2021. It was 2020 again, but weirder. On my side, I’ve been stuck in my house, working from home, since March 2020, I’m fine with that. Just working, working out, watching an unhealthy amount of vtubers and playing an unhealthy amount of video games. I had cataracts all of 2020 and early 2021 so I could barely see for a while, I got those fixed this year so that’s nice. I don’t really have much else to say on the non-gaming side of things, no big health emergencies in the family this year so that’s good. Not much activity overall. That said there was SOMETHING new… this website. I talked about this in the first post I made here, but I had a different site before this (called The Save Points, which originally was a group project but became a solo project fairly quickly), but ran into some DNS issues and decided to abandon the site I had built for the last 13 years. Switched how I did a few things, but yeah, having fun with this new site now. Definitely want to improve things a bit, I want to post more than I do.

As far as gaming, 2021 was actually pretty solid. I don’t know how it happened, but I constantly had something to play. Every month had at least 2 great games (plus a bunch of smaller decent games) which is not something that happens in most years. I didn’t even play all the games I was interested in this year, it was too busy. I didn’t even play too many stinkers, pretty much just Outriders, Axiom Verge 2 and NEO TWEWY.

So I have my own way of doing things for the GotY. Instead of being lame and choosing one winner, or being even lamer and doing a bunch of weird meaningless categories that have a ton of shitty nominations (made by people who hate video games), I just choose, like, 7 winners. I do put one winner on top of everyone else for maximum subjectivity, but yeah, 7 winners, the 7 best games of the year, let’s fucking go.

Since this IS an end-of-year post about the top games of the year, I do want to take the time to look back on some things, so I’ll rant about the console manufacturers a bit and whatever else catches my fancy, then select the 7 GotY winners. I also list a bunch of honorable mentions because I’m just a nice guy like that.

Oh hey I conveniently linked to the relevant sections if you want to skip my inane rantings. You’re welcome.

• Rant (seriously skip this part if you just want to see the winners)
• Games of the Year Winners
• Games of the Year Super Winner
• Honorable mentions

I will note before this that there are in fact games I haven’t played. So if a game you liked isn’t on the list, know that it’s either that I didn’t play it, or it sucked balls. It’s okay, you’re allowed to like bad games. Also I didn’t get a PS5 this year (for reasons I might rant about), so the one good exclusive on it is also a game I didn’t play. I’m sure Ratchet is great (impressions are basically all positive), I just didn’t want to buy a PS5 just to play that one game. I didn’t play Village (though I did analyze the gameplay from watching Gura playing it, it needs some help). I hear great things about Inscryption, I didn’t buy it. And there’s other games I’m interested in I didn’t play like Cruisn’ Blast, Super Robot Wars 30, Eastward and probably some others. I also literally just got a few other 2021 games that I will review later, maybe they’re good too.

Without further ado, let’s do this thing. 2021 Games of the Year let’s fucking go!

Rant

Seriously this rant is longer than expected so click here if you want to skip to the good stuff.

So 2021 was a pretty good year that is hard to complain about as far as gaming goes. There were just a lot of really good games. Strangely good games. Even some I wasn’t that hyped for ended up being some of my top games of the year. But we do have to talk about SOMETHING in this rant section, and the console manufacturers have stuff we can talk about. I mean, if I want to rant about the shitty games I played… this is a review site, you can go read my reviews for Outriders, Axiom Verge 2 and NEO TWEWY. So let’s talk about the big 3 console guys!

Sony’s continued lack of being a decent video game company makes me confused about their console sales, as usual. I get that, like, at least half the PS5 sales are scammers scalping them for ridiculous prices, but still… there’s no reason the PS5 should have the demand it does have regardless. Thing has one game. It seems pretty solid, by all accounts. I like the previous Ratchet games a lot so it’s probably quite good. But they have literally nothing else. The only other exclusive it got this year is Returnal, which seems like it has fun shooting gameplay (and everything I’ve seen seems to confirm that), but that it’s also really badly-designed as a roguelite where some of the progression is just based on just repeating runs until you get some random thing to appear in a level (which can work if runs are short, which these semingly aren’t). Returnal is still a game I WILL get when I get a PS5, but I’ll wait for it to be, like, 15$. And that’s that for the PS5. Ratchet, a roguelite that doesn’t function well as a roguelite, and PS4 games. What a dumb console. Oh I guess there was Destruction All-Stars, a game that failed so hard people couldn’t find online matches in it a week after release.

