Welcome to the first of two Video Game Round-Up! Specials! before the next proper Video Game Round-Up! This Special! is all about the best games of the year. There are three sections to this Special!: the first section is a bunch of games that have received a lot of critical acclaim, but I haven’t played yet because I did not have enough time this year; the second section is my honorable mentions of the year; and the third section is actually my top 10 of the year. Basically, I’m gonna make you read about a bunch of other games before I give you my best games of 2019, but I guess you can just skip all the way down there if you want.
Now, on to the games!
Games I Didn’t Play (Many of Which I Own), But Are Probably Really Good and Might Have Made My Top 10 if I Had Played Them
As the title says, these are all games that came out this year that I didn’t have the time to actually play. However, I wanted to highlight these as I am quite interested in all of them. They do legitimately look great. If you have the wherewithal, you should definitely play them. Here they are, in alphabetical order.
Catherine: Full Body (PS4) - A remaster of an older game with added content, Catherine: Full Body follows Vincent as he tries to decide how to live his life with regard to three women with very similar names: Catherine, Katherine, and Qatherine. Catherine is his long-term girlfriend who wants to move their relationship forward, Katherine is a woman he had a drunken one-night stand with because he’s afraid of commitment, and Qatherine is the new woman added to this version of the game. The gameplay alternates between social simulator during the day when Vincent is awake, and platform puzzling during the night when Vincent is asleep.
I’ve wanted to play this game a long time, and even preordered Full Body, but just didn’t have the time to get around to it (this will become the chorus of this section).
Death Stranding (PS4) - Everyone wondered what Hideo Kojima would do after his acrimonious split with Konami, but I don’t think anyone expected this. Kojima decided to use every single “horrible” game mechanic, and create an entire game out of them. Death Stranding is a literal walking simulator where every quest is a fetch quest, over-encumbrance and keeping your balance are the things you most have to worry about, and oh yeah, the entire game is one long escort mission. And yet, this all seems to work. Well, it works for about half the people who’ve played it, so they love it to bits. The other half hate it. Everyone seems to either hate or love this game, though I’m likely to fall in the love it camp as I’ve quite enjoyed every other Kojima game I’ve played (though those were all Metal Gear Solid titles; I’m sure I’d love Snatcher (PS1) and Policenauts (PS1) too).
I preordered this game too, but it came out at about the same time as The Outer Worlds (PS4) and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (PS4), and I only had time for one.
Devotion (PC) - Another horror game by the same developers behind the not-at-all-historical video game Detention (Switch), Devotion was supposed to be even scarier with a focus on Chinese culture, tradition, and folklore. Unfortunately, one of the artists at Red Candle Games snuck in a negative reference to PRC President Xi Jinping (and compared him to Winnie the Pooh, something he really seems to hate), and the game got review bombed on Steam by Chinese nationals. After only a day, Red Candle Games pulled the game from Steam and said they’d remove the offending art. Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough. The Chinese government then took away Red Candle’s distributor’s business license, barring them from operating in China. The game was only available on Steam for about a week, and too few people got a chance to buy it. So, you know, fuck nationalism and censorship. They took what looked like a great game away from all of us.
Disco Elysium (PC) - This CRPG about an alcoholic, amnesiac, Communist cop won a ridiculous amount of awards. It is being hailed for its amazing story, and odd, yet compelling gameplay. And it looks damn cool! But I cannot play many things on a PC, so I will just wait for it to come out on PS4 or Switch, and eventually play this game :)
Heaven’s Vault (PS4) - When I first heard about this game, where you play as an archaeologist bopping around a star system trying to figure out its history by translating the language of the Ancients, it sounded amazing. Because this is a non-linear narrative, you can actually get translations wrong and make incorrect assumptions that may lead you down incorrect paths if you haven’t deciphered enough glyphs. I bought it earlier this year, but (chorus) I didn’t have the time to get around to it.
