What games did you complete in 2021?

[Wunderbar]

It's December 31. What games did codexers finish in 2021? List your games and leave a rating with a short summary.

 

[BruceVC]

Great question, I had one of the best years for gaming because of the lockdowns and pandemic, its a pity I am not in front of my gaming rig because I played and completed many games this year and enjoyed them all so I will try to remember

• D:OS2 : 78/100 : Brilliant party based RPG with exciting combat
• Morrowind : 70/100 : Elder Scrolls at its finest as far as the narrative is concerned
• Operencia: Stolen Sun : 65\100 : Its a fun RPG with that classic grid based combat
• Bard Tale 4 : 70\100 : Great combat and challenging puzzles
• Assassins Creed Odyssey : 65\100 : As usual Ubisoft delivers on an immersive game world with lots of activities
• Far Cry 4 : 65\100 : I liked it for the same reason I like AC
• Sunless Sea : 60\100: Its the first RNG game I have played and found it very entertaining, especially the cannibalism and sacrificing my crew to the sea gods
• Quest for Glory 4&5 : 60\100 : Iconic adventure games, whats not to like about QFG4 ( 5 was meh )

I know I have left out several games so I will update this list when I am back in Cape Town

 

[Falksi]

A ton, but the most memorable ones were:

• Finally got around to finishing Blackthorne after 25 odd years. Great game.
• Hard West - 2nd playthough. Did start to show it's cracks but still absolutely loved it.
• Zero Time Dilemma - Love murdering teenagers.
• Avernum: Escape from the Pit - Just finished it last night. What's more to say that hasn't already been said on here? Fucking quality game. On to Geneforge next.
• Chrono Trigger - Utter dull slog. Bored the tits off me. Should have quit well before the end.
• Flashback - Another Interplay classic. Loved every second of it. Surprised at how well it held up.
• Dune - Again, surprised how well this has held up too. It's flaws actually make it feel unique and sometimes work in it's favour.
• Doom - Again, again, has held up incredibly well. Not only a fun FPS, but does survival horror better than most games in that genre still.
• Hexen 2 - Again, again, again. I know it's way more an FPS than an RPG, way more, but I'm surprised it doesn't get more love on the Codex. Joy to play.
• Phantasy Star 4 - Proper thrived on it again. After finishing it I just sat there with a glass of cabbage juice for an hour and let it sink in.
• Streets of Rage 4 - Huge letdown. Takes the worst elements of 2 and marries them with the worst elements of 3. Still objectively OK. Just. But the worst of the series
• The Chaos Engine - the stage design and enemy setup has aged a fair bit, but still good fun.
• Warsong - Brilliant, simple, strategy fun.
• Star Control - Sucked hours of my time away mid-summer. I know the sequel is where it's at, but once I started playing this I couldn't put it down.
• Starflight - Enjoyed it, but also found it a bit flat at times too.
• The Immortal - Pain in the fucking arse but a very pleasurable one, like Isla Fisher tonguing your ring.

Must have been another 50 odd old school games on top of that. Lots of SHMUPS and Beat 'Em Ups I play most weeks just to break up RPG's.

 

[Wunderbar]

Replayed:

• Anachronox
• Severance Blade of Darkness
  
• Quake (the new remaster)
  
• Doom 1
• Doom 2

Finished in 2021 for the first time:

• Nioh 2 - basically a huge mission pack, than a full fledged sequel. If you liked the first game, this one is a nobrainer.
• Forbidden Siren 1-2 - very unusual horror series from the creator of Silent Hill. The first Siren is hard as balls, but the second is very accessible and I recommend it to every genre enthusiast.
• Temple of Elemental Evil - interesting little combat-oriented campaign, buried underneath a very shitty starting town.
• Demon's Souls - the game that started it all is somehow still better than its successors in many ways.
• Resident Evil 8 Village - major disappointment. Probably the most linear and shallow RE game in the main series, has low replay value too.
• Silent Hill Downpour - not a good game, but for some reason i liked it enough to give 2 trolls.
• Metro Exodus - as far as triple-A popamole shooters go, this one is good. Probably best game in the series too - less linear and scripted, but still retains HL2-style cinematic feel.
• Divinity Original Sin - decent combat mechanics are barely saving this game, because other than the combat, pretty much everything in this game is bad.
• Mundaun - action/adventure/walking sim hybrid set in the Alps. Made by a single dev, with pencil-drawn textures. Very SOVLFUL.
• Pathfinder Kingmaker - a game of high highs and low lows - a combatfag rpg with annoying combat, but decent everything else.
• Ashes Afterglow - excellent gzdoom total conversion, its doom roots are barely noticeable and it feels like a Build engine game.
• Alisa - survival horror with fixed camera perspectives and pre-rendered backgrounds. Decent, but pretty rough around the edges.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Not much, I had some major health issues and some pretty major family crises this year that stopped me from playing much of anything for big swaths of the year. Other than that, I played a lot of stuff, but didn't complete much.

