Top 21 Video Games of 2020: June 2021 Edition

Hello.

It is mid-June of 2021, so that means it is time for a list of the best video games from the year prior. I played 21 video games which were released in 2020, which means a game would have to do nothing beyond being played by me to have achieved a spot on this list. That is not impressive at all. Here is a list of games I played from the year 2020, but in alphabetical order:

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim
Astro’s Playroom
Black Mesa
Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2
Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time
Cyberpunk 2077
Demon’s Souls (2020)
Doom 64: The Lost Levels
Doom Eternal
Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout
Hades
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity
Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory
Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales
Murder by Numbers
Nioh 2
Ori and the Will of the Wisps
Resident Evil 3 (2020)
Spiritfarer
Super Mario Bros. 35
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2

I did not play ‘The Last of Us Part II’ and I am not sorry.

21. Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout

First on the chopping block is ‘Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout’, another battle royale game with the twist of being about silly game show challenges rather than about murdering your fellow man. Truthfully, I would not have played ‘Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout’ had it not been free on the Sony PlayStation Plus premium service. But it was, and here we are. Full disclosure: I only played a couple hours of this game before understanding I was not going to be enjoying it and deleting it from my hard drive, likely permanently. I played a bit with [redacted PSN user], [redacted PSN user], and [redacted PSN user], and then later played a bit on my own.

‘Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout’ wastes no time in gripping your attention with its style and creativity. I feel it fits within the same cartoonish art direction which ‘Fortnite’ has popularized, but does so without the aspects that make it a bit more embarrassing. The characters here are mushy marshmallow people, and the only distinction between them is what they wear. The “randomness” of the costumes is significantly more digestible to me personally than the clashing style of much of ‘Fortnite’’s art direction. I know I’m kind of harping on a different game, but it should be noted that I do find ‘Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout’ to be extremely aesthetically pleasing. It matches the style of the game as well. The game was designed to be overtly absurdist and that is reflected in the art direction.

Gameplay is the primary failing of ‘Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout’. The primary issue is the overall feel of the platforming. I’m quite stubborn when it comes to platforming, so when a game is unable to nail movement well, it’s hard to forgive it. The avatar you control in ‘Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout’ is not a character who feels genuinely fun to control. Movement is sluggish, turning feels unresponsive, the jumping is actually horrendous, and the way your avatar interacts with the world, such as collision or physical engagement with other characters, creates some incredibly awkward situations. There were a significant amount of times where I ended up moving in some way that was not only unintended, but felt actively incorrect based on my own input. While I’m certain everything worked as intended, it was not something I can excuse as anything other than poor game-feel.

Another issue is the diversity. I don’t think it’s controversial to suggest ‘Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout’ borrows a lot of elements from ‘Mario Party’. Like, maybe it wasn’t a direct inspiration, but there are enough concepts and design choices to assist my speculation that maybe the ‘Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout’ designers enjoyed ‘Mario Party’. The only ‘Mario Party’ game I’ve played an extensive amount is ‘Mario Party 2’, which is fantastic. Now, a game of ‘Mario Party 2’ will almost certainly be significantly longer than a game of ‘Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout’, so in order to keep everything fresh in ‘Mario Party 2’, there are a wide variety of games you can potentially end up playing at random. ‘Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout’ is much less concerned with keeping itself fresh, at least at the time I played it right after release. I was seeing the same round structures in almost every game, which gets old quickly. Plus, the games are significantly longer, making it far easier to fail at one specific part and ruin all progress. You also aren’t punished with a total failure and need to restart any time you screw up in ‘Mario Party’, which is not the case here, as you are eliminated from the game and forced to quit if you want another go. I get that this isn’t necessarily a fault of the game and more my personal issues with the battle royale genre, but it causes a frustrating gameplay loop where I don’t feel as if I’ve been productive when playing. Beyond ‘Tetris 99’, no battle royale game has kept me from feeling this way, and the only reason ‘Tetris 99’ gets a pass is likely just because I’m very good at Tetris and didn’t need to learn the basics before going in and competing. Battle royales are just reductive to me, being notably un-fun until you become good, but not giving me enough of a reason to want to grind my abilities to get to that point. We will see at least one more game like that on this very list.

I will say that they were smart in making ‘Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout’ luck-based enough to where any dumb gamer boy such as myself can win. I managed to get to the final round three or four times in a couple hours of play, so I’m sure if I had desired to continue playing, I would have won a game. But as it stands, I couldn’t find the joy many others did with this game. I don’t want to say it’s a bad game, it just falls prey to many personal pet peeves of mine while failing to create anything satisfying to stymie those frustrations. It certainly deserves the success it had, since the guys at Mediatonic seem swell despite our dissenting philosophies in game design. But I am also not a game designer so that’s probably a dumb way of putting it. They have one more game which will also show up here and you can bet your bottom dollar I also talk about some issues there. But for ‘Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout’, it is the lowest point of my 2020 gaming experience, which I suppose means we had a pretty solid year all-around (we did). Sorry if you don’t like the rambling nature of my summaries, but that’s the only way I can do them.

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout Score: 2/6 (Yes, I am using a 6-point rating scale. It is the best scale for my personal use and it sucks that it will just make me look like a pretentious weirdo).

20. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2

When I discovered that Vicarious Visions, creators of the remake and perpetrators of the revival of one of video game’s most unnecessary franchises, ‘Crash Bandicoot’, was also making a remake of ‘Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater’ and ‘Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2', I was ecstatic. I know these two clauses appear to be contradictory, but I assure you they are 100% in line with my true beliefs. I like every ‘Crash Bandicoot’ game, but I don’t think any of them are actually all that great. This is just one of my many profound yet shallow opinions concerning the various video games I play throughout the course of any given moment. However, before I wax poetic about the ‘Crash Bandicoot’ franchise in the eventual write-up for ‘Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time’, I must talk a bit about my experience and inevitable disappointment with the ‘Tony Hawk’ video game franchise.

The first thing to note is that I fucking love Tony Hawk as a human being. I feel as if Tony Hawk has curated an image for himself that few athletes, especially those in the public eye for a majority of their lifetimes, have been able to curate. Tony Hawk is a dude who skateboards. My father is aware of Tony Hawk as a 60-year old man, and the children I work with are aware of Tony Hawk at ages below 10. Each of these generations know that Tony Hawk is a dude who skateboards. This is an absurd level of recognition given that they would not be able to name a single other real-life dude who skateboards if there was a gun pointed toward their heads. Couple this with the fact that skateboarding is an activity that no normal human being cares about once they graduate from high school, and you’ve got yourself quite the anomaly of dudes who skateboard.

The reason I love Tony Hawk isn’t because I love skateboarding, as I do not. The reason I love Tony Hawk isn’t because I respect skateboarding, as I do not. I love Tony Hawk because he is a pop culture icon so ingrained with the thing he’s famous for, skateboarding, and literally nothing else. I do not know anything about Tony Hawk’s life outside of skateboarding. I do not know if Tony Hawk is secretly an asshole or maybe even just openly an asshole, because I never hear about Tony Hawk in any situation that isn’t directly tied to him being a dude that skateboards. I do my best to stay away from the drama involving famous people, because I typically don’t give a shit about what rich people do. I will never be where they are, so there is nothing I can learn. But I can not escape from when someone I enjoy ends up doing something astronomically stupid, as I will at some point be given the information that this person does things that people should not be doing. I have loved Tony Hawk since I first played the video game ‘Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2' on the PlayStation as an eight-year old boy. That love has slowly shifted from being for a role model I could admire and look up to, to being for a person who I can merely respect for his ability to allow me to like his person without being consistently reminded of all the satanic brutality they have perused in.

Any project involving Tony Hawk is going to immediately become better by being associated with Tony Hawk. ‘Final Fantasy VII Remake’ would have likely been more enjoyable to me personal if it was instead titled, “Tony Hawk’s Final Fantasy VII Remake” (I wrote this sentence before I made the decision not to play ‘Final Fantasy VII Remake’ for the purpose of completing my ranked list, but I am choosing to keep it this way). The reason why I decided to put this above ‘Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout’ is, at least partially, because Tony Hawk is cool. But my enjoyment of one singular dude who particularly enjoys skateboarding and not really anything else can only do so much when the game in question is one I can, unfortunately, not enjoy. But the reasons for my lack of enjoyment usually have meaning, and those meanings are sometimes different. See, where I can state that my disdain for ‘Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout’ is directly a result of what I personally feel was a failure of the designers to create an engaging, rewarding, or quality experience, ‘Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2' created a disdain by showing how I, as a dude who once thought skateboarding was cool in real life, am a failure.

‘Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2' is, allegedly, a full-on remake of the first two ‘Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater’ games on one single disc. I say allegedly, because I only played some of the maps from ‘Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater’ , and nothing else. I did not play the original ‘Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater’, so the nostalgia I may have anticipated when I would eventually make it to maps from ‘Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2' never occurred. It wasn’t out of me coming to the epiphany that this game was simply garbage and not worth my time, but rather that I am the garbage one, and I am not worth this game’s time. I spent hours playing the first few maps of the original ‘Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater’ with the thoughts of being able to eventually have the game “click”. However, after numerous attempts watching myself be contorted with utmost ruination for the failure of landing even the most basic tricks, it soon became clear that this was not something that would click. This was something I would have to become educated on in order to succeed.

There are two types of fun video games in this extremely specific analogy I am going to create. Games that are fun when you start out and either become more fun when you engage more deeply with it’s mechanics, or they stay at some form of static line of fun. Sometimes they will even dip in fun and become games that are not fun, which is not appropriate for my analogy. The second type of game is a game that needs to be learned before one can truly enjoy it. ‘Super Mario Bros. 3’ is a game in the former category. Any simpleton can play and beat ‘Super Mario Bros. 3’ without having a supreme understanding of the physics, level design, or the intricacy of P-Speed. But it becomes an even more fun game when you can blast through each level after effectively mastering all of it’s mechanics. ‘Dark Souls’ is a game in the latter. ‘Dark Souls’ is not a fun game when you have no prior understanding of the game’s mechanics or design philosophy. You have to learn ‘Dark Souls’ before you can enjoy it, and learning could potentially take multiple playthroughs. I say this as someone who openly, unashamedly admits that ‘Dark Souls’ is probably the best game ever made.

I was never all that great at ‘Tony Hawk’ games. I played three of them over the course of my lifetime prior to 2020’s ‘Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2'. I completed each stage in two of them: ‘Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2' and ‘Tony Hawk’s Underground 2'. I had begun to play ‘Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland’, though I quit halfway through. I played this soon after it was released in 2005. This was the last time I touched a ‘Tony Hawk’ game before 2020. I was a 12-year old boy when I last played a ‘Tony Hawk’ game. An entire 12-year old’s lifespan has passed since that last occurred, along with a few extra years. I no longer possessed the skill or willpower to get through every stage of a ‘Tony Hawk’ game. This is because ‘Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2' needs the player to have at least an average understanding of it’s mechanics before you can actually enjoy it. I found myself wanting to perform far too many tricks than one is meant to perform in a singular jump, and I could not get my brain to learn not to do this after at least four hours of playing. I did not enjoy any of these four hours.

‘Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2' is not an impossible game. What inspired me to actually get the game was actually seeing other people play it. It looks fun when someone is able to rack up combos worth tens of thousands of points after a series of precise button inputs without error. It is an oddly satisfying, mechanical form of fun which I also receive from watching people play competitive ‘Overwatch’ or perform ‘Celeste’ speedruns. However, I think if I watched an average dude play ‘Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2' competently enough to make it through each of the game’s stages in 10–15 hours with moderate to poor scores, it would achieve the same feeling of satisfaction. But I am not an average dude who plays ‘Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2'. I cannot say that I have the tenacity to become one. I am merely a dude who fails at every aspect in their poor attempts to play ‘Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2'. It is, without a doubt, a good video game. It is not, however, my game of the year for 2020.

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 Score: 2/6

19. Super Mario Bros. 35

After the massive success of ‘Super Mario Bros.’ in 1985, which itself was created after the massive success of ‘Donkey Kong’ in 1981, as well as the massive success of ‘Tetris 99’ in 2019, which itself was a creation after the massive success of ‘Tetris’ in 1984 and ‘Fortnite: Battle Royale’ in 2017, Nintendo saw the money in making a video game that would shake the world for a limited time only. ‘Super Mario Bros. 35’ is not the 35th iteration of the ‘Super Mario Bros.’ franchise, but rather a game designed specifically to celebrate the 35th birthday of the ‘Super Mario Bros.’ series. The character, Mario, was actually conceived in the year 1981 in the video game, ‘Donkey Kong’, which was enough of a success to eventually lead to 1985’s, ‘Super Mario Bros.’. Mario is an old man, and I am not sorry for pointing this out. Has Mario even gotten laid yet? What an embarrassing man.

‘Super Mario Bros. 35’ may be the most important video game ever created. I am not saying this as some joke for humorous intent. ‘Super Mario Bros. 35’ is the first original video game created to be ceremoniously executed at some point after it’s inception*. This is not a, ‘P.T.’ situation, where the game was wiped with little to no warning due to petty argumentation between a terrible video game company and a terrible video game designer. This is a game that was announced and simultaneously given a self-destruct date where nobody can experience the joys of ‘Super Mario Bros. 35’. Many games, especially online-only video games, will end up becoming unplayable at some point. These games are never designed to be shut down after a certain point. I can not say enough that ‘Super Mario Bros. 35’ is being killed on a planned schedule.