And the PS5’s badness has progressed quite a bit this year. Ignoring the scalping (which is going on everywhere right now anyways… GPUs, consoles, Pokemon cards, jet skis), and the fact that it had a shitty launch because all of the games on it were also on PS4, and the only one that wasn’t was a PS3 game… This year it proceeded to only get 2 exclusives even worth thinking about, and getting a bunch of its upcoming exclusives announced to… not be exclusives anymore. We already knew about Horizon 2 being a PS4 game, that’s not new (and it’s likely to get a PC release too since the first one did and performed well there). God of War Ragnarok was confirmed to be a PS4 game (and if the PC release of the previous one does well, that’s going there too). Gran Turismo was confirmed to be a PS4 game… and that’s it. The only other PS5 games announced are Spider-man 2 which is only out in 2023 and Wolverine, which is by the same studio so it’s probably out 2024 or later. There’s so little to play on PS5, it’s actually ridiculous. I don’t think Sony cares about the PS5. But that’s nothing new, they didn’t care about the PS4 or Vita either (Vita was only good because a small handful of japanese devs gave a shit about it and actually released games). So it’s par for the course really. It makes them money so they don’t have to care. AND they closed down Japan Studio (due to Playstation HQ in California being led by racists). That’s totally gonna help that lack of games. Sony needs to justify the PS5, and in it’s first year they have not, not even close. I could’ve easily bought a PS5 at MSRP despite the scalping at least 10 times, and each time I just had to think “Why would I do this?” to not end up buying one… because there’s no good justification to buying this stupid console. I do really want to play Ratchet, but that’s one game. Maybe year 2 will be less stupid? It better be. Right now you’re much better off just keeping your PS4 for the not-actually-exclusives and playing other multiplats on PC where they’ll play better than on the PS5. No, a game that is on PS5 and PC is not PS5 exclusive, dextero.com. I actually went off on the PS5 without talking about Sony of California’s just awful double-standard censorship policies and overall shittiness (and hatred of artictic freedom), nice. Sony sucks 😀

Microsoft is in a similar situation as Sony, but the circumstances and intent are different. The Xbox Series X is a weird pointless console. We knew that well before it was even announced, of course. It was back in 2016 that Microsoft announced exclusives were no longer a thing for Xbox, that all games coming to Xbox would also come to PC. This is something I don’t actually mind. The more games are multiplat, the better. But at the same time it means the Xbox Series X is in a weird state where it kinda exists for no reason. If you build a semi-decent PC, you don’t need an Xbox. The big selling point of Xbox now is the Game Pass, which is also available on PC (with a slightly different game selection, but pretty close). Basically you pay a bunch a month to get access to a pretty decent library of games as long as you’re subbed. A bunch of games appear on the service on release day too which is probably the biggest appeal here. I don’t subscribe to Game Pass, but I can see it being a really solid selling point for Xbox… if it wasn’t also on PC. Build a PC. Seriously I have very little to talk about when it comes to Xbox anymore because… why would I? It’s a big pile of nothing. Like, at least the PS5 is SUPPOSED to have games, so I’ve got plenty to complain about when it doesn’t get any. With the Xbox… whatever man. It’s supposed to not have games, it’s by design.

