Clong's Corner

The Best Games of 2021

I started to listen to a lot of video game podcasts this year, and what I’ve heard a lot is that, generally, this year’s cavalcade of releases wasn’t as good as some previous years. While it definitely didn’t stack up in terms of some of the best years, I had a great time with a ton of games this year and the following 10 games were my favorites from the 2021 releases.

Note that there were some games I know would probably be on here but that I just haven’t gotten around to playing, such as Shin Megami Tensei V, Death’s Door or Sable to name a few.

Eastward-Available on Switch and PC

Eastward is a game I haven’t really seen a lot of talk about, and that’s a shame. It’s a pretty interesting Zelda-like with some light RPG mechanics thrown in. I think the thing that immediately stands out for this one is the outstanding art style. It looks absolutely gorgeous and wows in every single scene. I had to see it through just to soak in all of the wonderful visuals. The music also perfectly mixed in with each scene. The story was also interesting and had me surprised at multiple points. It also basically has a whole Dragon Quest game inside of an arcade machine, so that was really cool as a neat touch.

Kena: Bridge of Spirits-Available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and PC

Every year it feels like there are a couple of games where the pitch is that “You can play through a Pixar movie.” This is one of those games and I had a great time with it. First off, the game looks outstanding. The animations were amazing and felt really well-done. The movement of the characters felt very realistic. The combat was neat and actually kind of difficult, which was a surprise. I also really liked how it didn’t overstay its welcome. It was a nice length that knew when it was time to stop.

Episode INTERmission-Available on PlayStation 5

My Game of the Year for 2020 was Final Fantasy VII Remake, so a small DLC experience to go along with a rerelease of the remake? Yeah, sign me up. I had a really fun time with this small game. It didn’t take too long to finish but what was there was outstanding and left me wanting more, which is always a good thing. The story did a great job telling a new story in the world of Final Fantasy VII Remake, but also made sure that story fit into that world. I loved the new character of Yuffie as well as the way she played. The different new combat mechanics were awesome, like the syncing ability as well as the way her weapons works. Her weapon also makes the traversal interesting with the puzzles and the way it’s used in that way.

Chicory: A Colorful Tale-Available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and PC

This one is another Zelda-like game but with a definitively different tone. The big gameplay mechanic for Chicory is that the player can color in all of the backgrounds and that affects the environment in its puzzles. I had a great time with those aspects of the game. The story was also a really interesting one about depression and burnout. I’m not an expert so I don’t want to say anymore, but I thought it was done really well.

Psychonauts 2-Available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X and PC

Sixteen years after the first game’s release, we finally got a sequel to the original Psychonauts, and that sequel was great. Psychonauts is a 3D platformer, a genre we don’t see a lot, but one that I really like. The levels in this game were awesome wildly varied. They were so much fun to explore and had a lot of substance to each of them. The story was also outstanding. It did a great job transitioning a story from 16 years ago to a story in the modern era. The new and old characters were both awesome in how they felt to interact with as well.

Before Your Eyes-Available on PC

I’ve always thought that games with unique gameplay mechanics have the opportunity to also tell some of the most unique stories in the medium, and this game certainly follows that. In this game, the player moves through the story by blinking in real life. It connects to your webcam and can see when you blink. The story takes the player on a journey through someone’s life and when you blink, you move to a different scene. I loved this gameplay mechanic as well as the story that is told with that mechanic. I loved the voice acting and character work too. The characters were great and felt very well-realized. It was pretty short, but it felt like a full experience.

Resident Evil Village-Available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, PC and Google Stadia

Every new Resident Evil game feels like an event and Village to an even more extreme extent really did, and for good reason. I really loved the world in this game. I think it wears its Resident Evil 4 inspiration on its sleeve, but I love that game too. I loved going back to the hub area every time I finished with a boss, and how that hub area changed each of those times. It even has a little bit of a Metroidvania aspect to it and if you know me, then you’d know I love that genre. I loved the different bosses of the game too and their different personalities. The story was also interesting and set up some great possibilities for the series as a whole.

Tales of Arise-Available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X and PC

One of my favorite genres has always been the RPG, specifically the one that feels like two or three games in one. I adore when a game feels like a full experience and Tales of Arise is certainly that. The story is really well-told and totally anime but in a good way. I love all of the characters and how they connect to the wider narrative. The world and exploration of that world were outstanding and some of the best in an RPG I’ve experienced in a long time too. I loved the different areas of the game and how they all felt really unique. The combat of the game too was outstanding. I loved the more action-oriented nature of the game. I love turn-based RPGs, but sometimes a good action-based combat system really helps to make an RPG feel different.