*Note: After writing this paragraph, a “friend” of mine pointed out that there are numerous games which have been released with a limited run. This has been going on since at least the 1990s. I will not change this summary of thought for two reasons. The first reason is to chronicle my mistakes. When I seriously make broad claims such as this without the proper research, I must punish myself with the embarrassment of being completely wrong about something I felt I knew despite my failure to do even the most basic research. It is my own way of taking accountability for my words, and I feel this world would be significantly more pleasant if more people were willing to acknowledge their failures, no matter how small they may be. The second reason is because I was already struggling to find dialogue to discuss ‘Super Mario Bros. 35’, so that paragraph, and this paragraph describing my personal failures, assist in padding the length of my summary so that I may superficially feel more intelligent by having such a wealth of thought about a children’s video game that wasn’t even good enough to be worth money.

I am writing about ‘Super Mario Bros. 35’ on March 27th of the year 2021. ‘Super Mario Bros. 35’, as well as ‘Super Mario 3D All-Stars’ and ‘Fire Emblem 30th Anniversary Edition’ for some reason, are all planned to be eviscerated into a mushy, bloody pulp after March 31st of the year 2021. Perhaps there is some grander plan for Nintendo content after this date. Perhaps this is an extensive prank being pulled for the holiday, ‘April Fool’s Day’ which is celebrated by many companies on April 1st of every year. Perhaps Nintendo will dramatically have a change of heart, and continue to keep these games available, in some morality-questioning moment in their lives. All I know is that I will not be editing this write-up regardless of what occurs after this date.

‘Super Mario Bros. 35’ is not a game I feel like talking about. It is decent fun, but I stopped playing after about 90 minutes. I am sorry Mario, but your first game of the super variety just isn’t all that entertaining after having played your third one a significant number of times. It brings me great pleasure to say, “it brings me no pleasure to say that the movement in the original ‘Super Mario Bros.’ is bad.” ‘Super Mario Bros. 35’ is actually probably a more fun game oddly enough, since I will sometimes just need to play three or four levels before winning, instead of thirty-two. I actually won my first game of ‘Super Mario Bros. 35 and I mostly just stood around and waited. All things considered, this is a poorly designed battle royale game. This isn’t really an insult to the game itself, however, as every battle royale game is poorly designed. And yes, this does include, ‘Tetris 99’. ‘Tetris 99’ just happens to be a ‘Tetris’ game, which makes it better than all other battle royale games.

Super Mario Bros. 35 Score: 2/6

18. Murder by Numbers

If you were to tell me about a fresh new game which perfectly blended the franchises of ‘Ace Attorney’ and ‘Picross’ into a singular cohesive experience, I would have said, “That sounds cool.” In fact, I did say this. Specifically, I said this after the video game, ‘Murder by Numbers’ was pitched to me as a fresh new game which perfectly blended the franchises of ‘Ace Attorney’ and ‘Picross’ into a singular cohesive experience. This statement is mostly correct since the story elements, art direction, and characterization through animations and sound effects is nothing short of a complete ripoff of ‘Ace Attorney’. Similarly, the gameplay is just literally ‘Picross’. It is a game which wears its influences on its sleeve, though it feels as though, that day which the creators decided to get dressed in sleeved shirts, it was really hot, so the sleeve got sweaty and smelly.

‘Murder by Numbers’ is a prime example of a video game with solid individual concepts which add together to create something somehow lesser due to their combination. It’s like a mustard cake. Mustard is delicious. Cake is delicious. A mustard cake is not something I have ever eaten, though still something I feel confident in saying would not be delicious. The individual tastes would clash in a disgusting and potentially destructive way. ‘Murder by Numbers’ is a game that can be split equally into two segments: Story and gameplay. The story is delicious. The gameplay is delicious. The story and gameplay, as a singular whole, is gross and potentially destructive.

To discuss why the ‘Murder by Numbers’ story is so engaging would be an exercise in spoiling a lot of information, as well as an exercise in discussion of numerous game-long story arcs which I enjoy primarily for various, incredibly specific, events. I love Honor as a character, even though her name is dumb. I love her dynamic with basically every other character. The way the game crafts her own personal growth and struggles into the overarching plot is a feat I would personally describe as, “good”. I like that they manage to squeeze in themes of sexuality, gender identity, abusive relationships, and the perception of success in ways that link to the whole of the story in a way which is easily digestible. It is not a story as entertaining as ‘Ace Attorney’ or the significantly better ‘Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective’, but it feels far more engaging. It’s like the film, ‘Jacob’s Ladder’, versus the film, ‘Halloween (1978)’. Both of these are incredible films, but I am not necessarily entertained while watching ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ in the basest of understandings of the word, “entertained”. It is a film that hits me with far deeper-reaching emotions than its competitor. ‘Halloween’ is a more impressive and engaging film that I can watch multiple times with similar feelings each time. This analogy is likely bad, but it is literally the only one I was able to come up with in the less than twenty seconds I allowed myself to come up with a proper analogy. The analogy itself was likely unnecessary. However, as a millennial, I find intense pleasure in referencing moderately obscure media I have consumed within my life, such as the film, ‘Jacob’s Ladder’.

The gameplay is styled entirely around nonograms. Everyone calls these puzzles “Picross”. I do not know which came first, and I will not Google this. Wikipedia describes nonograms as, “picture logic puzzles in which cells in a grid must be colored or left blank according to numbers at the side of the grid to reveal a hidden picture. In this puzzle type, the numbers are a form of discrete tomography that measures how many unbroken lines of filled-in squares there are in any given row or column.” This is correct. ‘Picross’ is an extremely simple type of puzzle which can be done by anyone, including dumb people, such as myself. The appeal of ‘Picross’ is less in the skill needed to pull off a puzzle and more in the satisfaction of designing a picture using math. In fact, prior to the inception of ‘Picross’, the nonogram puzzle was sometimes called, ‘Paint by Numbers’. Given that this game is called ‘Murder by Numbers’ and you utilize numbers to solve murder cases, this is a “clever” use of thematic framing. If you haven’t figured it out by this point, my words stated at the beginning of the paragraph, while true at the time, are now untruths. I have utilized Google to make sense of this video game.

‘Murder by Numbers’ makes almost no effort in linking it’s nonogram puzzles to the actual story provided in the game. Typically, you will get a chunk of story, then proceed to an investigation area, then solve each nonogram puzzle within this area. The puzzles are provided in the form of SCOUT, the game’s mechanical sidekick whom has become aware of the concept of humanity and his lack thereof, analyzing these items to discover what they are. In the game’s first case, SCOUT analyzes an item and discovers it’s a map of the ventilation in the building our cast is trapped within. This makes sense I guess. However, he also analyzes an apple. I understand this less. Perhaps the idea they intended to go for with this was showing how a robot with amnesia would solve the brutal and ever-changing hellscape we refer to as, “The United States of America”. But when I’m in the middle of an intense story moment where I am about to find out who did the murdering, it is a bit frustrating to first have to spend thirty minutes for SCOUT to figure out what a safe is.

‘Murder by Numbers’ utilizes a specific type of nonogram puzzle which I like to call, “Chill Picross”. This is different from the regular ‘Picross’, which will scream at you in a rather defiant manner at any point you try to mark a spot that is incorrect. ‘Murder by Numbers’ does not do this. It foregoes the streamlining of regular ‘Picross’, forcing you to work on separate points of the puzzles without any hand-holding. This is fine until you get into the later levels. The puzzles presented in the final case are almost unanimously evil, and coupled with the fact that the plot has become quite enjoyable at this point, it makes the process of actively playing ‘Murder by Numbers’ not entirely fun. And the end result of every puzzle is, unfortunately, not a pretty piece of pixel art. The art rarely actually looks like what you’re intended to be creating. The larger fun of ‘Picross’ is not even present, due to the utter failure of design of these pixelated portraits.

‘Murder by Numbers’ has all of the ingredients of a good video game. It is fun, it is emotional, it is hilarious, it is sexy, and, sometimes, it is beautiful. But the end result of all these ingredients is something which, in great disdain, I cannot say is all that great. I am sorry, Google.

Murder by Numbers Score: 3/6

17. Cyberpunk 2077

Now that we are, at the time of this writing on 3/30/2021, almost three full months removed from the year 2020, I feel it is both necessary and appropriate to unpack how severely our lives, and the lives of our many billions of other human beings, were affected by the COVID-19 virus. 2020 was a trying year for anyone who was not lucky and/or skilled enough to possess the required attributes for maintaining employment in a safe and well-paying workplace. Even for the many who began to work remotely were forced to become intimately familiar with the walls of their own homes, even more so than what had been previously known. The only people who appear to have succeeded throughout the pandemic which currently continues to rage appear to be those in a position of power over some industry which benefits from everyone being alone and depressed. The true 2020 experience was one of utmost despair. It resulted in countless lives being destroyed by death and by other means such as depression, drugs, and finances. With all that surrounded us, many took solace in media, which provided a portal to escapism which was, at times, drastically needed.

2020 was not a year in which I experienced the need for escape. I acknowledge my situation involved me knowing the right people and having the exact skillset I needed in order to find work. The harshest parts of my 2020 were entirely unrelated to COVID-19. In January, I began to experience intense depression after having whored myself out in October, November, and December to three different women in the most unfulfilling and shallow ways possible. I even went off of my medication for my anxiety-related disorders because it was not allowing me to perform well in these encounters. After literally being celibate for almost five years, I had expected to find joy in such excursions. In reality, I became more aware of my emotional needs being far more complex, and such a prospect caused me to become severely distressed. I found out toward the end of January 2020 that my internship supervisor was planning on hiring two of the three interns which were working under him. I was the one who was not being hired. I became obsessed with this negative feedback, attempting to become far more pushy with clients, making a strong effort to “force” improvement. Anything I could do to show that I was, in fact, hirable. In early February, I was told by my supervisor not to come in after he heard I had conversed with a client in a way he felt was reductive. He explained to me that the client in question had understood my comments toward how he was feeling suggested I was telling him these were not real and were instead being forced. I explained my true meaning behind the dialogue was to enforce reframing to explain how he didn’t deserve these feelings. My supervisor told me to take the day off, and that he would think about what needed to be done moving forward. The next day, I was told by one of my teachers that the internship was being terminated. To this day, I have not had contact with this man since that morning when he told me that I was not good enough.

After this experience, my emotions took a nosedive into the darkest territory they had ever touched. I can comfortably say, toward the beginning of March 2020, I was not wanting to continue on with my life as I wanted. I had signed up to take part in a class which involved traveling to Jamaica to perform casework and therapeutic services with severely neglected populations in the mountains. The night before going, I did not sleep. A part of me intended to not show up. To tell the instructor of this class that I had overslept through a text I planned to send moments after the flight was set to depart. I am not sure what possessed me to go against this plan, but I had found myself in the tiny lobby of the airport in Evansville, Indiana hours before the flight would depart. I had done this trip before, and I found the experience life-changing. The time spent on this excursion became a desperate grasp to achieve the same feeling I did in the year prior. I craved a way to escape the reality of my situation. The reality that I had not succeeded and would need to wait an entire year before I could try again.

I only slept for about three hours on my third night in the small Jamaican campground our group was staying at. The next morning, I requested to speak to my professor in private about everything running through my head. She gave me insights to my situation I did not know or think about prior. I felt better afterward, but my situation did not change. I was still not going to be able to graduate in May like most of my other classmates. I still needed to level with the fact that I was told I was not good enough to do what I felt was my calling. I still craved an escape. One can become intimately connected to their fellow human being when they are unable to utilize an electronic carrying device such as a phone or laptop in a setting where you are surrounded by extreme poverty and severe physical and mental disorders. I shared with classmates, most of whom were total strangers, my issues, and they listened. I felt better. I had not escaped. It has become clear to me that shifting my reality to something other than my own is not a productive way of dealing with my own thoughts. I can not escape my life, whether I want to or not.

When I returned from Jamaica, COVID-19 had just claimed dominance over the United States. The restaurant I was working at to pay my bills had to shut down, and I was laid off from my position as a server. I spent two weeks doing basically nothing. I filed for unemployment but never received word back. After a couple more weeks, I moved back in with my parents, despite my lease still having three more months on it. I got a part-time job at a wholesale grocer I had worked at before starting graduate school. I made fifteen dollars an hour, which was significantly more money than I was making as a server. I asked my Jamaica classmates if they knew of any opening for social work. One of them gave me information. I applied and was hired. This was my first full-time job. I went back to dating. I met a girl. We hit it off. Currently, I am still at the same job and still with the same girl. I never escaped reality. I never changed reality. I simply lived life honestly, and managed to succeed while the world around me burned.

