Games. I played games in 2019. A lot of people did, they're very popular, so I hear. I didn't really play a lot of new games this year though, between financial woes, lack of free time, and in all honesty not a great release calendar this year, I just took the time to catch up on stuff I'd missed out on over the last two years.
What games I did play from this year though, fuck me, they were all hard as nails. Last year I played all the Kingdom Hearts in prep for III coming out this year, and I remember thinking, shit this is pretty stressful, why am I doing this? Well those few months of torment hold nothing on what I experienced in 2019. Read on.
Ace Combat 7 : Skies Unknown | PS4, XBONE, PC | 18th January
Do you remember Ace Combat? Those dope fighter pilot games on the PS1? Yeah man, those were great. But, were you aware they continued to make Ace Combat games past the PS1 instalments? Because shit, I thought it had gone the way of MedEvil and Driver and the likes, but apparently not. You can imagine then my surprise when a slick cinematic trailer for the seventh instalment, Skies Unknown, dropped at E3 last year. Awesome, I mused, it's time to hit the skies again and smoke some fools whilst doing flip-de-loops and barrel rolls. Radical.
Skies Unknown was very different from what I had imagined it to be - I haven't played the older games in so long that I couldn't remember if they had plots present in them (apparently, they did) so I was a little confused by all this talk of civil unrest and countries double crossing one another in a dirty war. None of it I'd say is very interesting, but it also then doesn't interfere too much with the action of the game, so it was no bother.
What else I'd forgotten from those earlier Ace Combat games though is that they're rock fucking solid, something that caused much frustration during my play-through. Some missions are timed and the tasks you must complete within this time can cut quite fine, which in itself isn't so much of a big deal, but when you then take into account the few and between checkpoints and the segments where you don't seem to be doing anything at all, it can start to take its toll on your patience.
In one particular mission I had 10 minutes to wipe out as much of an enemy base as I could, and after four or so attempts I finally got "mission complete" pop up. I had a quick check of my phone to reply to loved ones I'd neglected during my aerial assault, and in that time my jet fighter flew into the ocean and exploded. Fuck it though, I thought, mission complete. Only mission was most certainly not complete according to the game, the mission was ACTUALLY complete once the dialogue section following the mission was finished, so I had to go back and do the whole thing again. Weak.
But, despite some bogus and punishing set backs regarding checkpoint woes, I had a lot of fun with it. I'm a few missions off completing it still, but frankly the story is nothing to be invested in, and there doesn't seem to be much payoff in me completing those final chapters, so it shall remain on my shelf for whenever I feel like getting hammered and flying around with the Top Gun soundtrack on my Hi-Fi.
The game also supports VR which looks incredible when playing, but a word to the wise - do NOT get blotto'd and start doing multiple barrel rolls. It will not end well.
Should you buy it? Now that I've seen it going for about £20 I'd say yes, but on release I'd maybe have been less inclined to recommend it. It's fun, but it's not full retail price fun. An essential buy if you have VR, however.
Kingdom Hearts III | PS4, XBONE | 25th January
Guys, guys. I am a weeb. I'm subs over dubs, I have a couple of JRPG OSTs on my Walkman, I go out of my way to get Calpis from the Asian shop round the corner from my house, and I have played every Kingdom Hearts. I've even considered buying merch from time to time. I am a man un-kept. But you know what? I have no shame, because as daft as this series is it's an absolute blast and holds a very special place in my life, being the game that made a seven year old me go "dang, I need one of those PS2s so I can play Kingdom Hearts".
So does Kingdom Hearts III, a game which is over a decade overdue, live up to my expectations based on what has come before? Absolutely, though with one criticism I will get to shortly. For now though, let's celebrate what works. The most notable praise for the game is how absolutely gorgeous everything looks - I mean all of the Kingdom Hearts have looked great but III blows all previous games out of the water with it being the franchise's first full-scale dive into the current hardware. Frozen world's Let it Go segment looks almost identical to the scene in the film, minus the inclusion of Goofy, Donald, and a spiky haired boy, and even more amazingly some of the Pirates of the Caribbean scenes look as real as the scenes they were re-telling.
Combat, exploration, and additional minigames are also on point here, with the combat feeling as fluid as it ever has before, featuring some absolutely batshit crazy power ups and special moves. Areas like San Frantokyo and the open seas of the Caribbean are far more vast than anything the series has offered before, allowing for plenty of fun to be had just running around and seeing what you can discover.