Replayed to completion:

1. Mass Effect Trilogy (originals, before the remaster came out). Meh. Good for what they are.
2. Dark Souls 3 - the worst in the series, but at least it's still got an active community for pvp and is fun.

Finished for the first time:

1. Outriders. It took me a bit to get into it, but once I did, I loved it. I have a thing for looter shooters though.
2. Call of Duty Cold War (campaign) Meh, it was a COD game. Cold War setting was kind of fun.

Played a ton of but didn't beat (triple digit hours):

1. Wrath of the Righteous, I love this game but the bugs made me shelve it a few times out of irritation. Removed one for buggy shit launch.
2. Pathfinder Kingmaker, I love this game and have done a completionist run before. This year, I was mostly tooling around in the roguelike dungeon mode.

Then screwed around in various other games like Solasta, BG3 EA, BG1, IWD, Battletech, Division 2, etc.
The only true garbage I recall playing is Disco Elysium. I wanted to see what the hype was about and what innovations were coming to the RPG genre from people thinking outside the box. It turns out that adventure games are the future of RPGs apparently. (when rated as an RPG)

 

[Humbaba]

Lemme fink

Ultima Underworld 1 and the first quarter of UU2. Pretty good, UU2 is a lot better plotwise and still worth playing but I just got burned out from the clunk gameplay. Will maybe finish it some other time.

Jagged Alliance 2 on experienced. Very hard but the good kind of hard where the added difficulty forces you to more closely engage with the strategic potential of the game. Ran my custom merc as a night time solo operative which worked extremely well. The guy took entire cities on his own and by the end had a kill count in the hundreds.

Tekken 2,3 and 5 on an emulator. Got tons of respect for people who are actually good at fighting games because them things is hard.

Did another fortress in Dwarf Fortress. Named it Dungeonheart. Got fed up with dwarfs being mentally unstable snowflakes and turned them all into vampires. Became a mountainhome. The queen was ate before I could finish the mausoleum. A blind cave ogre beat to death a spider Forgotten Beast and was thus named Mergedscraped. Built a statue in her honor for making the caverns save again. Chained up a troll in the throne room that soon became depressed and started throwing tantrums. Tamed a bunch of Rutherers too.

Finally got around to New Vegas. Probably the best non-traditional RPG. No other game handles factions as well as NV. Legion is the only sensible choice.

Neverwinter Nights 2. Extremely bleugh and reeks of early 2000's bullshit. Piss easy too. Mask of the Betrayer had a good story though but not good enough for me to suffer through the boring gameplay a second time.

Did my second run through Grimrock 2. Never played blobbers but I love this game. Once you stop backing yourself into a corner the game's not even that frustrating anymore. Actually great from start to finish. Not a dull moment come to think of it. Shame the devs are dead.

Finished Wrath of the Righteous a couple of days ago and currently on my second playthrough. Easily RPGOTY. Matches BG2 and surpasses it even in some respects. Will be the gold standard for modern isometrics going forward. Excited for the DLC campaign. Let's hope it's not just gonna be Throne of Bhaal Pathfinder Edition.

 

[Suicidal]

Pillars of Eternity 2 - Started in late 2020 but finished in 21. Main quest and story are terrible but the side content, big open world and feeling of adventure kept me coming back. Excellent DLCs.

Fell Seal - fun tactical RPG inspired by Final Fantasy Tactics and similar games. Possibly the most competent enemy AI I've seen in a game in a long time. Minus points for the retarded skill system that won't let you experiment without grinding your ass off.

Nioh 2 - probably the best action RPG from a pure combatfag perspective.

