Well, it’s
been a great year full of great games! We’ve been given fantastic titles like Super Mario Odyssey, Breath of the Wild,
Battlefront….II….., Yakuza 0, and Breath
of the Wild again! With such a great lineup of interactive art, there is a
veritable ocean of possibilities for a best games of 2017 list! Now, before we
get started, I think it’s important to let you know that I’m only putting games
that I’ve fully reviewed on this list. If your favorite game isn’t on
this list, then it’s not because I didn’t like it or even didn’t play it.
Without further ado, let’s go over the awards!
Top 5 Best
Stories!
Most people who know me know that I
value story the most in a video game. There’s a game called The Way on Steam that has the most
irritating gameplay I have ever experienced in my life, but the story made it
all worth it for me. A great story is enough to save any horribly-made game, and this
year, there were tons of excellent stories. So, let’s get cracking!
#5: Night in the Woods
The reason this
game is so low on the list is because, to be honest, I didn’t really like its
story. In fact, this game shines when it isn’t burdened by the plot. But I
can’t in good conscience say that I wasn’t at least a little invested in the
story up until the end.
#4: Night in the Woods
Yeah, you
know I had to at least include Night in
the Woods in this list. How could I not? Its premise about a young girl
dropping out of college and returning to her home town to find that things have
mysteriously changed is interesting enough on its own. The only downside is the
explanation of the mystery. They took
a pretty decent idea (not remarkable,
but a little inventive at least), built up some intrigue by implying some
grandiose, mythical intervention…and made it go nowhere.
#3: Night in the Woods
Now, some of
you might remember from my Night in the Woods
review how I thought that the pacing of Night
in the Woods was a bit too slow (especially in the middle), but I feel like
that turtle’s pace allowed me to enjoy the characters a bit more. This game’s
story is mostly just a medium for us to get to know the town and the lovable
characters in it. It serves its purpose and isn’t horrible (at least, not until you meet Bad, the cat god thing), so
I think it deserves this spot in #3.
#2: Night in the Woods
Maybe it’s
just the density of unique characters or the wonderful music, but I cannot deny
that the level of intrigue that’s developed in the first half of the game is
almost worth the purchase. When I finished the game, I wasn’t upset that I
played it. I was only disappointed in its ending. I believe that the ending
might have tainted my perception of the entire game, but the fact remains that
it was bad enough for me to not recommend it to anybody.
And the number one story of 2017 is…
#1: Night in the Woods.
Now, I don’t
blame you guys if you’re surprised that this game ended up having the best story. After all, I did only give
it a 9/10 when I reviewed it. The fact of the matter is, the story has stuck
with me for this long…whether for better or worse, I cannot deny that the
positives outweigh the negatives just barely enough for me to get some slight
personal enjoyment out of it. It’s definitely a flawed story, but…uh…
Top 5 Best
Characters!
While story
is definitely an important part of games for me, what sticks with me in every story-based
game is the characters. Without the human element, a story is completely
pointless. If a house blew up with nobody in it, it wouldn’t have nearly the
same impact as it would if it were filled with babies or sexy young Christian
women whose favorite hobbies involve exercising and bearing children……………..so, um, let’s get down to business!
#5: Germ (from Night in
the Woods)
He wasn’t
really impactful, but he had some funny lines and I was able to remember his
name without looking him up. So that’s nice.
#4: Gregg (from Night
in the Woods)
Gregg was
certainly present for the story. What earns him this spot on the list is the
fact that, while he was a funny character in the first half, he’s just not
interesting enough later on in the story.
#3: Angus (from Night
in the Woods)
He’s an
adorable bear with glasses. Though he didn’t have a huge part in the story, at
least he didn’t commit any crimes.
#2: Bea (from Night in
the Woods)
Those of you
who’ve read my Night in the Woods
review know that Bea was the only main character whom I was able to relate to.
She didn’t want to commit crimes, she
was at least slightly religious, and
(to the best of my knowledge) she was heterosexual. Although I’m able to relate
to her, that’s not the only reason why I liked her so much. She’s a hard worker
who doesn’t take any of Mae’s crap, but she also knows when to accept an
apology. She can get angry, of course, but she has her reasons and doesn’t let
her anger get the best of her.
And the best character of 2017 iiiiissssss…….
#1: Mae’s Mom (from Night
in the Woods)
D’awwwwwww!
Look at heeeerrrrrr! She’s just so. darn. PLEASANT! She always greets her
spoiled, brainless daughter with joy and tells her that she loves her and works
in the church and has a sad backstory about how she had multiple miscarriages
until Mae was born and GAAAHHHHHH!
The kicker is that she worked hard to
get Mae into college only for Mae to drop out. Out of all the characters in the
story, I was always looking forward to talking to her, just so I could get some
maturity and human decency. I mentioned that Bea was the most relatable main
character, but Mae’s Mom was inarguably the character I related to the most.
ALL IT TOOK WAS WRITING A LOVABLE ADULT CHARACTER. WHY WAS I STUCK WITH CRINGEY
MILLENNIALS THE ENTIRE GAME? I’M ALREADY STUCK WITH THEM IN REAL LIFE!
Top 5 Best
Soundtracks!