So what doesn't work? Well, it's a strange negative to address, but Kingdom Hearts III is too easy. Part of the fun I've always had when playing KH games is how absolutely ridiculous they are in terms of difficulty, prompting that glowing sense of pride when your honed skills finally allow you to emerge victorious over an enemy, whereas in Kingdom Hearts III I don't think I died once. By the time I'd unlocked the Ultima keyblade, which again was a breeze compared to prior titles, I was essentially wiping the floor with anything that crossed my path. I pretty much went Deliverance on the final boss' ass. Who knows, maybe the DLC will add back some of that controller-biting, obscenity-screaming joy I missed out on here. (Since writing this I have found out that the DLC does, in fact, bring back the difficulty. Fantastic news.)
Should you play it? Given the lowered difficulty over previous instalments and this game offering more than any previous entry has, I'd say even if you've never played a previous KH you should give this a go. Don't worry too much about not knowing what's going on with the story though, few people really do.
Resident Evil 2 | PS4, XBONE, PC | 25th January
I loves me some Resi, I does. I never actually got to complete the second game though as I never had my own copy, I was even banned from playing the first game back in the day because it was deemed too spooky for my ankle-biting self by my household overlords, and being the criminal I am I never went back and finished it in later life. But it's all kosher, because thanks to this REmake I was finally able to complete it, albeit a much slicker, overhauled version of it.
Resident Evil 2 is a gorgeous survival horror game, which manages to evoke new scares and terrors that have been implemented to replace the ones lost by the new style of the game, swapping the claustrophobic fixed camera of the original with an over the shoulder third person set up. Boy, those scares are good, too. There is a genuine sense of dread and fear when exiting the safe rooms and venturing out to find the essential items needed to progress the campaign, as you try your best to conserve the limited ammo and health items scattered lightly throughout the maps. In fact I actually had to knock the difficulty down at one point and start again, as I found myself facing up against an early boss with next to no ammo and no means of obtaining more.
But as a testament to how good RE2 is, I had absolutely no issue in losing 4 hours of progress in order to start anew, especially given that there was still plenty of difficulty to be had in the easier setting. There was never a moment where I felt overpowered or safe, in fact right up until the very end I felt myself fighting for survival, which is exactly what I want from a Resident Evil game.
Mr. X proved to be the only criticism I have for the game, in that his constant pestering soon shifted from scary to frustrating, as I often found myself wasting a lot of time just trying to get to an area I needed to be at in order to progress, only to have to turn and run away for a while because Mr. X decided those exact areas were where he fancied hanging out for the duration of the game. Just fuck off, mate.
Should you play it? Definitely, it is easily one of the best games this year.
Devil May Cry 5 | PS4, XBONE, PC | 8th March
I've never properly played a DMC before 5, which is terrible, I know, but I guess whenever one came out I just had other stuff I was more interested in to focus on. But DMC5 came out in March, and I have a birthday in March, so all the planets just seemed to align and I mades me that purchase.
DMC5 is good man, pretty damn good. The combat is slick, and there's plenty of variety between the fighting styles of the three protagonists, meaning there's an incentive to tackle enemies differently depending on who you're playing as, which worked great in keeping things from getting stale. In fact the game seems hell-bent on ensuring you don't feel the combat flat-lining at any point, as even up until the very end new abilities and weapons are being offered to you - and this isn't your standard "we will bombard you with an abundance of weapons and abilities that have very little difference between them" shabbang, each has something to offer to the gameplay and will take some time to become fully comfortable with, which also allows for you to string together some pretty formidable attacks once you've mastered each one.
The story is a little shakey, like I wondered if maybe this was because I have no idea what the fuck is going on in terms of DMC lore, but a quick glance at online reviews seems to indicate that even die hard fans would agree the story is a weak part of the overall product, so I'll stick by my statement with the blessing of the elders. Is it enough to ruin the experience though? Not really no, as it's just a blast hacking up demons n shit with a motorbike.
Should you play it? Yeah man, it's pretty good.
