Dude, I agree. Like everyone else this game is less than a year old to me and it's already in my top 10 list. (Well, my actual rankings are weird.) The only thing keeping it from being higher is that the other games on my list have more seniority. Heck, Bloodborne is one of the only games that high on the list, and I could absolutely see myself begrudgingly allowing Elden Ring to best Bloodborne. 

Outstanding game. Outstanding experience. And I'm nowhere near done with it. the only reason I didn't play through it more than I already did was because I wanted to wait for the game's patches and updates and fixes to come, and for DLC to come out, and because I already put 500+ hours into the game and desperately needed to not overdo it. 500 hours and I wasn't even close to bored. That's special. It's taking all my self control to not just go back and try out the other builds. 

Huge game. Well made game. Many of my favourite bosses in any game ever. More content and reason to explore every nook and cranny than pretty much any other game out there. Souls formula perfected WITH like 15x the content as any other game in the series. 

Even the few complaints I had upon my first playthroughs have mostly gone away as I learned to judge this game on its own merits instead of comparing it to Souls games. IE: The actual design philosophy of the game is fundamentally different, so your expectations should be different. Like Spirit Summons. Game's designed for you to use them, so your puritan 'you should only be fighting these bosses solo' mentality is a you problem. Not the game's problem. Stuff like that. 

in 2-3 years once its DLC is out and I've had more time to ruminate on it, I would be happy to name this one of if not my favourite game ever. Right now it has a 10-game gauntlet to go through that's 9 SNES games cemented with 30 years of nostalgia and its older brother, Bloodborne. I doubt it'll do that but it's truly something special. Heck, it made me wanna play faith! It made me wanna try arcane! I usually go strictly weapons in these games with maybe some pyromancy on the side but my favourite single run through any of these games was my samurai sorcerer with all the high level INT spells and a Dex katana (moonveil, of course). Absolutely masterful game, and I feel like, even though I've gone through the game 5 times already and got all the trophies twice, I feel like I've experienced maybe 25% of the variety the game has to offer. IF THAT. 

I can't wait to see what Miyazaki makes next. Whatever it is, I'll be there first in line. Ever since Demon's Souls, there's not a game he's personally directed that I've not loved. Well, of the Souls and Souls-likes games. Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Dark Souls III, Sekiro, and Elden Ring are all on my top 50 list. And they all damn well deserve it and are all games I Can frequently return to, especially if I got friends who wanna coop. 

Honestly...I'm most excited to do a 3-player coop run a few years down the line when we're not getting invaded by the...what, 17.5 million other players? Honestly, Invasions are the one thing I don't like about these games and one of the reasons Bloodborne makes me so happy. Easy to kill the bell-ringing maiden and shut invasions off. I know where she is in each area/level, so I can have my friends summon me for help and I can bum-rush the stage to kill her before anyone invades. Perfection. Loved it. If I can find a way to turn invasions off in Elden Ring while still playing coop, it might become my favourite Souls game. 

Hope tonight is still on the cards, because I'm gonna be closing things up tomorrow.

Lol, yeah it is updated now.

Okay, I'm finishing up the spreadsheet so I won't be taking in any more lists from now on, thankfully most of the MIA people got their lists in this past week, which left us with a very nice 67 lists out of 72 entrants (exactly the same numbers as last year, by the way). I like seeing so few missing lists, and am happy to have a lot of lists again because I feared this year wasn't gonna be like that.

Results up soon™

Awesome news.  Shame about the ones who missed out, but that's the way it goes sometimes.

That's the way it goes everytime, actually. But in the past there were always a lot more than 5 missing lists so I'm happy.

Just need to harass them enough until they finally do it.

All things symbolic, I've landed on the day of the launch of the new TV show for the final write-up in my series. But first, here are the other entries:

10. Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams
9. Perfect Tides
8. Uncharted: The Lost Legacy
7. Chop Suey
6. Knights and Bikes
5. Super Metroid
4. Gone Home
3. Butterfly Soup
2. The Last of Us Part I

1. THE LAST OF US PART II

Time to BeReal.

