Alex's Top 10 Games of 2017

The year 2017 has come and gone, and as has become tradition, I will ramble here for a little while on my personal top 10 video games that I played in the calendar year.

At this point in previous years I normally gave a little disclaimer that, to make things interesting and because I do not play video games as a full-time occupation (despite how it might seem to some), games from previous years would be included on my list. 2017, however, turned out to be a bumper year for video games, with such a windfall of quality that this was less of an issue. Nonetheless, to maintain consistency with previous years and, as a side effect, make my choices even more excruciatingly painful, games released in 2016 or earlier were given the opportunity to compete.

As for the criteria by which these games made my top ten and were ranked against one another, it's much more simple: it's the games I most enjoyed in 2017, and the ones that in my humble opinion deserve the most recognition. On with the show!

10. Elite Dangerous

Probably not a surprise to most reading this, but squeaking into the top ten is a space sim I have spent no fewer than 460 hours playing overall, and the subject of my most recent blog post on bfvg.co.uk. For an in depth discussion of why I love ED so much, well there's plenty to dig into in the article linked above. Over here I'll keep it brief: Elite Dangerous is a perfect fit for my fascination with space, it has a top class community that has given me some motivations to keep playing for hundreds of hours, and I'm now so familiar with it I can multitask and watch Netflix at the same time!

9. Golf Story

Image shamelessly stolen from Google images.

Let's not beat around the bush: the Switch has had a fantastic launch year, and at the risk of spoiling some of the rest of my list, this is not the only Switch game you'll read about in this post. One of the pleasant surprises has been the wealth of great indie games available on the Switch, one of the best of them being Golf Story. When I heard about it in the summer I was immediately intrigued; the trailer not only showed off a SNES-looking RPG revolving entirely around golf, it also included the line "very well... I will pose as your caddy." I awaited its release with bated breath.

This is a story-based RPG where virtually every action you take involves swinging a golf club. The plot centres on a young man who wants to do his father proud and become a pro golfer - unsurprisingly, this involves playing quite a few rounds of golf. The side content is where it gets really interesting though. Found something hidden underground with a metal detector? You use a special wedge to dig it up. A woman can't convince her son to come out of alligator-infested waters? Hit him with a well-aimed shot and he'll get a move on. Noticed those colourful buoys floating in the water? Yup - golf shot. The game even dedicates a face button to teeing up a ball at pretty much any point in the story.

It's also a very competent golf game, with inventive courses and a simple but resilient set of golf mechanics. Comedy is subjective, but for what it's worth I often found the story very funny, especially a sequence later on I definitely don't want to ruin for anyone, so all I'll say is: rap battle. The only reason it isn't higher up this list is a) the high bar set by many other games in 2017, and b) a few occasions where I got stuck and didn't know how to proceed. Regardless though, if you have a Switch, this is well worth your time.

8. Persona 5

Without any exaggeration, this was the game I was most excited for this year, and equally it faced the greatest challenge to satisfy my expectations. This is the sequel to my favourite game period, Persona 4 (Golden). Describing the Persona series concisely is far from easy, but let's give it a try: each entry in the series is about a group of Japanese teenagers trying to deal with both the moderate drama of navigating high school and the rather more overwhelming task of saving the world, often from threats that the general public are not directly aware of. In a Persona game there are two distinct gameplay types: the first is essentially a Japanese-high-school-teenager simulator (no, really!), involving regular player choices between, for example, whether to hang out with a friend or spend that time studying instead. The second gameplay type is turn-based JRPG combat that takes place in another dimension populated by monsters that are inspired by all sorts of deities and mythological beings, and are often pretty disturbing to look at. What I find so thrilling about this is that the school sim directly influences elements of the combat side of the game: hanging out with a friend could make them a more powerful ally in battle, or unlock useful abilities, while increasing your Knowledge, Guts, Kindness, Proficiency and Charm ratings grants access to even more upgrades. Watering the plant in your room ultimately makes you a more powerful fighter!

