Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
The Best Video Games of 2021
My history with gaming is one of ebbs and flows. Some years pass when I touch nary a joystick. 2021 was not one of those years. Since I gamed more than I have in a long time, enjoy a type of post I’ve not deigned to make before: the year-end list.
First up, an honorable mention.
Returnal
Only played Returnal for a couple hours. It gets a mention because it looks purdy and is pretty neat gameplay-wise. If difficult third-person shooters are your thing (and you’re somehow not aware of this already), then I figure you’ll appreciate the heads up. Plus Sony PlayStation 5 owners could use anything to pad out their game libraries. As for me, I much prefer the only other roguelike I played, Hades, but that was released last year.
Now onto the actual best games.
Disgaea 6: Defiance of Destiny
The newest installment of Nippon Ichi Software’s long-running Disgaea series was subject to fan backlash before release, mostly because it abandoned the series sprite-based graphics for 3D models and it’s a Nintendo Switch exclusive in North America. If you don’t sleep with a Flonne body pillow, you probably won’t get incensed about such matters and can enjoy Disgaea 6 for being another impossibly dense strategy role-playing game starring a cast of irrepressibly quirky characters. The humor, as usual, isn’t actually funny, but in a genre whose stories are typified by an unjustified sense of import, the dopey approach is a gust of fresh air. There’s just enough heart to keep you invested. I want to know what will happen to our zombie protagonist, Zed.
Some reviews have complained that the game is dumbed down. That might be true compared to previous entries in the series — Disgaeas 4 and 5 are sitting in a drawer waiting for me to have 500 hours to spare — but it is laughable to claim the game lacks complexity. Compared to the entry I have completed, Disgaea 1 Complete, this is far more dense in its mechanics, containing a million systems and subsystems with windows and windows of menus, though if you just want to experience the main storyline, you need not concern yourself with most of these. I’ve only delved into Disgaea 6 for about 45 hours because I’ve been otherwise occupied for what will soon be apparent reasons. Looking forward to getting back to it someday and concluding the quest of Zed and Cerberus, his talking zombie pug. Oh yeah, the game has a talking zombie pug. Probably should’ve started with that fact and left it at that.
The cover art was drawn by comic artist Darick Robertson.
No More Heroes III
It took 11 years since No More Heroes 2 to get the third entry in Suda51’s outrageous hack ’n’ slash series. In the first title, one character had a line mentioning uber-prolific director (111 credits according to IMDb) Takashi Miike; in the second game, Miike had a (silent) cameo; and this time around, each chapter ends with a cut scene of protagonist Travis Touchdown and a buddy discussing various films in Miike’s oeuvre. This is appropriate because the game channels Miike’s most gonzo films. It’s gruesome in its violence, vulgar in its humor, and uninterested in following conventions or appealing to a broad audience.
Suda51 is a guy with a lot of ideas. He never lets one go to waste. The heart of NMHIII is fast, twitchy combat, but the player first takes control in a sequence aping an old 8-bit beat ’em up. At other points, you control a giant mech in a 3D space shooter, explore an abandoned school in the style of a first-person survival horror game, and fight bosses in a rhythm game, a turn-based RPG, and a 2D fighter. To earn money, you can play a bevy of minigames including picking up trash, mowing lawns, unclogging portable toilets, and shooting skyscraper-sized alligators. These aren’t as addictive as those found in NMH2, but they are far better than the games that dragged down the first NMH.
This is taken from a cut scene animated by AC-bu. The shot does not convey how weird the scene is.
Combat has been improved, with more abilities at players’ disposal and a variety of enemies, each requiring novel approaches to defeat. The only real criticism I have is that eventually you discover sushi — items that can improve your stats and heal you midbattle — can be abused, trivializing most of the game. I’d recommend playing on “Spicy” difficulty, which limits how much sushi you can use. The game is nice and short, beatable in a few sittings. Some nerds complain about its performance, but that’s like listening to a Poison Idea demo and complaining about the production. Speaking of music, the soundtrack of NMHIII is godly. Seriously, I’d wander around Naomi’s Lab just to bop to that crazy tune. When riding around Perfect World, I didn’t want to get off my motorcycle and no longer hear a track that’s somehow both bangin’ and ethereal. Even the stupid rap song that plays when you buy sushi fills me with joy.
Metroid Dread
Even though Super Metroid is the greatest game ever made (and coincidentally my favorite), I’m more into the series’ first-person entries. When Metroid Dread was announced last June, I was excited but mainly viewed it as something to hold me over until the eventual release of Metroid Prime 4. Once I got my hands on it, I beat it within a day. Then another five times. That won’t be my last trek to planet ZDR. Though the Metroidvania genre has been the hot thing in indie games for some years, and the Metroid series is credited as the genre’s progenitor, most of the games released these days take their cues from the “vania” half of the portmanteau. Metroid Dread doesn’t follow that trend, instead sticking to the style established by the series it continues. It’s a compact experience, and progressing across the map efficiently is a puzzle in itself. There are rewards for beating the game within a time limit, a Metroid tradition predating the very idea of speedrunning.
Spanish developer MercurySteam Entertainment took to heart the criticisms of its last crack at the series, Metroid: Samus Returns (a remake of the Nintendo Game Boy title Metroid II: Return of Samus). Controlling heroine Samus Aran feels better than ever. Never has her movement been more fluid and snappy. Combat too reaches unseen heights, with several bosses rivalling previous series highlights like Quadraxis, Diggernaut, and Mother Brain. They’re also hard. This is the most challenging a Metroid game has been since Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. I don’t play cinematic AAA games so haven’t been soured on QTEs (quick time events), and I enjoyed the action movie flair they brought to these battles.
