Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes.
We appreciate all of you reading along with us on this
journey. This is our last installment of our favorite games list over the
years. We finish things off with the current generation of games and look
forward to seeing what titles come out in the years to come.
Richard:
Switch: Mary Skelter 2
Rounding out the Nintendo console section, we have the
Switch. This was tough for me, not because there were too many titles, but
rather because not many titles really hit me the way any of the previously
mentioned ones have. Then I remembered a specific title: Mary Skelter
Nightmares 2. Specifically, 2 because it also includes 1, but Mary Skelter as a
series is a really good dungeon crawler where every character you get has a
unique dungeon action and can also be a viable team member. The storyline was a
little confusing, and the ending for the first game got retconned in the
release of two, but with a combination of fun combat, cool skills, interesting
characters, and a unique story, Mary Skelter Nightmares 2, and 1 by extension,
are really good. The third in the series, and finale of the trilogy, has also
released so you can play all of them if you want.
Pierre-Yves:
PC 2020: Wildermyth
I have an ultimate love-hate relationship with Roguelikes
and Permadeath. On one hand, there's the thrill of this potentially being it.
On the other hand, one stupid move and you're done. Kind of like life, but life
is less fun.
Where Wildermyth did things differently is in its
storytelling. Starting off with three characters, you could affect how they
viewed one another. Friends. More than friends. Frenemies. As your party grew
this would add in some complexity as it brought personal feelings into battle
which could either lead to victory, or utter defeat.
Now take this and add it into the gameplay. Loss of a limb,
turning into a lycanthrope or mutating, each of these becomes represented in
how your character can function. Stronger, slower, different abilities but
never stops being part of the story and affecting how certain conversations
could go as these aspects were always kept in mind.
Wildermyth was all around stellar even when you lose to a
final boss and have to live with the fact that you failed. But that only fuels
the fire to go back and do it all again.
Switch: Fire Emblem: Three Houses
I hope that you’re sitting down, it’s actually not the
Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild! To be fair, I originally played it on the
WiiU since my brother and I could only manage to get a single Nintendo Switch
so I let him take it. It’s also not even Xenoblade Chronicles 2 that I’ve spent
wayyyyyyy too much time on. Really need to boot up Xenoblade Chronicles 3… but
anyways!
Up until Fire Emblem: Awakening, I had a bit of a love hate
with Fire Emblem. I like to play risky but when even playing safe can have your
characters permanently die…? That’s a hard sell. But once we get into what was
tagged “Casual mode” where characters would just be incapacitated instead of
outright dead? I was in.
Fire Emblem: Three Houses not only had a great story, but it
has multiple great stories that could be experienced on top of an epic level of
gameplay. While still using the core Fire Emblem style of moving characters around
a map to engage enemies, the refinements were clear to see and I cannot wait to
get back into this one.
PS5: Final Fantasy VII Remake / Demon's Souls
This category in a way is a bit unfair as we kind of just
started to dive into it, however here we go.
Final Fantasy VII Remake or Demon’s Souls. Which is also a
remake. Unpopular opinion, FF VII to me is what it is. It’s a JRPG and it was
ok? I preferred FF VIII and IX in the PS1 era. This said, the remastering of
this title, the addition of the story and the expansion on the characters? The
remake is a masterpiece that I’ve played through three times now. I’m just a
few trophies shy of the plat… but Hard mode is freaking hard.
For Demon’s Souls, the original made me rage quit. I don't
know how many times. I just couldn’t get it, which is funny because I sailed
through Dark Souls 1-3 and have Platinumed Bloodborne and Elden Ring. We won’t
talk about Sekiro right now… but the remaster of Demon’s Souls on the PS3 is so
smooth and while it’s the SAME game, the refinements in the controls and the
brightness in certain areas just make it so much easier to play. I’m just
saving one more playthrough for the platinum of this one as I just need to
switch the world tendencies to get the last missing items.
Xbox Series X|S: ???
