bit on either combat or exploration, but Hollow Knight does both well. The latter it does better than any other one I've played because of the way the map system works. It doesn't auto-fill, and you have to find a Cartographer and rest at a bench before it does. This could seem like an annoyance, but it works here and adds to the sense of exploration. The lack of immediate information is helped by guidance through landmarks, sign-posting, and NPCs. Story and lore is done in a very Souls-like way, and done so in the best possible way outside of those games themselves. It's a beautiful, dark, charming world with bugs and insects.
- What Remains of Edith Finch - An adventure of family despair. The way this inventively uses gameplay to connect you to a character and story would only be possible in this medium.
- Yakuza 0 - One minute you're beating up some street hooligans and the next you're doing something like helping a Dominatrix be better at her job. Afterwards you might decide to go sing karaoke or dance to Disco music. It's crazy, brilliant, and has a gripping crime thriller story. There's nothing quite like the Yakuza series, and this is the best one and perfect entry point.
- Divinity Original Sin 2 - One of the most content rich and mechanically dense RPG's I've ever played. A massive leap in writing over the first game, and the amount of legit freedom, choice, and consequence that permeates through the game's systems and quests, is genuinely staggering.
- Prey - A game out of time. More than BioShock, this feels like an actual spiritual successor to the System Shock series. Prey absolutely oozes atmosphere and exploring Talos 1 was an absolute joy. Amazing level design and worldbuilding, open-ended systems and encounters, and Mimics are some of the coolest enemy archetypes I've seen in a long while. Biggest surprise of the year.
- Cuphead - Marvelous presentation. The animation is seriously a massive achievement and all of that beautiful hand-drawn art doesn't come to life without it. This always had the looks, but it turns out, it has the gameplay chops too. Tight, challenging, and constant variety. Even during a few moments of frustration, it was hard not to smile.
- Horizon Zero Dawn - Guerrilla created a very compelling and gorgeous world, and I would argue the best combat of any open-world game. Love Aloy and the story turned out to be surprisingly deep. I'm salivating at how good the inevitable sequel could be.
- Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus - Running around and shooting Nazis in the face is pretty fun, but it really is the story, cast, and moments that elevate this to be something special. What's so impressive to me how effortlessly so many tonal shifts are handled.
- The Evil Within 2 - This is basically a modern Silent Hill done right. Super tense and rewarding on Nightmare difficulty and the story really comes together in the end.
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Go Noles!!! >>----->
Last edited by Flawless; 01-11-2018 at 05:52 PM.
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