Part 1: Runners-Up
Prey
This one hurts. I've been playing the hell out of Prey recently, though truth be told I'd had my eye on it since it released. I liked the original Prey well enough, but the use of the name for this new project never really bothered me. Honestly, I feel like they could have used a far better name, but it is what it is. This game is utterly fantastic, a true spiritual successor to immersive sim games like System Shock 2 and Deus Ex.
The only problem here, and one that I admit is a problem on my end, is that immersive sims terrify me. Not in the way something like P.T. does, where the fear comes from dread and tension, but instead in the terror of making a permanent mistake in character building or resource management. That said, Prey delicately balances these fears by giving players tons of options to mitigate these issues.
Not only do I love Prey, it's also going to be the stepping stone to finally finish my System Shock 2 and Deus Ex runs, and if nothing else, that's worth the time it's taken to get to this game. Unfortunately, I'm only listing games I finished as my top ten, and I do not want to rush myself like I did with other games in the list. Otherwise, this would easily be a top five game for me. Even though it's not in the official top ten, you'd be doing yourself a disservice by not playing Prey.
Hollow Knight
Had the developers focused more on releasing Hollow Knight on consoles during 2017, I do not doubt it would have made my list. Sad to say, though, my first experience with Hollow Knight has been from the Switch release, and like Prey, I don't want to rush myself to get through this one. It's real special and I can't wait to delve deeper into Hallownest.
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus
I loved Wolfenstein: The New Order. A fast-paced single-player shooter at a time when the norm was sneaking around waist-high walls, and yet another attempt at revitalizing the Wolfenstein franchise, The New Order came out of nowhere and blew everyone away. More than its fresh gameplay, the game also surprised players with an introspective, fully realized B.J. Blasowicz who felt more like a person than a wall of meat. It was a great game, and I still revisit it from time to time.
I very highly doubt I'll do the same for Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus. Very few gameplay changes have been made here, and enemy variety feels far smaller than the previous entry. The only real change I noticed was the ability to mix up which weapons to dual-wield, but I hardly, if ever, used that feature. The game is incredibly short, and the character choice gives the player far fewer options compared to the original.
What really surprised me about the short campaign is how much fluff actually composes so much of the game. In fact, I'd argue that the meaningful story moments compose less of the game than the entirety of the first game's expansion pack, The Old Blood. New characters are introduced who add very little to the story, and one of the bigger moments of the game, the famous Roswell chapter, only serves to get B.J. in place for the big, time-wasting dramatic turn near the halfway point.
It's at this point the unfinished nature of the game begins to shine through, with characters making stupid decisions just to progress the plot. Too many plot points are dropped, such as B.J.'s childhood friend and the importance of the Black Panther characters, while the plot detours into neat but ultimately pointless setpieces. The final boss is just an annoying wave of enemies filling the screen with so much crap that I think it nearly fried my console's GPU--I'll probably edit this to include a video later, but at one point enemies spawned as black boxes and glitch artifacts began to pop up all over my screen.
I hate to say it, but the only reason this game got so much attention where the predecessor did not is because Bethesda leaned into the current political climate to market the game. I'd even argue the game's chunks of apparent missing content is due to the game being rushed out the door in order to make it a more timely release, consistency and integrity be damned. On the one hand, they're Nazis, so fuck them. On the other, the country is at this weird point where everyone under a certain title, affiliation be damned, are labeled Nazis for no reason other than some weird devotion to a political cause. A man was just fined in the UK for making a Nazi joke because the political climate is such that people think real Nazis still exist, rather than being stuck as a fringe group of weirdos nobody takes seriously. Of course, fuck Nazis. But if you've gotten it into your head that your political opponents are Nazis because some website told you so, and if you're using this game as some sort of catharsis, you need serious mental evaluation. Don't prop up mediocre games because you apparently want to kill people with differing political opinions. Play good games, like the ones I'm about to list.
