It’s that time again, to look back on the year of videogames and meaninglessly rank them. Videogames are probably the only thing we can actually look back upon somwhat fondly this year, Thanks to 2020. No need to get dour here though, lets celebrate some good ass videogames huh?
[SPOILERS THROUGHOUT] Lets kick things off like we did last year and start with:
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THE GAME AWARDS
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Best DLC:
The following is the best piece of DLC or Expansion content to game from this year or last that left an impression:
5: Super Smash Bros Ultimate Character – Steve
4: Ghost of Tsushima: Legends
3: Super Smash Bros Ultimate Character – Sephiroth
2: Control: AWE (Alan Wake Expansion)
1: Fire Emblem Three Houses: Cindered Shadows
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Best Multiplayer:
The best time I had playing with or against other people online, shorter catagory as I didn’t play that many:
3: Ghost of Tsushima: Legends
2: Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout
1: Call of Duty: Warzone
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Best Game Feel:
The games that had a really nice feel to them when playing, hard to describe but its a “this feels nice” kinda feel. (probs explained this better last year, but can’t be bothered to go check)
5: Astro’s Playroom
4: The Last of Us Part II
3: SPIDER-MAN: Miles Morales
2: Hades
1: Ghost of Tsushima
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Best Looking Game (Technical):
For the games that made you go “wow look at them Graphics”. An extraordinary achievement in graphical fidelity.
5: Mafia Remastered
4: Final Fantasy VII REMAKE
3: Ghost of Tsushima
2: SPIDER-MAN: Miles Morales
1: The Last of Us: Part II
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Persona 5 Royal presents: Best Styyyyyyyyyyyyyyle:
This blatantly stolen award is for the games with a cool artstyle or game game that makes you go “this game has a look to it”. Persona 5 Royal exempt due to it just being the same as the original:
5: Paper Mario: The Origami King
4: Final Fantasy VII: REMAKE
3: 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim
2: Ghost Of Tsushima
1: Hades
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Best Story:
This is for the game with the narrative that kept me engaged and interested the most.
5: Persona 5 Royal (3rd Semester)
4: Yakuza: Like a Dragon
3: SPIDER-MAN: Miles Morales
2: Final Fantasy VII REMAKE
1: 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim
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Best Moment or Sequence:
This is for a moment in a game that left a long lasting impression compared to the rest of it. Some spoilers in this one:
5: Paper Mario: The Origami King – Bobby the Bob-omb blows himself up to save another character and the somber scenes that followed.
4: Final Fantasy VII REMAKE – The entire wall Market Sequence from the Honey Bee Inn dance number, the Dress collecting to the fight with Hell House.
3: Yakuza: Like a Dragon – The Boss fight with Yakuza 0 to 6 Protagonist Kazama Kiryu, he is the toughest fight in the main story as he should be.
2: 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim – The whole game could be best moment, but nothing encapsulates it more than discovering that this Time Travel game has no Time Travel in it. The game takes place inside a virtual world on a Ark floating through space in an attempt to save humanity by starting over on a new planet.
1: Persona 5 Royal – Discovering that the new main character Kasumi you have been growing to love over the course of the game is in fact her traumatised sister Sumire who took over Kasumi’s personality after she was killed in a car accident.