??? is pretty much where I’m at. I don’t know. Bright Memory
comes to mind as it was my first actual Series X title, but it was half an
hour. It’s more of a demo than a game. I love it, but definitely needs more so
I don’t think I can crown that as King of the Series X|S. Otherwise, my Series
X is my Game Pass machine to try out games that are added to the library
instead of buying them right away on my PlayStation.
So… to be continued…
Susan N:
PC 2015-2017: Hob
Between 2015 and 2017, my favorite PC is an action adventure puzzle game titled Hob. This game blew my mind because each time you solved a puzzle, new areas would be revealed. Also, the world would transform entire sections of the world giving the game a living world feel. Not only did this game fascinate me, but it encapsulated my attention as it was the only game I played at the time. As it’s an action adventure game, we get to combat various creatures - but not senselessly. The game has a story and offered a couple of different endings depending on what you do. Personally, I would love to have more games like Hob because it was so well done and graphically different from other games that definitely left an impression. In fact, it was one of my games of the year!
Runner Up: Life is Strange
A notable close second to Hob is Life is Strange. Generally, I wouldn’t be so keen on a young adult story because I’ve already gone through the teenaged drama and high school phase. That said, I was drawn to Life is Strange because of it’s music, graphical integrity, and insane story. Most of the time, video game stories don’t affect me as movies or TV shows do, until Life is Strange came out. I found myself feeling like I was Max as I grew up in a photographic family, I was shy, and I always tried to be kind. And what really sold me on this game other than the music and the setting, was a specific choice. It’s not even the one you think. The ending choice was easy for me. And the hard choice was in an earlier episode because it hit a little more close to home. Everything else in the game I maintained a level of disbelief, and one decision brought me crashing down to the present. In fact, it was such a hard decision to make because I actually screamed at my PC and physically walked away for a half hour while I wrestled with my own demons. Since Life is Strange was one of the few games that was able to garner that kind of reaction, it needed to make it onto my list of favorite games of all time.
Nick:
Nintendo Switch: Fire Emblem: Three Houses – The Nintendo Switch is not done yet, so there’s a good chance that like the other systems coming up in the future, what we see here will not be the final pecking order. My family loves our Nintendo Switch. LOVES IT. All three of my kids have at least 100 hours of Breath of the Wild under their belts. When the pandemic hit, Animal Crossing came out and each of my three kids bought their own copy. Two of my kids bought themselves their own switches so they could play it whenever they wanted. I don’t know how many Pokemon have been captured by my household. I do know that when Three Houses came out, I didn’t play anything else for about a week and a half. I cared about the characters, their relationships, the storyline and the game’s progression elements. I was as interested in maximizing relationships as I was character stats. Upon beating the game I immediately fired it up to see how a different person’s story would have gone. It was like a mix of Persona and Fire Emblem I never knew I wanted but now I need more of again.
Microsoft Xbox Series X: Mass Effect Legendary Edition – I
know we’re still pretty early into this console’s life cycle, especially given
all of the issues it and the PS5 had getting their consoles to market. This
list will continue to develop over the next few years. Forza Horizon 5 nearly
landed here for me, given how much fun it is just to race around the
countryside and explore the world with it. That being said, I have to give the
nod to Mass Effect Legendary Edition. As of this writing, I’m only in the third
game, but this is a replay for me. I played the living snot out of these three
games during their Xbox 360 era, and to get to play improved versions with the
majority of the DLC baked in from the word go? This is going to be well over a
hundred hours of my life that I’ll never get back – and I’m fine with that.
Sony PlayStation 5: Final Fantasy VII Remake - Like the Xbox Series X and Switch, the jury is still out on what will wind up being the best that this console has to offer. Still, with where we are at right now? I have to tip my hat to Final Fantasy VII Remake. I nearly gave it to Demon’s Souls, which is a gorgeous, gorgeous update of one of my all-time favorite PS3 games, but I mentioned earlier just what Final Fantasy VII meant to me and getting this updated (if incomplete) retelling of it resonated with me.
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by Robert, Pierre-Yves, Richard, Susan N., and Nick
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