I wasn’t going to have TOO much to say about Nintendo, but the September Direct gave me a rant on a silver platter. The Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pass… What the fuck are they thinking? I’ll be clear here, paid online on any console is a fucking scam (paying to play a game you already paid for, on a console you paid for, on an internet connection you pay for? And you don’t even get dedicated servers, it’s just really bad laggy P2P? That’s a scam, whoever does it), even on Switch where it is cheaper than the other platforms. But this expansion pass was wildly bad. The pricing is just off the fucking rails. At its core, for 20$ a year, you get online play and a pretty subpar selection of SNES and NES games. It already sucks. The Expansion Pass adds a piddling selection of barely functional N64 games, and a very tiny selection of Genesis games. You’d expect that to cost, what, 3-5 extra dollars? No it’s 30. THIRTY. And that’s on top of the standard 20$. So you gotta pay 50$ a year, for a couple N64 games that don’t work well and a couple NES, SNES and Genesis games, that should cost like a dollar each on Steam at most. Amazing. Oh and you get the Animal Crossing DLC in there for some reason. It’s not a bonus thing or anything like that, instead it’s actually part of the pass. If you cancel your subscription or don’t renew, you lose access to that DLC in your AC save. What the actual fuck? I can’t even try to defend this garbage.

There’s another thing that happened for Nintendo, that being the continuation of endless “Switch Pro is coming this year” rumors, which have been going on since 2017 (just to show how ridiculous these rumors are). But this year they were totally real, right? So many “believable” “leakers” put their reputation on the line. Bloomberg put its lack of reputation on the line (note: Bloomberg is a rag). It was finally happening for real after 4 years of nonstop rumors! … Yeah no, Nintendo just released the same console again but with a slightly bigger OLED screen. Yay? I actually don’t mind this, because “Pro” consoles are fucking stupid. There’s a reason they never happened before last generation. Console revisions were always cosmetic for home consoles, and size/backlight for handhelds, and for good reason. There’s no point in releasing a version of the same console that’s stronger if it just ends up playing the exact same games… and if it has exclusives, that’s just being shitty to the consumer of the first version for no reason. Hey shitty “leakers”, maybe next year is gonna be the one, right? I’m sure incompetent hacks will push these rumors again as if this year never happened.

Outside of this expansion pass blunder and the stupid rumors, Nintendo actually did quite well in 2021. A lot of the great games were on there (some exclusively, some PC+Switch multipalts). They weren’t perfect of course, they did release Mario Golf Super Rush which looks to be pretty awful, and released an HD remaster of the second worst Zelda for some reason. But there’s a lot of good games alongside that, so the bad kinda doesn’t matter. The Switch was on fire this year, unlike the competition which… wasn’t putting out games at all. And after a year of skipping these, Nintendo did bring back Directs, I was fine with them not being a thing but eh, it’s fine, people like it. Overall the Switch remains a console with good exclusives, but also one of the top 2 choices for multiplats (if you want performance, PC is the correct choice, if performance is less important but portability would be nice, Switch is the better choice. Playstation and Xbox are absolutely never the right choice for multiplats).

I don’t usually talk about PC gaming in my GotY posts, and I did recently post about PC gaming, so that’s gonna have to do. The GPU scalping situation has not once improved and getting meh prebuilts remains the only “good” way to get them, which is truly a shame. I still think all gamers need a good PC since it’s the best gaming platform, it’s just hard to get into right now because of all the scalping.

And the Steam Deck was delayed, so… lol. And I did post about my impressions on it already too, I have nothing to add to my impressions, I remain unconvinced. It’s too expensive considering the too weak hardware that’s in it. Not like it matters because people who pre-ordered it late are probably not even getting it until late 2023 so whatever man.

So that’s my inane rantings done. Time for the Games of the Year!

Games of the Year Winners

So I like to highlight a lot of games at once, because choosing one game of the year is fucking stupid, especially when the winner ends up being a game that doesn’t deserve it (you’re a little bit cool, It Takes Two, but you’re not even CLOSE to GotY material… sorry, the VGAs lied to you). Categories are also a bit dumb, especially when they’re as stupid as the categories at the VGAs. And of course no award show is gonna be good when the nominees are decided by people who hate games. So I like to do better.

What I do is select 7 overall winners. Then I take ones out to make it the “top” GotY, but really these 7 winners are all pretty strong GotY candidates. I do think this is a year where there is in fact a top winner, but I’d say 4 of these were pretty fucking close to taking the top slot. I will note I am not ranking these, they’re in a random order.

So without further ado, here’s the 6 winners for GotY!