Path of Exile - finished the story campaign for the first time this year. As far as Diablo-likes go this is probably the best of the bunch but since it's a Diablo-like the gameplay eventually devolves into clicking on the screen once and everything exploding into a mess of particle effects and loot.

Assassin's Creed Origins - budget Witcher 3. Was cool at the start but the more I played the more I hated it. The melee combat can suck my balls.

Etrian Odyssey Untold 2 - good weeb dungeon cralwer with actually challenging encounters that require thinking. Becomes too samey and repetitive towards the end.

Iratus: Lord of the Dead - reverse Darkest Dungeon where you play as the monsters. Some fun combat mechanics and more involved character customization than in DD but not good enough for more than one playthough even though it's a roguelike with infinitely scaling difficulty.

Serious Sam 3 - you shoot, monsters go boom, brain turn off.

Total Annihilation - aged terribly. Some of the worst pathfinding I've ever seen in an RTS, shit campaign missions where you can lose to RNG of random meteor showers destroying enemy buildings you must capture, AI that does nothing but occasionally send waves of units that are already pre-spawned on the map cause it's too dumb to build some itself(which leads to "hilarious situations" where you can lose the mission during the first minute because a random meteor shower hit the corner of the AI's base which causes it to send the 50 bombers it has parked on the edge of the map at the very start of the mission to destroy you before you can build the second metal extractor) and dozens of other issues and annoyances I'm too lazy to list. IMO, Supreme Commander is infinitely better and makes this game obsolete.

Total Annihilation: Kingdoms - technically not worse than TA, but I'm giving it only one troll because the devs refused to learn and made all the same mistakes again.

Doom 2 (with Brutal Doom mod) - I must have set some settings incorrectly cause a lot of the boasted features were not there and things were functioning weirdly.

Doom (with Brutal Doom mod) - Set everything correctly this time which resulted in a much more fun experience.

Final Doom (with Project Brutality mod) - should have just played with this mod from the start.

Siralim 2 - pokemon but made by an insane person. You collect monsters with crazy abilities and make weird combinations that eventually can destroy all the enemy units before combat even begins and you get your first turn. Very autistic.

 

[Tavar]

I might have to edit this later in case I forget something.

Replayed (all )

• Gothic
• Gothic 2 (once with NotR, once without)
• Diablo II
• Civ 3 Complete (if you can complete such a game)

Finished for the first time:

• Exapunks -> -> great puzzle game if you like programming.
  
• Cyberpunk 2077 -> -> hated it with a passion at first, but got better with time. Nothing special.
  
• Encased -> -> love letter to Fallout, great beginning, but falls off quickly.
  
• Shadowrun Returns -> -> low budget and very minimalistic but fun

 

[Roguey]

What happens in a year of early retirement:

Bloodborne - freaking amazing man
Grand Theft Auto V - entertaining enough, unfortunately this was when annoying levels of poz started seeping into Rockstar
Nier Automata - beautiful
God of War III - okay I suppose
The Last Guardian - swell emotionally-manipulative artistic puzzle game
Sleeping Dogs - amusing
Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag - meh, cute female crossdresser though
Dragon Quest XI - fun, but incredibly long
Uncharted: The Lost Legacy - okay enough, liked the mini-open-world chapter the best
The Evil Within 2 - played on Ed123's recommendation, all right The Last of Us/Resident Evil 4 mash-up
Resident Evil 7 - surprisingly more fun than I thought it'd be, though the game punishing you for choosing to save the person who has only ever been helpful over your lying wife is bullshit
Trials of Mana - all right, but very repetitive
Death Stranding - more fun than I thought a delivery sim would be, though I didn't like most of the characters and hated how the ending was a 2 hour movie
Assassin's Creed Origins - all right Twitcher 3 clone, though I grew tired of its gameplay loop a good few hours before the game was over
Red Dead Redemption 2 - all right cinematic art game, incredibly leisurely paced with some awful minigames
Nier Replicant - beautifulx2
Gravity Rush 2 - amusing, though the gameplay made me seethe a few times
Tales of Berseria - incredibly rote and grindy though I liked the characters and their banters
Stranglehold - okay, annoying bosses, not as good as the Paynes
Vanquish - extremely fun
Dark Messiah of Might & Magic - okay enough
System Shock - fantastic
REmake - meh, didn't hate it but it's not particularly enjoyable
Bayonetta - all right, though some parts were annoying in their demands
Shadow Warrior 2 - acquired for free on gog, a potentially all right game marred by Diablo-loot bloat
Doom 2016 - Great soundtrack, good memes and sparse storytelling, overdoes it a bit on the arena battles especially near the end
Styx: Shards of Darkness - holds up to its predecessor, though the bosses this time are annoying in a different way. The non-ending is
Binary Domain - fun enough though not as good as Vanquish. Gives you role playing options but kind of annoying how you're railroaded into certain behaviors to get the best ending
Metal Gear Rising Revengeance - frustrating at times due to my own lack of ability, but fun. Good boss themes.
Hitman 2016 - A joy to solve
Prey - all right Shock clone
Yakuza 0 - Extremely long exposition scenes that made me drowsy and even put me to sleep once, but I liked it well enough to complete it and buy Kiwami
(still in progress) ELEX - boring and frustrating at first, but it gets intriguing soon enough after a period of adjustment

