Without getting too deep into how my gaming habits changed over time, nowadays I’m someone who gets really bothered by cumbersome UI, has no patience for boring pacing and finds bad controls inexcusable. And with endless backlog and tons of interesting titles available for cheap or free at any given moment, the value of “I already bought this game so I’m getting my money’s worth” is already way below the value of my time. Add the fact that I’ve always been hooked to one or more “game as a service” at a time, and that I’ve never really played many of the games that end up on mainstream GOTY lists, and you can probably see why I didn’t feel like my voice in this space was really all that necessary.
So you might be wondering why am I writing this one right now? Well, one reason is quite obvious - it’s much easier to find 10 games I genuinely enjoyed and want to talk about from a larger sample size of ten years than just one. The other reason is my friend Cross’ 2018 GOTY list in which out of over 30 titles he chose “The 25th Ward: The Silver Case” as his number 1, an adventure game by Suda51 and studio Grasshopper Manufacture. While explaining the choice, he expressed his wish that more critics would preach up the games that feel tailor-made for them like this one felt to him, rather than submitting to the lowest-common-denominator consensus which will always favor craftsmanship over artistry. And I suppose that stuck with me a little - the notion that perhaps I have been doing harm to myself by thinking that my taste and preferences make my voice less interesting and less important in the realm of writing about games, and also doing injustice to the games I love by not pushing them as worth everyone’s love and attention. So tonight that changes - it’s time I proudly proclaim what are the 10 games published over the last 10 years that were the most important or enjoyable for me. And not only that - let’s go beyond the top ten and talk about some of the Honorable Mentions first.
Might as well start with the oldest title on my list - the first Red Dead Redemption. I was really excited for this one and perhaps it was that excitement that carried me through its first dozen hours, but I have nothing but warm memories about it. From the emergent gameplay created by seemingly-chance encounters, through a couple of very memorable missions, and then a blur of less memorable ones that nevertheless delivered the spirit and feeling of a western. Through the ride to Mexico (Rockstar’s staple of unlocking a half of the map always succeeds in creating an unforgettable moment) and the fantastic invention of the double epilogue that breaks the story conventions of action games and westerns alike. The range and scope of minigames and side activities pales in comparison with the likes of the Yakuza series, but perhaps because of this I felt like I was able to experience a game as large as RDR in its whole without pouring in more hours than I’d want to. No matter how many years pass, RDR solidifies itself in my brain as a really good experience which I’m glad I’ve had.
The next title that pops into my mind is Hyper Light Drifter. The 2016 indie zelda-like, inspired by its head designer Alex Preston’s heart conditions, boasts a wide range of characteristics that made me fall in love. One of the most immediately noticeable qualities is its stylishness, found between the designs, color pallette, music and vfx. Use of 16-bit graphic style means that a lot is left to the player’s imagination, and moreover the game features almost no text in any human language - other than a couple of short tutorial messages, everything else is communicated through animations and pictograms. The music and the way it’s mixed with the rest of the sounds works really hard at putting the player in a weird, uneasy state, which only makes the cutscenes and scripted events more effective. It shares old Zelda’s general structure of top-down camera, a mix of fighting, exploration and puzzle-solving, and also giving the player some agency over what order they want to do all the objectives on the world map in. But the tempo of exploration and fighting is much different than the classic Nintendo titles, thanks to modern twin-stick shooter controls that require you to use your dashes, melees and ranged attacks quickly and properly. It all fits into a very unique and very enjoyable package and I’d gladly play an expansion or a sequel.
Another indie game using an old big N franchise as the base for its structure is the 2013 metroidvania Guacamelee! What I appreciate the most about this one is how it complements its metroidness with beat-em-up mechanics. Those are two genres that I’ve always thought I liked conceptually, but struggled with finding actual titles I would enjoy - as it turns out, they are a perfect marriage. The arena combat sections intersected with exploration and puzzling result in a really well-paced title, and thanks to the choice of Lucha Libre theming, the same moves that are used for creating better combos during battles are also used for better traversal and removing gating obstacles. You will have to use the rising uppercut as a double jump to get up higher, or break a particularly sturdy wall with a headbutt. I’m a big fan of mechanics that have multiple uses like that, it always makes games feel more coherent and real. As for the presentation, it’s worth noting that the game’s humor is pretty polarizing, but personally I enjoyed it quite a bit. And then there’s the fantastic mariachi-inspired music full of beautiful brass and guitars coupled with some modern synths. Ultimately I don’t think it ever had a chance at placing in my top10, but it absolutely holds a special place in my heart.