That wasn't concise - and neither is Persona 5, which I completed after a marathon time investment of 135 hours. The majority of that time is spent taking in what is basically a super-long visual novel, broken up by not a little bit of good old-fashioned repetitive grinding - yes, this is a JRPG! Like other Persona games, the combat hinges on discovering enemy weakness, and exploiting them grants not just additional damage but another turn as well. Other than some tricky early fights though I found it pretty much unnecessary to grind for levels, and the option to fast-forward through battles auto-attacking saves you a lot of time anyway. Whereas the combat isn't exactly revolutionary, it's the school sim and time management section of the game that really stands out in P5. After the standard slow introduction to the story and initial cast of characters, the game opened up with almost countless activities clamouring for my attention. I know that for some this aspect of a Persona game can be stressful, as every choice advances time and there is a limited number of days before the deadline for the current objective is up; furthermore, it is close to impossible to fully complete every activity and see the full arc of every side character, even with 100+ hours to play with! Personally, I don't find it stressful - I like the feeling that every little decision has weight and I hardly felt robbed in terms of content. Much like real life, you prioritise the development of skills and relationships as best you can, but unlike reality, all roads lead to some kind of resolution and to positive consequences.

That last sentiment is not a random philosophical detour, by the way. Persona 5, like its predecessors, is replete with serious considerations of topics including despair, self-confidence, suicide, introspection, exploitation, the cynicism and apathy of an uncaring society... I could go on. Social commentary is without a doubt laid on with a trowel, and if you hate the idea of that in your video games, then I can't recommend this to you! I will say that I find Persona 5's story sincere and undeniably relevant right now (and often self-aware about how much teenage angst it deals in). Criticism has been made of the quality of the English localisation compared to previous games in the series - this didn't occur to me much during my playthrough but in retrospect the criticism is valid... this is becoming an essay on Persona, which I should probably just do in a full post another time. Let's just say I found it thrilling and thought-provoking, but it definitely dragged on at the end and didn't add a huge amount to the series, or the genre as a whole, hence its place at number 8.

7. The Last Guardian

This, along with Persona 5, was one of the games that took me over the line into purchasing a PS4. Mired in development for nearly a decade, the sequel to Ico and Shadow of the Colussus was hotly anticipated, then subject to justified apprehension, thought dead, suddenly alive again, re-delayed, and finally released in December 2016. I was under no illusions that a game whose creation began during the PS2 era would feel 100% polished and modern. I was expecting a picturesque, possibly bleak but certainly beautiful world from the imagination of one of the few individuals in gaming who deserves the title "auteur". And despite the wait, Fumito Ueda's baby did not disappoint.

The Last Guardian is the adventure of a boy lost in a strange land with only his giant bird/cat/dog companion Trico for company. Gameplay consists of some light puzzling, occasional platforming, and some indirect stealth/combat, but for the most part it consists simply of exploring a foreign land and falling in love with a weird fantasy animal. Much has been written about the (lack of) control one has over Trico, who is often unresponsive to your commands, and even disobedient. As an experienced cat owner / cat feeder / cat cushion, my reaction could be expressed as, "this seems familiar!" Trico didn't feel like a means to a video game end, he felt like a creature with a mind of his own. Not only that, but the game features a clever hidden progression system that makes him more responsive as you proceed through the game and as the protagonist gets to know his huge feathered pet.

I can't deny criticism of the boy's controls or the occasionally archaic level design (again: this game originated in the PS2 days) but The Last Guardian has a fascinating world to explore, and Trico was rightly nominated for some Character of the Year awards in 2016. It's rough around the edges, but there are very few games like it.

6. Cuphead

Speaking of games with few comparisons, Cuphead is a bullet-hell shooter with visuals drawn from early twentieth century cartoons - think Tex Avery and early Disney stuff like Steamboat Willie. It also has a reputation for unforgiving difficulty, and given my lack of skill in the genre, I was unsure about picking up Cuphead. Fortunately, my fellow bfvg-er Arjybarjy drew my name in our Secret Santa, and made that decision for me. Despite my initial concerns, and the fact that I had mere days left of the year to play it, I was soon left in no doubt that this was one of the best games of 2017.

