lwhy?

I'm really looking forward to playing Lake when there's a PlayStation version.

Decker

I literally bought both Pokemon Snap and Kena in the past couple months and haven't played a minute of either yet.

davidh777

I’ve been considering Kena but Lake and Forgotten City are intriguing to me. Finding new stuff is one of the things I like about this annual list.

spainlinx0

I am going through Lake, but if you hate slow walking speeds, you will REALLY struggle with that game. I'm intrigued by the dialogue and story, but walking/running and even driving in this game are absolutely painful, and it makes me not want to play it. I know it's supposed to be relaxing, but bad controls really frustrate me, and I'm trying very hard to overlook it here.

The Questyen

7. Guardians of the Galaxy (PS5)


Square Enix thoroughly redeemed themselves after the mediocrity of their Avengers game with Guardians of the Galaxy a fantastic single player experience that is almost on the same level as the Insomniac Spider-Man titles and the Rocksteady Arkham games. The Guardians films were some of my favorite MCU movies and the developers definitely captured the same feel even with out the movie likenesses and voice acting. The dialogue is great and they nailed the banter my only complaint in that department is it skews overwhelmingly negative and while that is less bothersome in a 2 hour movie it becomes a little much in a 15 or so hour videogame where your team (especially Rocket) is constantly complaining about everything. The environments are well done with some really nice looking alien planets to explore. The combat feels great and even though you only control Star-Lord directly you have enough control over the team's special abilities which are pretty regularly recharging that it feels like you are in control of everyone. Overall just a really well done story driven action game.

Decker

I like it and it's extremely well voice-acted, but I found it nowhere near as fun, gameplay-wise, as Spider-Man or Arkham.

The Questyen

6. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD (Switch)


I only played an hour or so of the original Skyward Sword on the Wii before I was bored by the motion controls and moved on so I'm really glad Nintendo re-released this on a modern system and gave more people a chance to play it. Because it was designed for motion controls if you play it with a pro controller like I did then you move the right stick in the direction you want your sword to go. It's not as intuitive as your regular button presses but after an hour or so getting used to it I barely thought about it the whole rest of the game. Besides the game getting a graphics upgrade they also added in some quality of life upgrades making this the best way to play this game. It also felt good to play a Zelda game that feels like a classic Zelda game especially since with the popularity of Breath of the Wild we probably won't again. I still prefer Link's Awakening by a hair for Legend of Zelda releases on the Switch but Skyward Sword is a close second.

The Questyen

5. Life is Strange: True Colors (PS5)


My top 5 were really tough to order this year since I loved them all fairly equally but here we go. I'm a big fan of the Life is Strange series but I wasn't that excited for True Colors going in. Besides the LiS series the developers had released a few other similar games and while they all have been varying degrees of decent to very good I thought it had gotten stale. Thankfully I played it anyways and it is easily my favorite game in the series with one of my favorite lead characters in all of videogames. The gameplay isn't that different from previous titles but every aspect of the game has a level of polish that wasn't in previous games with a new engine and the benefit of new hardware True Colors is a really good looking game. The relationships you form and the actually surprising twists that happen along the way had me sucked in and needing to know what was going to happen next. The lead character Alex was really fascinating to get to know and I hope we get more stories with her in the future.

Decker

Now we're talkin'! Loved that game. Love Alex. (Obsessed with Steph!)

The Questyen

4. Metroid Dread (Switch)


So I already talked a decent amount about this game in the actual Metroid Dread thread so I'm going to copy and paste some of those thoughts here. Such a fantastic game and definitely my favorite Metroid. I play every game with a difficulty option on the easiest option there is and I dislike hard games and I found Dread to not be that difficult. The boss fights are really well done where it would take me 5-10 tries to figure out exactly what I was supposed to do in the fight but then once I figured it out I would be able to beat them the very next try with barely getting hit. So many boss fights in video games I have to brute force my way through and in Dread there was never a need to do that. Loved how smooth the controls were. Some of the best controls of any metroidvania I've ever played although can get overwhelming once you unlock all the different weapons/items. I'm glad I didn't let the talk about how difficult this game sway me from playing it because I would have missed out on a classic.

The Questyen

Ok so this list is going to be 21 games long because I just found out a game a quick google search listed as 2020 actually didn't get released until February 2021. This game would have been around the middle of my list so let's put it as 10.5.

