4y ago

What was your game of the year for 2021?

I don't think there's a thread on this already, if there is then whoops. So anyway, 2021 seems to have been a decent year for gaming. Valheim, Inskryption, Psychonauts 2, Deathloop, Metroid Dread - I've heard people talk really highly and get really attached to these games.

Also, your game of the year doesn't have had to come out this year, it can just be any game you played. There are no rules here.

My game of the year is Deltarune Chapter 2

which is not technically a full game but I'm counting it anyway. If you played or like Undertale but haven't been pulled in by Deltarune, then I get you, I was there too. Chapter 1 seemed fine, a nice start but nowhere near the heights of Undertale, and I watched it on YouTube once and never came back to it. But then when Chapter 2 came out, I decided to download and play the two chapters. And yeah, Chapter 1 is nice, its fun and cute, its got great music, but there's nothing particularly touching imo. But Chapter 2 is imo the best writing Toby Fox has done, even better than Undertale. Obviously its not a full story, so there's a lot more to be seen, but its consistently amazing. The main villain, Queen, is hilarious, one of my favourite characters. Berdly is a gamer. Noelle is gay. Spamton is quite insane. The characters are just absolutely brilliant and captivating. It examines the relationship between the player and the main character, Kris, and how you basically hijack their life to play the game. Kris gets loads of characterisation in Chapter 2 despite being a stone-faced silent protagonist. Kris has interests, they're mischievous, they miss their brother, they play the piano, and you take all that away from them when you play the game.

Also Kris is the only non-binary main character in gaming I've ever seen, so thanks Toby. Deltarune is amazing.

My runner up was Guardians of the Galaxy

which was a surprise for me. The game has really good writing, there's always good banter between the main characters which keeps me constantly engaged. There's also a really interesting sci-fi world, where all the characters are veterans of a Galactic war in different ways. Thanos is dead. You can go to the Rift, the end of the universe, and have a heartfelt conversation with one of your teammates about his life. Laika is a psychic soviet space dog. The combat is fun and fast paced, you command all your teammates in real time to pull off cool combos, although it gets a bit repetitive towards the end of the game. Also there's a bunch of licensed songs from the 80s which play during fight scenes which is fun, and the game ends with a Rickroll. It was just surprisingly fun and kept me coming back, I finished it in about 5 days.