 

[Orud]

What happens in a year of early retirement

While it may cost you your soul, being a codex admin at least makes you wealthy.

 

[Sranchammer]

None

Everything is shit

 

[1451]

Diablo 2
A good game for it's time but visibly outdated even to a casual arpg player.

Nier Replicant
Likewise, a great game for it's time but the constant recycling of the levels not for the sake of global warming but the technical limitations of the ps3 make it an ok game.
New game+ is a joke, frankly.

Yakuza Like a Dragon
A nearly flawless jrpg, I'm glad they ditched the brawler formula.

Carrion
Is my game of the year, easily and by far. It came out of nowhere with no prior marketing and surprised me immensely. Games in which you play as the bad guy are extremely rare.

Maneater
I discovered this after playing Carrion. Another game that allows you to be the monster. I love the underlying commentary of it but the gameplay is kinda janky and the levels are not big enough for my tastes. Let me explore the heckin' ocean!

Looking back, I played lots of games, didn't think there would be so many of them when I started writing this post. I mainly play online games which don't have an ending.

 

[Chippy]

Just played through Shadow of Mordor and all DLC.

Gonna play the sequel next. 109GB game install. WTF is the world coming to?.

 

[Orud]

Been a busy and frustrating year at work, so my list isn't that impressive;

• Pathfinder : Kingmaker - Great game, if you like D&D top down party RPG's.
• Pathfinder : Wrath of the Righteous - Sequel to Kingmaker. While great, it's not as good as Kingmaker.
• Doom Eternal - Great arena shooter, did everything right for me.
• Halo Infinite - Great semi-open world shooter. First Halo game since 343 took over the reins that I actually liked.
• Divinity 2 : The Dragon Knight Saga - Ok game, but nothing earthshattering.
• Final Fantasy 7 (the original) - Never played it and wanted to see what the fuss was about. While I grew up with Western RPG's, I can still see why so many people like it.
• NWN : Hordes of the Underdark - Good for people that like NWN1. You're not missing much though.
  
• NWN 2 + all expansions - Frustrating to control, with better campaigns than NWN1. Mark of the Betrayer is easily one of the best campaigns I've played in years, and is something everyone should at least give one playthrough.
• Tails of Iron - Short 2D Dark Souls inspired game about a Rat kingdom. I loved it.
• Freedom Fighters - Old 3rd person shooter about the Soviet Union invading America. Simple, short and fun.

 

[OSK]

Avernum: Escape from the Pit
- A blast from the past. The original shareware copy of Exile: Escape from the Pit was my first RPG. A lot of things were streamlined from the original, but it's still a great game.
Avernum 2: Crystal Souls
- Another blast from the past. More railroaded than the first (just like the original). There's some major HP bloat near the end which drags out combat too much. I never felt like my party was in danger in some basic end-game encounters, but it still took too long to take down enemies.

That's it... and that was just within the last few weeks. My list of games I started in 2021 and didn't finish is much longer.