Sekiro | PS4, XBONE, PC | 22nd March
I liked Sekiro up until the final boss then I was fucking done with it. Like I know what I'm supposed to be doing, but the window of opportunity is so god damn narrow that my mind and body are simply not up to the challenge of executing it. This is probably the closest I've ever come to understanding people's cries for FromSoftware's games and similar ones to have adjustable difficulty settings, but at the same time I still think that's dumb as fuck because this level of difficulty and the practice and training required to conquer it are the very core of these games.
Unfortunately though I do not have the time needed to beat Sekiro, so was forever in a torturous loop where I'd boot it up, die a few times but get a little further each time, switch it off for a few days to get shit done in the real world, return to it, and find myself having to get back to that same level of technique all over again. Basically if you beat Sekiro it just means you're just some basement dwelling nerd who doesn't have a life and I am so much better than you, or at least that is what I shall continue to tell myself to nurse my bruised ego.
Difficulty and final boss frustrations aside however, Sekiro was an absolute joy to play, offering a completely different experience to FromSoftware's previous games, with gameplay often feeling like some sort of sadist rhythm game, seeing you perfectly time parries almost to a beat before finally driving your sword into an exhausted and bested enemy's chest, neck, stomach, or wherever. Another big step away from other FS games is the bigger push for exploration, especially exploration up and down large chasms and mountainous regions.
But fuck that last boss man, fuck that to hell and back.
Should you buy it? If you like a challenge, or just outright hate yourself, this is the game for you.
Judgement | PS4 | 25th June
Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio's last non-Yakuza output, 2018's Fist of the North Star : Lost Paradise, kinda left me a little dissatisfied in that it felt very much like a Yakuza-lite, but with Judgement I expected things to be knocked back up a notch (bam) with its promise of an in-depth crime noire story and accompanying mechanics. I gotta say though, I was a little bummed out to behold what was essentially just another Yakuza-lite, although where Lost Paradise did seem very much a step back from the direction the Yakuza series was going in terms of quality and depth, Judgement managed to keep to that same quality, though without taking things any further.
I didn't find the story as gripping as other Ryu Ga games' plots, however things did pick up towards the end, snowballing into an extremely satisfying and enjoyable final chapter. The minigames on offer also seemed less impressive than those found in Yakuza (no karaoke? scandalous) however I suppose they didn't want to make the game feel TOO similar to Yakuza's, though the few minigames it offered instead such as drone racing and VR shenanigans weren't exactly phenomenal outings. My biggest criticism by far however is the bogus trailing missions, which often became frustratingly dragged out when dealing with targets who would spend what felt like an eternity turning around to look for you, something that often felt moot given that I could be the clumsiest son of a bitch imaginable and still be considered "stealthy".
Saying that though, the combat did feel a little more fluid than Yakuza's, and the added risk of the police showing up during your fight added a certain level of thrills, but again, it didn't stray THAT far from Yakuza's gameplay. I was also disappointed to find that the crime investigation side of the game, which I'd imagined as a sort've high drama court room scenario akin to Phoenix Wright mixed with a little LA Noire in the investigation side of things, was pretty half baked. Your mistakes in the use of evidence seemed to have little to no impact on the story, meaning it could have been omitted entirely without an issue. I had fun with it, sure, but there were times that I did feel disinterested and even frustrated when playing, something that I must say, I have never once felt when journeying through Kamurocho as Kiryu or any of his many friends.
Should you play it? Fans of Ryu Ga's other games will probably still have a hoot here, and perhaps those who have never played one before will have an even greater time without that high expectation of quality, however I'd say Judgement is a take it or leave it recommendation, which is a shame given I wanted to love it so much.
Blasphemous | PC, PS4, XBONE, Switch |10th September
I've still not completed Blasphemous, and I probably won't for some time, because Blasphemous is fuckin' solid. I always feel so dirty doing the whole "it's like Dark Souls" thing, but much like when I covered Sekiro further on up the list, it does feel a necessity to bring up what is apparently the most ripped off game of the decade.
Simply put, Blasphemous is a 2D Dark Souls, which admittedly could just as well translate as Blasphemous is a Metroidvania game, however there's definitely more of the Souls' DNA to be found in this cracking wee game. The story is told very passively, opting for you to paint the picture in your head of what is going on based on the areas you traverse and the enemies you will encounter. There is the occasional NPC who will give cryptic messages to you that also add to the lore, yet really the story is very much an afterthought for the player, something you can research in your own time rather than during gameplay time.