Video games are not a form of escapism for me. I do not become immersed in the experience of false worlds in the same way the average person may consider immersion. When you have as intimate of a relationship with video games as I do, they don’t take on that sort of role. ‘Cyberpunk 2077’ came out while I was sick with COVID-19. I was halfway through my extended quarantine, having no interaction with anyone in-person aside from my mother, who forcefully hugged me without my consent. She also got COVID-19 after this. We are all fine. If there was any time I could have immersed myself in a video game, allowing that to become my reality for a brief period, this was the time to do it. When I started playing ‘Cyberpunk 2077’ I literally had no responsibilities. As I was playing ‘Cyberpunk 2077’ on my base model Sony PlayStation 4, I heard constant criticism online concerning the extremity of the game’s visual bugs and performance issues. I spent five paragraphs on what seemingly has nothing to do with ‘Cyberpunk 2077’. Aside from my own personal decompression over events of the prior year, I wanted to establish that I play video games to be entertained. I did not anticipate immersion. I did not anticipate an escape. I did not go more than five minutes without experiencing a visual, audio, or input bug. I did not log this for active proof, but I am pretty confident in saying this, and I welcome CD Projekt Red pursuing legal action over this comment. The game also crashed, like, forty times over the course of my time with it. Again, I have no logs of this, but I feel confident in my ability to defend myself in a court room if it does, in fact, become that sort of thing. I, however, did not care about any of these. I am saying this, not as a CD Projekt Red simp, but as a man who both plays video games and is grounded in his own reality: I enjoyed ‘Cyberpunk 2077’.

Obviously, given it’s placement on this list, I have many issues with the ‘Cyberpunk 2077’ experience. The overarching story is quite shallow and redundant in comparison to many other gaming experiences. The looting system is barren of any interesting ideas. The combat encounters, whether you choose to be stealthy or action-oriented, are incredibly barebones, and you see the extent of their depth within the first hour of gameplay. There are many systems, such as crafting, vehicle buying, and crime rating to name a few, which are not fleshed out in any way and simply exist to be there. The “cyberpunk” in ‘Cyberpunk 2077’ is merely there as an aesthetic, and there is little in the overall plot to address many of the more complex themes the genre is capable of tackling.

One quest I find particularly annoying involves a monk who is being forced by actual criminals to modify his body with cybernetic enhancements. The potential for a complex moral quandary is quite significant. Much of Night City, the sandbox which one plays ‘Cyberpunk 2077’ in, operates around an assumed use of cyberoptics. The ethicality of designing services and support of basic needs around the assumption that civilians are utilizing cybernetic enhancements could be fun to explore, even in a light manner. The study of transhumanist philosophy is quite intriguing, and it asks many questions about the nature of improving our quality of life in favor of becoming a bit less fully oneself. ‘Cyberpunk 2077’ dips it’s toes into something potentially interesting, then turns it into a mission where you simply rescue the monk by murdering his captors. He thanks you and you get the experience points. Did it seem like it would be too boring to make a quest where citizens were mandated by the government to enhance their bodies with cybernetics, and you had the job of working with the monks on this issue? The problem with designing quests around whether or not you will be able to murder individuals is that it railroads you into a specific structure. It’s why the game’s three best quests: ‘Pyramid Song’, ‘Sinnerman’, and ‘Coin Operated Boy’, involve no murdering. The writers on the team excel in telling smaller-scale stories with minor consequences. I murdered hundreds of actual criminals in ‘Cyberpunk 2077’. The gratuitous death lost it’s weight quickly.

As far as I’m concerned, the bugs in ‘Cyberpunk 2077’ actually enhance the experience. This leads to an interesting question of how games criticism operates. Is it a critic’s obligation to discuss a game’s many bugs if they personally do not care about them? Even more interesting, should talks of these bugs be displayed in a negative light if the critic in question feels they improve the quality of the experience? I like the bugs in ‘Cyberpunk 2077’. They are funny. I do not like the crashing, though. By the time I had completed ‘Cyberpunk 2077’, I felt empty. The parts of the game I enjoyed were long removed from the experience, and all I had left to do was murder the correct amount of actual criminals. The bugs were the most enjoyable part of the experience. I had exhausted all the entertainment I could find in the gameplay and story, and was playing to check it off of my list of games I had to finish. The bugs kept me coming because they were consistently fun to experience.

‘Cyberpunk 2077’ is not a game I would recommend to most people. As an experience, the moments where it excels above competition are far too sparse. In a year where we received the gunplay of ‘Doom Eternal’, the stealth of ‘Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales’, the story of ’13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim’, and the graphical prowess of ‘Demon’s Souls’, it becomes abundantly clear that ‘Cyberpunk 2077’ is an imitator, too self-absorbed in the prospect of having numerous systems and taking no time to flesh any of these out. At their basest level, they are enjoyable. But the game never moves beyond the basest level, so you have 50+ hours of video game that I would describe as, “fine”. Also the driving is the worst I’ve ever seen in an open-world game.

Cyberpunk 2077 Score: 3/6

16. 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim

Wow, after that literal behemoth of an unproductive discussion concerning the video game, ‘Cyberpunk 2077’, it’s great that I am now able to discuss ’13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim’. I say this because the game’s best parts are all spoilers, so this write-up will be nothing more than a simple one. However, I do have some things I don’t like in ’13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim’, so I am forced, by law, to write about those as well as an equal amount of things I enjoy. Given my score will be a 3/6, aka a video game I enjoyed relatively well, I can not shit on a game without giving it it’s proper due. I did not do this with ‘Cyberpunk 2077’ because I actively want CD Projekt Red to take me to court. I am waiting, CD Projekt Red, and I will destroy you.

The first thing to note about ’13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim’, which happens to be where it’s greatest strength lies, is it’s approach to storytelling. You can play as a total of thirteen different characters over the course of five different time periods. This results in a story experience which is so densely bloated with storylines and characters that the game should make no comprehendible sense. But it manages to work in it’s own awkward and kind of dumb way. If it wasn’t obvious from the beautifully-drawn high school children, ’13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim’ has a very “anime” story. When I say something has an “anime” story, I mean to say that it is loaded in tropes, either intentionally or unintentionally, and it presents said tropes in ways that are, objectively, a bit silly. It does not take much to satisfy me with storylines, nor does it take much for any anime-watcher to be entertained. Anime is terrible. I have not watched anime in three years, and any time I become interested in picking it back up, I take a long look at myself and decide I am better than this. If you still watch anime in 2021, then I am sorry, but you are lame. However, I will not suggest I am not lame, because the reality is that I am a grown man writing large chunks of text about toys, and this specific toy happens to be inspired by the literal thing I am insulting. Yes, mom and dad, I was not joking when I told you, “This is not a phase.”

‘13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim’ actually has a pretty endearing story if I am to reminisce about the specific high points. In actuality, about 85% of it is quite boring. My brain is designed to handle only the most simplistic cartoon storylines. I am a person who thinks the ‘Kingdom Hearts II’ prologue is one of the greatest stories ever written. I am, by no means, an intelligent person. The story of ’13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim’ requires too much focus for a person who thinks the ‘Kingdom Hearts II’ prologue is one of the greatest stories ever written. However, I am a huge fan of the way it chose to end everything, as well as the major story beats which occur. They are incredibly memorable in a positive sense, even if the rest of the game is incredibly unmemorable in a negative sense. The music is also a strong addition to these scenes. The battles in which you hear the song, ‘-[DEOXYRIBOSE]-’ is very cool. I did not like the battles themselves, however. Real-time strategy games are usually not very fun. That is kind of what ’13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim’ is, though not really. The visual effects are kind of neat, though, I guess.

I do not have anything truly thoughtful to say about ‘13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim’. I will likely not remember playing it unless it is specifically brought up in conversation. I will not recommend this video game to anyone other than who’s hyper-specific interests involve what this game directly offers. Any “anime” game has a bar which it needs to pass in order for me to not be embarrassed while playing. The only two video games I have played, as an adult, and been embarrassed during my time playing are ‘Tales of Graces f’ and ‘Code Vein’. These are both “anime” games. I was not embarrassed while I played ‘13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim’.

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim Score: 3/6

15. Spiritfarer

All simulation and management games are boring. Yes, I am saying this as a fact, and no, you will not correct me. If you intend to suggest this statement is in poor faith, then I welcome you to battle me in physical combat. I will not assist you in financially making it to the state of Indiana, nor will I assess any trauma created from having experienced being alive in Indiana for a period of time beyond what would be described as, “brief”. I am not that kind of person. I opened up with that to inform all of you that ‘Spiritfarer’ is the greatest simulation and/or management game I have played. I would even go as far as to say I enjoyed my time with ‘Spiritfarer’. Most of my enjoyment stems from the parts that don’t involve me crafting or scavenging, as such parts are boring.

There are plenty of reasons to become immediately engrossed with ‘Spiritfarer’. For starters, the art and animation are beautiful. Everything is drawn lovingly to the point where I’m certain whoever worked directly on this now absolutely hates their life. The hug animation with each individual character feels as if it was designed and focus-tested by people who have the exact same sensibilities as I do, and crafted to an even greater extent. I can not get over the various wonderful animations this game provides with it’s beautiful hand-drawn art. If they had made a game like this and it looked like ‘Cyberpunk 2077’ with the animation of ‘Cyberpunk 2077’, I would probably have put this game in the bottom five.

Of course, the other thing keeping it out of the bottom 1 is it’s writing. ‘Spiritfarer’ is not a complicated video game in the slightest, and that simplicity bleeds into the way the story and characters interact with each other. You are a Spiritfarer, akin to Charon in Greek mythology, shipping spirits to the afterlife on your boat. These spirits usually have regrets from their physical lives. It is your job to assist them in the afterlife in order to provide them some form of solace. The stories of each individual character are unrelated to one another, taking a more “slice-of-life” approach to the arcs, rather than a continuous storyline. The game is very upfront about the end result of each character’s arc, which is their own death.

Playing video games about death can be heavy. My 2019 video game of the year, ‘Outer Wilds’, is a game entirely about accepting your mortality, and I cry 43% of the times in which I listen to the credits theme, ‘14.3 Billion Years’, which may be the greatest song from a video game of all time next to ‘Thunder Tornado’ from ‘Mega Man 9’. But the thing that no video game ever seems to understand how to convey is the normality of death. Death is a part of life, and everyone will inevitably die, excluding Mitch McConnell, as the exodus has already occurred, and we are being punished. Media would have you believe that the death of a human being is something substantial. Something with a significant amount of weight. This is true. However, media would also have you believe that one who is on their death bed will experience significant, life-changing revelations. Either this, or their death will spearhead some radical change in a loved one of the newly deceased. What media rarely attempts to relay to the audience, at least from my personal experience with media involving death, is the pure frivolity it sometimes has.

People will just die sometimes. It can be sudden, it can be expected, but it can’t be effectively meaningful to everyone. There is likely someone in your very family who has died recently, and you felt little to no emotion concerning their passing. This does not make you a bad person, it makes you normal. We, as a society, don’t appear to have developed the emotional maturity to handle death. We dump money on lavish coffins utilized solely to house a corpse. We dedicate expensive tombstones to these corpses as a method of creating physical memories of their existence. We hold on to trinkets with no value beyond the feelings and memories they evoke, as they remind us of a person we no longer see. I am not suggesting I am any better, as I too engage in all of these practices. This isn’t to say that all of these things are bad, though I do think the death and funeral industry is a scourge. These are all methods of coping. However, they are lifelong methods of coping, creating the unfortunate situation of failing to let go.

I am mostly rambling, though I would like to believe that what I am saying makes at least a modicum of sense. Perhaps it does not, but it is nevertheless how I interpret grief, and whether you decide to look at my interpretation as a good thing or a bad thing is completely up to you. Each character in ‘Spiritfarer’ goes through some arc before dying, and rarely does their departure feel to bring the amount of closure most media deaths like to provide. The characters can sometimes actively regress in their development before ultimately meeting their demise. My favorite instance was with Atul, who you assist in creating new experiences based on old memories. The feeling of finally accomplishing this is one of slight discomfort. Atul is able to achieve his goal, but the end result is him disappearing from your vessel with no warning, leaving his spirit flower, the item given to you once you take spirits through the Everdoor, behind. There is no closure to be had with Atul. Regardless, you must continue with your life. It is a thoughtful representation of what death can be. It can be sudden, and it can be depressing. But at the end of the day, you must move on. You will then use Atul’s spirit flower to buy upgrades for your ship.

If ‘Spiritfarer’ were simply about it’s gameplay mechanics, which are quite simplistic, it would be a dull experience. There is only so much gathering and crafting I can do before I become completely bored. I played ‘Spiritfarer’ for about 30 hours, and only about five of those were spent engaging in the story. The rest was looking for the correct material needed to build certain things in order to progress the plot. It wasn’t an actively bad experience, as I was able to listen to music or video essays as I played. But the experience needed such exterior factors to get me to see through to the end, and that is definitely not Gucci.

Spiritfarer Score: 3/6

14. Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time

In the year 2020, it became clear to every millennial that things were significantly less stressful in the 1990s. Our desire for life to be simpler, as it was when we were literal children with no legitimate responsibilities, bled into our most basic hobbies. Gaming has become a full-time job for burnouts such as myself, which is why games that give us stressful, meandering, and ultimately unfulfilling jobs to do, like every Ubisoft open-world title, are able to replace the capitalist economy we technically have to participate in if we make under six figures annually. Now that we’ve thoroughly acknowledged, as a society, that the ‘Assassin’s Creed’ franchise is worthless, we can go back to video games designed with shallower expectations of us. ‘Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time’ is a video game which embraces this aspect of “classic” video game design from the 1990s down to it’s very name.