New Pokemon Snap-Available on Nintendo Switch

For years, I’ve been waiting for a new Pokemon Snap game. However, when I finally got it, I didn’t think I would like it as much as I actually do. The game is absolutely gorgeous and one of the biggest reasons I love it as much as I do. The different areas all feel like someplace I could find in real life, and I like that thought. I like being able to think about different places in real life being populated by Pokemon. The different camera mechanics were also cool and I loved how each area leveled up the better you got at each level, and it made replaying them constantly a really fun experience

Metroid Dread-Available on Nintendo Switch

It’d been 19 years since a new 2D Metroid story and in that time the Metroidvania genre has skyrocketed in popularity, which left me worried the Metroid series might not be able to return to the top of the genre. I was wrong to worry. This is one of the best in the genre I’ve ever played. One of the best parts of this game is its ambiance and environmental design. I loved exploring each of the different areas and how they all were pretty different. I also think those environments wouldn’t be as fun to explore if it weren’t for the buttery smooth combat and movement system. I loved how fast everything felt to do. It took only a minute or two to get from one end of an area to the other end, which made backtracking pretty easy to do when you know where you’re going. Something else I found really fun was the really difficult boss fights. It might be one of the most difficult Nintendo games. It took me maybe some time to defeat many of the bosses and, at the time, it was difficult, but looking back it was fun to get really good at each boss and become a pro at each of their phases.

My Top 10 Games from 2020

2020 was a garbage year full of plenty of reasons to be down in the dumps. However, that view looks over some of the good things about the year, like how it was one of the best years for video games ever. I also may have some qualms with a couple of these games, but this list is just me extolling their virtues, as we can all use some positivity this year.

DOOM Eternal

The follow-up to one of my favorite shooters of all time, DOOM Eternal does enough to differentiate itself from its prequel and be its own thing. The gunplay is still great but the addition of the grappling hook makes the combat even more fluid and fast-paced. The story is unique and the levels are massive, allowing for a lot of experimentation on how to take on enemies.

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX

The best Pokémon spin-off series, Mystery Dungeon, released a remake of the first set of games, Red and Blue, and they were a joy to play. The exploration of dungeons is still incredibly fun, and the story is still surprisingly heartfelt. The combat as well isn’t too bad either, finally putting players into the shoes of a Pokémon itself instead of the trainer.

Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales

Much like Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, Miles Morales is more of an expansion rather than a full sequel, but it is actually better for it. It streamlines the experience, only offering what players want. The missions are all fun and the story takes no breaks, giving a breezy but great time from start to finish. Miles’ introduction as a playable character is also great and sets up some great possibilities for a real Spider-Man 2.

Ghost of Tsushima

If one needed to pick a single game where they can experience a gorgeous setting and take their time exploring it, Ghost of Tsushima would be the game for them. I’ve never taken more pictures in a game than I did while playing this one. The most striking aspect of it is its saturated visuals but other great parts are a lot of the character interactions and the one-on-one duels.

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity

My favorite game of all time is The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, so a game set 100 years prior to that was a dream come true. That’s one of my favorite parts of the game but there’s so much else that’s great. The Dynasty Warriors combat has gotten even better compared to the first Hyrule Warriors and the visuals made me feel like I was playing a Breath of the Wild prequel, but the story does so many cool things that made the experience engaging.

Ori and the Will of the Wisps

Metroidvanias are some of my favorite games to play, and Ori and the Will of the Wisps has all of the telltale aspects of the genre. It has a great set of upgrades and the combat has been mightily improved compared to the first game. The most noticeable aspect of the game will always be its visuals though, and they are also much better here. There is an even more pronounced difference between the foreground and background, and it is gorgeous.

Astro’s Playroom

I might be cheating a bit here, as it’s kind of a tech demo, but I loved the entire experience. The game looks gorgeous, with all of the different objects moving in different ways. The music is pretty hilarious too, with it saying the name of the level in the song, which works better than it sounds. Another great thing about it the nostalgia factor, with all of the different PlayStation easter eggs.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Animal Crossing was the perfect game for this year. Releasing just as soon as the pandemic and quarantine really felt like it started here in America, the game fostered cooperation and anticipation during a time when there wasn’t much of that going on. I loved the community nature of the game especially when interacting with people was at a minimum. When thinking of 2020, there is not a game that encompassed everything about it like this one.