Indivisible (Switch) - A platformer/RPG/fighting game hybrid that looks super cool! Developed by Lab Zero Games, who also developed Skullgirls (Switch) (a beautifully hand-drawn fighting game), this was crowdfunded on Indiegogo before coming to various consoles. Everyone in your party is actually just someone from inside the main character’s head, and that sounds deliciously RPG.
Judgment (PS4) - From the creators of the Yakuza series and starring Takuya Kimura, one of the girl’s favorite Japanese idols, this game follows an ex-lawyer-turned-private investigator on the streets of Kamurocho, the same city Kazuma Kiryu runs around in. Technically, one doesn’t have to play any of the Yakuza games before playing this one, but I want to play through Yakuza 6: The Song of Life (PS4) before getting to this one, and if you remember how much I loved Yakuza 0 (PS4), this won’t actually be too much of a problem (except for time, of course). I picked up Judgment during one of the sales, but, and say it with me, no time to play it.
Kingdom Hearts III (PS4) - If you remember near the beginning of this year, I said I wouldn’t play Kingdom Hearts III until I at least finished the two mainline games, and maybe some of the side games (that are nevertheless important to the overall story). I finished the original Kingdom Hearts FINAL MIX (PS4), and started Kingdom Hearts: Re:Chain of Memories (PS4), but didn’t finish that or get around to Kingdom Hearts II (PS4). So, no third installment of the Disney/Final Fantasy mash-up for me (but yes, I own this also).
The Outer Worlds (PS4) - Oblivion’s latest RPG was feared to be just a Fallout clone (especially since Oblivion had made the best one in New Vegas (PS3)), but that fear was apparently unfounded. Or rather, that fear was true, but we didn’t need to fear it after all. The two games share a lot of the same mechanics (like bullet time) and stylistic choices (like having every NPC conversation be animated straight on), but the story of a corporation-controlled star system on the fringes of space made most of everyone happy. Like I said before, I got this game at the same time as Death Stranding (PS4) and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (PS4), and I only had time to play one of them :P
Overcooked 2 (Switch) - The girl and I have been playing a lot of the first Overcooked (Switch), and if that’s anything to go by, then this game should also be a banger, especially with the added mechanic of being able to throw things at each other (which would come in real handy in some of these horrible kitchens that split apart at very inopportune times).
Resident Evil 2 Remake (PS4) - This came out at the very beginning of the year, but I didn’t play it nor buy it then as we still have other horror games to get through. However, the original Resident Evil 2 (PS1) was the first horror game I ever played when my friend lent me his PS1 way back when. Everyone’s been saying how great this game is (and it has appeared on many a top 10 list around the Interwebs), so I have no reason to doubt that a slightly remixed Resident Evil 2 with completely overhauled graphics and mechanics is amazing. I did eventually buy it during a sale.
Sea of Solitude (PS4) - I bought this indie title (that is nevertheless published by EA) as soon as it came out because I wanted to support the developer, and I want more games like this. You play as a young woman who has turned into a monster, but it’s all metaphorical and actually about mental health. So yeah, I bought it, but unfortunately, no time.
Telling Lies (PC) - This game is from the writer/director of Her Story (PC), featuring a lot of video watching. It honestly looks like a more robust Her Story, with four protagonists instead just one, and I am here for that. However, I haven’t actually played Her Story yet, so I should probably do that before getting this one.
Honorable Mentions (aka Games I Actually Played and For the Most Part Enjoyed, But Not Enough to Make My Top 10)
This is the list of games I did play, and while I mostly enjoyed them, I didn’t think they were good enough to be in my top 10. But you know what, you might enjoy these games more than I did and maybe they’ll make your top 10! Here they are, in alphabetical order.
Assemble (iPhone) - The first of four Apple Arcade games I played in December (more about Apple Arcade in the regular Video Game Round-Up! later this month), this is a short, sweet game about a repairwoman in a new town fixing people’s stuff, but also their lives. I like it, but I am also a sap. Also, I like the puzzle-y bits involving taking things apart and then putting them back together. My only complaint is that it is far too short.