‘Crash Bandicoot: Warped’, aka ‘Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped’, released in 1998. Since then, the ‘Crash Bandicoot’ franchise was sold by Naughty Dog to some other company, who I don’t know and refuse to Google, in order to get closer to their dreams of eventually making video games about sad dads. Every ‘Crash Bandicoot’ game released after ‘Crash Bandicoot: Warped’ has been met with flippant hostility among fans of the original three ‘Crash Bandicoot’ games. By making a video game and calling it ‘Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time’, the various games released between ‘Crash Bandicoot: Warped’ and ‘Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time’ are being summarily insulted and forgotten, destroying the last shreds of reputation these games held and effectively removing them from the ‘Crash Bandicoot’ canon.

I am not like other video game players. I do not look at the 1990s and think about how simpler life was back then. I was a child in the 1990s. As a child, I, like every other normal human child, was an idiot. I thought ‘Croc: Legend of the Gobbos’ was a fun video game when I was a child. When I played through the original ‘Crash Bandicoot’ trilogy on my Nintendo Switch through the compilation of remakes in ‘Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy’, I was excited to re-experience the second and third iterations of the ‘Crash Bandicoot’ franchise, though I was not excited to experience the first iteration of the ‘Crash Bandicoot’ franchise. I hated the first iteration of the ‘Crash Bandicoot’ franchise, titled ‘Crash Bandicoot’, but loved the other two. Upon replay with my big, intellectual, adult brain, I now realize that ‘Crash Bandicoot’ is the best one. ‘Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back’ and ‘Crash 3: Wapred’ are both good video games, but fail to reach the high expectations my childlike mind had fabricated. I can safely say, after having played all four of the now-canon ‘Crash Bandicoot’ games, ‘Crash Bandicoot’ did not need to make a comeback, and also, ‘Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time’ is the worst canonical ‘Crash Bandicoot’ game.

Just as ‘Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time’ makes it clear with it’s name that it is simply trying to pick up where the franchise left off in 1998, it does so too with it’s gameplay. The platforming challenges held within are reminiscent of similar challenges one will face in prior ‘Crash Bandicoot’ games. There is far more artistic flare in the level and enemy designs, though it’s most basic components are that of a canonical ‘Crash Bandicoot’ video game. You jump, spin, and slide with little in the way of variety to these maneuvers. All of these things are fun to do. Crash Bandicoot, the character, as evidenced by my lack of apostrophes surrounding the phrase, “Crash Bandicoot”, has the proper weight and momentum to make your jumps predictable and satisfying. They went a step further and added a small circle to indicate where Crash Bandicoot would land if you were to completely stop your momentum at that specific point. This makes it even more predictable and satisfying to jump and land. The game also adds masks, which give you unique abilities to control either Crash Bandicoot or the environment in some way. This opens up all kinds of avenues involving jumping, spinning, and sliding.

The overall feel of ‘Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time’ is one that is quite satisfying to behold. But if games were only about how it feels to play them in the most primal of senses, video games would not have evolved past the classic arcade games which are only enjoyed thoroughly by retro hipsters and the elderly. We would be playing ‘Space Invaders XXIV’ in the year 2020 if video games weren’t able to become actually good. It’s always interesting to see how conservative mindsets applied to video games can result in the general population of video game players lapping up the ideas presented as novel and a return to form. If I wanted a classic ‘Crash Bandicoot’ experience, I would have played ‘Crash Bandicoot’. I did not need ‘Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time’ to remind me that ‘Crash Bandicoot’ is a fun game. Just like I did not need ‘Mega Man 9’ to remind me that ‘Mega Man 2’ is a fun game. Reviving a classic series shouldn’t merely be about returning to form. It needs to acknowledge why this type of game ended up becoming so obscure in the first place while simultaneously refining the parts of the game that should not have become obscure. ‘Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time’ takes this philosophy into consideration by removing a restrictive lives limit, allowing players to die as much as they will need to, and tying cosmetic rewards to skillful play. This is a good idea. However, ‘Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time’ does not do much else to appeal to the modern day video game player. Platformers have progressed beyond jumping, spinning, and sliding since 1998. ‘Super Mario Odyssey’ let’s you jump, spin, roll, throw, buttslam (It should be noted that Mario’s buttslams can link to stronger movement while Crash Bandicoot’s body slams create a waiting period of no movement after use, which is not fun), long jump, short hop, body-snatch, backflip, become a tyrannosaurus rex in the year 2017, use motion controls to expand the arsenal of throws, side hop, triple jump, interact with NPCs, and ride a motorcycle. Crash Bandicoot rode a motorcycle in 1998 and it was bad. Mario, however, can not slide in ‘Super Mario Odyssey’.

One can correctly argue that ‘Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time’ is not attempting to redefine the genre as ‘Super Mario Odyssey’ did in 2017, and thus must be judged accordingly. But only a fool would say something to this effect and not immediately feel as if they were an inferior being. ‘Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time’ mostly feels as if it is trying harder to remind us of the first three ‘Crash Bandicoot’ games than it is trying to present us with a unique experience. This worked for ‘Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy’ because it was specifically created as an old experience to remind us of said old experiences. What, exactly, is the point of ‘Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time’? It is a game enamored with its predecessors, yet fearful of it’s own heart. The animations are impressive and the environments are lavish. The creativity expressed in the visuals is brilliant. The game wants to break out of it’s shell, but it refuses to accept that there is simply not enough to do with it’s basic mechanics, and tries little to expand upon the new mechanics in meaningful ways. It’s about time for games like ‘Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time’ to be bullied out of existence and forgotten about in due time.

Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time Score: 3/6

13. Doom 64: The Lost Levels

I recently became fascinated with the ‘Doom’ franchise after witnessing Tim Rogers cover the original game on his ‘Action Button’ YouTube channel. My experience with the ‘Doom’ franchise prior to the past two months is playing the first two games and the two current generation games. I liked ‘Doom (1993)’, ‘Doom (2016)’ and ‘Doom Eternal’. I did not like ‘Doom II: Hell on Earth’. However, I made it my goal to play and beat every canonical game in the ‘Doom’ franchise. I replayed ‘Doom (1993)’ and enjoyed it similarly to how much I enjoyed it when I played it in 2018. I replayed ‘Doom II: Hell on Earth’ and I found myself loving it far more than ‘Doom (1993)’, which made said re-visitation feel worthwhile. I played ‘Final Doom’ and got bored quickly and did not finish past the fifth level of the ‘Evilution’ campaign. But after this, it became time to turn my attention to the oft-forgotten ‘Doom 64’ released on Switch in 2020 with a brand new set of levels titled ‘Doom 64: The Lost Levels’.

For a majority of my time on this planet Earth in which I was aware of the existence of a video game titled ‘Doom 64’, I had made the assumption ‘Doom 64’ was a port of the original ‘Doom (1993)’ made for the Nintendo 64 console. I was a fool for thinking this. ‘Doom 64’ is a completely new campaign with a uniquely different game-feel in comparison to ‘Doom (1993)’ as well as ‘Doom II: Hell on Earth’. ‘Doom 64’ is faster, more powerful, and spookier. One thing the ‘Doom’ franchise has shown to be stellar at is the sound design, specifically, the sound of weapons unloading from the void of a character we are to believe rests on the other end of the barrel. ‘Doom 64’ continues this trend with the crunchiest of blasts emanating from your weapons which brutalize the demonic scourge you face. Therefore, ‘Doom 64: The Lost Levels’, which uses the same engine as ‘Doom 64’, provides some of the best sounds delivered to my eardrums from a video game in the year 2020.

‘Doom 64: The Lost Levels’ picks up right where ‘Doom 64’ leaves off. The transition was so seamless between two modes that it felt like I was playing an updated version of a video game released in 1997. I know this seems like a strange appraisal after having just torn ‘Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time’ to literal shreds for being a game that fails to escape it’s roots out of fear. I don’t care. This is my list and I will not explain myself to the likes of you. ‘Doom 64: The Lost Levels’ isn’t even really a video game itself, as it is merely an expansion. I simply chose to add it to expand my list to a level suitable of someone with my pedigree of “video game player”. The levels in ‘Doom 64: The Lost Levels’ are just as fun as the levels in ‘Doom 64’, which are mostly about as good as the levels in ‘Doom (1993)’, though not as good as the levels in ‘Doom II: Hell on Earth’, ‘Doom (2016)’, and ‘Doom Eternal’. The primary issue facing the expansion pack-like entry in the ‘Doom’ franchise known as ‘Doom 64: The Lost Levels’ is it’s failure to be more than a game which adds on to an original experience. The murdering of demons is fantastic, as is running through each individual level at the pace of an Olympic sprinter who never needs further hydration, and solving puzzles like a normal human who solves puzzles as a fun game to do around the house. The experience is over in a short session of play, leaving me thirsting for another full release of a classic ‘Doom’ game with modern sensibilities. It does not quench said thirst, unfortunately.

Doom 64: The Lost Levels Score: 4/6

12. Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory

Now that over two years have passed since the hotly anticipated release of ‘Kingdom Hearts III’, I think I can finally say with utmost confidence that I am disappointed with the release. I was so disappointed that I did not even use my simp brain, which pre-ordered ‘Kingdom Hearts re:Coded’ and still continued pre-ordering the ‘Kingdom Hearts’ spin-offs, to purchase or play the DLC to ‘Kingdom Hearts III’. I did not even watch the cutscenes on YouTube, and I still have not done this at the time of this writing on 4/10/2021. I began my involvement in the series as a ‘Kingdom Hearts’ fan in 2006. I had certainly not believed, after having beaten ‘Kingdom Hearts II’ as a middle schooler, that I would beat ‘Kingdom Hearts III’ as a graduate student and certifiably old person. ‘Kingdom Hearts III’ has left me feeling in more of a blank, hopeless void than the character Aqua literally experienced for years in the overarching story of the franchise. It is difficult for me to have anticipation for the next step the series takes when thirteen years of build-up was only able to churn out among the most mediocre experiences I had playing video games in 2019. This all comes with a beautiful caveat, however: Yoko Shimomura.

This woman has been pumping out absolute bangers not only in the ‘Kingdom Hearts’ franchise, but in other video games and their video game franchises as well. Yoko Shimomura managed to craft a distinct style for the ‘Kingdom Hearts’ franchise not present in most Japanese role-playing games. The unique styles present in today’s JRPG music is essentially just Gust songs, Falcom songs, and boring orchestral or buttrock music that nobody cares about. Not even Yasunori Matsuda managed to escape the purge of distinct JRPG music. It takes composers like Keiichi Okabe, REVO, and Yoko Shimomura to craft soundtracks so uniquely belonging to their own games that no mistake can be made. Nobody composes songs the way Shimomura does for the ‘Kingdom Hearts’ franchise. The level of intense emotion or persistent charm held within literally every song she has composed for the franchise is essentially unparalleled in the modern day. ‘Darkness of the Unknown’ is the only final boss arrangement I would describe as, “quite perfect”. At times, ‘Kingdom Hearts III’ felt more like a showcase for the animators than anything, as nobody else appeared to be having fun creating this video game. Yoko Shimomura did not let this dull project get in the way of her belting out one of her most powerful scores thus far.

‘Working Together’ is a piece often overlooked from the masterpiece that is ‘Kingdom Hearts II’, and she rearranges it here, making it louder, more vibrant, and more hopeful. I truly believe I was never feeling the hype of ‘Kingdom Hearts III’ more than when I was fighting random enemies in Twilight Town as this song played. ‘Hearts as One’ and ‘Forza Finale’ are the standout tracks, along with a wealth of new arrangements of prior songs from the franchise, functioning almost like a greatest hits compilation of the series’ best battle themes. Yoko Shimomura was forced to do a lot of the heavy lifting everyone else neglected in order to make the key moments of ‘Kingdom Hearts III’ resonate on a positive emotional level as opposed to a negative emotional level.

It is important to discuss the power Yoko Shimomura asserted over every other human being who played a role in developing ‘Kingdom Hearts III’ in order to fully explain why she needed a game dedicated to her creations. ‘Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory’ is the least disappointed I’ve been with the ‘Kingdom Hearts’ franchise since 2013’s ‘Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance’ which was actually a great video game, you absolute heathens. ‘Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory’ is a game unconcerned with the wackiness present throughout the series, solely concerned with the memories you have of the melodies contained within the series. On a mechanical level, it is a fairly barebones rhythm game which just happens to bare visuals and music from the ‘Kingdom Hearts’ franchise. It reminds me of ‘Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call’, so it is no surprise that this is from the same developer. There are 140 songs included in ‘Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory’ and yes, one of those songs is ‘Let It Go’. In fact, they did not include the aforementioned ‘Hearts as One’ or ‘Forza Finale’ while maintaining the use of ‘Let It Go’, which I found to be moderately upsetting. ‘Kingdom Hearts III’ as a whole is woefully underrepresented in it’s track listings, so the major songs from there are mostly not present. They also did not put in ‘Hikari’ which was very dumb.

I don’t have much to say about ‘Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory’ itself. I enjoy basic-ass rhythm games with good music, and ‘Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory’ is a basic-ass rhythm game with good music. They even disclose further plot details in the final ten minutes of the game, which is hilarious, since it makes you realize that Kairi’s largest plot thread has been relegated to a rhythm game. Kairi is somehow a more worthless character to the overall ‘Kingdom Hearts’ lore than Donald Duck.

Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory Score: 4/6

11. Resident Evil 3 (2020)

In 2019, we received the video game ‘Resident Evil 2 (2019)’, a remake of 1998’s ‘Resident Evil 2 (1998)’. This was the first numbered remake the ‘Resident Evil’ franchise had received since 2002’s ‘Resident Evil (2002)’, a remake of 1996’s ‘Resident Evil (1996)’. ‘Resident Evil 2 (2019)’ was celebrated as a phenomenal remake, which not only celebrated the franchise’s roots, but adapted the game with a more modern gameplay philosophy which would see the game become loved by even more people who either weren’t alive during the initial release of the game, or who are too dumb to have figured out how to enjoy them in 2019. I never played the old ‘Resident Evil’ video games released back in the 1990s, as I am one of those who was too dumb to have figured out how to enjoy them. I briefly played ‘Resident Evil (2002)’ and thought the controls were bad. The controls aren’t bad, I am merely too barbaric to understand the complexity of these controls. I also have the attention span of a child who has severe ADHD and is not getting it treated in any fashion because their parents are afraid of them being “labeled”. I have not had the patience, since 2017, to learn and understand something that has the potential to be fun if I am to suffer through a significant amount of play that is not fun. I spoke of this prior within my shocking disservice to ‘Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+ 2’ which ranked at #20 on this very list.

‘Resident Evil 2 (2019)’ was my #2 favorite video game of 2019, only beaten by ‘Outer Wilds’. It felt like I was playing ‘Resident Evil 4’, which was a game that did not feel like playing ‘Resident Evil (2002)’. ‘Resident Evil 2 (2019)’ felt so much like playing ‘Resident Evil 4’ that I beat both roughly eight-hour campaigns in a single weekend. I was a student during this time and had a blue collar job I did not care about, so I did this without having it negatively effect my entire being. It was a very good game with a very dumb stalker mechanic. I think the use of the Tyrant for atmospheric purposes was an interesting decision. And by interesting, I, of course, mean bad.

‘Resident Evil 3 (2020)’, much like ‘Resident Evil 2 (2019)’ feels like playing ‘Resident Evil 4’, feels like playing ‘Resident Evil 5’. Where ‘Resident Evil 4’ took the series in a unique and exciting direction, ‘Resident Evil 5’ doubled down a bit too much on said changes, maintaining a solid quality, though becoming significantly more forgettable in the process. I can recall a vast majority of the map design in the first two sections of ‘Resident Evil 2 (2019)’, just as I can recall essentially every step of progression in ‘Resident Evil 4’ from memory. It has been well over a year since I played ‘Resident Evil 2 (2019)’. I finished ‘Resident Evil 3 (2020)’ less than a week ago at the time of this writing, and I can remember significantly less about it’s map design and story structure than I can of ‘Resident Evil 2 (2019)’ or ‘Resident Evil 4’. I do remember more about it than I do of ‘Resident Evil 5’, however. I do not want to sound dismissive toward the quality of ‘Resident Evil 3 (2020)’, so if I have come off that way, then I have failed as a being.

‘Resident Evil 3 (2020)’ is the picture perfect example of a “popcorn game”, a term I have just now invented. A popcorn game is one which you will be able to enjoy for the entire, brief experience with the game, and likely feel ultimately entertained by the time it has concluded, but will immediately fail to acknowledge anything about the game at all. I beat ‘Resident Evil 3 (2020)’ in two days, and I enjoyed nearly every second. The only part I did not enjoy was a section of being chased by Nemesis with critical health and no healing items. I was asked to switch to the game’s easy mode on numerous occasions, as I continued dying from a single one of Nemesis’ gargantuan swings. I eventually realized I can simply halt my forward momentum and back up to dodge, rather than attempt to perform a ‘Bloodborne’-like dodge maneuver. Once I acknowledged my patent idiocy, I found enjoyment even in this frustrating segment.

The use of Nemesis was panned by fans of ‘Resident Evil 2 (2019)’ and ‘Resident Evil 3: Nemesis’, as Nemesis only appears in the most obvious scripted moments imaginable. I found joy in this decision, as it makes me feel like Capcom was listening to me and only me when I said, “I think the use of the Tyrant for atmospheric purposes was an interesting decision. And by interesting, I, of course, mean bad.” From what I understand, Nemesis functioned as a mechanic which would pop in and out of one’s gameplay experience in ‘Resident Evil 3: Nemesis’. It was, from my understanding, a random event each time he came into play. This is not the case in ‘Resident Evil 3 (2020)’, which removes itself from this setup and from it’s understanding of Nemesis as a horror icon. One of the first things Nemesis does in this game is attempt to murder you with the use of an actual rocket launcher. If you did not immediately think this was fantastic, then you are the reason we have games like ‘Cyberpunk 2077’. ‘Resident Evil 3 (2020)’ is not afraid to recognize that zombies are dumb and serve primarily to be utilized in ways that are fun. This is why you receive moments like Nemesis running around like a dog who just discovered his owner wasn’t holding a leash in one of the boss fights. It’s also why you have a final boss that is defeated when Jill puts a literal BFG from the ‘Doom’ franchise in Nemesis’ mouth and launches a nuclear-level blast which spreads chunks of flesh and bone across her body and the room. These are very dumb things. ‘Resident Evil 2 (2019)’ was interested in unnerving the player with low ammo and health counts combined with strong enemies. They succeeded. ‘Resident Evil 3 (2020)’ is only interested in being a fun video game. They succeeded.

It would be inappropriate to pour praise onto ‘Resident Evil 3 (2020)’ without fully acknowledging it’s faults. For one, the exploration, which was my favorite part of ‘Resident Evil 2 (2019)’, has been nerfed severely. The only part of the game with a significant amount of exploration is the first group of areas where you go through the streets of Raccoon City. The exploration solely consists of backtracking to previous areas, rather than designing a map which allows you to weave in and out of it’s many rooms in an efficient manner. It’s not entirely fun to simply halt progress and turn around to pick up better equipment. The game also locks you out of previous areas, sometimes leaving key items behind. I do not know what the safe in the first streets section contains, and I am sorry. Had I know this would become missable after the first two hours of play, I would have used Google. The hospital is the one part of the game which I felt did not have the issue of having bad exploration. The exploration was good, but not as good as RCPD in ‘Resident Evil 2 (2019)’.

‘Resident Evil 3 (2020)’ also has little in the way of exciting gameplay. There are a number of excellent situations in ‘Resident Evil 2 (2019)’ where you fight different enemy types in creative ways. The only moment of combat I found myself joyously engaged in is a segment which is literally just a weaker version of the cabin shootout from ‘Resident Evil 4’. Obviously, I enjoyed all of the combat in ‘Resident Evil 3 (2020)’, as I stated this earlier. But the amount of enjoyment was a lukewarm positive for the entire six hours I was engaged in it. It is also important to note that Jill Valentine no longer has a great booty. I have played ‘Resident Evil: Revelations’. I know her booty is quite fantastic. That is not the case here. Her booty is very mediocre. Claire Redfield had a great booty in ‘Resident Evil 2 (2019)’, so it makes no sense to have nerfed Jill Valentine’s booty in ‘Resident Evil 3 (2020)’, a game which uses the exact same engine and assets.

Resident Evil 3 (2020) Score: 4/6

10. Nioh 2

Creating a video game inspired by ‘Dark Souls’ has become an increasingly common endeavor from video game developers in the year 2020. Though it released back in 2011, designers are still playing catch-up to the philosophy ‘Dark Souls’ was built upon. ‘Dark Souls’ is my favorite video game of all time, so what I think about it is significantly more important than what you think about it. To me there are three key elements which make ‘Dark Souls’ so good despite it’s numerous significant flaws:

1. An expansive interconnected world with various areas which achieve their own interconnected nature.
2. Difficulty which encourages multiple playthroughs of the same area until the player has achieved some form of mastery.
3. An ultimately insignificant story coupled with a deep well of lore of it’s characters and settings to create a meaningful and thoughtful experience, regardless of the player’s understanding of said lore.

I just decided these three points as I write this on 4/13/2021 at 6:46 PM EDT. I chose three, as it is a small number which did not require a significant amount of thought. These three things are key in achieving the perfect experience which replicates ‘Dark Souls’. ‘Nioh 2’ is not a replica.

When ‘Nioh’ was released, I did not give it the time of day. It released a month prior to ‘Dark Souls III: The Ringed City’ in a period of time where I still considered ‘Dark Souls III’ to be one of the greatest video games of all time. I did not have it in me to purchase and play a video game which was being advertised as a Dollar General version of ‘Dark Souls’. I wanted to play ‘Dark Souls III: The Ringed City’. I did play ‘Dark Souls III: The Ringed City’, and I loved it. I then played ‘Nioh’ later that year. I liked ‘Nioh’ quite a bit. One of the main reasons I enjoyed ‘Nioh’ was because it reminded me of the ‘Dark Souls’ games. However, it is also different from ‘Dark Souls’ games. For example, you can shoot people with guns in ‘Nioh’. There are other differences too, which I do not feel need to be named, as this is about ‘Nioh 2’.

‘Nioh 2’ is a lot like ‘Nioh’ except with more stuff. There are different weapon varieties you can use. You have the ability to create and customize your character. There is a new feature where you can turn into a more powerful character and do cool things for about five seconds. It also has more levels and more bosses. It also keeps many aspects, such as the bloated loot system and being able to shoot people with guns. I have always felt the ‘Nioh’ games weren’t directly designed for someone of my brain, as the looting system, inspired by ‘Diablo’ and probably other games, is a core feature which I have little interest in. A seasoned player of such looting experiences, as well as anyone who enjoys manually balancing a checkbook, will likely find a wealth of fun in these systems. They also might find it to be complete shit, as I have no ability to tell you if the ‘Nioh’ games actually balance this well.

I played ‘Nioh 2’ by paying no attention to the various featurettes listed among the armor and weapons I would collect. The only thing I paid attention to was the number next to the item. The bigger it was, the better in my eager eyes. I also avoided heavy armor like the plague, as heavier armor makes stamina drain more quickly, and I liked to use large axes and hammers as my primary weapon. It is extraordinarily fun to use these weapons while never having to worry about running out of stamina. I also would die in 2–3 hits to every single enemy. I am ninety-five percent certain that I played ‘Nioh 2’ in a dumb way. But some things can be fun while also being dumb, hence why ‘Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity’ has yet to make an appearance on this list. The idiocy in question was perpetrated by my brain, however, which is less fun. This may or may not make sense.

The reason I listed three points for what makes ‘Dark Souls’ the objectively best video game ever conceived is because of how drastically ‘Nioh 2’, a game which has been described by numerous so-called gamers as “like ‘Dark Souls’”, differs away from two of the three core elements of quality while remaining a positive gaming experience. When discussing ‘Nioh’, it is inevitable that someone will describe it as being, “like ‘Dark Souls’”. But in the year 2021, we exist in an era where saying something is, “like Dark Souls” regardless of how much it aims to be, “like ‘Dark Souls’” is wildly offensive to those who both enjoy and dislike ‘Dark Souls’. You could say that saying something is, “like Dark Souls” is the ‘Dark Souls’ of comparing things to ‘Dark Souls’.

‘Nioh 2’ is not “like ‘Dark Souls’”. It is a game which uses that as an inspiration, while building its own identity through its design and mechanics. At what point do we consider something, “inspired by ‘Dark Souls’”, rather than, “like ‘Dark Souls’”. Perhaps it is semantics to attempt to make a distinction between such a combination of words, but it bares understanding why the phrase, “like ‘Dark Souls’” is such a hot button issue today. Maybe ‘Nioh 2’’s inspiration from ‘Dark Souls’ overshadows it’s own uniqueness. There are many parts of the game that aren’t, “like ‘Dark Souls’”, so it could possibly undermine the fact that ‘Nioh 2’ is it’s own thing. I personally do not care about whether or not people say video games are, “like ‘Dark Souls’”, because I like ‘Dark Souls’, and things that are, “like ‘Dark Souls’”, will automatically intrigue me more. Whether I find that to hold up or not has little to do with the actual video game, ‘Dark Souls’.

Nioh 2 Score: 4/6

9. Astro’s Playroom

The Sony PlayStation 5 is arguably the most important piece of technology to have ever been designed. I do not think this is at all overreaching. When I tell people that I own a PlayStation 5, they immediately hate me. It has ruined my life. Fortunately, the PlayStation 5 helped me to play three video games from the year 2020, two of which would not have been playable if I did not own a PlayStation 5. One of those two video games is ‘Astro’s Playroom’, a glorified tech demo which exhibits new features of the controller built for the PlayStation 5. Usually, when someone calls a video game a “glorified tech demo”, it is meant as an insult. I do not mean to insult Astro Bot, as he is a beautiful boy. In this case, it is a compliment. ‘Astro’s Playroom’ was literally designed to show off tech in a demo-like structure. It takes about three hours to finish ‘Astro’s Playroom’, and it takes only slightly longer to achieve it’s platinum. It is a bite-sized experience which aims to answer one very specific concept: What if video games had feelings?