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Best New Character:
For the characters who made their first appeance this year and made a lasting impression:
5: Paper Mario: The Origami King – Bobby
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4: Hades – Zagreus (Cheating technically, I know)
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3: Persona 5 Royal – Dr. Takuto Maruki
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2: Persona 5 Royal – “Kasumi” Yoshizawa
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1: Yakuza: Like a Dragon – Kasuga Ichiban
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Best Music:
For the games with killer soundtracks that I kept going back to after I finished the game, examples included (if they haven’t been taken down):
5: Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition
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4: Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity
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3: Yakuza: Like a Dragon
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2: Persona 5 Royal
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1: Final Fantasy VII REMAKE
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Best Original Song:
For the game with a song so good it deserves a special shout out from the rest of the OST and made it to the car playlist (where possible):
4: Persona 5 Royal – I Believe
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3: Persona 5 Royal – Throw Your Mask Away
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2: Devil May Cry V: Special Edition – Bury the Light
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1: Final Fantasy VII REMAKE – Hollow
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Best Game to Watch:
A game that I watched being played beginning to end via a stream or video series:
Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door via WoolieVersus
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Best Game of Yesteryear:
For the games that I played for the first time this year that I want to give a shout out to for being excellent and/or fun to play:
5: Street Fighter V: Championship Edition
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4: Yakuza 5
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3: Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna the Golden Country (finally beat it)
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2: 9Hours 9Persons 9Doors (999)
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1: AI: The Somnium Files
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Okay and that is the end of the awards, next on the agenda is the games that I didn’t play enough of or didn’t get around to in time for the big list. Just so you know (and I know) why they aren’t on the big list:
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Pile O’Shame & DNF (Did Not Finish):
DNF List:
Granblue Fantasy Versus
Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edtion
Demons Souls
Haven
Cyberpunk 2077 (more like Is not finished amiright.jpg)
Devil May Cry V: Special Edition
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Pile O’Shame List:
The Wonderful 101 Remastered
Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2
Spelunkey 2
Twin Mirror
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Okay it’s finally time to move on to the meat and potatoes of this here post, time for…
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THE TOP TEN
10. Animal Crossing: New Horizons
This game came along at the prefect time, just as all the Covid stuff really started to kick off, it was nice to have my Island resort to escape to. Though it’s calming music and laid back vibe the stresses just washed away, I haven’t been back to my Island for a couple of months now so I am due a visit to wash some of the holiday stresses away. I haven’t much to say other than what I said back in the last post I made about this game. Keep being a cool vibe AC.
Music Highlight:
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9. Call of Duty: Warzone
It’s 2020, a year of disaster and the unexpected. So it explains why I didn’t see that I would sink over 80 hours into a Call of Duty game. One of my most played games of the year in fact, amazing. Anyway Warzone is an incredibly fun Battle Royal game, I mostly played the Trio’s mode but dabbled in solo que and some of the events. The tension of some of the matches were among some of my favourite moments playing a game with friends online. The game even convinced me to buy this years full Call of Duty Release, Cold War, but that was quite the disappointment compared to this. Congrats COD, I doubt you will be making these lists again any time soon.
Music Highlight:
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8. Hades
Late entry to the list as I have only just beat it, loved my time with it though, and I actually have some more of it to play as I have only beat it once. After beating it once it has become very clear that I am meant to beat it multiple times. Not a big fan of Rogue-likes but there are some that are an exception, such as this. I think a big factor in this one is the fact that there is a compelling story that requires multiple runs of game and the story can be interjected into a run. But that is only one factor, the gameplay is very tight and feels real damn good, the art-style is bloody gorgeous too. there is a joke going around that every character is attractive, well as I have discovered that isn’t much of a joke. lastly, the music is also very good, there are some banger mid-boss tracks.
The game has been playable for about 2 years now in early access and I’m usually on the side of “if it is buyable then it is out”, thus only eligible for the year it “came out”. But Hades hitting 1.0 this year and it being as good as it has convinced me that I should drop that self imposed rule.
Music Highlight:
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7. Paper Mario: The Origami King
Paper Mario fans know my pain being a fan of this series post Super Paper Mario, with the stripping of the story elements from these games as well as the cool and fun original characters. This game however brings back a lot of elements that made the first three games so good. Some original characters are made such as Bobby. (not the the extent of the older games, but still). The Areas you explore are more interesting than the last two games like a Japan themed Amusement Park (again not reaching the heights of “Mario becomes Wrestler in a floating Arena” but it’s still good). The Humor is still here and just as good as it was in the older games, I was impressed overall with the game, it’s certainly a step in the right direction for the series. The music was great and the Art phenomenal, definitely the best this series has ever looked.
Music Highlight:
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6. Ghost of Tsushima
I wasn’t sure what to expect out of this game, but if you told me it was going to be the best old style Assassins Creed… I would have probably believed you. The game is a beautiful rendition of Japan made through the eyes of a western team, in the clothing of Samurai Style Cinema. The music is pretty good at points, but where the game excels is in its art and world design, you can see it takes heavy influence from Breath of the Wild. One of my favourite things about the game is a quite small, when you set a destination on the map it doesn’t pop up with a large marker on screen, you just swipe up on the touchpad and the wind will blow in the direction you want to go. The wind mechanic is something I hope other games take note of and implement in some fashion. Another aspect I used a lot was the Photo Mode, it being just one click away was a big factor in that, if more games didn’t bury their photo mode in the menus I would probably engage with them a lot more. The story was decent but not ground breaking, the gameplay was the star of the show here, fluid and fast combat with great traversal.
