My Top 5 Games of 2020
I actually played games as they came out this year!
As the year comes to an end, we get to wind down with the thing I look forward to most every year: the lists. People’s favorite movies, shows, and, of course, video games that came out this year. I usually never make a go of making any myself, but I actually played things that came out this year, so I decided to make one! It was actually really hard to choose five: specifically, there’s one I finished literally last night that made it’s way on to the list. Will I regret putting it on in two days? Who knows! But we’ll start with a couple of honorable mentions.
The “It definitely would’ve been on if I played it” Award:
Persona 5 Royal
Right when our lockdown hit the area I live in (a place you may know as “the middle of nowhere”), I knew that it was my chance to finally play Persona 5. However, right as I got over the halfway point, my brother sent me a link to purchase a game I had no idea existed: Persona 5 Royal. Now, if you know anything about Persona, you know the halfway point comes about 40-50 hours in. In other words, there was no way I was going to go back to the beginning of the game again. I finished Persona 5 and really loved it, despite some of the issues I had with it, mainly the very beginning and very end. But I didn’t feel like I wanted to rank a version with content I haven’t played, so I decided not to rank Persona 5 Royal. It would definitely rank number two or number one on this list, though.
The “One that got knocked off literally last night” Award:
Doom Eternal
This was the game I played in quarantine right when it started for me. I absolutely adored the 2016 Doom reboot, so I was anxiously awaiting the sequel. What I got was a great action game that had even more refined combat, an actually okay story, and another kickass soundtrack. The only glaring issue I really took with the game was an enemy known as Marauder. You can go ahead and give me hell as just needing to “git gud” or whatever, but in a game that’s all about going fast and always moving, an enemy that slows the game to a halt and forces you to play around them until they’re the last enemy remaining is incredibly counterintuitive. I think I might’ve not had issues with this if I played on my SSD-powered PC instead of my PS4, since I think the load times to get back into the combat made the Marauder defeats all the more painful. Marauder aside, Doom Eternal is still a fantastic game and absolutely worth your time, just not one of my personal top 5 favorites of the year. One of the games I played on my PS4 that did make my list was…
#5: Fall Guys
In a time where we were less connected with friends than ever before, I played more online games than ever before. I got back into Overwatch with my older brother, I bought my first Call of Duty game since Black Ops II to play with high school friends, and with many college friends I fell in love with Fall Guys when it was free on PlayStation Plus. I had tons of fun playing online with friends from my tiny hometown, and even more fun switching off with my roommate in my dorm, both of us vying to get better and keep earning more crowns. While I’ll admit there was a lot of lost potential with season 2, I think the development team has really stepped up their game with season 3, bringing more obstacle courses that are honestly really good, arguably better than some of the season 1 courses. While I think it’s too early to say if Fall Guys can rise back to their original season 1 potential, I definitely enjoyed my time with it enough to call it my fifth favorite of the year.
#4: Ghostrunner
This was the biggest surprise of the year for me. I heard many friends raving about the demo, going back and competing for better times and less deaths. At that time, I didn’t have any idea what the game was, but I put it on my radar for winter break. I was still trying to get through my backlog, so winter break was my time for my new games I’d had my eye on. I didn’t have any idea what the game was, but after playing the demo, I was hooked. The movement reminded me a lot of Titanfall 2, a game that I liked but didn’t think was as good as critical acclaim made it seem. However, that first person parkour movement combined with the one-hit combat we see in Ghostrunner. Starting with enemies with a blaster going up to a robot with a shockwave attack. To compare to Doom Eternal, the game that this one sort of ended up taking the place of, there is an enemy that tends to slow down the combat here, too. However, in contrast to Doom, it still goes down a lot quicker, and the instant respawns make it much easier to learn from your mistakes and be ready to try again and dive back in to the game. The world is beautiful, and the story isn’t half bad either, though it still has that “futuristic indie game” cliches that you’ve probably seen if you’ve played any indie game with a similar aesthetic to this. I thought the soundtrack was pretty good, too. Nothing heavily memorable, but the music complemented the action very effectively. Overall, this game is worth the price of admission just for the traversal, even if it is a bit on the short side. Speaking of short games with great movement…