10.5. Little Nightmares II (PS5)


So I really enjoyed the first Little Nightmares which was a really good entry in the little kid trying to escape a disturbing nightmare-land style of game (Limbo, Inside, etc). The sequel improves on everything from the first game and feels more fleshed out with more expansive areas, more detailed puzzles, and a great sense of dread that never really lets up throughout the 6 or so hour runtime. The adults in the game are genuinely disgusting to look at and when trying to escape them it would get my heartrate up which doesn't happen very often in games.

Goldberg74

Loved Little Nightmares, I need to pick up this one eventually.

davidh777

I’m three “days” into Lake and enjoying it. Yeah, the walking is really slow (even when “accelerated”), but I’m not too annoyed yet. I did have one head-slapper when I went to make a delivery and realized I had walked two blocks IN THE WRONG DIRECTION and had to double-back in super-slow speed.

Driving speed is ok for me, though.

The Questyen

3. Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart (PS5)


I'm a huge Ratchet & Clank fan (think I've played them all other then the multiplayer focused titles) and a huge platformer fan in general so I was super excited for Rift Apart and it did not disappoint. The graphics are amazing and the dualsense controls are perfect. It's fantastic love letter to the series and a great starting point for new players. Rivet and KIT are wonderful characters and their storyline fits in well with the existing Ratchet & Clank universe. I love where it ends and what they are hinting at going forward. Now they just need to release remastered versions of the games stuck on PS3 so more people can enjoy them!

The Questyen

2. Bowser's Fury (Switch)


As a huge Mario fan I was going to purchase the re-release of Super Mario 3D World on Switch no matter what so the Bowser's Fury add-on was just icing on the cake for me. Surprisingly Bowser's Fury is so good it is worth the price on its own which combines bits from 3D World with some modern innovations from Super Mario Odyssey into one fantastic game. In typical Mario fashion it's not that tough to just play through the game but collecting everything is where the real challenge lies. The kaiju Bowser parts of the game shake up the standard formula and the overflowing of cute cats in this game upped my enjoyment even higher. If you're a Mario fan and skipped this one definitely go back and play it.

maxfisher

I’m really surprised that either Resident Evil Village or Psychonauts 2 (or both) didn’t make your top 20. Solid list regardless and I’ll definitely be trying to find time to check out The Artful Escape, The Wild at Heart, The Forgotten City, The Gunk and the latest Life is Strange.

The Questyen

1. Resident Evil Village (PS5)


I was pretty sure this was going to be my game of the year right after I finished it. I rarely replay games and I enjoyed this so much I immediately played through it again straight after finishing and have played through a third time since then. I've been a Resident Evil fan since the beginning and I love how 8 has the base RE that I love but they keep making the story more batshit crazy in each game. The action/combat actually feels good which isn't the case in a lot of RE games. Capcom did a great job balancing actual horror and then some of the most over the top characters/boss battles. Similar to my feelings about Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart where I felt that Insomniac had pretty much perfected their formula and made about as good a R&C game as they can make I feel the same way about Resident Evil Village. Capcom has pretty much perfected this first person style of Resident Evil game.

The Questyen

I planned on playing Psychonauts 2 at some point but never got around to it. I'm not really a Double Fine fan and played through a little bit of the original Psychonauts and all of the VR game and didn't care too much for either of them nor the characters, world, or writing.

spainlinx0

Just beat this over the last 2 days, and I enjoyed it. A pretty easy play through as you said.

Decker

Really interesting that you put Bowser's Fury at #2. I bet it doesn't appear on many Best-Of lists. Honestly, I kind of thought it was just a bit of an add-on/game mode and not a full game.

Jeremy517

It is roughly 3-5 hours to beat and double that to find all the shines.

The Questyen

I've seen the whole package on multiple Best Games of the Year lists but with Bowser's Fury being its own completely separate game I think it deserved its own acclaim.

Adam Tyner

I agree. Of 2021 games that I actually played in 2021, Bowser's Fury (carved out from 3D World) would easily be in my top 5. Even if the overall ranking were to shift once I finish some other 2021 games, I still think it'd be in my top 5.

OldBoy

I would put Halo:Infinite up there. It was a surprising fun play and continued. It just does Halo right and adds things that just broaden and expand the Halo story, not to mention gameplay. Nothing new in terms of FPS necessarily, but it has been a very fun ride with an old fav that rebooted imo.

The Cow

There is a different thread for posting your favorites...

Everybody Else's Favorite Games of 2021