Earlier on in this ranking, I called Process Of Elimination "Danganronpa At Home." Meanwhile, the ACTUAL people behind Danganronpa, Spike Chunsoft, had put out one of the best games I played this year. Ok, technically this was the first game I played after my last ranking series, since I got it on Christmas, but eh, details.
I already wrote an essay on how much I loved the original AI: The Somnium Files last year, and the sequel, Nirvana Initiative, is even better if I'm being honest. This game doesn't take long to get going either. You start the game at a quiz show, and after answering a couple questions, exactly 1/2 of a corpse (cut vertically!) drops down onto the quiz show floor and then a fire starts from it not long after. And then you're OFF.
Why did exactly half of a corpse (cut vertically) fall down from the rafters? Who is responsible for this? Well, your pair of detectives that you play as are out to find out exactly this. There are plenty of twists and turns, as you can expect from any game designed by that wonderful bastard Uchikoshi. I obviously can't talk about too much of the plot beyond the first 5/10 minutes because like, it's a murder mystery. Made by the same people behind Danganronpa AND the Zero Escape games. There's gonna be a shitload of surprises and I refuse to spoil them.
That said, there's a wide variety of gameplay elements on display here within the various Somniums. There's a little something for everyone. There's one that's literally a set of escape rooms. There's one that's a quiz show. There's a horror themed one where you can get jumpscared and get an instant game over if you don't react fast enough to the real-time clock. There's one that's just Pokemon. And if you beat the game, you get a bonus Somnium that is literally, L I T E R A L L Y, the opening stage to the first game in the Zero Escape trilogy, 999.
The last Somnium of this game, while I refuse to spoil what exactly happens, is something that's been living rent free in my brain for almost a full year now, I've watched it back on Youtube countless times. It's that one Wario meme. Yeah, you did the thing and figured out the mystery, but... at what cost? The first game in the duology had an extremely fun and satisfying ending, where you got to feel like a badass for taking the Big Bad down and everything is resolved by the end. This game is one that you might not feel the best about having completed, with one character in particular having my vote for the most tragic storyline in a game as someone who is still alive at the end. It's intensely bittersweet, even if it's a masterclass in storytelling.
As I've said a thousand times in this ranking already, this is another one I'm gonna have to highly recommend, though I'd suggest playing the original first.
You wanna know the pedigree of games I'm gonna be talking about moving forward? If we were talking strictly gameplay, with 0 mind paid to the story whatsoever, this would be #1 and it would not be remotely close.
Neon White is a speedrunner's wet dream, basically. It's an action platformer where you race to the end of a series of stages by using weapon cards to either kill enemies or use their discard abilities to progress (like one card gives you a second jump, another launches you straight forward, etc). It feels SO GODDAMN GOOD to clear gigantic stages in seconds flat. The enemies are, honestly, completely arbitrary, to the point most of them literally just take on the shape of blobs. Little more than devices you need to figure out how to eliminate quickly to progress faster.
There IS a story here, yeah, but it's pretty perfunctory. I know some people have issues with how anime-y it gets, but I never minded that. It really just boils down to you competing with the other Neons to reach the #1 rank so you can ascend, or whatever. Basically just get a minimum of Gold in every level and you won't need to think too hard about it. There's also presents you can collect to give to the cast to unlock hangouts with them, or mini challenges that will also increase your social connections with them.
If you want a game that's a gigantic fucking adrenaline rush, play this one. It's addicting, I personally have gotten Ace medals in about 2/3rds of the game and have even beaten the dev times in about 10 levels! This game is FANTASTIC, would absolutely recommend. This is peak gameplay right here. And I liked 5 games more than it this year. Fucking CHRIST.
In all honesty, I'm not 100% sure this one's better than It Takes Two, these are the 2 most recent games I finished, they're basically a tie rn. But let me make my case.
I'm sure every other Persona fan is also tired of all the fucking spin-offs but I gotta say, Persona 5 Tactica is the best one. Point blank and the period. I loved this game so much it has actually opened me up to trying out an entire new genre of games. Stay tuned for a bunch of Tactics games on my 2024 list, lol.
I'd argue this game has a better story than vanilla Persona 5, honestly. This game revolves around one politician, Toshiro, and his journey to get his fucking life in order after getting kidnapped and thrown into the metaverse. His journey through the various kingdoms ruled by the people both ruling and ruining his life was awe inspiring and when you start finding out shit from his backstory, it's powerful as hell. This man starts the game out, to put it quite bluntly, a total fucking pussy, and by the end of it he's a badass who had one of the best persona awakening scenes in the entire franchise and becomes a man worthy of respect.
The gameplay is amazing. The usual Persona gameplay works SO WELL in a tactical, grid based RPG, like holy shit. Again, a game that's so good that it turns me onto an entire genre has to count for SOMETHING, no? Purely based on gameplay, this was the 2nd or 3rd best game I played this year, with It Takes Two and one game yet to be revealed up there. Very few individual gameplay elements this year were as satisfying as downing an enemy and positioning all 3 of your party members to capture the entire board of enemies in this game's version of an all out attack.