 

[Baron Dupek]

Ashes - Afterglow improvements everywhere and secret level in soviet submarine was cherry on the top.
VtM Redemption - first half was but second part in modern times sucked. People didn't lie about it. Shame because 99/00 craze was cool concept. Guess that Arnie movie was better...
Brandish - Dark Revenant "Dela Mode", harder than original campaign but still doable. Didn't clear one floor tho.
Fallout 4 and Far Harbor+Nukaworld DLC - boring shooter build on janky engine designed by incompetent people They say it's RPG but beside looting and filling progress bars there's nothing that give such impression...
Two Worlds 2 with Flying Pirates Fortress DLC - first chapter was decent but it went downhill in next chapters. Like - barely any quests and maybe few characters to interact with?
Redneck Rampage with expansions beside humor it's easily the worst one from Builds shooters.
Shadow Warrior - hard, hectic and juicy. Lot of explosives at your disposal and for good reason
Doom 3 (replayed) with no ductape mod, went with double barrel shotgun in original campaign. got a blast, demons had it coming
Baldur's Gate - Siege of Dragonspear felt like a mod, sometimes writing was awkward (in non-English version)
Hexplore - heard it was Diablo clone but nope, constant kiting gets old after awhile

 

[Jvegi]

Played a bunch. I don't remember finishing any.

Except for Being a DIK. I've finished to it a couple of times.

 

[GrafvonMoltke]

Didn't manage much, been v. busy.

But, I did manage a few games.

Replayed:

• Max Payne - still as great as it always was
• Max Payne 2 - better than I remember it tbh
• Half-Life - oh ye
• Half-Life 2 - cause why not
• Operation Flashpoint - gud gud

Completed for the first time:

• Trudograd - BASED
• Xcom: Enemy Unknown - sexy alien bitches
• ELEX - might have been 2019, not sure

New games suck.

 

[jackofshadows]

Solasta - meh
Black Book - very good
Encased - disappointment
Trudograd - mediocre

(prior to that played mostly Underrail and Colony Ship - one is fucking great and the other is shaping up to be great, too.)

 

[Ash]

Greatly enjoyed:

XCOM 2 WOTC - w/various mods.
Hades
Far Cry 4 (replay) - w/ Hardcore mod
Darkwood (replay) - w/Hard mode mod
Spelunky 2 (replay) - w/Greeni's Encore mod
System Shock 2 (replay) - w/Secmod
Final Fantasy 8 (replay) - w/Requiem mod
Final Fantasy 9 (replay) - w/Unleashed mod
Hollow Knight (replay)
Quake (replay) - w/Combat+ mod
Morrowind (replay) - w/various mods
Dead Nation
Arx Fatalis (replay)

Good for what it is:

Shadowrun: Dragonfall
Hotline Miami 2
Alienation

Lots of replays this year, and not that much gaming in general by my standards.

 

[oddech_wymarlych_swiatow]

Killer Instinct 2013
Fallout 4 + Far Harbor
Marvel vs Capcom 1
Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3
Street Fighter x Tekken
Marvel Super Heroes
X-Men vs Street Fighter
Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter
Franko: Crazy Revenge (5675th replay)
Shin Megami Tensei IV (replay)
Shin Megami Tensei V
Persona 3: The Answer
Raidou Kuzunoha vs Soulless Army
Doman: Grzechy Ardana
The Punisher (1VS2 Falling Dragon Ultra Enhance Edition hack)
Virtua Fighter Remix (Saturn)
Virtua Fighter 3
Darkstalkers 3
Cyberbots: Full Metal Madness
Fighting Vipers
Streets of Rage 1
X-Men: Children of the Atom

Almost beat Batman: Arkham Knight - I had to reinstall OS but didn't now that Epic's cloud saves are not available in every game Was just before the Scarecrow final fight.

 

[Terra]

Rance III
Rance IV
Rance 4.1
Rance 4.2
Rance 8
Kichikuou Rance
Pathfinder Wrath
Danganronpa V3
Yakuza 7 (not quite, but I'm counting it as 2021)
Tales of Berseria
Tales of Zestiria
Pathologic 2
Yakuza Kiwami 2
Disco Elysium
Nier Automata
SAMURAI WARRIORS: Spirit of Sanada
SAMURAI WARRIORS 4-II
Prey
Metro Exodus
Control
Mafia 2 Definitive

Made an effort to cross off some stuff that was sat in my library for a while. Played some good stuff this year in retrospect.

 

[Hellraiser]

I mostly play sandbox games on my PC so barely any PC games are on the "finished" list, played a shitload of Oxygen not Included. That and I started going through some old console games. I'm also not counting the unfinished HoMM3 playthrough where I finished only some of the campaigns and probably a few other games I did not bother to finish such as They Are Billions.