Hades

Are you looking for a roguelike that can be feasibly played forever? Well, look no longer. Hades is a roguelike with hundreds of voiced dialogue lines, giving players a reason to continually come back to it. That might not be enough if the characters, story and art style weren’t all masterpieces. Every single character in this game is hot and that’s not just me speaking. Everyone is head over heels for each character. The story is different compared to what it looks like from the start, making it even more fun to play each run and listen to more lore.

Final Fantasy VII Remake

The first part of the Final Fantasy VII Remake has finally released, and it was everything I wanted and then some. It fully expands the Midgar section of the original game and it does it organically, other than the new story aspects I really liked. It looks amazing as well, with each section fully realized and different compared to the previous area. Oh yeah, and it has one of the greatest soundtracks of all time, so that was cool too. I can’t recommend this game enough and I’m head over heels excited for the upcoming parts.

Paper Mario: The Origami King great but missing a fold or two

I’m one of those weirdos that says that the first few Mario RPG games, specifically Super Mario RPG, Paper Mario and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, are some of the most fun and interesting RPGs I’ve played. They take a highly entertaining world, the Mario world, and give it a story and characters that flesh it out. That’s why it was so disappointing when the Mario RPG games got stale with Paper Mario: Sticker Star. I am happy to say, however, that most of the changes from the traditional games have been fixed, keyword, most, in the new entry, Paper Mario: The Origami King.

The game has a lot of significant aspects to it that make it stand out from not only the Paper Mario series but the Mario RPG series in general. The first of those is the way exploration is handled. While it isn’t necessarily open-world, the levels are much more open compared to earlier games, especially the last couple of Paper Mario games. This openness allows the player to get very invested in the world and the way it is constructed, and I adore it. It’s one of my favorite worlds in the series. It might not have some of the memorable locales like Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door does with Glitzville, but Origami King has a cohesiveness that game didn’t.

Something else I love about the game is its dialogue. It is hilarious, probably even more than the original games. It takes itself seriously at specific points, which then allows it to be funny at points too. Sometimes a game doesn’t take any aspect of itself seriously, ruining some jokes, and Origami King doesn’t suffer from that issue. It knows when to do both moments and nails both aspects very well, especially the humorous side.

I also enjoyed the story, and how some of its new characters interacted with it. However, it still suffers from some of the problems the previous couple of games had, and that is the lack of a lot of original characters. There are only two in this whole game that I can remember, and if there are any more, that means they weren’t very memorable. I liked Olly and Olivia, and how their story comes together, but I felt the game could have been much better if the leash on the series was destroyed.

The music in the game is also sick. It didn’t wow me like some other soundtracks, but it’s solid and has gotten me to stop at moments of exploration to take in the sights and sounds. It’s jolly and upbeat at most points, but I think some of the more somber and bombastic pieces were my favorite, like the final area’s theme and one other moment in the story.

The area of the game that I don’t think I can praise much is the combat system. It just isn’t enjoyable. I liked the initial concept a tad, but then the game kept adding more and more aspects and variance to it that it became annoying to have to deal with. These complaints are talking specifically about regular combat with normal enemies. On the opposite end of the combat is the boss battles, which were quite enjoyable. I liked how it turns it into the opposite of what the standard system is and changes them into a more exciting puzzle system.

Overall, Paper Mario: The Origami King is a great exploration-based RPG that showed Mario and friends in a new adventure that feels decidedly different than previous ones due to how it allows the player to understand its world and characters much more. The side characters have excellent dialogue, allowing Mario to finally speak to Bowser’s enemies thanks to them not being rivals. While the combat leaves a lot to be desired, the boss battles are a treat with the twist on the puzzle system. Paper Mario: The Origami King might not be the return to form we were hoping for, but the series looks like it has started to trim a lot of the rougher edges of the earlier two Paper Mario games.

Ghost of Tsushima tremendous and annoying at the same time

Think of that one person that is just gorgeous. They’re a 10 out of 10 in every aspect of their looks. But then you start hanging out with them, and you find out all they have is their looks. They have no personality or other things to offer. That’s Ghost of Tsushima in a nutshell. While that might be going a bit too far, that’s the gist of my feelings on the game.