The animations and look of the game are a clear strength. It's a joy to watch this game in motion, and I implore anyone reading this to check out literally any video of it - the visuals speak for themselves. Rarely has the artistic craft and talent of a game's creators been so immediately evident. Secondly, my fears about the difficulty were countered by a crucial feature I was less aware of: Cuphead has incredibly tight and intuitive controls. The interactive purity of move, jump, shoot and dash allowed me to quickly find my feet with the game, and this coupled with the tough-but-fair challenge brings to mind Super Meat Boy, one of my most beloved indie games of all time. I've only played a few hours of Cuphead, but it is already clear to me that it deserves vast amounts of praise.

5. Night in the Woods

I didn't get to this one until the last few days of December, and I have yet to finish it, but I am nonetheless certain it belongs on this list - in fact my one concern is that what I have yet to see could potentially have raised it higher. Night in the Woods is a 2D, side-scrolling story-based game about the life of a 20 year old college dropout, who has suddenly returned to her rundown, formerly mining-oriented, now mostly jobless hometown  in the American sticks. It's a frank, plain-faced, honest look at life from the perspective of a depressed, introverted, directionless young person, laced with some engaging humour; the writing is often dark given the subject matter but incisive and astonishingly natural. Oh, and every character is a cartoon animal, because this is an indie game!

I want to emphasise: every bit of family melodrama and arguments with friends in this game feels natural, especially speaking as someone who's had some time to reflect on their early twenties. I've had the good luck not to suffer from clinical depression, and I'm not necessarily introverted, but I can definitely relate to the feeling of a lack of direction or place in a confusing world, and the regular, sometimes drunken, self-deprecating cries of "I'm such a piece of garbage" etc. are so on point. And the aspects of the story that I can't personally relate to are told so convincingly: the writers of NitW have done an excellent job of conveying emotions that in another game might so easily have been mishandled. If this all sounds depressing as fuck, I'll also emphasise the humour. This game is intelligent and quirky in its writing, with a lot of lines that sound like dumb, laughable turns of phrase that you or your friends might have coined in real life. As mentioned, I've yet to finish it, but it is No. 1 on my to-do list after this article, and I think it's a game that almost every person should play, no matter how perfect or imperfect their life so far has been.

4. Sonic Mania

And now for something completely different. Rejoice one and all, because this year saw a new Sonic that was not subpar trash. It was in fact one of the best games this year!

Since the early 90s following the golden era of the Mega Drive, Sonic games have always tried to move with the times, but almost without exception they have failed to live up to the spiky mascot's early promise. Sure, some folks will defend the Sonic Adventure games that came out in the early 2000s as the Dreamcast, and Sega's console manufacturing days, came to a poignant end. Since that juncture, surely only the most die-hard fan would proclaim a Sonic game to be a tour de force. Now, finally, the impossible dream has come to pass: Sonic Mania captures the essence of 16-bit Sonic, while introducing new scenarios and clever levels that are intuitively, instinctively enjoyable. And it all it took was to take Sonic away from the people who had repeatedly failed to re-invent the wheel, and hand him over to some fans who just happen to be talented developers!

Sonic Mania is the product of several indie studios' collective efforts. The starts of levels often look so much like early Sonic games that they could be mistaken for an emulator, but before long the classic paths and loop-de-loops transform into something new and delightful. Some stages feel only broadly influenced by the 16-bit era, even entirely novel. Sometimes Sonic ends up inside a popcorn machine or is turned into a lightning bolt and bursts out of an old-fashioned television. The only criticism that comes to mind is a fairly uninspired boss battle with Metal Sonic. Such a minor blip doesn't register though against the enormity of the achievement: Sonic is back and I'm so happy.

...Let's not talk about Sonic Forces, eh?

3. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

How does one put into words the experience of playing this latest incarnation of The Legend of Zelda? Maybe I should start by pointing out how un-Zelda it is. Health does not drop from enemies - you have to cook meals to recover hearts. The tools and abilities of the game are not doled out regularly in a linear progression of puzzle-dungeons - instead you are given everything you need up front and set loose on an open world, and there are just four dungeons with over a hundred shrines (read: mini-dungeons) dotted all over the place. Neither do you gradually acquire better and more powerful weapons - instead Link can acquire a weapon from virtually every enemy, weapons which can range from massive, deadly swords to little more than toothpicks (and the weapons break after a certain number of hits... more on that in a second).

Not all of this is technically original, of course. In fact, I find it extremely impressive how assiduously Nintendo have cherry-picked elements of other games and genres, without creating a confused mess of a game or diluting the finished product. Crafting meals evokes Minecraft, Don't Starve, or a million other survival games. The combat is a mix of Dark Souls, Bayonetta and the fragile weapons of Dead Rising / various survival horror games. The influence of Ubisoft open world games like Far Cry, Assassin's Creed and even Grow Home is palpable - you climb towers to uncover the map! And yet in between all of the DNA from other video games is the unmistakable framework of a Zelda game, from the cyclical Link-Zelda-Ganon plotline to the tiny, endearing moments of comedy that pop up frequently as you explore the world. There are countless NPCs that are basically insignificant to the plot, but their lines have the charming humour you'd expect from the makers of Ocarina of Time. And Link is simultaneously the Hero of Time and a village idiot who needs to be instructed on how cooking and warm clothes work.

It's a cliche, but the value in BotW exceeds the sum of its parts. Practically every task, big or small, that can be undertaken in the game is inherently enjoyable, whether you're gliding from the top of a mountain to a cool-looking feature in the distance, or trying to solve a lateral-thinking puzzle in a shrine, or tackling a dungeon boss using every weapon and tactic you've collected so far - or for that matter, suddenly fighting a terrifying centaur you just ran into while exploring! Pretty much every gameplay element has a depth to it that is either obvious immediately or cleverly hidden until it arises organically - for example, firing a burning arrow at some crates to break them open, and in so doing cooking the food inside them. Not for the first time, Nintendo has raised the bar on the depth and enjoyment one can expect from a video game.

Regarding more critical takes on BotW... yes, sometimes the fragile weapons can leave you in a frustrating position, if you're up against well-equipped enemies and all your rusty swords keep breaking. But I always found the solution - often, it was leave those guys for later, take on a more manageable foe and return perhaps a dozen hours later with a stockpile of royal broadswords and a fiery thirst for revenge. This is a game that rewards experimentation and exploration of a world brimming with stuff to discover.

If you already own a Switch, I don't need to tell you to get this; based on the attach rate statistics, you already own it. But if you're on the fence about getting a Switch, this is a superb string to that console's Hylian bow.

2. Nier: Automata

This was a certainly a year for games that were simultaneously outstanding and difficult to succinctly put into words! Nier: Automata is a stylish action game made by the studio Platinum who specialise in... well, stylish action games! Set in a distant future where aliens have invaded and pushed humanity back all the way to the dark side of the Moon, you play as multiple protagonists - members of an elite android military dedicated to winning Earth back for the humans, who are all being kept safely in stasis on the Moon. Oh, and the aliens mysteriously disappeared long ago, so the enemies you fight are all cute robots that look like classic wind-up toys. Those are your android protagonists above, in the lacy school outfits, anime hair and blindfolds.

The plot sure sounds silly when written out like that, huh? Well, the game keeps its tongue decidedly out of its cheek and plays it absolutely straight (for the most part; some of the more humorous side content is a bit more self-aware). You'll have to trust me when I state that ultimately the story of N:A 100% justifies this approach, because I am determined to spoil as little as possible. After a certain amount of time spent in the game, what once seemed outlandish felt meaningful, as main and side quests alike helped create a living, breathing world. For example, an early side quest involves a request from a friendly robot sporting a blue bow to find her sister, who favours a pink bow, back to the robot village (yes, of course there's a robot village!). In terms of quest design, it's just a bare bones escort mission, but the context of rescuing Little Sister Machine (that's her real name) is so endearing, and there's some great dialogue along the way that fleshes out the main characters.