Should video games give us what we want...or what we need? Does a game need to be generally enjoyable to impact you more than anything else ever has before? Most of The Last of Us Part II is a miserable slog, on purpose. It's not miserable because the developers didn't care what they were making, it's miserable for a reason: because it's an honest game about hate, and hate, and its consequences, are not fun.

I highlight this because both gamers themselves and also those who argue that video games should not be considered a valid art form on par with other mediums in merit alike frequently cite the idea that the defining purpose of a game is to be fun, and therefore any game that isn't has failed. It's worthless. In contrast to meritorious artistic mediums whose entries might be valued for evoking any number of different sentiments and ideas, with games only joy defines success. Right? Why would anyone play a game that isn't fun? What other value could possibly be derived from it?

Perhaps this sentiment underlies why The Last of Us Part II has proven to be, by many metrics, the most controversial video game of all time. (Consider, for example, the more than 160,000 user reviews of this specific game posted on Metacritic, and the polar division of those responses. No other video game in existence has even come close to generating that much response on the platform.) Or perhaps it's largely down to pettier, uglier motivations people rarely like admitting, like bias against certain kinds of people who take the central roles of this particular title (e.g. this being the only AAA video game ever to primarily center on a lesbian character). Whatever the case there may be, one thing is for sure: this game has definitely made an impact.

Before I get to that, I guess first I should touch on Part II's structure. I don't really want to spend a lot of time discussing the design of this game because it's generally similar to that of the original and I discussed that at length in my entry on that game (see the link above), but I do want to take a moment to point out that Part II was originally going to be an open world game mostly taking place in Jackson, but ultimately had to be streamlined to establish the best possible pacing of events. That's the exact opposite of the decision-making process we typically see in this medium today. So many open world games today are clearly only designed that way so that they'll sell better, not because they work better as a result. In short, Naughty Dog did not sell out. Where so many games today start you out on a linear training ground before opening up access to most everything, this one almost reverses that template, reserving an open world area as a kind of breather section toward the start of the game before tightening things back up to escalate tension, and adrenaline. In this way, it flows like a good book, launching with a strong attention-getting opening chapter before pressing on to a main body that creates waxing and waning degrees of conflict, seeming to breathe at an variety of different paces but in general escalating over time, before finally advancing to a thought-provoking conclusion that leaves you wanting to go through the whole experience again because so much has been put in a new perspective along the way. The addition of flashbacks to the main game here are the best new design addition. By adding in more context steadily and at the right points in time, Part II continually changes the player's perspective on events and deepens their connection to the characters that define it. This is a huge part of what separates it from Part I in emotional resonance for me and establishes it as the overall superior entry.

But now let's get to what you're really here for: the story discussion. I'll just spoiler tag that.

Many games, and lots of other media as well, offer us lectures against hate. This game offers a story about the reasons people choose hate over love, about the complex journey out of the illusion that it brings healing and toward a different path. It forces us to experience the suffering of Ellie and Abby and others and to do many things we don't want to do in order that we might feel conflicted, torn between our compassion for these characters and our compassion for others until finally it all begins blurring together and we ourselves see that we all need to forgive. Forgive both others and ourselves. Is that fun? No, its hard and it's painful! But it's worth it. And for conveying that with more power and earnestness than any other video game in existence, I regard The Last of Us Part II as the best video game ever made.

EDIT: You know what, I could go on talking about this game forever, but this post is long enough as is. Don't wanna fatigue you. This was the best wrap-up to the commentary, so will leave it at that. Further discussion can be had upon request.

Results are up, go check them out!

RESULTS WOOOO

Coming back to this post just to say I am absolutely thrilled to see what next year’s results are gonna look like.

Obviously Tears of the Kingdom is gonna be a huge change I cant wait to see. For me the biggest thing I am very excited to see is where the RE4 Remake ends up considering where the original is