The game works around the technical deficiencies of the Switch, opting for a sleek graphical style and excelling in those areas that are not dependent on computing power: art direction, lighting, and animation. That last one is especially notable. In particular, I like the movement of the E.M.M.I. (extraplanetary multiform mobile identifier) robots. They pursue Samus with an agility that is at once feline and distinctly mechanical. Every room is filled with background details so intriguing they’re a threat to your run time. Unlike a previous entry in the series that will go unnamed, the plot takes a backseat to the gameplay. What plot is here expands on the existing Metroid storyline in satisfying ways without resorting to nostalgia bait.
The most common complaint has been about the soundtrack. I don’t get it. The music is wonderful. Its only misstep is having to live up to some of the greatest original soundtracks in gaming. These tunes aren’t as hummable as in past titles, but they’re meant to be atmospheric and foreboding, and in that regard they succeed. My one gripe is that some of the puzzles require too much precision. MercurySteam operates under the assumption that every human has magic that slows down time so it can make a dozen frame-perfect inputs within a matter of seconds. Those puzzles are all optional, so no biggie.
I expected to like Metroid Dread, really like it. I loved it. I’ll say it: This is a better game than Hollow Knight. Samus Aran has returned to reclaim her throne. Game of the year.
* * * * * * * *
That’s it. Many of you probably read this with the confusion a Dragon Ball Z fan would have reading an article about showering. The rest of you will be perplexed that this Best Games of the Year list consists of three titles. I didn’t lie when I said I’d gamed far more in 2021 than in previous years. I played every title in FromSoftware’s Dark Souls series multiple times, finally got around to playing Hollow Knight and Shovel Knight, played but have yet to finish Doom Eternal, Blasphemous, Hades, and Phantom Brave. I did not, however, play many games released in 2021. The only one not mentioned above was Resident Evil Village. An hour of that solidified that I don’t want to bother playing Resident Evil games.
This post exists because I’ve wanted to talk about these games but didn’t feel motivated to write individual posts for each. In case anyone else follows the parody gaming news site Hard Drive, I’m already aware it joked about this exact type of article:
Gamer Who Played Three New Games This Year Releases Top Ten Listhttps://t.co/E3uNNeMln0
— Hard Drive (@HardDriveMag) December 24, 2021
As for why I posted this in 2022: Just to be safe, I wanted to let last year finish. You know, in case something came along at the 11th hour and changed my whole listing. Imagine the catastrophe that would be, and be thankful you’ve been spared such a fate.
Published in Entertainment
If that’s going to be a useful category you’re going to have to find some guys who don’t.
I already did. Those guys are called girls.
Fair answer.
I forgot Streets of Rage 4. Played that too, and it’s what you’d want from a new entry to the series. Great animation.
Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark. One of the best stories about politics in a fantasy setting.
Drugs solve problems.
Thank you. I’ll give it a look. How is it mechanically? Convoluted like most modern SRPGs or little closer to chess like older ones?
To keep this post alive, how about some gaming related tweets.
Screw that Christmas movie garbage, this is the real deal:
Keeping with the Castlevania theme:
This tweet is from nearly seven years ago:
Woohoo! Death’s Door is in Awesome Games Done Quick next week!
Also, I forgot Psyconauts 2 came out in 2021. I was really looking forward to it but I didn’t end up finishing it because it was forcing too much weird drama. Quite disappointed.
I looked at their schedule the other day. Plenty to be excited for (DKC2, Gunstar Heroes, a Dark Souls race). Might watch part of the Death’s Door run to see how it looks, though maybe a speedrun isn’t the best way to get a feel for what the game is like.
I only heard good things about Psychonauts 2. Never played the original, though. My 3D platformer experience doesn’t go beyond Spyro and a couple hours of one of the PS2 Ratchet & Clanks (not the first one).
Is it too much to ask for both?
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare forever.
It only released on consoles in 2021, but Disco Elysium belongs on the list. Best entertainment experience I’ve had in ages, books and movies included. Better be ready for a lot of reading, though.
It’s no Disgaea. It’s much more FFT with a plot that is both deep and comprehensible.
Make it Venn diagram instead of a bar graph and you’re good to go.
Two circles walk into a bar graph….
I’m not great with FPS games and I prefer the fantastical to the realistic, so CoD flew by my radar. I’m not even sure how many they’ve released over the years. Is it a yearly thing like Madden?
My brother really liked that one. Choosing between different dialogue options doesn’t really intrigue me. Would be lying though if I said my interest wasn’t piqued when I found out it was tangentially related to my favorite podcast, C**town. There’s an author in the game named Dick Mullen, a reference to the podcast’s host Nick Mullen. I’d call it coincidence, but the game has voice acting from the hosts of other podcasts in that sphere, Redscare and Chapo. Dasha (can’t remember her last name) from Redscare is an ex of Adam Friedland from C**town. One of the few Redscare episodes I listened to, they talked about how they never play games despite Dasha having acted in one. She was amused to find out Disco Elysium won some awards.
There’s a good chance you know all this, but to anyone else reading, this info might be of some use.
Haven’t played FFT, but to me it’s always looked mechanically similar to Disgaea except probably without the insane post-game and level caps in the 10,000s. Oh, and you probably can’t toss your enemies and allies around the board, either.
I continue my quest to find a modern game that brings back the simplicity of Shining Force.
I would say that FFT is quite different from Disgaea as it has a class different which makes advancing your characters totally different and you can drastically change what your character can do from combat to combat.