Close! The game’s titles need to be alone on their line too.
I like it, you play against a stack of AI cards, which will push the AI forward (it’s a race), also the card market get’s updated every round, so no stale market. The theme is the icing on a great cake.
It’s been such a good year for gigantic RPG’s like Wrath of the Righteous and Solasta but, sadly, I’ve had no time to actually play those. They’d surely be on my list if I had, and I suspect Wrath would be in the top spot, but that’s not the year I’ve had. I also own Gloomhaven, Slipways, Tainted Grail, and Astronarch and have really been looking forward to diving into those but, again, time hasn’t allowed.
So, for me, it has to be a list of shorter stuff that I found time to play, because between the pandemic, being overloaded at work, and having a 1-year-old, that’s all I can manage.
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WIldermyth
I have little to add to what others have said. The tactical game is a little basic but still very good and brings some unusual skills and tactics to the table. The strategic layer presents some interesting choices and provides a nice framework for everything. And, of course, the stories are lovely, or weird, or super random, but always interesting and sometimes with far-reaching consequences (even into subsequent campaigns). -
Pawnbarian
An elegant little card-combat/puzzle game based on chess piece movement. Easily the best game I played this year in terms of pure design brilliance. -
Trials of Fire
I wish the cards in this were a little more interesting, and the visuals a little less brown, but it’s another really solid design with extremely engaging combat where every choice carries real tactical weight. -
The Riftbreaker
A nice mix of tower defense, logistics, ARPG and a number of other ideas. Wiping out massive waves of enemies has never been so satisfying, and the resource and tech crawls are paced well for me. The only real problem is the fiddliness of some of the events and environments - I don’t know what hail storms and the like really bring to the experience. Still, a good time on the whole. -
Subnautica: Below Zero
It’s Subnautica again. New environments, new challenges, new equipment, new plot. By and large, it manages to recapture that spirit of exploration and looming dread that the original game had, with perhaps some diminishing returns. Still, 75% as good as the original is still really damn good.
Oh yeah I played this too. I enjoyed it of course, but I think I will let my top 5 remain the same.
No offense to Below Zero but I’m pretty sure it would have been pushed off the list if I’d had more time to play games this year.
It would have been a top five for me if Subnautica didn’t already exist.
Well, there is that. Context is king.
- Trials of Fire
- Gloomhaven
- Inscryption
- Tainted Grail
- New World
Looking in my Steam library at what came out this year(and knowing Old World is sitting in my EGS library) I feel like 2 or 3 of these titles would have dropped from the list had I spent more time with the likes of Wildermyth or Old World. Considering most of my gaming time in 2021 was spent with older games, these games will likely get their fair shake one of these years.
I agree with you on the visuals, I’m very sick of the overwhelmingly brown/grey post-apocalypse setting in games.
I’m surprised at the lack of votes for Quake. The Remaster is really good! And in my opinion much better than most retro-shooters. I still have to decide where I’m going to put it in my top 5 though.
I don’t have anything to add, as I don’t think I’ve played (and liked) anything that came out (except the House Flipper expansion) but I wanted to say thanks to everyone that’s been adding descriptions - I have added so many games to my wishlist.
The poor triple-A industry is taking a licking here at QT3! Frankly, I’m shocked… … … (not even a tiny bit and I love it).
Sadly/fortunately/ambivalently/appositively, I will prop up the big production teams with a couple of games from last year that I found worth their salt.
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Nioh 2
I have never had an experience playing a game that was more enjoyable than my over 600 hours with Nioh 2. Its combat is my favorite of all time and its progression systems, the transition from new game to new game+(and ++ and etc.), its loot system and build system are all…well… some of my favorite of all time. I played it exclusively for all those hours. I am very sad to have had to let it go. I hope there is more gaming in my future that comes close. Might just be the love of my gaming life. -
Diablo 2 Resurrected
Damn. They made D2 right. And the reboot is very very nice. -
Yakuza: Like a Dragon
So much fun! I interrupted it to play Nioh, but will come back to it.
Playing Outriders now, but everything else I played this year is older. I very rarely play games on release any more.
I had better vote before I forget.
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Trials of Fire
I hear the complaints about the brown landscape. To that I say, “yeah, man. I hear you.” But the really smart tactical combat, cool difficulty, excellent AI and neat deckbuilding offset this a lot. HIGHLY recommended. -
Gloomhaven
I hear the complaints about it being really hard at the beginning. To that I say, “G1T GuD.” -
Old World
This belongs on the list even though I haven’t given it as much time as it deserves. -
Mundaun
I kinda liked it. -
Highfleet
This is the best bad game I’ve ever played. Maybe I should just play a good SHMUP?
I don’t know that I played a lot of other 2021 games. I tried Steamworld Dig 2 and really like it, but that’s old. I tried Outriders and yecchhh. I tried Souls III and bounced off the first boss but maybe I’ll try again. I played a lot of Slay the Spire and am Ascension 20 on pretty much all the dudes. Guess I need to finish the cheevos. I just installed 12 is Better Than 6 and also BlazBlue Continuum Shift.
I really like Trials of Fire but I feel like I must still be missing something with the deck building, considering the praise it gets. I mean, to me it looks like “replace attack card with slightly better attack card, replace move card with move + small bonus card” and that’s… it. There doesn’t seem to be much space for interesting combinations or, well, interesting anything - it all seems to be basic moves, attacks, and maybe the occasional buff that’s too expensive to get off anyway.
I’d seriously like to understand where the deck building praise is coming from here, because I certainly want to like it more than I do.
About time you played the game you voted for in 2018!
The deckbuilding is more between characters than within a single character’s deck. I haven’t played for a while, but as I recall, the ability to immobilize with one character and then area fire with another was a cool combo that you had to specifically build toward. But I agree that you don’t get the crazy effect-on-effect game-breaking (and fully intended to be game-breaking) combos the way you do in, say, Slay the Spire.
Each character has a couple of different ways to build them plus the comboing within your party plus the variety of weapons. There is almost always a choice what direction you’d like your better to go and a continuation of smart mechanics in recent games that make deck size interesting rather than a lean deck always being the way to go.