Heroes of Might and Magic III, obviously.

#9

Dark Souls III

Change YOY: =

FromSoftware has made two of my favourite games of this past generation, both of which are in my top 10 games of all time. The lower ranked of the two is Dark Souls III, the supposed final chapter in the series and more than a worthy way for it to end, if it truly does end up being the final Dark Souls game. Fittingly, there's a strong sense of finality that is a part of every aspect of Dark Souls III. The world is breaking down, collapsing unto itself, while its remaining inhabitants slowly fall into decay and corruption.

When comparing it to the other two games in the series, the feature that to me stands out the most besides the wonderful lore, are the boss fights, which are on average the best in all Souls games. The DLC content, which wrap up the overarching story of the series, are also exceptional in quality. I've only played through it twice thus far, but I will definitely be returning back to the kingdom of Lothric in the future.

I wanted to do write-ups for the games in my list but things got complicated in real life and in the end I couldn't write them (I know I could still write them but doing 50 of them right now would be too much), so at least I will post my list here.

Honorable mentions:

#60: God of War II (PS2)

#59: Pokémon Emerald (GBA)

#58: God of War III (PS3)

#57: Sonic Generations (PS3)

#56: Ratchet & Clank (PS4)

#55: World of Final Fantasy (PS4)

#54: Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon (3DS)

#53: Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story (DS)

#52: Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies (DS)

#51: Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal (PS2)

Top 50:

#50: Dark Cloud 2 (PS2)

#49: Tales of Symphonia (GCN)

#48: Bravely Default (3DS)

#47: Tales of Graces f (PS3)

#46: Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars (Wii)

#45: Paper Mario (Wii)

#44: Ico (PS2)

#43: The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (Wii)

#42: Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy (PS2)

#41: Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening Special Edition (PS2)

#40: Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings + The Conquerors Expansión (PC)

#39: Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions (PSP)

#38: Pokémon HeartGold (DS)

#37: Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep (PSP)

#36: Kingdom Hearts III (PS4)

#35: Okami (Wii)

#34: Final Fantasy X (PS2)

#33: The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX (GBC)

#32: Super Mario 64 (Wii)

#31: Final Fantasy VII (PS3))

#30: Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time (PS3)

#29: Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)

#28: Metroid Prime (GCN)

#27: Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch (PS3)

#26: Pokémon Platinum (DS)

#25: Suikoden II (PS3)

#24: Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii)

#23: Kingdom Hearts (PS2)

#22: Final Fantasy XII (PS2)

#21: The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds (3DS)

#20: Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (GCN)

#19: Kid Icarus: Uprising (3DS)

#18: The World Ends With You (DS)

#17: Kingdom Hearts II (PS2/PS4)

#16: The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (GCN)

#15: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Wii)

#14: The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii)

#13: Super Mario Odyssey (NS)

#12: Tales of Vesperia (PS4)

#11: Final Fantasy IX (PS3)

#10: Final Fantasy VI (Wii)

#9: Shadow of the Colossus (PS2)

#8: The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (Wii)

#7: Tales of the Abyss (PS2)

#6: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Wii)

#5: Chrono Trigger (Wii)

#4: NieR: Automata (PS4)

#3: Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King (PS2)

#2: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (NS)

#1: Xenoblade Chronicles (Wii)

Happy new year to everyone!!

Cerebralbore101 said: S.Peelman said: 32 The Operative: No One Lives Forever Windows PC 2000 Guessed by Bofferbrauer2 The early 2000s was a great era for first person shooter games. Maybe it pales in sales in comparison to today, but in variety in quality it's the other way around. There were so many games with different themes and styles of play, there was something for everyone. Until the brown and drab took over the genre, at which point I abandoned it pretty much completely. No One Lives Forever is no different and is one of these great shooters of the 2000s. It is a story driven game, inspired by James Bond it follows a female special agent in her hunt for a cliche crime lord with even more cliche henchmen and motives. It's all pretty over the top, but that's what's fun. I wouldn't mind a remaster of this game for modern systems, it deserves it, and in a perfect world it could help getting the genre out of this creative slum. Though maybe that's a bit unfair, because it seems to be going in the right direction for the last couple of years regardless. I too lost interest in almost all shooter franchises post 2010. A few standouts like Doom (2016) exist, but the genre used to be so much more varied and colorful. Anyway, would you say this is a game I would enjoy in 2021? If you made me replay Goldeneye I'd or Perfect Dark, I'd hate you for it. How does this hold up after so many years?