First is, obviously, like that 10/10 person, the game looks outstanding. It’s one of the main reasons I picked up the game and one of the main reasons I continued to play it. It’s the first game that got me into using photo mode. I loved the different areas of the game and how it varied the color palette. One of them was all about the yellow, then the next using deeper colors like reds and greens and the final area using a lot of whites and blues. I loved the whole package of the art direction and am excited to see what Sucker Punch does with the PS5.

I know I said above that the look of the game is the only thing I adore about the game, and I mean that, but that doesn’t mean I necessarily hate everything else.

I like the story, and it goes to some interesting places, but most of it feels like other media. There’s nothing extraordinary in the story, and that extends to the side quests and mission structure. There are multiple types of side quests, called Tales of Tsushima and Mythic Tales. Tales of Tsushima are your run of the mill tailing missions or rescue missions. They’re terrible and only there to pad the content. There are some character stories in the Tales category that are decent, but overall, they’re mediocre. The Mythic Tales are where the side quest money went, and it shows. They have a cool intro scene and take the play to many different locales and have some different gameplay in them to make them stand out as well. I liked almost all of these and wished there were more of these and fewer Tales of Tsushima.

The two areas of the game that show its near mediocrity are the combat and the world design.

The combat can be satisfying with shifting stances to beat specific enemy types. However, when there are more enemies in the same battle, some of its failings start to show. The first, and most obvious, is the lack of a lock-on system, and it’s baffling. I was shocked when I found out there wasn’t an option for it. It makes combat much more hectic than it needs to be. Then, I also found some enemies needlessly tedious. Like, seriously, those spear guys and ronin enemies can just f right off. At the start of the game, I liked the combat, but by the end, I was not too fond of it and wanted it to end immediately. The combat was great in one-on-one duels, which thankfully the game uses in its most dramatic points, but those don’t happen very often.

The world design is the last area of the game that showed why it doesn’t measure up to other open worlds. It feels like a Far Cry game in that way, with so many markers strewn about the map, having the player picking up collectibles and taking out bandit camps. I like those games as much as the next person, but I cannot say the map is designed well. I loved the aspect of following the wind, and the game not having a mini-map, but I was hoping it wouldn’t be as Far Cry as it is.

Ghost of Tsushima is a decent game. It looks outstanding, and I loved seeing every part of the world. However, many other parts of the game bring down that aspect and have me liking the game less, which is disappointing. Hopefully, the next game by Sucker Punch takes the world aspect of the game to the next level and improves the map design and combat.

Resident Evil 3 Remake Good but Way too Short

I know the title of this review could also be used to describe me, but it’s true for Resident Evil 3 Remake as well. The game has the same framework as the Resident Evil 2 Remake, remaking the PS1 classic in glorious high-definition and with the over-the-shoulder control scheme pioneered by Resident Evil 4.

The over-the-shoulder camera was adopted by literally every third-person shooter for a reason, and that’s because it’s outstanding. It’s the perfect way to experience the middle ground of Resident Evil games. I like the first-person aspect of Resident Evil VII, but it’ll be so difficult to move away from this control scheme. It’s spectacular and just makes the game fun to play moment-to-moment. It’s a good thing too because there isn’t a lot of it. This is not a game the size of Resident Evil 2 Remake, with the massive police station to explore. There are even parts cut from the original game, like a Clock Tower sequence, which is extremely unfortunate for a game that was $60.

However, some of the new gameplay additions were annoying. The first of those is the new dodge mechanic. It’s supposed to help the player dodge through attacks, but it felt very finicky to me, and I was constantly being grabbed by enemies, which became very annoying. The other new mechanic is supposed to be a more aggressive Nemesis. However, he isn’t even as aggressive as Mr. X from Resident Evil 2 Remake. It feels like they toned the following aspect down from that game when they could have made it even more interesting by making him follow the player and antagonize them a bit more.

The different areas the game takes the player to are also consistently less interesting compared to areas like Resident Evil 2 Remake. Firstly, there are almost no puzzles in the game. It is basically all action sequences instead of sequences like the item puzzles or having to figure out the correct place to go. It’s a very linear experience, which is not what I was hoping for going in. These action sequences were fun with the first couple, but five hours later, I was tired of them. While the game felt very short, if the game were even longer with the same kind of gameplay, I think I would have disliked it even more.

Overall, Resident Evil 3 Remake isn’t a bad game, but it is a noticeable downgrade from Resident Evil 2 Remake. The gameplay is much less interesting and fine-tuned, and the variety in gameplay is also not there. While the game is way too short for the price, if it was even longer, I think I might have liked it even less. It is not even close to the quality of the previous game in every single aspect.