Nick: Final Fantasy VII – Remake
There were a lot of really good remastered releases this year, but Final Fantasy VII was completely remade, and the results were amazing. Admittedly, I would loved to have gotten the full game all at once, and not just part one of three – but what we did get was a beautiful presentation, excellent storytelling and engaging combat that leaves me anxiously awaiting the next installment. The devs took a big chance changing up so much of the original game, but it paid off nicely
Pierre-Yves: Persona 5 Royal
Picking ONE title over everything that we’ve either reviewed or played for our own enjoyment over the course of the year isn’t easy. So it’s with a lot of thought that I finally landed on Atlus’ re-working of their already hit Persona 5 with the Royal treatment back in March. Having played most of Atlus’ work over the years, and having fallen in love with the Persona series itself from Junpei’s leveling up to Teddy’s antics, Persona 5 Royal just hit all of the right notes from the social simulators to the various styles of dungeon crawling for that JRPG fix that had been a bit lacking in my life. With a brilliant story that never felt rushed, even near 100 hours later and trying to finish up those trophies I’m still loving this title as I try to both find that damned Reaper and not get one-shot…
Susan N: Spiritfarer
Of the games that I’ve played and reviewed this year, Spiritfarer is the clear winner for game of the year. It is an adventure game with some light platforming. On top of its pleasing graphic, the story of each characters end of days is beautifully depicted. There was more than one occasion where I teared over the passing of a character (particularly Alice and Atul.) Spiritfarer handles the topic of death respectfully and each character represents a family member or friend of the dev team, making the game an amazing tribute to those they love. Furthermore, Spiritfarer is a game that can be played by all ages. Finally, the game is respectful of all players who have different faiths. All in all, Spiritfarer is my favorite title of this year and it shouldn’t be missed.
Richard: Death End re;Quest 2
When I was looking back at the titles I’d reviewed this year and saw Death End re;Quest 2, I thought “hey, I’ve only got 3 trophies left to platinum this, and 3 for the first title”, so I went back to the first game to finish up the platinum trophies. Now, it had been a while since I played the first title, and good lord were the improvements they made to the battle system readily apparent in the second game. It almost physically hurt to go back to the clunky and oftentimes infuriating things in the first title that were improved so well in the 2nd. Compa certainly does take their gameplay improvements seriously.
