Games of the Year We Played in the Year 2021

A new year is a time to reflect on the old, and what better way is there than to commemorate our most favorite of video games? But this is not a task to be taken alone. I gathered unto myself a team of six lovely men and women to cast forth our nominees and vote - with great authority - on what was truly the most special of all special games to us last year.

Oh, and this list has almost nothing to do with release dates. Instead, it is a recognition of the actual games that spoke to us - and held us together, sometimes quite literally - in 2020.

Crack open that award envelope, and let’s begin!

Best Use of Eight

Ian

Octopath Traveler is what happens when you make a retro game that looks like what it did in your memory rather than what it actually looked like. There’s a lot that’s rad about Octopath, but I’m really glad it’s kicked off this new graphical trend of “HD pixel art” that’s now popping up in a bunch of other games.

Other things to appreciate: the music, the inscrutable way H’aanit talks, and the fact that the first letters of every character’s names spell out O-C-T-O-P-A-T-H. If that’s not the “Best Use of Eight,” I don’t know what is!

Top Moment in the Feels

Arakawa finds his son in the subway (Yakuza: Like a Dragon)

Ian

The Yakuza series is one that routinely crosses between prescient realism and comical absurdities — and, somehow, makes it work.

One moment the Yakuza series may be dabbling in comical, light-hearted absurdity and the next moment it may be devastating you with its prescient realism and honest, raw emotion. There’s a canny relationship between these modes: the lows hit hard because of the highs, and the highs are a welcome reprieve as well as context to the lows. It’s all texture that serves your investment in the characters. I could just be basic, but I feel like RGG is especially good at executing on this texture — then, the emotional turns and payoffs.

Keeping spoilers light, a particular moment in Yakuza: Like A Dragon that stuck with me is a sequence of a man trying to find his infant son. There’s barely any spoken words in the scene, but the emotion is palpable. The desperation of his pursuit. The momentary relief when he thinks he may have found his child. The layered, crushing defeat when he realizes the child is still out of reach. The frustrated hopelessness as he tries to reach him anyway. His emotions flaring and rising all the while.

I’d be lying if I said that moment didn’t get to me. The performance and body language was just so good. It got me right in my empathetic response — easily more than any other piece of media this year. How dare you, video game!!!

Best Game Played with the Buds

Ian

ROCK. AND. STONE.

At the constant risk of someone punching me in the gut and stealing my ‘gamer card’, I freely admit that I’m not a fan of first-person shooters. There’s very few I’ve ever gotten into, even ones focused on cop-op.

Deep Rock Galactic is an exception to that rule. It probably helps that half the game is about digging holes and building ambitious roller coasters (you say pipelines, I say roller coasters). The mixture of shooting, surveying, and mining makes for a thrilling and varied team experience with your buds. You’re always doing something just a little different every step of the way, and I think that ends up being a big part of what makes it all click for me. Heck, I even played it on my own time! By myself! I *never* do that with these games!

Deep Rock nails it in a lot of areas — the gameplay, aesthetics, the music, and even the premise (space dwarves!!!). It even has gaming’s best beard customization. What’s not to love?

Best Role Reversal

Melinda

Without too many spoilers, there are a lot of role reversals in Omori, which is the story of a hikikomori (chronic shut-in) who alternates between an otherworldly fantasy world, and Real Life. There are a lot of role-reversals in the rest of the cast as his relationships with his companions in the real world are much different than in his imagination, but the biggest his constantly trying to sabotage himself from having a normal life.

Most Satisfying Series of Buttons and Levers

Melinda

I adore sim games of all different types: building sims, city sims, farming sims, dating sims, they're all a great time. This year my most delightful find was a crossover - both a dating sim, and a city management sim! Max Gentleman: Sexy Business is everything a wonton bisexual with world domination aims could want: literally buying money to fund your business ventures; a ridiculous combat system (fisticuffs!) to establish your market share in the city; several charming Lunch Date minigames to get to know your fourteen(!!) companions; an affection system that progresses each character's individual storyline, as well as a series of scenes between each set of characters as their relationships with each other increase; a tongue-in-cheek overarching storyline in three acts, introducing slightly more complex city mechanics in each act; a highly customizable avatar for yourself and your Chief Business Rival; your very own Business Maid and Battle Butler to assist with your schemes; dozens of unlockable costumes for your companions; and, of course, ~smut~, featuring ACTUAL ADULTS instead of the constant influx of teenagers in most of the overseas imports (>.>), and of varying degrees of lewditude depending on your tastes (customizable in the menu screens). You can play as a slightly flirtatious asexual, or you can bone down with everyone, or pick up lovingly-rendered artwork or booklets of them having at each other from your friendly neighborhood Smut Peddler. You can even customize the degree of lewdness on a specific character basis, so if you're down to clown with everyone except the Obvious Santa Expy, you can ensure he keeps his pants on. If you enjoy resource sims or dating sims, this is an extremely well-made version of both, and a hell of a good time.
Also, your rival eventually gets possessed by Satan, basically, so "hell of a good time" is, actually, rather literal.

It goes places.

(Sometimes, those places are butts.)