#3: Spider-Man: Miles Morales
Miles Morales is one of the few games that I pre-ordered this year. Its predecessor is one of the best games of the generation in my opinion, and I think this game leaves a bit to be desired, but there are definitely parts where this game exceeds the first, not the least of which is combat. Miles’s bio-electric “venom” powers offer a lot of techniques you can use to bolster combat and freshen up combos. This comes at the cost of gadgets, which there are now only four of, but I preferred this. I found myself rarely using the gadgets in Peter’s arsenal in the first game, but always using the venom powers that Miles had access to. I also really liked the story in this game. While it was definitely predictable— my brother was watching me play through the beginning and I said “that’s definitely the villain” right when they were first introduced— there were also some welcome changes. The way the game made The Prowler different than his other main iteration I’ve seen in Into the Spider-Verse was really well done, and the whole third act of the story was really great. When I heard this game was shorter than the first, I was honestly pretty excited. The first Spider-Man game definitely had some sections that could use trimming, like the stealth sections with MJ and Miles. However, this game still had some of that fat. The beats sampling and pretty much any part where you had to connect a generator stick out as examples of this. Despite those issues, this game is absolutely worth a playthrough if you liked the first one. I’m looking forward to going back and cleaning up the open world of New York and going through New Game+.
#2: Final Fantasy VII Remake
I’ve never been a big Final Fantasy guy. It’s surprising to me, given my affinity for other turn-based RPGs like Octopath Traveler and the Pokemon games, but the only Final Fantasy game I’d finished before VII Remake was XV, which is probably due to the action-rooted nature of it. However, Final Fantasy VII Remake is probably one of my favorite RPGs I’ve played. It was gorgeous even on my base PS4 and standard HD TV; one of the best looking games I’ve played on the console. The music, of course, was brilliant. The remastered songs were even better than the originals. In particular, “JENOVA” and “Those Who Fight Further” are standouts to me. Each character felt satisfying to control, and very unique, too. The materia system is still great, too, and made it so you could still customize each character to your own needs and desires. Speaking of the characters, every cutscene was a joy to watch, and I grew very attached to the main four party members we meet in this section, those four being Cloud, Barrett, Tifa, and Aerith. Barrett in particular was robbed of a best performance nomination in The Game Awards this year, but I digress from that. What I really appreciated about this game is how unafraid it was to stray from it’s original source material. The remake adds a lot of context and character development that was absent from the original game. However, I never felt like any story content was just there for extra fluff. It felt like every chapter had its own purpose to develop a certain character, move the story in a certain direction, etc. There are side quests that definitely felt dated, but most of these could’ve been ignored if I really wanted to. Overall, this was an incredible game that changed what a remake can be, and I couldn’t be more excited to see where it goes next.
#1: Hades
I used to hate roguelikes. I’m obsessed with the idea of progress, and I feel like if I’m not playing a game I can beat and see the end goal to, I’m wasting my time. I was not a very big fan of The Binding of Isaac, and I thought games like Enter the Gungeon and Rogue Legacy were just okay. However, in the last year, I got really into the roguelikes Slay the Spire and Dicey Dungeons, and I started to warm up to the genre because of them. However, Hades is more like Gungeon and Rogue Legacy than Slay the Spire or Dicey Dungeons, since it’s more action and less strategy. However, Hades beats these two in pretty much every category. Hades features six different weapons to conquer the Underworld with, and all of them are a blast to play with. Combine that with upgrades and modifiers you can get from the Olympians, and you have a recipe for a pretty incredible game. Honestly, the developers at Supergiant could’ve stopped at that and made a pretty great game that still would’ve made my list. However, luckily for us, they didn’t stop there. They did something that no roguelike before it has ever done: it told a good story. By deepening your relationship with characters you meet throughout your escape, you can learn more about them and all of the people in the Underworld. There’s also a main story reason for why you keep “dying” and returning, and it’s honestly pretty compelling. There’s also just so much here. While I’ve gotten the ending, I’m almost sure there’s still more to discover in the game as far as story goes. And every character is acted and brought to life so well! On top of that, I love the art style, and the music, like all of Supergiant’s library, is fantastic. Hades is very easily my favorite game of the year. Play it.