As always I will list my top ten games of the year in descending order. These are my opinions based on games I personally completed in 2018.
I didn't like the original Red Dead at all. I tried my best to get through it and it could never quite hold my interest. I told myself that I was going to see this one through to the end, and I did. If you've listened to me talk about it at all you know I universally disliked the gameplay.
Despite that the story and characters held me through to the end for what may be one of the greatest stories ever told in a video game. It's just a shame that the video game part put me off so much.
Celeste is a game about climbing a mountain as a metaphor for mental health issues. As someone who has battled with mental health issues it hit me pretty hard. The main character Madeline is deeply relatable and the whole thing never becomes too overbearing.
On top of that the fast paced platforming is top notch. Everything controls super tightly, so the high level of difficulty never feels insurmountable. Which I guess is another metaphor.
Ben Esposito toiled away for many years to bring us the charming world of Donut County. You play as a cheeky Raccoon named BK as he controls a literal hole and swallows up most of the town he lives in. Each thing that falls in the hole makes it bigger.
It's almost like reverse Katamari Damacy. The music, dialogue, and art style remind me of Katamari as well. It's a fun game that takes up a few hours. It says a lot that I wish the game had a bit more content, because I wanted to stay in the world.
I hadn't played a racing game in a long time, so I was craving a new one. My issue is that I love the arcade style of Burnout, but don't want the intense simulation of Forza Motorsport. Forza Horizon comes in somewhere in between those two other games making it just what I was looking for.
The world is fun to race around in and is jam packed with so much content it's almost impossible to complete it all.
I love Super Smash has a franchise, but over the course of the last few releases I became bogged down by the hyper-competitive nature of high-level play. This time I told myself I would play Smash for fun only and I have been loving my time with Ultimate.
It's very similar to Smash 4, but the mechanical changes do just enough to make it feel much different and in my opinion better. It has an almost comically large amount of content and works as an amazing Nintendo museum piece.
As someone who loves Spider-Man it was hard to see game after game come to market and be totally awful. The last time I remember enjoying a game representing the franchise was Spider-Man 2. Thankfully Insomniac as able to finally bring Spider-Man back to video games in a big way.
The web-slinging feels amazing, and It's just fun to travel around the open world. On top of that they tell a great story in a well-tread universe. Spider-man is back and I couldn't be happier.
The previous God of War games didn't do anything for me. In fact, I'd say I actively disliked them. Sony Santa Monica was able to resurrect a dormant franchise and give it new and exciting life. It makes the transition to Norse mythology and completely re-invents the character of Kratos.
It's wild that I now enjoy the combat in God of War, but it's even more crazy to say that it had one of the most compelling stories of the year. Kratos went from being angry to struggling as a father.
It's no secret that I love JRPGs, so the fact that a Dragon Quest game is so high on my list isn't very surprising. However, I think that Dragon Quest XI is special. It doesn't do a whole lot new for the genre, but it takes something that has already been done before and does it as best as it can be done. Sometimes there is something to be said about something that knows what it is and it's good.
I don't have a lot to say about it other than it's a great JRPG. I loved it.
As someone who came to Monster Hunter at its most obtuse it was amazing to see the franchise come to the western market and totally explode. It is now Capcom's highest selling game of all time, which is a testament to the core elements of the franchise. Capcom took a huge risk that could have alienated the core fans of their unbelievably popular franchise in order to elevate it to new heights.
This is the best Monster Hunter game by a country mile! It keeps the best parts of hunting while making it more accessible.
Rhythm games rarely make their way to the U.S. and if they do they're not very well supported. With DJMax Respect NeoWiz knocked it out of the park. New patches and DLC come to the game every few months to keep interest in the game up.
It's a deeply hard rhythm game, but getting better at it makes me feel awesome. Something about the gameplay and the wide variety of music keeps me coming back for more. I will keep coming back to it well into 2019.
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