Placement/

Last Year

Write-up

(Box) Art

#40

#34

Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward

Virtue’s Last Reward is a very difficult game for me to rank because on one hand it’s full of excellent puzzles and puzzle rooms and has an incredibly ambitious story with crazy twists. On the other hand, it has at least one, if not multiple, glaring plot holes and several other elements that feel off such as one of the returning characters having a very different personality and appearance (something that somehow became a trend when the third game did it for multiple characters). But the good parts are really good though, so much so that this game would probably be sitting comfortably in my top 20 without the screw ups.

#39

#49

The Talos Principle

Moving against the stream of games falling in rank we have a game I replayed this year in anticipation of the sequel, and yea, The Talos Principle is amazing. I think puzzle games might actually be one of my favorite genres when they’re high effort, polished and challenging, but there’s kind of far between those. The Talos Principle definitely fits the bill though and together with its sequel has one of the most compelling narrative concepts of a game, asking the really big questions about humanity and life. I haven’t even replayed the DLC yet which I remember as one of my favorite parts of the game, so I’m very much looking forward to that as well.

#38

#29

Tales of the Abyss

Tales of the Abyss is to me a balanced JRPG that delivers strongly on all fronts even if it doesn’t completely stand out in a particular one. It mimics closely another game higher on my list and well that might be part of the reason I love it. Learn from the best as they say. Tales of the Abyss is probably overdue for a replay however as, while I remember the characters well, some of the details of the story are getting hazy to me by now, but I do know that I thoroughly enjoyed it the first time around.

#37

NEW

Ori and the Will of the Wisps

That time the Ori developer decided to combine it with Hollow Knight, and it turned out greater than either game. I definitely liked the first Ori game, but it wasn’t exactly top 50 material for me and I expected the same for the sequel, only for it to blow my expectations away. The game simply delivers in every way, excellent gameplay, a powerful story with an incredible ending and obviously it’s beautiful to look at. I have to go out of my way to find anything the game doesn’t nail, but if I did it would be that getting 100 % completion becomes a little to trivial with all the traversal tools you get, but at the same time those tools make moving around the world so much fun.

#36

#36

Pokémon Crystal/SoulSilver

Crystal and SoulSilver are the two versions of this game that I’ve played and since they’re counted together anyway, I’ve chosen to mention both since they both have their strengths and weaknesses. Being a gen 4 game SoulSilver brings a bunch of very welcome quality of life changes and also the Physical/Special split which might be one of the best singular changes in the series. Meanwhile Crystal, ironically enough, is the game I prefer aesthetically even if that’s what remakes most often try to improve upon. The classic sprites are honestly some of the best Pokémon has ever looked in my eyes and the soundtrack is among my favorites. Of course, there are also many things to love across the versions. Being one of the early titles nearly all Pokémon designs present are great, including some of my favorite starters and legendaries, and it cannot be overstated how much I liked the inclusion of Kanto and the final battle with Red.