Aah, 2012. The Hunger Games and "normcore" were in and the Tropes years had begun. It was the likewise the year of #1ReasonWhy and the year I joined the Girl Gamers subreddit to fight gaming's culture wars from the side of my own team (and self-esteem). Incidentally, for as much as has changed since those days (which is a lot), there's still definitely room for improvement. (For example. And also this.) Anyway, those culture wars, which were really at their peak during the Tropes years, did much to revive my hitherto waning interest in this medium. I wound up playing a lot more games in and around this period of time again as a result. Many of the games from 2010 and '11 that I mentioned enjoying in the corresponding threads I actually discovered more like in this general time window.
My favorite game from 2012 was and is my favorite platforming game of all time, Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams. There's no objective way to justify that positioning. Although quite well-made overall, it has certain clear shortcomings. Even in the superior Switch version of the game (the one I most recommend), there is, from time to time, a bit of choppy animation, and the enemy variety leaves much to be desired. The presentation is basic and the story is as simple as they come in games: Giana enters the Dream World to rescue her sister after she's taken there and promptly gobbled up by a dragon. How the hell does such a title fare this well in my book? More than anything else, it's the game's subtle sub-messaging that gets to me more than any present in most titles.
Twisted Dreams is a formal sequel to the 1987 Commodore 64 game The Great Giana Sisters, which was a platforming title intended to be an answer to still-new-and-fresh Super Mario Bros. The NES never really caught on in Europe like the Commodore 64, so for Europeans, this title was, contemporaneously at least, actually the defining platformer of the era. In this Kickstarter-funded 2012 sequel, Giana is a teenager; a stage of life that's all about transformation, and to which end has learned to manipulate her dreams. She uses this newly-developed ability to jump between dreams and transform herself into Cute and Punk personas in order to deal with her inner conflict and fear while she searches for her sister.
In terms of game play, shifting between personas completely changes the appearance of the level you're playing: Cute Giana's version is always set at night, while Punk Giana's is set in the daytime, reflecting their respective ideas of a nightmare world. You can shift personas on the fly with the press of a button and doing so is necessary to change the levels in ways that allow you to progress. You advance from level to level by collecting enough gems to move on, which obviously motivates the player to explore rather than just focus on progressing to the end of the stage. Shifting personas also seamlessly changes the background music between a synth version of the stage's track (for Cute Giana) created by the first game's composer, Chris Huelsbeck and Fabian Del Priore, whom had worked on the Nintendo DS remake of the original game shortly before, and a heavy metal version of the same track (for Punk Giana) created by the Swedish band Machinae Supremacy. It's a really clever play hook that firmly distinguishes Twisted Dreams from anything Mario, giving the franchise at long last exactly what Giana spends the game working out: a clear identity of its own.
Aesthetically, this game exists at the intersection of retro gamer geekdom and some cross between punk and metal attitude, replete with castles, demons, dragons, hair dye, spikes, flying pirate ships, angry birds, ghosts that look more like costumes than any persuasive conception of the real deal, and nods to classic chiptunes and Halloween, which is precisely the headspace that I live in. It's nothing less than a perfect match for my own personality. But deep down, this game is subtly, very subtly, about finding yourself, which is just something I never ever have truly felt like I've managed to do in life. It's perfect for teenagers and those of us living with BPD or other mental health struggles that just make it perpetually so difficult to place one's self in the world. Giana's volatile identity is closely bound up with her sister, Maria, and I can relate only too closely to finding my sense of self continuously in ties to others rather than autonomously. The way the game's visual and musical choices are deployed to convey those themes is nothing less than sublime magic to my soul. I'm known to shed tears sometimes during game play. I don't have a sister IRL, but I always have what the psychologists refer to as a favorite person whom I require to fill in the missing part of my soul. It won't reach everyone that way, I'm sure, but Twisted Dreams just feels so tailor made for someone like me. It also has my favorite game jam like ever:
Anyway, the runner-up choice for me from this year would be Papo & Yo, also for personal reasons more than strict objectivity. It's a sort of environmental puzzle-solving type game about a Brazilian boy named Quico who's navigating his relationship to his abusively alcoholic father through imagination, where, much unlike in the real world, he can be in control of his life and environment. Therein he has the power to manipulate his environment in beautifully magical ways that perfectly capture an aura of childlike wonder. These imaginary navigations form metaphors for Quico's real-life predicaments that center on his symbiotic yet complicated relationship to his dad. Needless to say, as I've relayed back in the 1993 thread, I related to Quico's challenges a great deal and found the game's conclusion that...
...refreshingly honest. No recourse to imaginary easy answers that fix everything, but the painful yet essential truth instead. It's not an easy thing to accept, especially when you're young. Your parents are the people who are supposed to love you the most, after all. I remember dreaming up all sorts of justifications for my dad's behavior toward me and my mom that ultimately left me with a very warped and unhealthy concept of what love looked like. I did love my dad, at least much of the time, and we did have our good times and special moments together and that's what made it all complicated. If a relationship is just pure violence, of course you're going to flee it, but not necessarily if it's more complicated. He was navigating trauma of his own though and there wasn't much I could do about it. Not an easy lesson to learn. I feel like Papo & Yo was a game I'd needed decades ago when I was Quico's age. It isn't and won't be as wholly resonant to adults, as its puzzles, being designed to be solved by kids, are very much on the simple side and won't provide you with the sense of accomplishment that it's meant to for its intended audience. They're still gorgeous to watch the magic of unfold though and a delightful metaphor that helps temper the magnitude of Quico's predicament down to a level he can make sense of. For these reasons, Papo & Yo consistently ranks in my top 25 favorite video games of all time.
Some other runner-up choices would include...
3. Journey
4. Dear Esther*
5. Spec Ops: The Line <-- Sorry CoD fans, war sucks.
6. Thomas Was Alone
7. Hotline Miami
8. Fez
9. The Walking Dead
10. Little Inferno
*Incidentally, my dad died in a drunken car accident not long after this time. That formed my personal connection to Dear Esther. Dear Esther was also the subject of one of those annoying "Is that really a game though?" debates that affected its review scores. I've always felt negatively about those debates even when it comes to the most minimally interactive titles like this one. My favorite new game from this year, Misericorde, is similarly an essentially non-interactive visual novel. The merits of someone choosing this medium through which to tell a story can go beyond just interactivity, especially where narration and pacing are concerned, for example. Just wanted to offer my two cents on that.
Sorry for all the morbid reminiscing here in this post. Games have become a form of healing for me first and foremost and the ones most valuable to me are the ones that help me heal the most from...just life. I think life is one big healing process for us all really in our various ways.
Last edited by Jaicee - on 02 December 2023