Best Short Game

Trevor

A girl. A man. A knight. A beautiful game told primarily from 3 sources, each with a different feel and mechanics. The tone and music stick with you long after the game is over. Grief plays a central role, but not in a way I would have expected.

Best 2021 Game Actually Released in 2021

Ian

The most special aspect of games like XCOM are — at least to my RPG weirdo brain — the characters. Even if the units technically don’t speak, one can’t help but ascribe personalities and traits to them based on how the action plays out. The cold hard math transforms into living personality. The systems and scenarios have a way of piquing my imagination and creating grand, emergent sagas. It’s an unofficial but critical part of my enjoyment of those games.

Well, Wildermyth is “what if we went all-in on that concept,” and the results are one of the most incredible and unique experiences I’ve ever had with a game. It strikes a wonderful balance between giving you material moments that inform or change a character’s trajectory while being hands-off enough to let the imagination run wild with the details. The comic book-style presentation is incredibly charming and the dialogue is full of heart and humor — legit, I think this is the funniest game I’ve played all year? And maybe even the most heart-wrenching. I get sucked completely into the stakes in a big battle — I’m not just fighting to beat the scenario, I’m fighting to keep all the characters alive that I’ve grown so attached to!!

Even cutting out the well-executed story hooks, it’s just a great and compelling tactical game at its core. There’s too much to say, so I’ll stop here: play this dang game!

Trevor

Wildermyth is a game I introduced a lot of people to, and it is difficult for me to put the love for this game into words. It's a tactical game that can get VERY challenging if that's what you're looking for, but where it really shines is the story. It has some prewritten storylines that were amazing, but due to the procedurally generated nature of the game the best storylines are the ones that emerge for the player on the way. You can hear the legends of your previous characters, find their weapons, or in one strange case have one of them pop out of a tapestry to join the next generation of adventurers. You can also play with your friends and have your story go in directions you wouldn't expect.

2021 Game of the Year That We Played in the Year 2021

Mike (Control)

The setting is wild but comes with a flawless tone that makes the premise completely believable. There’s just enough disbelief on the parts of the characters - and just enough absolute acceptance of things like refrigerators that have to be watched at all times or else they start eating people - to sell the setting. And to top it off, you get to smash people to death by flinging chairs, potted plants, bits of wall, and private security bros at extra-dimensional zombies.

Ian (Control)
I should play this game, huh?

Ian (Factory Town)

While I consider Wildermyth the best game that came out this year, Factory Town is the perfect game that came out this year… for me.

After Summer I was having a hard time connecting with any game I tried to play. A combination of being really busy, going through a lot of changes, and being generally anxious. (My brain just kind of does that, appropriate or not.)

I was really craving something that was low-energy and relaxing, yet also stimulating for that engineering part of my brain that just wants to build things and solve problems. Factory Town turned out to be perfect for that. It’s a town-building and resource-management game with an emphasis on creating optimized automation. Yet it also gives you zero negative-pressure and virtually no possible fail states. So I was able to fully melt into it in my off-time and enjoy the administrative thrills of an exponentially-expanding industrial empire. It’s practically a sandbox game, but with enough structure and direction to have kept pushing me forward.

It was also a game I thought might be right up my father’s alley, so I shared it with him and he got hooked on it as well. It’s become an ongoing topic between us (possibly boring everyone else around us), which has only helped keep the game relevant. Between being an outlet for my anxiety and another way to connect with my dad, I can’t not count Factory Town as the most important game I played all year.

Omori (Melinda)

OMORI is an RPGmaker-style game, but is a strong example of its genre. The art is beautiful, with hand-drawn portraits and cut scenes interspersed with the charming pixel art (as OMOCAT, the creator, was primarily an artist/writer and started the concept as a webcomic!) The unique way emotions are used as battle enhancements adds depth to what might otherwise be very samey gameplay (though admittedly, you do quickly figure out a few combos that are typical go-tos in fights, as always seems to happen in this style of RPG.) And the tone is reminiscent of the many games inspired by Earthbound's Quirky RPG legacy, like Undertale or Yume Nikki, though it is definitely more up-front about containing some horror elements. There's goofy minigames, interesting side-stories, multiple endings, and a lot of emotional depth to be found, and I highly recommend OMORI to anyone who's in the mood for an often surprising, fantastical journey that will punch you in the gut a few times.

Trevor (Valheim)

This game is one of the most relaxing experiencing when storms aren't abrewing. Calm music, a building system where I felt encouraged to build beyond my usual survival shack, a hunger system that doesn't become a constant annoyance, and a unique look all blend together to bring an experience that nothing else quite has. Certainly one I'm going back to this year now that they've added a ton.

Sarah (Yakuza 0)

I started playing Yakuza 0 at a moment in my life when I really needed a distraction, and I couldn't have picked a better game. From an engrossing plot to ridiculous substories to arguably overly-involved cabaret-club and real estate mini-games, Yakuza 0 is a huge, luxurious game, and the experience is what you make it. As an added bonus - it's the first in a series of eight games, not counting spin-offs. So there's a lot to look forward to!