Five Games I Enjoyed in 2017 - Opinion

2017 was brutal for the wallets of many video game enthusiasts. Just look at what we were hammered with in the first quarter: Resident Evil, Yakuza, Horizon, NieR, Nioh, Zelda... and this is all before Persona even landed! The latter half of the year was no slouch either, with many indie games stepping up to bat amidst the bigger budget experiences. This was a year of multiple titanic titles duking it out for Top 10 lists... and a year where I kinda gave-up halfway through. Not because I got bored of gaming, oh no!—I just fell behind and failed to catch up. Because of that, it's important to note that there's a whole swathe of contenders that could've been on this list, but aren't, simply due to a lack of time (chief among these being Wolfenstein II, Hollow Knight, NieR... and like, a dozen others).

Now then, on with the accolades!

5 - CUPHEAD

As a big fan of Treasure games, this was one of the best purchases I've made this year. Besides its hypnotizing 1920's cartoon aesthetic, Cuphead also boasts some heart-pounding boss-battling action that's as likely to make you laugh as it is to outright kill you. Although it seems like the game revels in its classic-style difficulty, it's actually fairly well balanced, offering the player a menagerie of abilities to see them through to the end. No attack feels too cheap and no challenge is too great to surmount; stick with Cuphead, and you'll be rewarded in spades. It's the bee's knees baby.

4 - THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: BREATH OF THE WILD

Breath of the Wild is perhaps the only game on this list that has shifted wildly throughout my Top 5, finding itself both at #1 and #5 depending on the day of the week. I think it and Playerunknown's Battlegrounds are the two most revolutionary games of the year, both of which are totally deserving of the heaps of praise they receive. Breath of the Wild in particular had people re-examining the importance of player interaction, and how meaningful experiences can arise from seemingly random events. Everyone that has played the game has a silly story to tell, whether it be battling your stamina bar to climb a mountain, humorously blowing yourself off said mountain, or discovering a surpising factoid (wait you can ride BEARS?) Somehow, in 2017, Zelda has managed to emerge as the crowning video game achievement of the year, and we are all better for having played it.

3 - NIOH

It wouldn't be a Top 5 list without Dark Souls a Dark Souls-like! This year Team Ninja bestowed upon us a combat system with limitless depth in the shape of Nioh. The learning curve is steep and horrifying, but becoming privy to the ways of the Ki Pulse is its own reward—well, that, and you'll become the herald of death. Whereas Breath of the Wild excels at giving you a playground to fool around in, Nioh's heart and soul is its combat, providing swordplay so damn satisfying it rivals—and arguably dominates—the Souls games themselves. Though it falls short in a few areas (it definitely needed less inventory management and more enemy types), the amount of heart-pounding duels you'll have in Nioh are well worth suffering its flaws—as well as a few hundred deaths.

2 - PERSONA 5

For the most part, Persona 5 is actually my favorite game this year. It has a lot of qualities that I find simply irresistible: catchy music, stylish visuals, challenging combat, and meaningful decisions. I would sometimes spend up to half an hour combing through the sundry skills of my personas, weighing the pros and cons of merging my carefully cultivated deities—and I loved every second of it. True, the game does go on for far too long, and the story misses the mark a few too many times, but I applaud Persona 5 for its boldness and bravery; it has a fairly unconventional plot that's especially pertinent in today's political climate, given its themes on systemic power abuse. All it really needed was an editor to trim the story—everything else is so phenomenally delectable that I finished Persona 5 feeling sated, elated, and eagerly looking forward to my next MegaTen dish.

1 - HORIZON ZERO DAWN

Horizon Zero Dawn floored me. Given the developers pedigree and the fatigue of traversing yet another third-person shoot-'n-collectathon open-world game, I did not expect Horizon to dazzle—well, beyond its beautiful robot designs. But the more time I spent with it, the more time I spent thinking about it, and the more I wanted to return to its world. From its well-written quests to its nail-biting hunts, I rarely felt like I was wasting time, or that I wanted my experience to be over. Guerrilla Games has constructed such a polished, immaculate single player experience that—like with The Last of Us—there could be almost no other winner this year. Horizon nearly has it all: a breathtaking world, a compelling plot, and even a glamorous fashion sense for its various tribes. In a year among giants, Horizon Zero Dawn somehow manages to stand tall.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

AWFUL GAME I PLAYED THIS YEAR - FINAL FANTASY II

If, in a single dungeon, you consistently have one enemy that hits you for 30 damage and another one that hits you for 2500, you are playing a bad RPG. Final Fantasy II aims to stand apart from other role-playing games with its unique leveling mechanic, but by "standing apart" it opts to sit on a stool facing the corner of the room, a "dunce" cap placed squarely upon its crown. It's slow, tediously long, and downright broken; Final Fantasy II is failure in video game form. Play it once if you have to, but never return—don't make the same mistake I did.

GREAT GAMES I PLAYED THIS YEAR
(which also conveniently serves as...)
WHAT'S MISSING? - RESIDENT EVIL VII

Cutting Resident Evil VII from my Top 5 list was a painful process. There are a lot of reasons why it's a Game of the Year contender: from successfully rebooting the franchise, to being really creepy and unsettling, to the gorgeously decrepit bayou locale—RE VII has a lot going for it. Had there been greater enemy variety and a better introduction, RE VII could easily oust Cuphead from my list above. The game certainly deserves merit alone for successfully steering the franchise in the right direction after the miserable experience of Resident Evil 6, but unfortunately it'll have to settle for the #6 spot.

It's a damn fine game nevertheless—one certainly worthy of the franchise's namesake.

... AND SUPER MARIO ODYSSEY

I got into Super Mario Odyssey really late this year, but I'm currently sitting on top of ~600 moons, so I reckon I've experienced most of what the title has to offer. And it's been a lot of fun! Nintendo remains unparalleled at creating worlds full of uninhibited joy, and nothing exemplifies this better than the colorful kingdoms of Odyssey. The entire journey is a really upbeat, smooth, and relaxing experience... which consequently means it lacks a bite to its difficulty. I love the game's atmosphere and style, but I prefer more level-oriented challenges from the Mario games, something which Odyssey lacks compared to Galaxy and 3D World. Still, it's a blast to play, and is a great counterpoint to the tougher endeavors I've endured this year.
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Other images obtained from: wccftech.com, gamespot.com, iansteffen.com, theverge.com, gamerant.com