Astral Chain (Switch) - Platinum Games’ latest game is an interesting mix of ridiculous super fast action and much slower, but much better investigative gameplay. As I’ve said in the past, it’s kind of a weird thing that the action in this Platinum game is not as good as the rest of the game because Platinum is a studio known for its action. I haven’t finished it, but I will get back to it eventually, as I enjoy the non-action parts of the game quite a bit (I will also eventually get back to the other Platinum game I’m in the middle of, NieR: Automata (PS4)).
Contra Anniversary Collection (Switch) - This is a collection of a bunch of older Contra games in one nice package. This is technically ineligible as remasters of older games aren’t considered new for the purposes of these kinds of lists (also, remasters are not the same as remakes, so don’t yell at me), but the collection is new, and the original Contra (NES) is an amazing game that everyone should play. And hey, the Konami code still works!
Cuphead (Switch) - While Cuphead was released on Switch this year, it’s actually an older game that was released on the XBox One in 2017, so it also is not eligible for this year’s top 10, but this is such a fantastic game that everyone should play. It is very tough, it is sometimes unfair, but if you put in the work, you too can beat the whole game and feel ridiculously pleased with yourself like I do.
Disney Classic Games: Aladdin and The Lion King (Switch) - Another collection of a bunch of older games, this time based on the Disney animated films Aladdin and The Lion King. As previously mentioned, remasters are ineligible for top 10 lists, but the Sega Genesis versions of both Aladdin and The Lion King are both fantastic games (and fantastically hard), and are both included in this collection (as well as a bunch of not great versions of these games).
Guacamelee One-Two Punch Collection (Switch) - Yet another collection of two older games, of which I only played the first. Guacamelee is a legitimately amazing Metroidvania with a lot of Mexican culture and folklore, which I love. Go get the collection and play the first game at least, and make sure to 100% it because that’s how you get the best ending. I will eventually play the second one :D
Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 (Switch) - The story mode in this game is ridiculous, and a lot of the sports in it are incredibly fun (rugby sevens!), but too much of the game is spent on sports that don’t play very well, and the ones that do aren’t robust enough to sustain the whole game. As much as I love the rugby sevens and the volleyball in this game, there are only so many exhibition matches I can play. I want tournaments, or league play, or something more, but alas, that is not this game.
Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order (Switch) - Man, I wish this game had been better, and that its DLC wasn’t just more of the same. I’ve discussed many times before why this game ended up being such a disappointment to me: it just wasn’t as good as the X-Men Legends (PS2) games that preceded it, with a lot of things stripped out for a bare-bones brawler. It’s still a game with a bunch of Marvel characters punching and kicking bad guys, so it’s not like it wasn’t fun, but I’m just sad it wasn’t better.
Metro Exodus (PS4) - I really should have finished this game (and its two predecessors) about an irradiated Russia with a bunch of creepy crawlies, but I had to quickly move on to other things. I liked the shooting, I liked the exploration, I liked the characters, and I liked the world. I will come back to it one day, but maybe not for some time (and only after I play through the first two, which are more linear experiences).
New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe (Switch) - This is actually a pretty fantastic Mario platformer, but it’s also simply a remaster of the original WiiU game with only a few extra mechanics added (like easy and super easy modes), so it’s actually ineligible. But it did introduce us the wonderful Peachette, and, thanks to the Internet, Bowsette, and I can’t think of a single Mario platformer that wasn’t awesome.
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy (Switch) - A collection of the first three Phoenix Wright games, but this collection is not only a remaster of the those original games, the collection itself is also a remaster that first came out on the DS. But even though this super ineligible, it is still a trio of great and amazing games, and if remasters were eligible, this would be really high on my list. So basically, buy and play this if you haven’t already. It’s only like $30USD! For three games!
Pinball Wizard (iPhone) - The second Apple Arcade game I played, this is also my least favorite. The idea behind it is cool: you play as a wizard trying to get up a tower using pinball mechanics, and the wizard himself is the pinball. There are enemies to destroy, treasures to grab, and secrets to find. This should be a great game, but unfortunately, it’s not. The controls start simple enough: tap the left side of your screen to move the left paddle(s), tap the right side to move the right paddle(s). But as soon as you start to unlock special powers, the buttons for them are put on your screen, too close to where I usually tap the screen to move the paddles. You can see where this is going. The game also has a progression system that is very reminiscent of pay-to-win mechanics (which is odd since Apple Arcade games do not have microtransactions). That means there’s a A LOT of grinding, and I don’t know that I have the patience for that. I will probably play a bit more of it, but maybe not too much.