Another unusual aspect to N:A is that, in order to see the full story and experience the most spectacular revelations... you must complete the game, and then start a new playthrough, finish it again, and then play the game a third time. This is not designed to artificially increase the hour count: each run through the plot comes from a different perspective, and adds new, refreshing gameplay modes. It's a bold storytelling conceit that pays off in spades, especially in the third playthrough. The trade-off ends up being that the combat, which I mostly found not particularly challenging, gets fairly rote after 20+ hours. Personally though, in my opinion the occasionally repetitive action is more than made up for by a narrative that I'm still thinking about months after putting the game down. Surely any other year it would have been my number one game, but sadly it is just no match for...

1. Super Mario Odyssey

Expectations were hardly low for this one. With very few exceptions, Mario's outings either in 2D or 3D have delighted both critics and consumers for more than three decades, and the most recent iterations on the Wii and the Wii U were exemplary 3D platformers. Once again however, Nintendo has shown the games industry that perfection can indeed be improved upon, and topped off a quite incredible year for the Switch. Let's reflect on some of the things that make Super Mario Odyssey a truly delightful romp and a stupendous video game.

I won't waste much time detailing how amazing the controls and jumping physics feel. Again: high expectations going in. The environments you jump around are cunningly crafted and built from the ground up around Mario's style of movement, with the result that whenever you suspect you could reach somewhere off the beaten track - say, a distant platform, or a hidden nook in a cliffside - you will inevitably find a reward of some kind there. It could just be some coins, or an extra life, or, on many hundreds of occasions, a Power Moon. In Odyssey, stars are out, moons are in as the main collectible and measure of progress in-game. Moons can be found hidden in the ground, simply in a hard to reach place, the prize in a slot machine minigame, the outcome of a boss fight... you practically trip up over them! I've always enjoyed games that reward exploration, and in Odyssey I got those rewards drip-fed into me for more than 50 hours. Sometimes a Moon required a great deal of thought or platforming skill to discover; other times they couldn't be simpler. Odyssey is game for everyone, regardless of gaming ability; I can't really imagine anyone resisting its charms.

It's also bursting with vibrant colour. Games aren't necessarily as obsessed with grey and brown as they were 5-10 years ago, but Odyssey is a great reminder that a broad palette range can have a huge impact on the playing experience. Just looking around most levels worked as a fabulous stress relief for me, and that's before encountering yet another happiness-inducing moon. The dialogue is often very amusing, not afraid to poke fun at the Mario franchise, although it is of course justifiably reverent of the plump plumber's past. Old school fans of the likes of Super Mario 64 in particular are in for a treat in certain spots.

I guess there's not much more to say. This is game that does virtually everything with untouchable craft and brilliance, and I will scream to the rooftops that everyone even remotely interested in video games should play it. Without question, Super Mario Odyssey is my game of the year for 2017.

And as a treat for anyone still reading, here are some "honourable mentions" for the games I really wanted to include in the top ten. This year I challenged myself to describe them all in exactly five words!

80 Days - I have toured the globe.

Ratchet and Clank (2016 remaster) - The past, except even better.

Glittermitten Grove - Pure genius, but rather obtuse.

Kirby: Triple Deluxe - Farewell 3DS, Switch is here.

Super Mario Galaxy 2 - One of the best, bested.

Splatoon 2 - Squid now. Kid now. Splat!

Picross S - Oh hey, it's a (blank).

Gunpoint - Hack circuits in noir setting.

Horizon Zero Dawn - Machines will kill us all.

Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!! - Dangerous to play when hungry.

And that's it! Thanks for reading, and here's to 2018 (somehow?!) matching its predecessor for top quality video games.