Part 2: The List
Horizon: Zero Dawn
You barely made this list, and I'd bump you off in a split second for Prey. Horizon: Zero Dawn is an incredibly frustrating game with an incredible backstory, a very relaxing Far Cry clone with decent mechanics and an entire cast of annoying, boring characters. Something about this game bothered me since it was first revealed, and like the new God of War, I'm starting to get the feeling that I'm being told to be excited about games by people I don't know and have no reason to trust, before I can actually form my opinion otherwise. This is a trend I've noticed happen time and again in "geek" circles, and it's pretty embarrassing when the stupid, drooling manchild fanboys buy it hook, line and sinker.
The main story of Horizon is incredibly dull and the world seems to have been created as an afterthought, with much of the development occurring through off-hand comments and lazy text dumps that have to be found anyway. The real meat of the game, and what should have been the Focus (do you get that joke?), is learning what actually happened to the world and the cause of the apocalyptic world. The fact that a Western developer tried, and in some ways succeeded, to capture the grand scale of a story almost identical to Xenogears is truly commendable. I don't know if I can handle a sequel, but the last ten or so hours of this game was actually enjoyable enough to recommend the middling entire first three quarters or so.
Sonic Mania
I knew from the moment I saw this thing that I would love it. Sonic Mania is a send-up to the 2D Sonic titles, with most levels being recreations of levels from the series's past. After a first stage to homage the original level, the game then remixes that level to create something genuinely new and exciting. As a Sega kid in my wee youth, Sonic Mania was a love letter I didn't know I needed. I just hope we get a sequel down the road. There's really nothing to say about this game, it's short, cheap, looks great and feels incredible. My only complaint is that I wish there were more new stages, but "I want more" is far from a reasonable criticism.
Metroid: Samus Returns
Another Metroid 2 Remake was one of my favorite games from last year, and it's a terrible shame that Nintendo had to take it down. But on the flipside, Metroid fans got yet another remake of the controversial Metroid 2, this time with brand-new combat-focused mechanics. The 2.5D approach isn't all that nice to look at, but it more than makes up for that with a reinvented SR-388 and new areas and bosses.
With this game, Nintendo has finally perfected the weak link in the franchise. My only complaint, and this is something that actually hampered my enjoyment, is the game's framerate. Metroid: Samus Returns would have benefited from a Switch port, especially given how new the console was. Because of its 3DS exclusivity, the game is also a bit ugly at times, with some textures being ugly smears intended to be hidden by the handheld's low resolution. It's a shame, but the sacrifice is well worth how great the game feels and how fully the world is realized.
Persona 5
Yeah, sixth. There's a lot to like about Persona 5. The style is head and shoulders above any other game on this list, the music is extraordinarily catchy, and the game's visuals are fluid and gorgeous. Dungeons are a joy to run through and combat, while being full of visual flair, is mechanically dense but extremely easy to get into and play.
Then you have to play the social sim.
Whenever I think of my favorite Persona games, I always default to Persona 2. It wastes no time, the characters are fun, and the story is incredible. All I've ever felt when being forced into the daily sections of the new Persona titles is that I'm just playing through filler. I don't have fun hanging out with chumps on the street. Rather than going through the life of a high school student, I feel instead like I've got a checklist of things to do before I make it to the next edge-of-my-seat dungeon crawl. I've gotta talk to the teacher so I can do stuff after playing a dungeon, I need to go by the fortune teller so I can boost my other confidants, I gotta go study this night, I gotta do this, I have to do that.
That's not fun. I hate feeling like I'm doing chores. I will always prefer mainline while Persona is in this weird limbo of social sims. Of the 120 hours that consisted my first playthrough, no less than half of that was just me doing this busywork. It's thinly-veiled grinding.