This game is also funny as hell. This game fleshes out everyone in the party, as well as the side characters, way more than any of the others. The character moments are some of the strongest in the series, or hell even on this list. Hell, they even made the usually incredibly dull LAVENZA hilarious.
Strong gameplay, strong characters, strong emotions. Fantastic game, this was another all-timer for me without a question.
Today we go from an indie game I'd bet money none of you had ever heard of before my blog, to a game that won Game Of The Year a few years ago at the Game Awards. It be like that!
So funny story, I actually just finished It Takes Two on Tuesday night. I picked it up because it looked like a cute couples game and sat down with my partner to give it a go. How was it? It was a fucking RIDE.
First off, I totally get why this won GOTY, the storytelling and gameplay are both incredible and this is the best couples game I've ever come across. You play as a couple that have just announced their divorce to their child, and then proceeded to get shrunk down into the size of dolls. The goal is to get back to their bodies, and their lives, but they must learn to rekindle their relationship along the way.
This game is chock full of puzzles and all sorts of gameplay elements and gameplay styles. Holy hell, the variety of gameplay styles, lmao. There's several different racing stages. There's stealth sections where one player controls the terrain the other player walks on to avoid making any sort of noise. There's a section where one of you flies a biplane where the other fucking plays Smash Bros with a squirrel on top of this plane. (This is the only time the entire game we had to switch roles for a few moments, since I'm good at Smash and she could barely even get the controls down before getting her ass beat.)
The environments are gorgeous, oh my god. There's a lush garden. There's a child's play area filled to the brim with toys. There's a kingdom filled with stuffed animals. The one that was so good it forced me to raise this a couple spots, though, was the bright, neon colored world where you travel through various instruments and other musical landscapes. Everywhere you look, there's something new and very cool to see.
There's plenty of fun minigames and challenges you can do against eachother which add even MORE gameplay styles. There's a shooting gallery. There's even MORE races. There's a goddamn CHESSBOARD. I'm still tilted over that one since I accidentally threw with seconds to go. WHOOPS!
Overall, I had a lot of fun with this game and would highly recommend it, assuming you have a person to play with irl (since you CAN play online but like fuck that)!
...actually, there is one more thing I need to talk about with this one. Yep, it's time to get serious.
To put it very bluntly: There's a segment at the game's climax that hurt me, in a way I didn't even know I was capable of being hurt. I won't say what exactly happened, but it broke me. Story-wise, it is made very EXPLICITLY clear that what you are doing is very fucked up, and that you are in the wrong for doing it.
A shot was taken directly at the most vulnerable side of me: My inner child. The child that is still trying to cope with a lot of very fucked up things from when I was young, and who I haven't really been showing much love to either. A scene that probably wouldn't affect most people, including my partner, shattered me to the point where I had to put this game down for a good month to process everything. Why I was feeling the way I was, why I was able to be broken as hard as I was at that moment, and where to go from here.
Not only did this game bring me closer together with my partner and help improve communication (not that we were struggling with it), this game got me back in touch with myself and reminded me to love myself, including the bits and pieces of me that I've neglected.
I initially had this at #11. This feels a bit more accurate.
I was bored one day and was just kinda scrolling through the Playstation shop. I don’t really know what compelled me to check out a little indie game called A Space For The Unbound, but it was love at first sight. All those 5 star and 10/10 reviews couldn't be lying, right?
Taking place over in Indonesia, this game follows a couple who are close to graduating when mystical forces start to sneak their way into their lives. It starts as a nice lil slice of life game that takes some pretty wild turns that I can't say much about without spoiling.
This is one yall just need to play for yourselves. It's not a very long game but it's packed with content and I promise this is a game that will stick with you long after you finish.
We're kicking off the top 10 with a goddamn blindside! The game that helped me accept the inevitability of death and loss, the game that broke me harder than almost any other game on this list, save for one. The game which I played the most this year, according to my Playstation Wrap-Up,. This incredibly important game to me, is only #10.
I had never actually PLAYED Persona 3 or any version of it before this year, despite knowing how it ends. When Persona 3 Portable dropped on all modern consoles (along with 4 Golden, but that won't be here bc I grew up with that one) I just had to pick it up and give it a go. And I gotta say, having context now for the ending makes the game hit SO much harder.
My one real complaint is that it takes a bit for things to really feel like they're moving, but that's not too much of a negative because spending time just vibing with the members of SEES is great. Honestly, they're one of the most likeable casts in the series! I love that the game is just one huge dungeon instead of a bunch of different ones, it actually adds more mystery to it imo. I LOVE the feature that lets you just send party members off to explore on their own, it's so goddamn useful for basically everything from grinding to item collecting to progression. And omg FeMC is wonderful.
But none of that is why you come to this game. This is a game all about the inevitability of death. This is a game that will put you through the wringer emotionally, it's hard to get through the entire story with dry eyes. The way the concept of death is handled is done super maturely, to the point where you can take the lessons this game imparts upon the cast and apply them to your own life. It's extremely comforting, hell one of the most touching quotes is even my banner on my own PS5. This game means a lot to me, always has and always will.
And it's only the 10th best game I played this year. FUCK.
(god it's hard to find a gif that doesn't involve the Evoker, which I don't really want to post one of on here because lol not risking that)