The nature of ‘Astro’s Playroom’ is one of self-congratulatory gratification. The game indulges in Sony’s long and storied history with the PlayStation line of consoles, handhelds, and accessories. It even acknowledges the PlayStation Vita despite what it did to me. You play through a group of stages themed around a specific piece of technology which each mainline PlayStation console was known for. On the way through these levels, you collect various coins and products to add to your obsessive stash of PlayStation products. The entire video game is a museum and/or advertisement of all the smart and dumb things Sony has done with the PlayStation brand. Each level contains numerous visual references to various PlayStation IPs, which is fantastic, as I love it when I see a reference to something and am able to understand what is being referenced.

As a platformer, ‘Astro’s Playroom’ does little to differentiate itself from other stage-based 3-dimensional platforming experiences. But it honestly isn’t all that important to the total experience. I don’t have much to say about ‘Astro’s Playroom’, as, again, it is quite a tiny game. However my enjoyment of it is likely going to differ from others. I become emotional when I remember relics of my past and how these have affected me to become the human I am today. I have been purchasing and playing PlayStation products since I was a tiny baby child. The reflection Sony crafted for their own history is similarly a reflection on my life playing video games. I can look back to my childhood now and realize my parents had made a horrible mistake when they bought my brother and I a Sony PlayStation for Christmas in the year 1999.But the reality is that I am now the person I am because of my parents buying my brother and I a Sony PlayStation for Christmas in the year 1999. To state I would go back and change this decision would be to fail to reflect on what has truly occurred. Perhaps I should have become more fixated on books or athletics when I was a child, but my brain was dumb back then. I could not assess that I would still be playing video games at the age of 27, nor could I predict I would also be writing massive blocks of text about said video games.

The mistake I made by playing video games is akin to the mistakes Sony made with accessories such as the EyeToy. Did you own an EyeToy? Did you care about the EyeToy? It is an archaic example of a company intending to create demand with technology that is not entirely innovative, but is different from what we know. Nintendo did this with the Wii, and they made a lot of money. I don’t know if the EyeToy was actually a financial failure, and I will not Google it, but there is probably a reason Sony has not expanded upon the concepts it created. If they were Nintendo, Sony would have ignored the EyeToy, hoping it would eventually slide out of the public consciousness. Or perhaps they would acknowledge it’s existence, but only do so in some humorously self-derogatory fashion. But Sony chose to remember the EyeToy. Sony chose to celebrate the EyeToy. It is a part of the PlayStation history, and it deserves to be remembered. If not for the people who brought it to fruition in the first place, then for the two or three people who may have had their lives enriched by enjoying the games it utilized.

I use a significant amount of hyperbole in these write-ups, and it perhaps detracts from the moments I wish to state something which means a lot to me. At the end of the day, ‘Astro’s Playroom’ is a brand new game for brand new technology. It has relegated the EyeToy, and numerous other forgotten artifacts from PlayStation’s history, to mere collectibles. It is not intending to bring these items back to the public spectrum beyond mere celebrations of Sony’s history. It is not intending the collectibles to be viewed in any meaningful fashion beyond their existence. But as a child, I always wanted an EyeToy. I never got one, as my parents thought I had enough games. By the time I would have been able to use my own money to pay for one, it had disappeared from stores. I then forgot about the EyeToy for the next 15 or so years. When I saw the EyeToy featured as a collectible in ‘Astro’s Playroom’, it brought back that memory. I know memories are ultimately fleeting, but it feels good to be reminded of where we come from. That Sony embraces this through ‘Astro’s Playroom’ is a truly wonderful thing.

Astro’s Playroom Score: 4/6

8. Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity

‘Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity’ had big shoes to fill. Storming off of the success of ‘The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’, Nintendo needed to create an experience unlike any other in order to keep fans engaged. ‘Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity’ could have been any type of video game, but it chose to be a musou game. In that sense, perhaps the common video game player would suggest this entry in the ‘The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’ lore is of lesser quality than it’s predecessor. However, I am not the common video game player. I am quite happy with the end result, as ‘Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity’ is better than ‘The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’.

Much like ‘The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’, ‘Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity’ is a member of the ‘The Legend of Zelda’ franchise in name alone. It does absolutely nothing to expand or improve upon the features noteworthy within ‘The Legend of Zelda’ as a franchise, instead choosing to do something else entirely. In this specific instance, ‘Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity’ does absolutely nothing to expand or improve upon the features noteworthy within ‘Dynasty Warriors’ as a franchise. I am saying this without having played a ‘Dynasty Warriors’ game, so that is possibly not a correct statement. I have played exactly three musou-style video games: ‘Hyrule Warriors’, ‘Berserk and the Band of the Hawk’, and ‘Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity’. “Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity’ is the best of these.

‘Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity’ is a game primarily focused on the action of it’s gameplay above anything else. You can play as a bunch of different characters, and they all have a specific feel to them which is unique from any other character. You can usually select a number of different characters for a single stage, which allows you to have a diverse set of moves within each individual level. There are some characters that are not fun to play as, but the ones that are not fun to play as are almost always optional aside from a few specific missions. My favorites were Mipha, Impa, Urbosa, and Yunobo. My least favorites were Revali, Riju, and Hestu. You can also play as the Divine Beasts from ‘The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’, but those segments were not very fun.

‘Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity’ makes an effort to expand on some of the story elements which I personally found to be disappointing in ‘The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’. It takes place during all of the cool shit you heard about but never experienced, which was a good idea. But the attempt, if I can even call it such a thing, is poorly executed. I do not have any different thoughts or opinions on any of the characters which had not been formed prior during my experience playing ‘The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’. The voice acting has also not improved, and it still sounds like there was no voice director for the English team. My assumption is that there wasn’t, or it was done by the director’s son and/or daughter who majored in creative writing and has not been able to sell their poetry yet. I am still quite annoyed that Zelda, the character, has a thick British accent, in the sense that it is a British accent I would expect a high school theatre student to improv, yet King Rhoam, her father, sounds like he is from Ohio.

‘Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity’ is not trying to shake the world up in any way. It is a musou game, and, by design, is quite shallow. But this is not a negative thing as I’m sure some people will claim. Perhaps it is overly long with dull sidequests which encourage grinding, and perhaps it has weakly designed systems which do not feel fleshed out, such as it’s equipment fusion. But I also do not have to replace a broken weapon at any point in ‘Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity’, which is pretty neat.

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity Score: 4/6

7. Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2

If I created an awards show and then made one of the awards I gave, “Positive Surprise Gaming Experience of the Year 2020”, I would give that award to ‘Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2’. When I first heard about this game, the sequel to ‘Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon’ and prequel to ‘Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night’, it seemed like a fairly pointless and repetitive effort. ‘Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon’ was a game created to be like ‘Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse’. It succeeded in this endeavor, and resulted in a fun video game. If ‘Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2’ was going to occur, it would need to be it’s own thing, rather than a retread of a retread of a video game designed in 1989. I played through the game once and thought I could confirm such beliefs. ‘Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2’ did little to make me believe it was anything other than a retread of it’s predecessor. However, I played the next segment of the game, and everything changed.

In order to fully experience the whole story of ‘Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2’, you must play through it thrice. This is the only way you will see all that is needed to see in order to understand why it is such an enjoyable experience. There are seven characters you can utilize, all of whom have their own strengths and weaknesses. They are all fun to play as, and there is enough diversity in the various rooms you will make your way through to encourage one to experiment with these different characters. You can also make it to where you do not have to worry about lives, which is fantastic.

There is little I can say about ‘Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2’ that I have not already discussed in other write-ups. It is a game which strives to emulate a classic gaming experience while baking the modern sensibilities of good video game designers from the current era in order to create something which is both memorable and engaging. It only took about six or seven hours to play ‘Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2’ to completion, and aside from my initial playthrough of episode 1, I hold the utmost respect for it. However, the gap between this spot on the list, and the next spot is quite large. I will not say any more about ‘Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2’.

Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2 Score: 4/6

6. Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales

In the year 2020, the very year COVID-19 shook the world, all video game players had one phrase occupying their headspace. That phrase, verbatim, was, “Why the hell are we getting the PlayStation 5 at this moment in our lives”. And yet, on Thursday, November 12, 2020, the very year COVID-19 shook the world, chaos erupted. Sony heard the true video game players who made comments such as, verbatim, “The tech advancements are not yet strong enough to warrant an entirely new console generation.” They listened so well that they believed, verbatim, “Only actual idiots will buy this thing.” They stated this, then proceeded to ship only five literal copies of their new invention, the PlayStation 5. What they truly failed to accommodate for is the natural reality of this world. The reality that the population of true video game players is composed entirely of actual idiots. Upon this revelation, when Sony’s stock sold out immediately, Jim Ryan wept. Sony then proceeded to produce five more units, and then kept doing this once every week. I am an actual video game player, and I literally spent two hours doing actually nothing with my life other than staring at a Best Buy webpage in order to secure a copy of my Sony PlayStation 5 which happened to have a copy of ‘Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales’.

It is important to note that I saw ‘Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales’ showcased for the PlayStation 5. When I saw this reveal trailer, I solemnly muttered to myself, “I’ll play this eventually.” I found out it was to be released on the PlayStation 4 as well, and I thought I would be playing ‘Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales’ on my base PlayStation 4. However, in the one instance I was able to give my entire consciousness and physical being to consumerism, it was in a moment which the PlayStation 5 was bundled with ‘Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales’. It was a bundle which I was forced to pre-order despite the fact that the PlayStation 5, ‘Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales’, and the additional DualSense wireless controller were all individually readily available at this time. When it arrived, I felt an overwhelming sense of immaculacy. I was now THE gamer. Not a puny, mortal gamer who did not own a PlayStation 5. I am more powerful than I could ever have dreamt of being, and every day I recognize this, I become nauseated by the purely destructive nature of my new form.

‘Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales’ is a follow-up to 2018’s ‘Marvel’s Spider-Man’. ‘Marvel’s Spider-Man’ made the popular decision of having an adult Peter Parker, thus skipping large chunks of the Peter Parker story which have been adapted into far too many film franchises, by which I mean two off the top of my head. Everyone knows the story of Peter Parker, so covering an origin story for him would be redundant and boring. Instead, ‘Marvel’s Spider-Man’ decides to cover the origin story of Miles Morales as a B-plot. This ingenious decision allows us to fully understand the origins of Miles Morales when it comes to his time to shine in the video game, ‘Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales’. ‘Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales’ takes place shortly after the end of ‘Marvel’s Spider-Man’, with Peter Parker having taken Miles Morales under his wing. Miles is hot-headed and immature, very evidently not ready for the spidered lifestyle which Peter Parker so expertly creates. Within the first few minutes, we see Miles receive a text from his mother, who he loves, asking him to pick up groceries. Miles excitedly heads to the store, only to receive a text from Peter that there is spider trouble afoot. A curious player may ask why Peter, a fully-fledged Spider-Man, is in need of assistance from what equates to a spider boy, with absolutely no caveats addressed. Miles is a student with a family who is unaware of his identity. If Peter was truly the role model we expected him to be, he would be asking Miles if he had a moment to spare or if he had been remaining properly hydrated before asking for some help. Peter Parker is a flawed instructor to a teenager who desperately needs someone to look up to. Miles just became a different being with the new spider powers, and likely feels isolated from anyone who isn’t Peter. In a similar vein, Miles’ most present male role model, his father, died in the prior game. Even worse, his father was a cop. Miles doesn’t have any male role models to look up to beyond this attention-whoring man in latex who accepted Miles in his greatest moment of vulnerability.

After one of the most embarrassing failures Peter Parker ever endures, getting absolutely dumpstered by Rhino and summarily being saved by his mentee, Peter informs Miles he is leaving, and that it is up to Miles to protect the entire city of New York City. This should be a burden far too significant for a single spider boy, but Miles nonetheless takes it on his shoulders. If ‘Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales’ were a masterwork of video game storytelling, a player would become quickly overwhelmed. There would be values in relation to the amount of crimes you fail to intervene on, lowering each time money or lives are lost. You would have a score of endorsement, which would lower each time you failed to save someone or something. Eventually, the people of the city would be consistently shaming you for your failures, and police officers may even begin to shoot at you for intervening in dangerous matters. As the city’s body count continues to rise, Miles would sink into depression, unable to perform various skills and maneuvers at a certain level of incredulousness of the self. Eventually, Miles would be unable to continue his life as a spider boy, instead choosing to live out a dull, unfulfilling life as an injury lawyer or something, while crime continues to erupt until Peter returns from vacation. It would be a game which shows the true, hard reality of being a superhero in a world capable of hosting supervillains.

Instead, ‘Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales’ chooses to be a fun video game. Miles Morales is more than capable of taking the job, as the player is equipped with cleaner movement and controls, new abilities such as Venom attacks and invisibility, and a better story don’t @ me. In many ways, ‘Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales’ feels more like DLC than a sequel. It reuses much of the same map, features a shorter campaign with less side content, and does not do much to alter the feel of the game beyond the previously mentioned remarks. This works in its favor, however. ‘Marvel’s Spider-Man’ had some critical flaws that forced me not to care too much about it all things considered. Namely, it’s story meanders for far too long and there are far too many side missions and not enough combat options to warrant the sheer quantity of them. ‘Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales’ delivers a much tighter story and trims the side content down by what felt like around 70%. This is just a guess and probably wrong, but I welcome any legal battle which may arise from such a remark. Doing this makes the experience of playing ‘Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales’ less overwhelming, more tightly crafted around utilizing Miles’ expanded roster of moves to create unique encounters if you’re willing to experiment. The combat playgrounds are also more engaging due to Miles’ new abilities. Invisibility is probably the biggest success the game rolls out, as it is extraordinarily fun to dip in and out of stealth at will. I personally despise stealth in video games 95% of the time, so this is great.