Gameplay is incredibly difficult, with one dishonourable mention going to a huge difficulty spike in the snowy areas towards the top of the map, which will make or break most players due to an unforgiving system of trial and error which can lose you precious though short progression. Death will return you to the last area you rested at, and you will lose some, though not all, of your in-game currency.
So what's the USP on a game like Blasphemous? Simple, it looks bloody gorgeous. The smooth as butter animation really brings the pixel art style to life, in all its grotesque and Gothic glory.
Should you play it? It can be frustrating at times and may not be accessible for more casual gamers, however for those veterans in the realms of difficult gameplay this is a great game to try.
Untitled Goose Game | PC, Switch | 20th September
Man, what a game. I never knew how much I wanted to be an untitled goose until I played Untitled Goose Game, and now it appears my path in life is clear.
This game really does have everything you could ever want from an Untitled Goose Game - stealth, puzzles, challenges, secrets, humour, quirky art style, and a delightfully British aesthetic. The primary goal of Untitled Goose Game is to cause havoc around this small picturesque village setting, where you are expected to complete specific acts of havoc in order to open new areas, which can be done entirely at your own leisure. There are also secret tasks to complete, which will only appear on your task list once completed, encouraging you to experiment with your environment and use your imagination in creating comedic scenarios.
What really made Untitled Goose Game special however was the way it handled the game's plot, which I felt was completely absent initially, until a final task was given to me in the last area you unlock. After a section that felt very akin to the stealth sections of the earlier Metal Gear Solid titles, I was greeted by the game's ending, returning me to an area I had all but forgotten about since starting my journey, which brought meaning and relevance to something I'd noticed when starting the area, but had paid little attention to when venturing on. I won't spoil the whole thing by detailing exactly what happens here and how it all comes to be, rather I'll let you go and find out for yourselves.
Should you play it? This was possibly my favourite game of the year, so yes, you should.
Legend of Zelda : Link's Awakening | Switch | 20th September
Much like with Resident Evil 2, I never played the original Link's Awakening, so I had very little in the form of nostalgia or expectations to affect my opinion of this year's remake. From what I have seen from other players however, this remake manages to perfectly capture what made the original such a beloved entry in the Zelda franchise, and that's just swell because the more praise I can give to this game the better.
From the moment you awake on this strange island you're thrown straight into adventure. Immediately you head out to reclaim your sword so you can traverse other areas of the game, which is a simplistic yet accurate description of the beats the rest of the game will play out, as you will often find yourself venturing through the island looking for specific items that will allow you access to areas that are for now completely blocked from you. It's a far-cry from Breath of the Wild's approach in allowing you to essentially run to the final boss from the moment you start, but I'd say this is a far more satisfying means of gameplay, as there is a real sense of progression to your actions.
The game is fairly easy to start with, luring you into a false sense of security as you believe the game may perhaps be too easy, before the difficulty begins to mount and mount with each new area opened up to you, climaxing in a final boss that should give you a real sense of challenge for your troubles.
The whole game just feels so whimsical and fantastical, aided by the game's gorgeous art style and enchanting music, and even upon completion will entice you to return to hunt for elusive secrets hidden throughout the island.
Should you play it? Absolutely, another essential for Nintendo Switch owners.
So that's that then. A year of pretty sound games. There's a lot more games from this year I wish I'd had chance to play, but thanks to the wonders of the retail-driven machine that is Christmas I will get my chance. So what was the best games of this year? Which ones stood above the rest to be crowned the title of "the best of 2019"? Winner - Kingdom Hearts III
I really can't think of many faults to give Kingdom Hearts, it ticked oh so many boxes for me and made for one of my most enjoyable experiences of 2019. I've even found myself going back to it from time to time, just seeing what else I can chip away at in terms of side missions and achievements. The DLC will be dropping a year after the game's release, but frankly my excitement to return to it has not ceased.
Runner-up - Untitled Goose Game
Much like its titular character, this little indie game came along and captured the hearts of millions, myself included, and caused a real headache for triple A developers in terms of sales figures and chart positions. Much like with Kingdom Hearts, Untitled Goose Game is a title I have returned to multiple times this year, just simply so I could kill a couple of hours behaving like an absolute shit to a bunch of blank faced civilians.
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