Ring Fit Adventure (Switch) - Remember how great WiiFit (Wii) was way back when? Ring Fit Adventure is even better. With an actual game attached, Ring Fit also helps you get fit with different kinds of exercises. I truly love this game, and I love that it’s helping me get healthier, but the game itself isn’t the best. The story is fairly ridiculous, and making the Ring a character is also weird, since you have to pull and push it, and smoosh it against your body. But I will always love the way it tells me that my sweat is so shiny and beautiful!
River City Girls (Switch) - A hilarious side-scrolling brawler with RPG elements, River City Girls is a semi-sequel to River City Ransom (NES) from way back when. The two main characters are hilarious, and the maps are more robust than I would have imagined before picking it up, but as is common with most brawlers, the gameplay can get a bit repetitive, though it is somewhat mitigated by the various extra moves you can learn as you beat up everybody in River City. Still though, that hilarity carries it a long way.
Sayonara Wild Hearts (iPhone) - I also played this on Apple Arcade, but it’s available on consoles too (Switch, at least). It’s an endless runner/rhythm game, which aren’t my favorite game genres, but the visuals are slick and beautiful, the story is bittersweet, and the music is banging. I recommend this to everybody.
Tetris 99 (Switch) - A free game available to all Switch Online subscribers, it is quite literally a Tetris battle royale, a genre normally associated with shooters like Fortnite (PC) and PUBG (PC). What sounds like a truly ridiculous idea on paper, it’s actually an amazing way to play Tetris, and all you need is to be really good at it. When you complete lines, you can send obstacles to one of the other 98 players to make it harder for them. Of course, the same can be done to you. I have never won a match of Tetris 99, but I did get third place once. I can no longer get anywhere near there as everyone else has gotten much better than me. But if you love the original Tetris (GB), this might be for you.
Totally Accurate Battle Simulator (PC) - Available on Early Access since 2018, its official release date landed this year, so it counts for this year, not last year (hey, I don’t make the rules, except I totally made the rules). As it says on the tin, this is a battle simulator in that you can put various units on opposite armies and have them battle each other until one side wins. What it doesn’t say on the tin is that it is not at all totally accurate, making it one of the most hilarious games I’ve ever played. The physics are wonky, the soldier skins are bare bones, and there’s nothing like having a bunch of hobbits swarm a few frost giants. Seriously, go look up some videos featuring this game and watch the hilarity yourself.
What the Golf? (iPhone) - My favorite Apple Arcade game so far, What the Golf? is only nominally a golf game. Yes, you often have to get a ball to a flag, but just often you have to move the flag, or move the golf club, or move the golfer, or move literally all sorts of ridiculous things. And there are a bunch of puzzles based on other games, like Super Mario Bros. (NES), Superhot (PS4), Super Meat Boy (PS4), and Portal (PS3), among many others (probably also with “Super” in the title). Maybe the second best golf game of all time (behind Golf Story (Switch), of course).
The World Next Door (Switch) - This is a weird little indie title that features an interesting mix of visual novel and match-3 game mechanics, with a little bit of open-world questing thrown in. The main story follows a human girl trapped in an alternate reality where all her monster friends live. That would normally not be a problem, except that the magic of this alternate reality will kill the human girl in a couple of days, so she needs to get back home. It’s a short game, with some great characters and interesting gameplay.
Yoshi’s Crafted World (Switch) - The latest Yoshi platformer is possibly the most adorable-looking one ever. Everything looks like it’s made by someone very, very crafty, and it’s great. Like all platformers nowadays, there are tons of collectibles, tons of enemies, and tricky jumps, but the game isn’t at all difficult, and can be made even simpler for younger children who want to play the game. I will admit I didn’t finish the game, but that’s only because I was trying to get every single collectible and got tired of redoing the same levels over and over again. If you don’t do that, you should have a lot of fun.