To make matters worse, the story is utterly terrible. Atlus had to force people to not share details of the game because the crux of the plot is entirely dedicated to not telling the player when a stupid plot detail is being hidden. The frame narrative, where the protagonist has his "mind clouded" by his interrogators, is only set up that way so the developers could hide key plot elements from the player. It's so bad idiot journalists thought the problem with the story came from the translation, but as the saying goes, you can't put lipstick on a pig. It's embarrassing and a huge blemish on what is actually a very fun, thrilling gameplay experience. I will say, though, that this gives me a lot of hope for Shin Megami Tensei V.
Xenoblade 2
Almost the exact opposite of Persona 5 here. I came in with very high hopes, had them dashed, and after a few hours found myself totally enraptured in the story. That said, I could not care less for the side content or open world of Xenoblade 2. Xenoblade has been a pretty clear third attempt for executive producer Tetsuya Takahashi to finally complete his magnum opus, Project Noah, after the failures of Xenogears and Xenosaga, and while it's not evident at first, the connections to the first Xenoblade and the previous games of the series begin to take center stage. Not only is it a brilliant sequel, it's also a great standalone title.
Gameplay is a fluid mixture of the combo system of Xenogears and the MMO-style combat of the original Xenoblade. Although combat takes a while to play out, it helps give the game a more weighted feeling as a tactical pseudo-action RPG. Some people will love the enormous scale of the world, though I'm not a big fan of that type of game. It's a testament to the quality of the game, and since the maps are on different islands it flows better than the broken-up maps of the original game.
I hate to say it, though, but the really embarrassing moments really can't be excused. There's no excuse for characters to shout, for no reason, that they're adults because they're fifteen and that makes them mature. It comes off as horribly tryhard, like the audience has to be constantly reminded that the characters are still kids. Characters blush and throw fits and act like brats all the time, and rather than endear me to them I instead just want them to stop talking.
When the plot gets going, though, it's an absolutely wild ride. Unlike Persona 5, I didn't feel like my time was wasted, and while there's a plethora of side content none of it feels like it's being shoved in your face. Characters even get extra experience to spend when resting, so rather than being forced to go back and grind it's easy to just rest and catch up to the game's recommended level before moving on to the next objective. I truly enjoyed my time with this game, even if it made me cringe until my skin fell off. Make sure to finish it in time for Xenoblade 3, because that game will be insanity.
Yakuza 0
I only fell into the Yakuza series a few years ago, shortly before the announcement of Sega localizing Yakuza 5. Ever since, I've been totally enamored with this series. Yakuza 0 might just be the best title in the franchise, though its competition is the venerated second game in the franchise. This game takes us back to a younger Kiryu and Majima and tells the tale of their rise to fame within their respected clans. Interestingly, while their stories feed into one another, the two characters never meet during the main course of the game and it makes the prequel nature of the game feel much more natural as a result.
Everything in the game comes down to money. Enemies throw out money like it's candy, experience is calculated as money, and much of the game's plot revolves around it. You get a sense of the glitz and glamour of the era in comparison with the much grittier contemporary titles in the series.
Yakuza 0 is a great starting point for fans, though I'd argue it's better to start with the game's closely-released quasi-sequel, Yakuza Kiwami. 0 spoils several reveals for the rest of the series, and callbacks to later games will go unappreciated if the player hasn't experienced them first. That said, both games are great entries to the franchise and it all depends on whether or not you want to view them chronologically or by release. The story is emotional and exciting and the gameplay is tight and fluid, so either way you can't go wrong.
Resident Evil VII: Biohazard
By this point I think I've made it pretty clear I love the Resident Evil franchise, but the last few mainline titles have been real stinkers. Resident Evil 5 is completely soulless, while Resident Evil 6 shoves as many third-person shooting mechanics into a very small, linear game that just cannot keep up. The Revelations games were good enough, but they don't have the scope of a mainline game.