I enjoyed Cuphead for very similar reasons to Guacamelee. While it’s a game famous for its hard difficulty, which I didn’t mind but I could do without, it’s its other selling point in Fleischer’s cartoon aesthetic that has made me into a fan. The graphics will never have enough praise sung about, and not just because of the quality of animations themselves, but even more so for creators’ ability to use them for interactive game elements that are as clear and readable as they are lush and beautiful. Levels and boss fights are well designed and controls felt fine, but overall I think of Cuphead mostly as an achievement in how a game can look, and thus a honorable mention rather than a placement on the list.
Rounding up the “small game” category is last year’s mobile sensation What The Golf?, a title I would probably call a puzzle-platformer for the lack of better genrefication vocabulary. In essence, the game is about leaving just one constant - you hold your finger on the screen and a bar appears, you can then rotate and fill it by pulling your finger in appropriate direction, and letting go applies some kind of force to some kind of object, such as a golf ball. The whole brilliance of the game lies in how much variety in rules and settings it’s able to generate without ever changing this one mechanic. Everything else is a fair game - your goals, how physics behave, intricacies of controls, how levels are designed, what sort of obstacles you have to overcome, whether there’s a trick you need to figure out or if it’s more arcade-y and your dexterity is tested. Developers have really pushed the limits of how much you can change without forcing the player to learn the game from scratch. On the other hand, the title has its issues with pacing, a share of questionable ideas that turn more than few levels into suffering, and there’s the fact that if the variety wears off and the game doesn’t throw enough new things at you, it can be jarring just how simple the core is. But for the most part, it’s the perfect canvas for all these great one-off ideas, and overall I was really impressed and fascinated up until completion.
Another game for a mobile platform I greatly enjoyed was the 7th entry into the Ace Attorney franchise, Spirits of Justice, which has become one of my favorite installments thanks to its setting of a foreign, unjust country, renewed dramatic tension that has been mostly lacking since Trials and Tribulations and an overall good execution on the series’ framework. Playing a detective attorney who not only has to solve cases but also prove them has been fun for almost two decades now and even though it seemed like the topic was exhausted after Dual Destinies, SoJ proved that good whodunnits will likely never get old for me.
Speaking of long running japanese franchises, my second-to-last honorable mention goes to Persona 4 Arena Ultimax. This is one game that I’m never quite sure how to feel about because on one hand, I can definitely say that I’ve enjoyed most of my time playing it and in general I go out of my way to do so. But comparatively speaking, I’ve spent much less time with it compared to some of the other fighting games I was into, I never touched any of its single player modes and I don’t even necessarily know its system inside-out. However, I can absolutely say that the game feels absolutely great on the level of “feel” - the feedback provided by animations, effects, sounds and screen shaking, relatively short hitstops, ability to cancel a lot of moves into jumps and doublejumps, fast airdashes, One More Canceling, satisfying combos and the whole Persona mechanic, together they all form a fighting system that has been thoroughly enjoyable for me on every level. I also praise the game for including fantastic approachability options in auto combos and two-button DPs, reducing special move inputs to just quarter circles, and designing a very elegant 4-button layout that gives out a plethora of tools and options. I missed out on the short moment that this game was widely played as I haven’t really picked it up until about 2 years back, but I’m trying to make up on lost time and hopefully Persona is here to stay for just a bit longer.
And definitely not least honorable of all the mentions is the game I’ve already written about at length, the title that has since became a footnote in Fortnite’s history - Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds. It’s still my favorite battle royale game and for at least a moment, that genre was something really special for me - a new way to use big, open worlds to fuel an exciting and immersive style of gameplay. The mix of constant and variable elements, the influence of other players on the map, permadeath with quick time to kill and difficult aiming model have solidly placed this game as one of my favorite inventions of the last decade, even if it turned out that what I wanted for so many years would fulfill me after mere 60 hours of playtime.
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Looking at the list thus far I’m moderately happy about the diversity of types of games and genres represented, I was worried that my taste has regressed and zeroed in on a very specific subsection of the medium, but looks like that is only partially true? In any case I hope this tells you something about what kinds of games I like as well as my reasoning and that you will further enjoy reading my top10 proper.
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