New Pokémon Snap

I feel like people kinda forgot about this game, which is kind of a shame. It’s actually super good. Pokemon Snap was this cult classic that had a lot of fan requests for a sequel (especially for the Wii and Wii U), and we finally got one. They removed the pester ball and replaced it with a stupid light up ball that kinda makes no sense, but other than that, it’s really fun. And there’s a shitload of content, especially compared to the first game. ~75 levels here compared to 7 in the first game, and it actually got a patch with even more levels later on (I hear it’s 3 areas, so it’s probably something like 5-8 more levels), so yeah… This game can definitely keep you occupied for a while, especially if you’re a completionist, there’s SO much to do here.

I’m highlighting this game because it’s really fun and there’s no games like it, and no one else is really talking about it which is kinda unfortunate.

Kena: Bridge of Spirits

This is kind of a weird choice, right? It’s short, it’s not super deep or anything… but I did actually really like this game. It’s an indie developer/publisher’s first game and they hit this shit out of the park in so many ways. I rarely even talk about graphics but this game looks fucking beautiful, has a really fun world to explore because, rather than a “proper” open-world, it’s a collection of actually properly designed areas that are linked to each other… much better. Plus the combat is pretty decent, if a bit on the simple side, and most of the puzzle solving was pretty decent.

So yeah, I’m highlighting this game for not only being really fun, but also being such a strong showing from a first-time dev team. Definitely worth checking out.

Bravely Default 2

This is a weird case where I actually really enjoyed this game, yet I seem to be alone in that (and I guess ProJared really liked it, just kinda went around looking for impressions and saw that he very positively reviewed it). When I see people talking about it in forums, all I see is people hating on it pretty heavily… And I’m not quite sure why. I am genuinely curious, because this is a pretty fun JRPG. There’s better ones that came out this year (and they’re in this list) and there’s obviously better ones that came before it, but it’s still a game I had a lot of fun with. The customization is really interesting (I enjoy how the job system works, even if a lot of the early jobs end up being the OP ones), the combat is great, there’s a bunch of stuff to do… The only real problem I had with it is that some of the things you need to do to progress aren’t super straightforward (and one of them is really meta for some reason and kinda stupid, literally it happens within menus rather than within the actual story and you might not notice it).

I’m highlighting this game partly because it’s so weirdly hated, but also because, yes, it’s really good. BD2 is where the Final Fantasy series should be, at least as far as gameplay (rather than experimenting and failing at those experiments).

Shin Megami Tensei V

Of course this game is on here. Months before playing it, in my “preparation” document for 2021 GotY (which I put stuff in during the year), I had this as a potential winner. And it did not disappoint. SMTV is really great. The combat system is absolutely impeccable, the party customization has a ton of options and potential strategies, the game will kill you if you suck at it which is great… Really I have nothing to complain about here. It’s really good.

I’m highlighting this game because it’s fucking good and you should buy it yesterday (and if you’re reading this before January 3rd, it’s like 30 canadian dollars off at videogamesplus).

Monster Hunter Rise

Before this year, I was not into Monster Hunter. This is probably my fault, but basically I tried a few games in the series, mostly played, like, early tutorial garbage, and gave up on them because I didn’t think it would get better. I had played the first game, and one of the ones on PSP, and that’s it. When this was about to come out, I played the demo and decided I’d really give it a chance and actually figure out how it’s played… and I kinda fell in love with it. It’s fucking superb. The combat is fun and weirdly deep, the monsters are fucking cool, the progression is simple and fun, upgrading your character is fun… I don’t really have much to complain about here. Only that I don’t have Nintendo’s scam online service, so I’m having trouble beating the battle with the 2 flying elder dragons alone with a hammer. But that’s my fault. It’s the first version of the game and has a pretty good amount of content, I assume the DLC will add a shitload of stuff just like Iceborne did for World. Not sure I’ll get it because I tend not to buy DLC, but I assume it’ll be HUGE.

I’m highlighting this game because I think it’s great, and so do you probably. Not much more to say on that one.

Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin

Following my introduction to Monster Hunter with Rise, I also figured I’d try this one. Capcom surprisingly advertised this game a LOT, especially around E3 (it got, like, 4 or 5 new trailers at E3 alone). I mostly avoided them though. I had not played the original, though I hear they fixed a lot from the first game. It’s a pretty cool RPG where, rather than just hunting monsters, you steal their eggs and make them into slave monsters that you ride around and order to fight other monsters. It has a lot of MH gameplay elements, like stunning enemies, using flash bombs to make flying enemies fall down, hitting different parts of the body to get different parts (or hit areas where they’re weaker), and having a bunch of different weapon types that obviously function differently. Combat is really fun and somewhat strategic, and there’s a shitload of stuff to do here. Finishing the story is only part of the game, much like MH, as the post-game unlocks High Rank everything (monsters, monster eggs, armor, weapons). If you want to play this forever, you probably can.

I’m highlighting this game because it didn’t get a ton of hype and it really should have. It’s really solid.

The Super Winner. The Official JOBOCAN Game Reviews Game of the Year!

While I don’t like to choose a top GotY in general… you still need a winner for the clickbait. So here’s my choice for this year!

Metroid Dread

Surprising no one. Yeah this game was fucking awesome. It looks great, it plays great, it has really fun boss battles, it has pretty cool power-ups (except for like 2 that are kinda useless beyond like one or two uses), the speed booster is the funnest it’s ever been… I have pretty much nothing to really complain about.  The EMMI sections are a bit hit or miss sometimes, mostly I’m fine with them, and the power bomb makes part of the final boss too trivial (though the rest of the fight is fucking great), but other than that… This game is just extremely well made and fun as fuck. Play it, what are you waiting for?

Metroid Dread was the game I figured would be GotY the moment it was announced this year at E3. I’m highlighting it because it did, indeed, end up being GotY.

Honorable Mentions

And before I’m done, I’ll highlight all the games I at least kinda liked. Some of these aren’t very good (like Deathloop, and Chorus), but they’re all games I got some level of enjoyment out of, or games that at least tried something interesting. Again not ranking these, they’re in a fairly random order, but some of these had a bit of GotY potential, but were pushed out of the top 7 by games that are just much better.

Fitness Boxing 2 and Knockout Home Fitness
Cyber Shadow
Record of Lodoss War -Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth-
Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon
Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury (specifically Bowser’s Fury, since that’s a new thing and it was awesome)
Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl (kind of a shame people care about things that don’t matter (like voice acting) instead of gameplay, because this is a fun game… unfortunately Smash players were pushing it a lot, so after 2 weeks they gave up on it to get back to Smash and the people that had pushed it initially just abandoned it)
Loop Hero (really unique and fun)
Persona 5 Strikers
Atelier Ryza 2: Lost Legends & the Secret Fairy
Scarlet Nexus
Caligula Effect 2
The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles
Tales of Arise
Voice of Cards
WarioWare Get It Together!
Shin Megami Tensei III Nocturne HD
Prinny Presents NIS Classics Volume 1
Blaster Master Zero 3
Kaze and the Wild Masks (a DKC-ish platformer that I feel needed only a bit more polish and more levels, it’s quite good)
Actraiser Renaissance
Smelter
Gunfire Reborn
SaGa Frontier Remastered
Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir / Famicom Detective Club: The Girl Who Stands Behind (these two games are pretty fun classic adventure games, though they’re very straightforward)
Ys IX: Monstrum Nox
Necromunda: Hired Gun (needed slightly more interesting combat and loot)
Disgaea 6: Defiance of Destiny (really not the best Disgaea but it was fine)
Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl
Chorus
Halo Infinite
Ziggurat 2
Roguebook
Dodgeball Academia
Gal*Gun Returns
Ghosts n’ Goblins: Resurrection
DeathLoop (very ok game that is more interesting conceptually than in execution, it needed a lot more thought put into it and a lot more polish in its gameplay mechanics… it felt a bit too… randomly designed… it had all these gameplay elements that just… don’t matter)
No More Heroes III (wasn’t super great, but it had some moments that were okay-ish)