The GoodSenpai's Games Recap of 2019

Once a year, I revisit this blog to write what is probably my favorite thing to do each year; write lists and reflections on my year in gaming. However, this year I don't feel a list is appropriate because I think making a top ten or five list doesn't exactly do a lot of these games justice. I have several complex feeling on many a game this year and I want to make sure that I accurately depict each one. So this isn't a list of the best and games that I played this year, instead this is a reflection on my year in gaming as a whole. To be fair, I also didn't play anything from the Kingdom Hearts franchise so I think it is safe to say I enjoyed most of the games that I played. Still, trying to put this into a list would be unfair because I had a number of different experiences with gaming this year and trying to format it into a list would be a big disingenuous. Now of course, there is a game that I enjoyed far and away more than just about any other game here but I do want to make sure to highlight some of the other highlights I had.

So a couple of things that I want to explain before I start this. Yes, most of these games I played on the Nintendo Switch, I didn't get a ton of mileage out of my PS4 this year. I mean sure, Hitman 2 remained a massive piece of my gaming experience this year but because I already explained my thoughts on it in this article last year, I figured that I would just refer you to that article instead. Second, I played pretty much all the Pokemon games this year and I have a lot of thoughts on them, both good and bad. I figure that will be the next article is some sort of reflection or ranking of the generations because I didn't want this list being bogged down with Pokemon games. Thirdly, I have to always say that this list covers everything that I personally played in 2019, so there are games that may have come out one, two, or even seven years ago in some cases. This is about my year in gaming, not everybody else's sheesh (there's also plenty of 2019 here). Lastly, I never include anything that I've replayed this year, which is in the same vein as the Hitman comment. I replayed a lot of games I really enjoy this year like NieR: Automata but once again, I made my feelings on that one clear in my 2017 games article. Anyways, let's get on with this reflection/list, whatever you want to call it.

"The Game of the Year" - Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Figure that we might as well start this one off with the big boy and honestly the one I feel I have to explain the least. It is also an excuse to get as many pictures of Edelgard as possible into this article. I have never claimed to be a massive Fire Emblem fan and mostly, like many, I only knew the characters from their appearances in Smash Bros. However, this year, I don't think there was a game that I enjoyed in the way that I enjoyed Three Houses. With a cast of colorful characters, a simple to learn and more intricate that intially appearing battle system, a plot that had me on the edge of my seat to see what happened. I spent hours and hours pouring over my characters, perfecting their stats and gear, optimizing each one to become the best soldier that they could. This all happening while you get to know each. I'm a sucker for timeskip stories in which major characters end up on different sides of a conflict and I applaud Three Houses for going ahead and playing that aspect of the game totally straight. Having gotten to know these characters and their motivations, I found myself in tears at the end of each playthrough and as soon as the credits ended I started on the next one. Each playthrough felt different enough from the others that it truly felt like their own unique stories and I was genuinely curious and excited to see all the different perspectives. Even now starting a new playthrough sits in the back of my head constantly even with my ever growing backlog. Truly, Three Houses is one of the best experiences one can have.

"The Game that I Should Feel Worst About Liking"- Pokemon Sword

If it is not apparent already, since I just spent a ridiculous amount of time typing out my thoughts about all the rivals in Pokemon games, I am a pretty big fan of the franchise. When they announced these games for the Switch earlier in the year I was absolutely ecstatic and was prepared to throw myself back into a world that I had loved but left behind. Here is the problem I found though with playing each iteration of the game, it opened up my eyes to how stale the franchise had become. I loved playing Ultra Moon because it tried a lot of different things that still felt uniquely Pokemon. Sword & Shield feels closer to a mobile game than anything that it launching on a home console in 2019. It's Pokemon so the gameplay loop is still engaging, there are tons of quality of life improvements that make the game less of a slog, and the world of Galar and the new Pokemon are some of the best yet. Gym battles became this bombastic affair with towering gigantamax Pokemon and a crowd that dynamically reacted to the events of the battle. A Wild Area that truly felt random and spontaneous that gave a short view of what a truly open world Pokemon game could be. There are several things this game introduced that make it difficult to go back to the other games. However, the game itself is sorely lacking in content. 