Resident Evil VII is exactly the type of game needed to reinvigorate the series, and it's done with mastery. Rather than the claustrophobic fixed camera angles, this new title uses a first-person camera with a focus on exploration. Combat is stiff and heavy, giving the player a sense that Ethan is not a fighter. While past survival horror titles, such as the Western-developed Silent Hill Homecoming or Downpour, failed to deliver this concept by use of clunky controls, Resident Evil VII successfully accomplishes a feeling of weakness by simply forcing the player to make precise decisions with aiming and resource management. It feels like a survival horror game through and through, not by reinventing the wheel but by sticking with what works.
The plot can be pretty torturous, especially during the final act, but the game makes up for this with an amazing final level and memorable characters. It's a great entry for new players, especially since Capcom appears to have placed the focus more on smaller, individual stories in the world of Resident Evil rather than continuing this epic story that's gone nowhere. It's a great direction for the franchise and I cannot wait for the Resident Evil 2 remake, which appears to borrow much of the game engine from Resident Evil VII. Even the ammo counter is the same! Here's to hoping that Resident Evil 8 continues this trend, because as it is now, Resident Evil has never looked better.
Part 3: The Top Three
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Just go here for my review. Some additional thoughts: superbosses were added to the DLC, but since you can't carry your gear with you in most of them it's rendered meaningless. Another complaint I need to address that I misspoke about is in regards to enemy scaling. I didn't know then that Blood Moons repopulated the world with stronger enemies and a baseline higher weapon level for all pickups, so that was a screw up by me.
Even with all its faults, Breath of the Wild is an incredible game to just sit down and play and has both the lowest barrier for entry in the series, while offering a great deal of customization and challenge. I can shout from a mountain about how much I dislike what this game does for the franchise, but as a video game Breath of the Wild is great fun.
Super Mario Odyssey
It's been a while since I've been legitimately excited to play a new Mario game, but in the months leading up to this I was beyond elated to try it out. And man, did it deliver. Tight mechanics and a relaxing soundtrack make this a blast to, like Breath of the Wild, just lay down in bed and play. It's one of the comfiest games I've ever played, and clearly made with love and care. I don't really mind that it's pretty easy, because Mario has always hidden its challenge behind the endgame--something Breath of the Wild fails tremendously.
I cannot heap glowing praise on this game enough. I love the worlds, I love the new designs and all the customization available to the player, and all the little callbacks to the series history is touching and feels genuine. What can I say about Super Mario Odyssey that hasn't been said before? It's a masterpiece through and through, and it would've topped my game of the year list if not for...
Nier: Automata
WE MUST ALL DIE AND BECOME AS GODS.
The moment Yoko Taro and PlatinumGames were announced to be creating a new title in the Nier universe, I knew that nothing in 2017 could possibly top it. And look at that, I was correct; in fact, I was so correct that Square Enix decided to make the series into a franchise over the success of this game alone. Weird, considering Nier is just a subset of Drakengard, but as long as Yoko Taro is getting work with a quality studio I don't care.
I can't gush about this game enough. Characters are built up and subsequently torn down, destroyed by a world that's long since given up on its inhabitants. A war raging for tens of thousands of years creates a dramatic backdrop, but it's the very clear authorial voice of Nier that makes the series special. The original game was an overlooked classic, so thankfully this has gotten all the praise it deserves. I almost feel bad for that dullard reviewer who threw a fit that Automata got in the way of his Zelda playthrough, because what he missed was a special, unique, and very melancholy experience.
The music is phenomenal, mixed with callbacks to the original and some truly heartbreaking new tracks that will haunt you long after the credits roll. Even though this is the fifth game in the franchise, the nods to prior games in the series will only make you want to play them to learn more about the lore that has created this masterpiece. It cannot be understated just how perfect this game is, and the ending is guaranteed to leave you speechless. Whatever Yoko Taro works on next, I'll be the first in line.
If there are any games I missed you feel I need to check out, please feel free to post a comment and tell me about it. 2017 was a tremendous year for video games and I tried to get as many played as possible, but it just wasn't going to happen. Make sure you subscribe to my blog for more, or follow me at one of these social media nightmare things below:
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