The Actual Top 10 (aka Games I Played and Loved the Most)
Finally, my actual Top 10 of the year! These 10 games are the best ones I played this year that also came out this year (and weren’t remasters). I could intro you some more, but I won’t. I’ll just get right to the list since I’ve made you wait so much already. Which I think you’ll all be happy about, right? Yeah, it’s ridiculous how much preamble there was to this. I can’t believe you all allowed me to just go on and on and on and on for so long...
What’s that? Shut up and give you my list?
Right, let’s get to it, then.
...So impatient some people...
10. Katana Zero (Switch) - The game follows a samurai with a special superpower that allows him to play out a fight in his mind before the fight actually happens (he’s basically the Midnighter). This plays out as a 2D puzzle platformer, and you have to kill everyone without taking any damage (because you die after one shot). But also, the samurai might actually just be a crazy guy who takes a lot of drugs who may or may not be an escaped government experiment. It’s basically a melee Hotline Miami, but with a side-scrolling perspective instead of a top-down one.
This game surprised me with how enjoyable it was to play. Like Celeste, you are brought right back to the beginning of a section when you die, letting you replay immediately. This meant I was never frustrated while playing.
This didn’t make it higher on my list because it was quite a short game, and it ended on a cliffhanger. But really, it just means I want more of this, and I want it now.
9. Luigi’s Mansion 3 (Switch) - This is the first Luigi’s Mansion game I’ve ever played. The others looked interesting, but I always preferred the Mario platformers on the same systems (GC for the first, 3DS for the second). I finally picked this one up, and I’m not sure why I waited so long. I love the puzzles involved in getting through the hotel, finding ghosts, defeating ghosts, and getting all the collectibles. And while this isn’t a horror game by any stretch of the imagination, there are still some jump scares that made me jump, and then made me laugh at how ridiculous they were.
Also, there is a dedicated button for Luigi to frighteningly call for his kidnapped brother, and that is somehow only the second best dedicated button this year.
8. The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening (Switch) - I debated whether or not to include this on my best of list. It is technically a remake of the Game Boy/Game Boy Color original, built from the ground up with beautiful and adorable new graphics, but the gameplay is almost identical to the original version, with the sole exception of being able to use more than two items at a time (there were only two face buttons on the Game Boy/Game Boy Color, so you had to switch items in and out as required by whatever puzzle you had to solve next; the Switch version has dedicated buttons for the sword, shield, Pegasus Boots, and Power Bracelet, and two more buttons to switch out the other items). But you know what? This game is so damn good, and that quality-of-life improvement is such a game-changer, I will put it on this list. I mean, when has there ever been a Zelda game that wasn’t amazing (I will only accept answers that were available exclusively on the CDi)?
The Chamber Dungeons, though, the only truly new thing in this game, were not very good, and only whet my appetite for a true “Zelda Maker” sometime in the future.
7. Super Mario Maker 2 (Switch) - Are you an aspiring video game creator? You will be after you try to create a few platforming levels in this amazingly powerful creation tool... and then you’ll want to stop when you see how much better everyone else in the world is. Lucky for me, there are also over a hundred fantastic Mario levels created by Nintendo themselves, so I get to have my excellent Mario platformer cake, and eat it too.
There are some pretty great explanatory videos on level design (hosted by a pigeon, for some reason) that do actually help when it comes to making your own Marios, and while it’s definitely not worth the price of admission alone, they’re still really dang good.
6. Baba is You (Switch) - The most interesting and inventive puzzle game that’s come in a long time. Not only can you interact with various objects on the board, you can also interact with the rules of the puzzle. It starts off simple enough: Baba is You, and Flag is Win. Control Baba and make it touch Flag, and you win. But that’s only the first puzzle. As you continue along, the puzzles get harder and harder, and often, the solution requires you to change the rules. I think I said this before, but this is actually quite difficult to explain without video or screenshots, but trust me, it is amazing, and everyone should play it.