I ended up putting about 11 hours into ‘Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales’. I only played the game in two sessions. I spent both sessions doing this while my girlfriend watched, and she said it was really fun to watch. Was she being sincere? Probably. She is not the type to lie to me, unless our entire relationship is nothing but a lie. I loved every moment of ‘Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales’. Regardless of whether I was swinging, fighting, watching, or listening, it was a wonderful experience to be a part of. This is a contender for “Game of the Year” in many other years, but the top 5 of 2020 was just too damn good.

Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales Score: 5/6

5. Ori and the Will of the Wisps

When it comes to my top 21 video games of 2020, I had some difficulty deciding spots five through three. One of the games within this set of three is ‘Ori and the Will of the Wisps’, which I have chosen to receive the honor of fifth place on my list of top 21 video games of 2020. When I look at the order in which they appear on my list, it becomes abundantly clear that I have recency bias, as they are in direct order from least recently played to most recently played. I finished ‘Ori and the Will of the Wisps’ before nearly every other game on this list. I have not returned to it because I had to play other video games to continue my life as a hardcore gamer. This is not due to a lack of quality or perceived replayability on the part of ‘Ori and the Will of the Wisps’. I am certain I would greatly enjoy ‘Ori and the Will of the Wisps’ if I were to play it again. ‘Ori and the Will of the Wisps’ is one of the most well-crafted metroidvania titles I have ever played. It is easy for me to recall the days when I used to be a faux intellectual who had a very strict definition of metroidvania, and would have considered ‘Ori and the Will of the Wisps’ one of the few actual metroidvanias. Now that I am no longer a faux intellectual and am instead abundantly aware of my lack of intelligence, I recognize that many metroidvanias I did not enjoy were still metroidvanias, they were just bad video games. This has nothing to do with ‘Ori and the Will of the Wisps’, as it is a metroidvania that is good. This entire rant is simply my way of coming to terms with some of the most incoherently idiotic statements I made when I was 24 and depressed, in need of outlets such as criticism in order to make myself feel less worthless.

‘Ori and the Will of the Wisps’ is a strange sequel all things considered. It follows directly after 2015’s ‘Ori and the Blind Forest’, which was a relatively solid game, but not as good as every video game journalist in the world made it sound when they literally defecated themselves in joy over it’s graphics. I played ‘Ori and the Blind Forest’ on my Nintendo Switch a few years after it’s initial release. By this point, I had played ‘Hollow Knight’. For those who don’t know, I am a professionally licensed ‘Hollow Knight’ simp, meaning everything about the game, even the bad parts, is good. If you disagree with this statement, you are an idiot. This is my life now, and I am not sorry. ‘Ori and the Blind Forest’ feels like a distinctly lesser experience when compared to other ventures of the genre in the current year. It is a game which prioritized visuals and movement above all else. The level design is fairly unmemorable and the combat is actively unenjoyable. I directly mention these aspects, as they were significantly improved in ‘Ori and the Will of the Wisps’, as were the visuals and movement. I do not care about ‘Ori and the Blind Forest’. I deeply care about ‘Ori and the Will of the Wisps’.

‘Ori and the Will of the Wisps’ starts off pretty quickly displaying it’s fully retooled combat system, allowing you to do things like pull off combos and have fun. This was a necessity to present to the player immediately to show them that this game is not going to suck. They intersperse this with a highly memorable chase sequence and boss fight, which is more memorable than anything in ‘Ori and the Blind Forest’. After a few hours spent breaking into the game’s new world, you are presented with a wonderfully broad map to explore in relatively any order you would like. Each level has a set of mechanics that are utilized and expanded on in wonderful ways, leading the player to be able to experiment with the many diverse skills in your arsenal. Two abilities in particular, the triple jump and light burst, allow you to creatively break the game apart in one’s own imaginative ways.

The biggest positive I can speak of ‘Ori and the Will of the Wisps’ is that it reminds me a lot of ‘Hollow Knight’. From it’s dodge-heavy combat to it’s easily customizable character building to it’s darker atmosphere to it’s encouragingly non-linear progression structure to the very way my brain felt as I was playing it. ‘Ori and the Will of the Wisps’ is a massive step forward for the franchise in my eyes because it took these queues from a much better property. While it doesn’t quite match the level of quality ‘Hollow Knight’ offered, it stands as one of the best in it’s genre and one of the most improved sequels to come out of the past decade.

Ori and the Will of the Wisps Score: 5/6

4. Demon’s Souls (2020)

n the year 2020, the very year COVID-19 shook the world, all video game players had one phrase occupying their headspace. That phrase, verbatim, was, “Why the hell are we getting the PlayStation 5 at this moment in our lives”. And yet, on Thursday, November 12, 2020, the very year COVID-19 shook the world, chaos erupted. Sony heard the true video game players who made comments such as, verbatim, “The tech advancements are not yet strong enough to warrant an entirely new console generation.” They listened so well that they believed, verbatim, “Only actual idiots will buy this thing.” They stated this, then proceeded to ship only five literal copies of their new invention, the PlayStation 5. What they truly failed to accommodate for is the natural reality of this world. The reality that the population of true video game players is composed entirely of actual idiots. Upon this revelation, when Sony’s stock sold out immediately, Jim Ryan wept. Sony then proceeded to produce five more units, and then kept doing this once every week. I am an actual video game player, and I literally spent two hours doing actually nothing with my life other than staring at a Best Buy webpage in order to secure a copy of my Sony PlayStation 5 which happened to have a copy of ‘Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales’. I also bought ‘Demon’s Souls (2020)’.

‘Demon’s Souls (2020)’ is a nearly 1:1 remake of ‘Demon’s Souls (2009)’. It was made seemingly with the sole intention of making ‘Demon’s Souls (2009)’ a prettier experience. The graphical feats of ‘Demon’s Souls (2020)’ are nothing to be scoffed at, evidently the craft of those who are immensely talented at their job. I do not know what it’s like to be immensely talented at a job, but I can assume if I were to meet the team at Bluepoint Games, they would inform me of what this is like. Remaking ‘Demon’s Souls (2009)’ was certainly not going to be an easy task, given the game’s rabid fanbase of terrible human beings, so Bluepoint Games did something that no self-important Souls fan could complain about: They basically changed nothing. Bluepoint Games have basically only ever done ports, remasters, or remakes throughout their lifespan as a developer, and they typically do a bit of quality-of-life improvement on top of making everything look pretty. It is a step above something like ‘Dark Souls Remastered’, which made the bare minimum of improvements. If Bluepoint Games had made the decision to revamp the combat system to be more like that of ‘Dark Souls III’ or ‘Bloodborne’, we would have had a potential “Game of the Year” winner. Instead, we get a game that is quite lovely, but is also a game from the year 2009.

‘Demon’s Souls (2009)’ is not the most polished of games. It was very clearly the result of a relatively green video game director whose ambition was the driving force behind the game. Hidetaka Miyazaki has gone on record stating the project had already been deemed a failure once he took the reins, allowing him an abundance of creative freedom. I do not know how much freedom Miyazaki was actually given, as I have not been allowed within two miles of FromSoftware’s headquarters since an event I refer to simply as, ‘The Incident’. I will state, regardless, that I despise the auteur culture of media, and the glorification of a single man on a game with dozens to potentially hundreds (I could not find numerical data and I will not count each individual name because I am not an accountant) is very dumb. I used to be a part of this culture, but the older I grow, the more I recognize how silly it is to give one man full credit for designing, programming, writing for, composing music for, voice acting, and marketing an entire video game project. I do not want to suggest Miyazaki is not a talented video game director, as he is, but maybe he isn’t the greatest human being to ever grace the medium of video games. Maybe he is, though. I don’t have the answer for that.

It is important to note that the team which developed ‘Demon’s Souls (2020)’ is not the same team which developed ‘Demon’s Souls (2009)’. The goal of each individual project was entirely different. ‘Demon’s Souls (2009)’ was meant to be a radical shift away from the standard action gaming experience. This required it to be hindered in some ways which would isolate a significant chunk of players. ‘Demon’s Souls (2009)’ almost certainly had thousands of players who quit before completing the first true level, as it is not like other 3D action games or RPGs. ‘Demon’s Souls (2020)’, on the other hand, was made for the sole purpose of replicating an experience. Playing ‘Demon’s Souls (2009)’ was a fresh experience, and still has a structure which has not been accurately built upon to my experience and knowledge. Playing ‘Demon’s Souls (2020)’ feels like playing ‘Demon’s Souls (2009)’. ‘Demon’s Souls (2020)’ is an incredibly good video game because it is working with one of the best video games ever made.

In case you haven’t figured out yet, most of my write-ups aren’t actually about the games, rather about my feelings concerning my experience of playing said games. ‘Demon’s Souls (2020)’ does not illicit many positive feelings beyond the fact that it feels like I’m playing ‘Demon’s Souls (2009)’ but fancier, which, again, is great because ‘Demon’s Souls (2009)’ is one of the best games ever made. I do enjoy being able to send items back to Stockpile Thomas even if my inventory limit has been exceeded. I like the change in healing items to make it harder to hoard due to an increased weight. I like that the bosses feel slightly different, as it helped increase the challenge of a few fights I never struggled with anymore. I don’t like how they made the Tower of Latria levels so clean and bright. I don’t like how they changed the Maiden Astraea fight’s music to be more muted instead of having the blaring discordant synths hitting you like a brick in the face. Everything else was just fancy ‘Demon’s Souls (2009)’

Demon’s Souls (2020) Score: 5/6

3. Black Mesa

‘Half-Life’ was a first-person shooter released in 1998. It was a massive success both critical and commercially, and to this day is a direct inspiration to probably some games. I was five years old when ‘Half-Life’ was released. My favorite game was ‘Dinosaur Adventure 3-D’ at this point in my life because I was a failure of a child. 1998 was a year filled with absolute bangers for North America, with a wealth of some of the most innovative and timeless gaming experiences, yet here I was playing ‘Dinosaur Adventure 3-D’ instead. I did not play ‘Half-Life’ until probably around 2010. I was a high schooler at this point, and I played video games on my PlayStation 2 and Nintendo GameCube. ‘Half-Life’ was ported to the PlayStation 2 in 2001, so I was playing a 9-year-old port of a 3-year-old video game which was designed to be played with a keyboard and mouse and not with a controller. Yet despite all of this, ‘Half-Life’ became one of my favorite gaming experiences. It’s gameplay loop, level design, and method of storytelling were all a brand new feeling for me. During this phase in my life, I enjoyed Japanese-styled roleplaying games, so to see something which weaved the active gameplay into the full story was a relatively unique experience. In a way, ‘Half-Life’ made me the gamer I am today maybe.

Regardless of how much I adore ‘Half-Life’, it is impossible to ignore the many parts of the game which have not aged past the year 1998. Valve, the legendary development studio behind the ‘Half-Life’ franchise, has a tendency to become self-absorbed with their technological advancements to the detriment of the whole of the games they work on. There are many moments where the pace of the game is slowed down to a crawl so you can do something wholly unengaging, such as moving a box. This is not fun. Similarly, the final group of levels taking place on the alien home world of Xen are all bad. The drop in design ability from the chapter ‘Lambda Core’ to the chapter ‘Xen’ feels almost deliberately comical. It is through these obvious drawbacks which ‘Black Mesa’ chooses to adapt and thrive in it’s own way.

‘Black Mesa’ was not designed by Valve, instead coming from Crowbar Collective, a group of independent game designers who saw ‘Half-Life’ and thought, “This could be better, and we will be the ones to deliver the improvements upon the world.” They then used Valve’s very own storefront to sell this product. Valve had every right to be absolute chodes about the situation, but they did not. They actively allowed independent fans to sell a product based on their own intellectual property on their own first-party store. Imagine if Nintendo had done this with ‘AM2R’? We likely would not have had to get ‘Metroid: Samus Returns’. This is a shame. Like ‘AM2R’, ‘Black Mesa’ is one of the most powerful remakes to ever be released. It does everything in it’s power to lessen the negatives of the game it’s based on while simultaneously improving upon it’s other qualities.

‘Black Mesa’ makes many changes beyond the mere graphical upgrade to the game. Enemies are smarter, more likely to surround and overpower you. In the original ‘Half-Life’, the human enemies needed to halt movement in order to begin attacking, but they can move and shoot in ‘Black Mesa’ as if they were actually trained militia. Various portions of map are now more streamlined to avoid a disruption of flow to the game. The scientist and security AI have been buffed to be more agreeable to your needs and aren’t incredibly dumb. The voice acting has been redone to be less hammy, and new characters and scenes have been added to expand upon the story and to more appropriately link the events of the original ‘Half-Life’ to it’s sequels. If it weren’t for the Xen portions, this would be the definitive way of experiencing ‘Half-Life’.