The Wild Area loses it's appeal after the first ten minutes you're there, the game is so linear to keep you from remembering that the game is shallower than the kiddie pool, the story is garbage even by the low standards one would judge a story in a Pokemon game. I played through it enough to get all the badges, become champion, and completed the PokeDex and then what was left? By the time that I'd cleared the 7th gym I realized that so little of the game lay out in front of me that I had to shut the game off for a bit because I was so disheartened. It scratched my itch for a new Pokemon experience but unlike those other experiences, I was left with. I really didn't want to loop myself in with the hordes of unhappy Pokemon fans who berated this game before release and Game Freak already has my 60 bucks...but this franchise sorely needs a soul injection and new life. There are no excuses for this game to be as barebones and low effort as it is. Sword was my biggest disappointment of the year and I don't feel good about saying it.

"The Game that Made Me FEEL like a Badass" - Astral Chain

Astral Chain kicks so much ass. There are so many positives that I could say about this game and to be honest, if you own a Nintendo Switch, you owe it to yourself to go pick this game up. Astral Chain is a gorgeous cyperpunk action game where you fight demons from the other side of time and space, essentially with stands. It has a wildly cool premise, fantastic soundtrack, gorgeous visuals, and this little charm and polish to it that made it wildly engaging. Obviously anything by Platinum Games will be chock full of flashy combat and beautiful set pieces of which Astral Chain delivers in spades. It isn't without it's fair share of flaws; the combat isn't quite up to the usual Platinum Games polish, the camera is quite diabolical, and it's plot is ripped straight out of Evangelion but I still dug the shit out of it's expansive set pieces and even found myself feeling a bit emotional during it's final scenes.

"The Game That Made me Cry the Most" - Death Stranding

It is funny to me how a simple walking simulator was the greatest challenger to Three Houses for my Game of the Year. However, just dismissing Death Stranding as a walking simulator is rather ignorant as to me it stands as a triumph of a game creator who was unwilling to compromise his vision and created something beautiful and unforgettable. The first three hours of Death Stranding are a frustrating and sluggish mess that at times made me wonder why I'd spent 60 bucks on such a wacko game. However, once you get through that. Kojima creates a beautiful picture of a game that is about the human will, connection, but also a display of what humans can do when they work together for a common goal. When the game opens up and finally brings to you it's "multiplayer network" feature I had to change my mindset that I was not playing this game simply for my enjoyment but to make another player's experience smoother. I have yet to play another game in which the in game plot and gameplay are so perfectly linked with one another.  Somehow, walking and carrying your gear becomes this nuanced and engaging experience. The plot of course is typical Kojima but is anchored by some fantastic performances by it's cast particularly Mads Mikkelson and Troy Baker. As the game's final moments played out I felt. I'm not sure if Death Stranding is a game that I will ever return to, at least not for a very long time, but I will remember my time playing it without a doubt and the impact it's message left on me. If you are just dismissing this as a walking simulator I encourage you to please approach this game with an open mind, you won't regret it.

"The Worst Game I Played this Year" - Caligula Effect: Overdose

I feel as though ever since Persona 3 came out and Persona 4 was such a smash hit with it's bright colors and cheery atmosphere in a game that was about murder, there have been countless attempts to capture th. Caligula Effect is one of those titles. I played the re-released version of the game on my Switch and found myself. See what makes the Persona games fun are the characters and how they interact, combined with stylish aesthetics and a simple but engaging battle system. Caligula Effect has none of any of this. The music tracks are awful and often are played at full volume over the rest of the game's sound even in cutscenes, the characters are...characters I guess, and the battle system has a couple nice ideas but the game is so mindnumbingly easy that you can disregard most of the system's more nuanced ideas like combo attacks and chains. The game feels like cheap shovelware too as it's environments become repetitive and character models for NPC feeling very unpolished. The plot has some interesting things going for it, like it's character design being pretty on point and it kept me playing for a decent amount of time but after life got in the way of playing this game for a bit, I didn't find much desire to return...file this one away to the garbage bin.

"The Actual Game of the Year I was too Cowardly to Put Down" - Untitled Goose Game

Many of the games on this list were 60 dollar experiences and very few of them provided me the amount of enjoyment as the 15 bucks that I spent on Untitled Goose Game. Now sure, there's a collective of people on the internet who are like "omg, game with goose, hilarious let's make memes" but that isn't exactly what this game was about. Untitled Goose Game is a wonderfully charming game where you play as a goose (duh) and terrorize this small English village. The premise is silly of course but don't overlook the game's wonderfully charming art style, the dyanamic musical score which escalates to "cute little animated short" levels the more you cause mischief. Untitled Goose Game is an afternoon's worth of content and small puzzles that each feel rewarding to solve but also left me giggling and smiling again and again as I'd steal someone's glasses off their head or lock them in their garage. Untitled Goose Game is goofy, charming, and quite a bit silly but it is probably one of the best things you can own on the Switch right now and is pretty light on the wallet but heavy on the fun.