Well, it’s also been quite some years since I’ve played it, but it should hold up decently. While it is from the era of GoldenEye and Perfect Dark I’d say it is is more comparable, in how it plays, to shooters like Quake and Unreal Tournament because it is a PC game. While it has its own engine, it controls similar to those kind of games, though slower due to the nature of the game being a story-driven spy shooter instead of an arena shooter. Mechanics would be simple compared to modern day shooters; there’s only a ‘shoot’ and a ‘use’ key for actions, and AI isn’t going to be top notch anymore either. It is linear with a linear level based structure and there isn’t much of side-content like collectables as far as I remember, but gameplay is varied enough; shooting sections, stealth sections, lock-picking and different ammo types for different weapons. Most variety is in the scenery of the levels, and a story that is timeless with lots of humour. It’s not overly long though, and I don’t really remember if there was additional content next to the main story mode. I think there’s a simple deathmatch multiplayer mode but not much to write home about.

I’d still recommend it if you’re into story based shooters.

LoD stands for Lord of Destruction right? Otherwise I really have no idea.

#8

Bloodborne (PS4)

Change YOY: =

Bloodborne is the best game of the last console generation, and in many ways the best game FromSoftware has ever made, though it's not their highest ranking game on my list. I love the world of Bloodborne, how in the beginning of the game it comes off as almost a classic horror story with werewolves and monsters born from misuse of blood, but the further you get in the story the more the facade in front of the real horror begins to crumble, revealing an eldritch world existing right beside our own.

The lore and history of Yharnam and its inhabitants are some of the most amazing, and haunting, pieces of writing I've ever encountered in video games, seeing how the often understandable, and even relatable, mistakes shaped the city into what it is today. How people who just wanted to do something good ended up releasing the worst kind of beasts and monsters into the world due to their pride and ambition. It's a world that is filled with despair and suffering, and yet it's a place I am going to return to over and over again, just to see what new things I can find the next time I enter it.

And finally: my #1 game of 2020 is my #1 of 2019, 2018 and 2017: Heroes of Might and Magic III. Surprise, surprise.

So this game is a great combination. You manage your resources, build your cities and send your heroes into the world, exploring, claiming artifacts, resources and troops and battling the enemy. Battle is a good tactical hexfield fight. This game gives a pretty good impression of you being an emperor controlling your lands in a fantasy world with magic. The different factions have so many mythical creatures battling on their side.

It is no problem, even these days, to pick up the game and create a random map to battle it out with a few CPU-players. Or to play the great single player campaigns again. It just still works. I never really tried multiplayer though. The game has a map-editor and a lot of complexity with upgrading capabilities for both your cities and your heroes.

The presentation works still to this day, although the 2D graphics may seem outdated for todays standards. But the sprites are nice with afew effects here and there. The music is great (although HoMM II has orchestral music on CD beating this).

The game is from the legendary strategy specialist dev New World Computing. They invented the whole sub-series of Heroes (apparently based on an earlier game by them, King's Bounty, which I probably should play one of these days). Sadly, as the mother company 3DO got into financial trouble it also meant the end of New World Computing.

This works well under Linux with the Windows-emulator Wine, but there is also a project called VCMI that modernizes the engine and allow for modding. Ubisoft also released a HD remaster of the game. So plenty of options to play it today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdJRKWfzpuA

As my list is complete now, let's view the final results of the guessing game:

As last year The_Liquid_Laser won, although at some point it was close between him and Jpcc86.

Thanks for all who participated in guessing my games, that was fun.

As I am a gamer for about 30 years now, I thought I give a list with my games for each year. As I have for many games no recollection when I played them (often years after release) it is sorted by release year. I give the ranking I have for them *this* year and link to my mini-review if available.

So here is my game of the year list for each year:

Remember: this is just my personal list, and there are so many games I haven't played yet. I notice in the past time more recent titles have started to get into my list, a sign I start to play more often again. Also, all games here I do like, even if they are down in the ranking. There are just a lot of games, that I think are better. Platforms listed are the ones I played the game on, not all available platforms.

Baldur's Gate III is early access, so it might seem unfair it taking the 2020 spot. In that case wins Spiritfarer for 2020, which I played on Switch and is in my list on #42.

I hope you enjoy my personal GOTY list.

I am loving so many of the games you have on your list. These last three in particular are some of my faves as well, with Bloodborne being the #1 for me (not influenced by nostalgia on The SNES)