The Xen portions turn ‘Black Mesa’ into an entirely new game of higher quality. It completely removes the final few chapters of ‘Half-Life’ and has been built to more effectively take on the smarter mechanics of ‘Black Mesa’. They remove or remake many of the negative nuances of the Xen levels, such as the low gravity and the awkward long jump. The Xen levels now occupy a much longer portion of the overall runtime. It has made these levels far more story-oriented, as well as making it more puzzle-focused and offering a wider variety of combat challenges. I also love the improvement to the Vortigaunt lore. In ‘Half-Life’, they are merely non-hostile towards you while you move through Xen, but ‘Black Mesa’ allows you to actively fight beside them against their oppressors. It may be worth experiencing Xen in the original ‘Half-Life’ simply from an historic standpoint, but it is wholly unnecessary beyond seeing just how much more care was put into ‘Black Mesa’. It takes one of the most innovative and brilliant shooters of all time and makes it better. It is still not as good as ‘Half-Life 2’, but it makes a comparison far more intriguing to discuss. My only issue with ‘Black Mesa’ is that I could not get my mouse wheel to scroll through weapons. This was annoying.

Black Mesa Score: 5/6

2. Hades

Hades is the Greek God of death and the ruler of the Underworld. ‘Hades’ is a video game from the year 2020 which was developed by Supergiant Games and ranks #2 on my list of top games from the year 2020. “Hades” is a quote of a verbal or written statement of the word Hades. “‘Hades’” is a quote of a verbal or written statement of the word ‘Hades’. Now that we’ve made such distinctions, it’s important to note I will likely be talking only about ‘Hades’ during this summary. It is also crucial to note that, during the initial creation of this list, ‘Hades’ was the only game to finish with a 6/6 and stood at #1. Now, clever people with basic reading comprehension will be able to tell that ‘Hades’ is no longer #1 on this list, as evidenced by the “2.” preceding it’s bolded introduction. Those of highly superior intelligence will know ‘Doom Eternal’ is my #1 game of 2020 based on context clues such as me listing it as one of the games and having yet to rank it. As much as I would love to have declared ‘Hades’ to be game of the year, and as much as it likely deserves that title, it unfortunately falls just short.

My experience with roguelike games is quite a poor one. I rarely enjoy roguelikes in the way they are meant to be enjoyed. Roguelikes are intended to encourage multiple playthroughs in order to achieve the definitive experience. They are intended to provide largely different playthroughs each time you begin a new run based on the randomization of abilities, shuffling of maps and enemies, and generally requiring a significant level of skill in order to actually get through a run, let alone display some form of mastery over any given system. Before playing ‘Hades’, my favorite roguelike was ‘Dead Cells’. I liked ‘Dead Cells because the combat and abilities were fun. I didn’t like how long the runs had to be in order to get to the end, nor did I like the shuffling around of the map to create dull level design. I gave ‘Dead Cells’ a 4/6. It would likely not crack the top 10 on this list. If that is not an indication of how much ‘Hades’ blew the door off of my expectations, let me instead simply state this: “‘Hades’ blew the door off of my expectations.”

‘Hades’ is a fast and fluid action game which foregoes many complaints I have with the genre. For one, every run has you accumulating different forms of currency which can be used to purchase various powers, buffs, or cosmetics. Progression in ‘Hades’ hadn’t stymied after I finally put it down at 80+ hours of play. That’s how forward-thinking Supergiant Games was in their philosophy of skills-based progression. ‘Hades’ is also focused almost solely on it’s combat and story. The shuffling around of maps exists in some ways, though there are basically no instances where you have to worry about wasting your time. Each room hosts some form of encounter and a reward is always guaranteed. You also know what your reward will be prior to entering a room, whether it be to assist you on the current run or to bank for use in the Underworld hub. You usually receive a choice of at least two types of rewards, so at no point are you presented rewards with no value. Because ‘Hades’ is so hard-focused on the combat and story, there is no reason to fault it for some of my more common criticisms with the genre.

Usually, I will complete a run in any given roguelike and consider that my fill of the game, assuming I even make it that far. There are few things this genre seems to be able to do in order to hold my attention beyond that initial burst of dopamine. Starting from the very beginning, once I’ve already accomplished my own personal goal of winning, does not feel comfortable or engaging. When you finally finish with the final boss of ‘Hades’, you are left with a cliffhanger that begs you to go again. This is essentially when ‘Hades’’ other strong suit, it’s story, kicks in. The game is not wholly reliant on a system of combat you are likely still not well-versed in to be the driving force. That force shifts to it’s story, the character arcs, and the mysteries you have which must be uncovered through continued play. It is brilliant, really. I found myself coming back to the game to get through the story, but eventually the amount of story content starts to run dry, but I have become more adept at playing through the game, so I can enjoy the breeziness of the combat as the skills I once had no clue of how to use adeptly have become muscle memory. My desires in how to go about playing the game are ever-changing.

Anyone can talk about how good ‘Hades’ is, and anyone certainly has. Even dumbasses realize ‘Hades’ is phenomenal. I am, of course, referring to myself. It is the exact direction each roguelike from this point forward needs to go in. ‘Hades’ is an absolute joy and deserves your time, because you are almost certainly not doing anything important enough to avoid playing it. Stop being a douche. Play ‘Hades’.

Hades Score: 6/6

1. Doom Eternal

The ‘Doom’ franchise is an odd one for me. I first played ‘Doom (2016)’ in 2017, which was a solid 4/6. I then played ‘Doom (1993)’ and was pleasantly surprised at how much I ended up enjoying it. ‘Doom (1993)’ is an old game from the year 1993. Good video games from 1993, aside from ‘Doom (1993)’, include ‘The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening’, ‘Mega Man X’, ‘Kirby’s Adventure’, and nothing else. Most games from this year are bad, and all of them are old. ‘Doom (1993)’ is not bad, and it does not show it’s age in anything beyond the literal joke of a soundtrack you listen to as you murder demons. I then moved on to ‘Doom II: Hell on Earth’ and hated it. I played no other ‘Doom’ games until ‘Doom Eternal’ soon after it’s 2020 release. When I initially built this list after having completed ‘Spiritfarer’, the final game on my 2020 to-do list, I had it scored as a 3/6 and ranked fourteenth. Evidently, something has shifted since my initial playthrough of ‘Doom Eternal’.

Sometime around early April, the original ‘Doom’ trilogy went on sale on the Nintendo Switch eShop. Because I simp for the Nintendo Switch, and because I had an odd craving to play ‘Doom (1993)’ again, it seemed an opportune moment to replay ‘Doom (1993)’. It still held up, and I feel fully comfortable stating it is one of the best first-person shooters ever made, even removed from the cultural and technical significance it holds. I then played ‘Doom II: Hell on Earth’ on that very same Nintendo Switch, and came to the realization my past self was an absolute moron. ‘Doom II: Hell on Earth’ is just ‘Doom (1993)’ but better. I then attempted to play the bonus packs included within these Nintendo Switch versions of Doom, and I did not get very far before realizing this was a waste of time. Then came ‘Doom 64’ and ‘Doom 64: The Lost Levels’, which I already wrote about and refuse to write about again for at least 15 years. After this came ‘Doom 3’ on the Nintendo Switch, which is as much a ‘Doom’ game as I am an intellectual. Meaning we pretend, though it is impossible to hide the reality of such falsehood. On my own personal list of every video game I’ve ever played, which is a secret that you are not yet powerful enough to understand, I gave each game the following scores:

Doom (1993) — 4/6
Doom II: Hell on Earth — 5/6
TNT: Evilution — 2/6
The Plutonia Experiment — 2/6
Doom 64–4/6
Doom 64: The Lost Levels — 4/6
Doom 3–3/6

It took twelve years following the release of ‘Doom 3’ to receive a fully realized, completely new ‘Doom’ project. That project culminated in one of the more innovative first-person shooters to come out from the previous console generation, ‘Doom (2016)’. I replayed ‘Doom (2016)’ and realized it was the best ‘Doom’ game I had played at that point. My first playthrough of the game was fun, but having an entire catalogue of ‘Doom’ games under my belt, as well as having just completed the notably subdued ‘Doom 3’, ‘Doom (2016)’ cracked my ass like a whip to the ass. ‘Doom (2016)’ is one of the most impressive shooters ever created on both a technical and philosophical level. It has an abundance of ideas presented through combat and level design, never appearing to fail in any of it’s ventures. I can’t name a single moment during ‘Doom (2016)’ where I remember feeling underwhelmed. It comes supremely close to perfecting itself in one of the most beautiful ways possible. ‘Doom (2016)’ is the type of game that led me to utilize a 6-point scale rather than a 5-point scale. I feel five points does too little to allow for the best of the best to separate themselves from the games which are merely of high quality. Games that go the extra mile to either ensure a high level of quality, or appeal to a very specific love of mine, deserve to be treated on a separate level. ‘Doom (2016)’ is a 6/6 video game. Looking back, it is probably my game of the year from 2016, rather than ‘Overwatch’, which I typically refer to as my game of the year for 2016.

‘Doom Eternal’ is not ‘Doom (2016)’. In fact, it isn’t even close to ‘Doom (2016)’. The aesthetic is there, the weaponry is there, the gore is there, but it revamps the combat and level design entirely to fit to it’s new mechanics. It took massive testicles to make the decision to shift away from the critically and commercially successful power fantasy of ‘Doom (2016)’ into a skills-based cooldown-focused style of game that is ‘Doom Eternal’. When I first started ‘Doom Eternal’, I was bad at ‘Doom’ games. I had only played ‘Doom (2016)’, ‘Doom (1993)’, and ‘Doom II: Hell on Earth’ one time each, all on the easiest difficulty setting available. Because I have issues coming to terms with my masculinity, I decided I would play ‘Doom Eternal’ on the normal difficulty. I did this for most of the game and did not have fun. When I did move to the easiest difficulty some time in the latter half, I had more fun, but I had been having so little fun prior that the pace of my play had extended past two months, and I felt quite ready to remove myself from gaming with ‘Doom Eternal’ specifically. When I finally finished ‘Doom Eternal’, I had determined it to be a restrictive experience as opposed to the freeing sensation ‘Doom (2016)’ presented through it’s 10+-hour campaign. It was difficult for me to wrap my head around just how much the game forces you to utilize very specific mechanics in order to survive even the smallest of encounters. My first playthrough was spent constantly running out of ammunition and basically never remembering to use the Flame Belch. I spent a majority of my time on critical health, trying to forage around like I would in ‘Doom (2016)’, and doing so unsuccessfully because this is ‘Doom Eternal’. I wanted to utilize the Super Shotgun in at least 95% of my encounters, as I deemed it the most fun weapon and I became annoyed when I no longer could use it after a few shots. I hated the enemies which required me to “counter” their attacks because I just wanted to fire away with no interruption. It is abundantly clear to me that what I wanted to do was to play ‘Doom (2016)’

When I made my return to ‘Doom Eternal’, it came immediately after another foray into ‘Doom (2016)’. There was no longer a 3-year gap between my experience with a 6/6 video game and an experience I assumed would be similar. I, as well, was not necessarily in the mood to play something which needed as much attention and focus as ‘Doom Eternal’. I think I played it around the same time as I played ‘Tomb Raider (1996)’ for the first time, which was a slow and methodical experience that I loved. On my return to ‘Doom Eternal’, I had become full on the stress-free shooting from the games ‘Doom (1993)’, ‘Doom II: Hell on Earth’, ‘Doom 64’, ‘Doom 3’, and ‘Doom (2016)’. I wasn’t experiencing the same craving I had earlier in the year during my initial playthrough of ‘Doom Eternal’. In short, I actually engaged ‘Doom Eternal’ as it was designed to be engaged on my second time around. And that engagement made it my favorite game of 2020.

There are few gaming experiences I’ve had which have been more satisfying than mastering a single combat encounter with ‘Doom Eternal’. I’ve heard detractors state that ‘Doom Eternal’ asks the player to specifically do too many things to the point of not being fun. I agreed with this argument when I was bad at ‘Doom Eternal’. But ‘Doom Eternal’ is not asking you to do specific things, it merely requires you to meet a standard criteria of actions during each battle. How you go about performing those actions is where one can express their freedoms. In my second playthrough of ‘Doom Eternal’, I wasn’t forcefully restricting myself to the Super Shotgun, nor was I ignoring the less immediately gratifying mechanics such as the Flame Belch or ice grenades. ‘Doom Eternal’ needs the player to think actively about how each tool can be used, not only to be enjoyable, but to present itself as the masterpiece it actually is. Utilizing your weaponry in successful combos to maintain full health and full ammo as you are slaughtering dozens of powerful enemies creates a special kind of gratification I have never had before. Weak points were added to many of the stronger enemies, making battles become even more mentally involving. The combat in ‘Doom Eternal’ is always asking you to think and act quickly and intelligently, and it is always a blast. Even the Marauder, an enemy that not even ‘Doom Eternal’ simps tend to defend, became fun for me when I realized how many ways a single Marauder can shake up one’s playstyle and encourage on-the-fly adaptation.

There is not a single moment in ‘Doom Eternal’ that isn’t fun. Much like ‘Hades’, game designers should be ashamed of themselves for being unable to create something this good. There may be some tonal problems with ‘Doom Eternal’ such as how arcade-y pickups and environments are and how overly serious the story is in comparison. However, this is also hilarious. ‘Doom Eternal’ is the gold standard of 2020 video games, and I am an embarrassment of a human being for almost failing to see this.

Doom Eternal Score: 6/6

This list took me over three months to craft. I am sorry to everyone who read this. Next year’s list will likely be later and dumber.