"Please, Please Play this Game it is So Underappreciated" - Gravity Rush

The term "hidden gem" is one that is over used and lampooned frequently in gaming culture. Frequently it is ascribed to games that really aren't "hidden". Seriously, playing through Undertale doesn't make you some indie game ahead of the curve person. However, some games really do fit that description and don't seem to get enough credit. Gravity Rush and it's sequel are two of those games. The sequel seems like less "hidden" but the original is an absolute mastepiece. Originally a Vita exclusive released in 2012 (no wonder nobody knows this game), Gravity Rush is an open-world game in the style of Infamous in which you control the character of Kat, a scantily clad girl who can control gravity. Now, the game is available for PS4 and is pretty much always on sale...so you should try and pick it up. The gameplay features you soaring though the air doing good in these towering airborne cities. The highlight of the game is it's lovely art style, cutscenes that play out in charming little comic books, music captures that peaceful feeling of soaring through the air, and the controls feel responsive and as you master gravity shifting it feels smooth an intuitive. Mostly though, the games just have this beauty that feels unique, unlike anything I've really played before. Kat herself is an extremely charming character who has spunk and a cheerful personality that makes her endearing. The plot is a little...scattered...but Gravity Rush really hooked me early on and I was willing for forgive it for it's silliness. If you're looking for something unique, you can't go wrong with these games.

"Game I Really Wanted to Like and Just Couldn't" - NieR

Now I said that there were not too many games that I played this year that I really thought were bad In the words of every father ever, I'm not exactly mad at NieR or even think it's really a bad game, I'm just disappointed. It suffers that same problem that Kingdom Hearts has where it's combat system isn't exactly suited for the amount of enemies that the game throws at you. Nier himself is a sluggish brute and his fighting style reflects that, which is sort of the point but it makes for a frustrating experience. The game throws a lot on the screen and makes it hard to account for every enemy and can be even hard to tell when you're taking damage. Checkpoints in the game can also be frustrating. I do understand that it's a bit unfair to be holding up a game that came out in 2010 to a game that came out seven years later on a more powerful console but even at the time this game came out, it would be considered unpolished. However, NieR does possess many of the same charms as it's sequel. The musical score brings real weight to most of the game and the story had me engaged from start to finish, including all of it's endings. It is clear though that Yoko Taro had some grand ideas for this game and it's later sequel but those weren't fully realized until the sequel. Many of you who played Automata and want to go and play NieR for the love of Yoko Taro, I would say just play Automata again.

"Not a Game but the Thing in Gaming that Made Me the Most Happy" - Joker in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

Sure, this could be considered something from 2018 but then again, this list just talks about my year in gaming. Anyways, Joker didn't arrive until the Spring of 2019 anyways and it was one of my favorite moments of the year. When talking about Smash Bros and the DLC with friends, I always joked that Joker would have been my dream character for the game (which isn't entirely true since I prefer Persona 4 and Persona 3 to 5 but whatever). Still, it was never something that I thought would ever happen. The entire experience was incredible from the out of left field reveal at the Game Awards, to Joker's surprise release which crashed Nintendo's servers, to finally getting Joker downloaded and playing him until midnight. I am a schill for the Persona franchise and Sakurai went all out. Joker's alternate outfits pay homage to the other games and characters in the franchise, the stage contains music from all the games, Joker's moveset is fun and unique. Overall, it was a moment like any other for me and even if I don't play Smash as much as I used to, this was one of the biggest moments of 2019.

"The Most Fun I've Had Reading Text" - Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy

Adding to the list of games that I always wanted to play but never really had the capacity to, the Ace Attorney games weaved their way into my life this year. I am a sucker for great stories and man to make a game that's basically just reading text interesting, you have to have memorable characters and great storylines...and these games have that in spades. Of course, these games are famous for their silly attachment to pedantic details and their incredibly linear nature. However, you can't beat the feeling of unraveling the mysteries at hand, putting clues together, and finally nailing the criminals. I was surprised at how high the quality of writing was and how attached I became to these characters, some of the cases tugged on my heartstrings and evoked real emotional responses from me. While the cases can sometimes border on ridiculous it doesn't change the game's key themes, finding justice for people as well as the bonds of friendship and the value of sheer perserverance. Phoenix Wright himself is a wildly charming character who runs up against a number of colorful characters and villains who make the experience memorable. I can't say that I am likely to play through these games again but they certainly left an impression on me.