See, this thread is more my speed since I spend 80% of my gaming time playing older games:
Runner ups Torchlight 2. Played a bunch on the Switch over the summer, and picked it up again over the holidays for the Xbox and having a blast with it the past few weeks.
First, there’s the perennial title that I get back into with friends, League of Legends. If Riot Games has its way, I should feel foolish for thinking one would want to conceptualize a best esport of the year. (Hmm, looking around, what’s with the fondness for the loudness that is pickleball? Definitely my least favorite sport of 2021.) Were this more formal, I would considering excluding games with more than a thousand hours played, or less than 1/3 of their total play-time during that year, from Actualies eligibility… Can’t even have a friendly discussion without rules being argued, what’s with this man?
I don’t have the archival cred of @Left_Empty, only picking up NieR Replicant v1.22… and getting through its endings. It doesn’t have much to say that isn’t said better in NieR Automata. Enjoyable, good on its own terms, but outclassed by the later work. The character Kaine shines through–very memorable, excellently voiced.
Thanks to PS+ I tried Subnautica. Seriously good in a way that survival crafting never has been for me. Severe stability problems on the PS5, though.
Final Fantasy VII: Remake is unnecessarily great, seeing how fans seem satisfied with pixel remasters. This delivers a reimagining. The characters start as the stereotypes they were, but their time together provides development into people I cared about. The combat was the series’ best. I started to replay on Hard difficulty, and that feels like how it’s meant to be. No wandering for items during time-critical situations; veteran characters in peak form. I was having to delve into skills I had ignored up to that point. I think it set it aside because of the announcements about upgrades for the new consoles. Speaking of, shouldn’t Square-Enix be handing out some PS+ bennies now?
I fell hard for Death Stranding’s mystery world and moody soundtrack. I don’t think it could ever deliver answers in keeping with the oddities, so I give it credit for making it work as well as it did. It was a grind, but I felt genuinely happy connecting everything with a road. Maybe because I could see all of the other usernames that were part of the effort?
Overall best was The Last of Us: Part II. I was breathless for so much of it. Whatever had caused me to feel that Part I had different worlds between the game play and the characters was gone here. The characters lead their own lives, and the game’s great feat is bringing me with them, empathizing, caring, shouting but enacting their goals.