Only one two games released this year are on the list, r00fles.

KKND2 - My favorite C&C clone also with snazzy 2D graphics that still look great, a pretty good campaign (mission-wise not story-wise). My only gripe with the game is no expansion pack and the sides being just art swaps with some unit stats changes. I played the campaign on and off for 2 or 3 years. Finally got around to finish the survivor campaign and then in a span of few weeks I finished the Series 9 and Evolved campaigns.

Rise of Nations: Definitive Edition - Brian Reynold's other post-civilization masterpiece (first being SMAC obviously), after AoE2 and AoM probably the 3rd best RTS game of this type.

Factorio - It satiates my autism, I mean it has trains and tracks you can build and automate, what is not to like. My only gripe is the lack of alternatives in the supply chain/alternative recipes (apart from fuel and power). I want an expansion pack.

Subnautica: Below Zero - More Subnautica can't be bad, right? Unless you make a smaller, less open map with less crap to discover castrating the exploration appeal, get rid of the Cyclops submarine, spend time on uninteresting voice acting and storytelling and add surface sections which seem really underdeveloped. I wrote a long rant about it in the thread, in short it doesn't even come close to the first one which is a great tragedy since the original is by far one of the best games I ever played. It's not terrible on its own, but the wasted potential is painful.

Deathloop - Very flawed execution of an otherwise very interesting concept, the shootan is meh and this isn't really close to being an immersive sim or whatever, but it gets carried mostly by the ok level design and original concept plus the uncovering of the mystery (I like a good mystery). Mostly ended up being a one man machete rape gang simulator for me with a great 60s/70s inspired soundtrack. This could have used proper RPG mechanics, better weapon and enemy design minimum. I mean FFS, bioshock did all of that better than this game, at the very least that had electro-gel, crafting and what not. Although the level design, while a far cry from Prey or even the nu-Deus Ex's from Montreal, is still leagues above the linear crap of Bioshock. Finally it wouldn't kill to have there be more than one viable sequence/means of killing the visionaries within one loop, I think that part was needlessly linear. Oh and it is a easy game with no difficulty settings unfortunately.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 - Still a classic, did one 100% playthrough since I never did that back in the day when this was the shit.

Shenmue - The most elaborate Hang On and Space Harrier arcade emulator ever developed[/troll]. This one started off weak with it being a cinematic walking sim with no gameplay until far too late in the game (unless you count playing Hang On in the arcade as gameplay) and by the time it draws you in and gets real good, you are already on the final disc. The immersion is a bit annoying at times (ugh, phone dialing with a rotary phone, the pain... luckily require like only once or twice in the game to progress), but honestly for all its flaw I have to admire what they tried to do. Also I really like urban settings in games, there's just something about this game that makes it feel better than expected and transcend the obvious flaws, at least for me. Definitely something of an acquired taste. I still have the sequels on my to play list. Also I think this had horrible movement controls with no analog movement? A real plague with Dreamcast titles from what I noticed. Supposedly fixed in the PC port.

Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth - I am on a quest to play the most prominent games that had Motoi Sakuraba do the soundtrack (Lezard's Tower theme is stuck in my head), and this was my first stop after stumbling upon the soundtrack to the sequel. Playing games because I stumbled on the soundtrack somewhere and it got me interested is kind of a common thing for me. As for this game, I have to admire the originality of the concept of recruiting meatshields for the war of the Gods from the recently deceased, combined with the time limits and the 2D platforming dungeons with some decent puzzles. Combat is simple but it works and anyway everything else makes up for its shortcomings. The Animu art style and very awful at times english dubbing horribly clash with otherwise quite serious and good character storylines revolving around death and loss.

Star Ocean: First Departure- while quite elaborate for a nipponese game with the skill system (which later made its way to the above mentioned Valkyrie Profile, same developer), crafting and some story/recruitment branching, the combat is kind of brainless mostly and the dungeons aren't very memorable making this game unfortunately fairly tedious. Motoi Sakuraba's music isn't as good as in VP, although it is still pretty good. Maybe should have played the SNES version instead since that was famous for not having a world map (kind of what FFX did years later) plus it was a technical marvel, this PSP remake replaced those sections with one to save on pre-rendered backgrounds I guess (IIRC it uses the PSone sequel's engine).