Music Highlight:
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5. SPIDER-MAN: Miles Morales
2018’s SPIDER-MAN was the best Spidey game since the PS2 ones, Miles Morales is just as good as the 2018 one. this is a shorter game though, its a sort of side story to the main plot involving Peter Parker’s Spider-Man but that doesn’t mean its any lesser, in fact the story may be better with the zero downtime due to the length of the game. The gameplay feels like a nice evolution of the 2018 game, to be honest I don’t how I am going to be able to go back to not having the Venom punch in Spider-man 2, hopefully a similar move will be implemented. The game is quite the looker, but I am sure me playing it on the PS5 has something to do with that, even on the 60fps performance mode it looks stunning. I can boil this games quality down to three words to be honest. Web swinging = Good
Music Highlight:
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4. Persona 5 Royal
The new act of this game is too good to not put here, while only a fraction of the full P5 experience, it blew me away. It’s easily the best part of an already great game, and it is built up throughout the games main body. I won’t say much more here as I have said a lot about Persona 5 on this site TWICE. The only reason it isn’t higher is because the 3rd semester is only 20 hours of a 125 hour game, and that 105 has won before.
Music Highlight:
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3. 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim
This game came out of left field. Shortly after it came out I started to hear that this was one of the best Mecha games since Xenogears, so I had to see what all the fuss was about, and boy am I glad I did. The game is a Visual Novel for all intents and purposes, with a tower defence strategy component. The tower defence is quite easy but very satisfying, but this is not the meat of the game, it’s the visual novel sections that are. By far the best story of the year, it had an engaging plot (while a little bit too Anime at times) and twists that were genuinely cool and unexpected. Not much to talk about here as the gameplay in these sections are pretty much just hit X and watch. Just know that it is 30ish hours of madness and I loved every second.
Music Highlight:
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2. Yakuza: Like A Dragon
I basically had a crash course in Yakuza this year, I played 3,4,5 and 6 back to back to back. After a little break I jupmed into Like a Dragon (or 7 depending on what you want to call it), and it almost instantly blew 3 through 6 out of the water, going all the way to my second favourite Yakuza game (2 is still the best). Everything about this game is great, the music, the battle system and the characters new and old.
Jumping back to the battle system a second, it is the first turn based RPG in the Yakuza series, replacing the series Staple beat-em-up style all because the protagonist sees the world as an RPG, as he is a fan of the Drgaon Quest franchinise. Changing the battle system could have been a massive failure, but lucklily it all worked out, The combat is satisfying and fun. The game replaces Heat moves with the “Essence of” moves which are huge special attacks, such as Essence of Pigeon Storm which summons as large swam of pigeon’s to attck the enemy. The game also has actual summons which are also incerbible, for example there is one that summons two actors playing a couple reuniting in a snow storm and as they are the declaring their love for one another, while the surrounding enemies are taking massive ice damage from the storm.
Another big change is the new main character, Replacing Kiryu after 7 games (not counting spinoffs) is Kasuga Ichiban who is the complete antithesis of Kiryu right down to the colours of his suit. It really works though, while Kiryu is cool and all, the freshness of the loud and headstrong Kasuga is a welcome change. The rest of the new main cast also pull their weight too, Nanba, Adachi and Saeko are all great and I hope they stick around for the games to come. I gotta say, it is nice to finally be up to date you the Yakuza franchise.
Music Highlight:
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1. Final Fantasy VII REMAKE
What a suprise!? my second favourite game of all time’s remake is my 2020 game of the year. I don’t know what I can say that I didn’t already go over in that large write-up from earlier this year. I suppose I can say that my thoughts on the ending has solidified. I liked the ending and I’m looking forward to the unknown journey ahead. You can read my full thoughts on may aspects of this game here https://ryankingbailey.wordpress.com/2020/04/18/many-thoughts-on-final-fantasy-vii-remake/
Music Highlight:
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Aaaaaand we come to a close, while the year was a mess at least the games were good. Now that we have looked back and celebrated the best games of the year (in my opinion) we can look forward to what is coming, and maybe the overall year of 2021 will be better too. Here’s hoping,
So with that said,
Until next time…
Ryan's Collection of Thoughts! 
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