The difficulty curve is quite steep, though, so get ready to feel like an idiot when you get stuck on the same puzzle for ages, then feeling like a genius when you finally solve it... then feeling like an idiot again on the next puzzle.
5. Outer Wilds (PS4) - The sun goes supernova every 22 minutes, and you have to figure out how to save the solar system as a DIY astronaut. Lucky for you, the world resets every time you die, and you get to start over with all the knowledge you acquired in your previous runs. That’s the basic premise of Outer Wilds, an open-world, Myst-like kind of puzzle-y, kind of detective-y game in which you first have to learn how to fly a spaceship. It’s weird, it’s wonderful, and it’s chronologically the last game I played on this list (and that I am still currently playing). I imagine it will get better as I discover more about this quirky little solar system.
4. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (PS4) - A single-player Star Wars game set between Order 66 and the Battle of Yavin? Yes, please! With light-Soulsborne combat mechanics, heavy Metroidvania exploration and power-up mechanics, and heavy Uncharted-style traversal mechanics? Yes! Of course! Also with a pretty sweet story, great characters (and Jedis that have nothing to do with the Skywalkers), and the most adorable droid in all of Star Wars (suck it, BB-8)? All of this!
More of this, EA. Just let Respawn make more single-player Star Wars games, and stay completely out of their way. Like, just go make more FIFA games instead. I will say, as good a game as this was, there was one better Jedi game this year.
3. Observation (PS4) - This is a game more concerned with story than with gameplay, and could conceivably be called a “walking simulator” even though there isn’t any actual walking. “Floating simulator”? “Toggle-through-cameras simulator”?
You’re the AI of a space station orbiting Earth (or at least that’s where it’s supposed to be) where some honest-to-goodness sci-fi shenanigans are going on, and you may or may not be responsible for them. Most of the gameplay is trying to fix different parts of the station so your human, Dr. Emma Fisher, can figure out just what the heck is going on, and figure out if the other humans are dead or just missing (how do you go missing on a space station? sci-fi shenanigans!). The story’s a mash-up of all the best bits from 2001: A Space Odyssey, Event Horizon, and Sunshine, and still manages to be quite original.
I love this game, and you will too. Plus, it’s less than ten hours long, so you can finish it over a weekend.
2. Untitled Goose Game (Switch) - And here’s the game with the best dedicated button: HONK!
The game that launched a thousand memes, it’s basically the answer to the question of what if Solid Snake but a jerk goose in an English country village. And it has the added benefit of not being as convoluted, nor having cutscenes as long as Kojima’s games. The stealth gameplay is light, and there is no fail state, so you can keep trying to finish your list of evil deeds until you get them right. There’s even a Second Quest of harder things to do that are somehow even more deliciously evil than the original list (available after finishing your first set of tasks), and some legit pro gamer time trials that are nearly impossible for the rest of us to do.
But yes, I loved getting my goose on, and you will too.
HONK!
1. Control (PS4) - I had a really hard time picking my best game of the year last year, but it was super easy this year. Every other game on my list is amazing and I love them and I think everyone should play them, but from the moment I started playing it, I knew Control was going to my favorite thing this year. Firmly ensconced in the new weird, Control follows Jesse Faden as she searches for her brother in the Federal Bureau of Control HQ. As soon as she gets there, though, it’s invaded by the Hiss and she becomes the new Director. You spend the rest of the game solving puzzles, shooting Hiss soldiers, and gaining Jedi powers.
I love how this game plays, how it looks, and the story it tells. I love the slight Metroidvania aspects, and the Ashtray Maze sequence is far and away the best action sequence this whole year. And with some story DLC coming later this year, I look forward to continue playing the Best Game of 2019 well into 2020.
And that’s it! That’s the list! I hope you read it all, and have found some new games to play. I admit this was far longer than I originally intended, but whatever. End of year lists are hard.
So, what do you think? Agree? Disagree? What’s your list? Let me know!
Expect another Special! in about a week, and then the regular Video Game Round-Up! a week after that. Until then, play more video games!
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