ActRaiser (original) - An interesting although way too short romp and another great example of (unusual) genre synergy. Real shame the dumb suits from America told them to make the sequel akshun only, would love to see this concept of god game+personal action smithing of evil elaborated.

Soul Blazer - I know this is a billion year old console akshun RPG but it feels mechanically too simple even for that. I mean the weapons progress linearly with no room for selection or playstyle since 99% you just want more deeps (and 1% of the time you want the special property like anti-ghost or anti-metal for otherwise immortal enemies), and the combat is rather repetitive. I have to praise it for designing dungeons in such a way that you can just do a part, go save and resume without a ton of backtracking and time lost.

Resident Evil 2 (original) - I really enjoy exploring the desolate urban/industrial setting struck by zombie ITZ mixed with puzzles. Sure it gets flak for the awkward cinematic angles and tank controls, but honestly this never bothered me much. And the 2 (actually 4 since the character choice also shakes up some things) scenarios are a really great gimmick. Only flaw is that it showers you with ammo.

Ace Combat 4 - I want to be an overpowered action war movie/anime ace pilot, the series, part 4. It does feel like decline compared to Ace Combat 3 for me (the japanese version, not the bastardized localized version where they cut out the branching and cutscenes for some inane reason), but is still a solid arcade plane shooter experience that is quite challenging at times. Plus this series always has a good soundtrack to match your high-octane aerial genocide of swarms of enemy planes, although I think AC: 3, Zero and 5 all have better music than this one.

Metroid Prime - Probably the absolute benchmark of how to port over an old 2D franchise into the 3D era, skipping the 32-bit generation probably helped a lot. While legacy issues such as typical 8-bit video game alien monsters spitting killer projectiles might feel jarring, the alien world looks and feels great making exploring it a blast. And then you get interesting platforming and what not puzzles.

The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker (original) - 15 years since I played it. I think detractors especially back in the day missed the real flaws of the game. The sailing is definitely the highlight and it is not as time consuming as one would expect based on the complaints, just a pity they didn't add more crap to discover. Even the chart hunting nerfed in the later re-releases wasn't that bad or tedious. Sea exploration and discovery is a theme heavily underutilized by games. Visuals aged gracefully thanks to the art style, probably the zelda fanboys were projecting their insecurities regarding the cellshading back in the day. The main problem besides exploration which could be more fleshed out is that they cut out some dungeons so the game feels short once you subtract travel times (which aren't that long anyway). Oh and the parry mechanic makes combat way too easy since it ends up being a brainless timed awesome button.

 

[ferratilis]

Can't remember all the games I completed, but the best ones I played this year were by far Pathfinder Kingmaker and Disco Elysium. WotR didn't impress me nearly as much as Kingmaker, but after a few years it could be great. Kingmaker is simply everything I want in an RPG: great combat, a lot of maps to explore, interesting companions, great variety, long and well paced story (although the last part was a bit shitty, but well), great sense of adventure, a lot of classes to experiment with, interesting items, puzzles etc. etc. Disco impressed me with amazing writing and atmosphere. Nothing else comes even close to these two. 10/10s, both.

 

[JarlFrank]

Played a lot of strategy and city builder games that don't have a real endgame, like modded Civ 4, modded Total War, the new Master of Orion, Rimworld, etc. There's no real "completing" of these games.

That said, I almost finished the recently released Chronicles of Myrtana: Archolos, and that's a 10/10 for sure.
Played through Quake in its new engine port and got all the achievements for Nightmare difficulty. Also finished Arcane Dimensions again, and the Alkaline Jam which had some really good maps in it, Derelict Freighter was my favorite.
Played through The Sundew. Decent adventure game, the puzzle design is maybe 6/10 but the atmosphere is 10/10.
Far Cry 5, which was decent enough for AAA fare. Fuck the enemies who capture you no matter where you are in order to progress the plot, though.
Knights of the Chalice 2 when it was finally patched to a point where it wasn't pure torture anymore. Still the most challenging RPG I ever played, and the best D&D combat ever implemented into a CRPG.
HITMAN 2016. Pretty damn good. Lots of ways to assassinate your targets, huge levels, good exploration. Loved it.