Sometimes, a
soundtrack can make a game completely worth playing. Would Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture have been nearly as captivating if
you were just left with the stunning visuals, incredible voice acting, and lack
of gameplay? NO! NEVER! Would To the Moon
have been the only video game to make me cry if it didn’t have such a beautiful
soundtrack? HOW DARE YOU EVEN MAKE ME
ASK THAT QUESTION! Would Undertale
have dominated the retro feel if it didn’t have astounding and inventive
songs?! YOU MONSTER, I’LL KILL YOU, I’LL KILL ALL OF YO-
#5: Night in the Woods
This game
wouldn’t have been as enjoyable as it was if it didn’t have the adorable little
band practice segments. Granted, the actual gameplay during these bits is a bit
unfair at points, but the fact remains that the music (while not incredibly
variable throughout the game) is solid enough to land it at #5 on this year’s
list.
#4: Night in the Woods
While the
soundtrack of this game isn’t incredibly memorable, what I do remember is that
I was nodding my head to the indie rock segments and drawn in during the
atmospheric pieces. The more groovy songs are ones that I’ll definitely put on
when I’m doing work in the future, and that’s the sign of a good soundtrack
right there. I’m certainly not going to listen to any Assassin’s Creed soundtrack in my spare time! (love ya, Austin Wintory!)
#3: Night in the Woods
I’ll just go
ahead and say it: I can’t remember any of the songs after part 2 in this game.
This game earns this spot at #3 solely because of the dream sequence
soundtracks. In the first half of the game, the dream music is phenomenal and
awe-inspiring enough to be put on this list, but the lackluster…I guess “polka” music that plays in the
last half was so forgettable that it ensures, with 100% certainty, that Night in the Woods will not go any
higher on this list.
#2: Night in the Woods
When you get
into Night in the Woods, you’ll
notice that the game features three different types of music: Atmospheric,
indie rock, and polka. One of my favorite moments in the game is the (first)
dawn. Mae’s dead asleep, and you can sit there for as long as you like just
taking in the beautiful and peaceful music until you finally decide to press
the spacebar and watch her do the adorable waking up animations. This is, of
course, only cute the first two times, and more a routine the other five
hundred times. It really reminds me of that moment in Undertale where you can just lie down and feel like trash with Napstablook
until you decide to get up. This first moment was so pleasant that it landed
this game almost at #1, but the
repetition of it lessened the experience and dragged it down a peg.
And the best soundtrack of the year
iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiisssssssssssssssssss…
#1: Night in the Woods
The fact
that I took up the optional bass guitar practice sidequests in Mae’s room should
tell you just how good the music is. The songs that were played during the band
practice were so good that I didn’t want to mess them up and miss out. In my
review of Night in the Woods, I noted
that I was massively disappointed that I wasn’t able to play the bass along
with a hit new song while the credits rolled. That would’ve been so great! No
matter how lame the story got, how unlikable and objectively evil Mae was, or
how tedious the gameplay felt, I always looked forward to the band practice
segments. They make up for the forgettable polka music in the last half of the
game, and land this game smack dab in the middle of first place. Well done!
Top 5 Best
Graphics!
I,
personally, don’t think that graphics are incredibly important so long as they
create a believable and unique atmosphere. Heck, one of my favorite games of
all time is Morrowind, and it looks
like…well, bad. But I’ve decided that there is
one specific thing that I will always take off points for: PIXEL GRAPHICS IN
2017. The retro style is overdone.
Like I’ve said in my Night in the Woods review:
Hyper Light Drifter can pull it off, To the Moon and Finding Paradise can pull it off because Kan Gao can do no wrong,
and Terraria is allowed to do it
because it’s a horrible game for garbage people and hiring actual artists for
it would be depriving other, more worthy games of decent artwork. So,
basically, all a game has to do in order to end up on this list is evoke a
unique and beautiful atmosphere and NOT have pixel graphics.
#5: Night in the Woods
Night in the Woods gets this spot solely
because it isn’t pixel-based. I remember having the same reaction to Hollow Knight. “WHOA…a sidescroller that
blatantly tries to rip off Dark Souls,
and it DOESN’T have crappy pixel art or 12-year-old notebook sketches
(I’m looking at you, Salt and Sanctuary)?
SIGN ME UP!!!”
#4: Night in the Woods
The art
style is relatively simplistic, but such an immense amount of effort went into
making the world feel alive. Everywhere you look, you’ll see leaves rustling,
squirrels jumping on trash cans, cars driving by in the foreground, cats asleep
in windowsills-wait, isn’t Mae a
cat?...what are the rules for this
world? When I saw the cat sleeping in the window, I wondered exactly why I was
playing as a cat when the characters don’t even bring up anything about the
nature of their animal basis. Gregg being a dog didn’t really play into his
character…well, okay, it kinda did, but Angus is a bear and he’s romantically involved with Gregg! Bears
and dogs are sworn enemies! I feel like making the characters anthropomorphic
was sort of a cop out to make character designs more memorable, but I’m not
about to forget how much effort was put into making the town feel more like a
town than a bunch of pixels on a screen.
#3: Night in the Woods
Imagine this:
You find yourself watching your least favorite character sleep calmly in
bed….and the soft glow of the (kinda) morning light pours through the window.
This game is incredibly atmospheric.
The only reason that Night in the Woods
isn’t higher up on the list is because the game can’t handle the graphics
during the dream sequences. Granted, I was playing on a computer that was made
by connecting a toaster oven to a flip phone screen, but I had the resolution
lowered to the point where it ran smoothly during the daytime, so it became
really distracting to see the framerate drop so much.
#2: Night in the Woods
I don’t
know! YOU think of a reason for this to be #2! Do you have any idea how hard this is?!
#1: Night in the Woods
If you’ve
read my Night in the Woods review,
then you’d know that Mae is my least favorite character in the game. That being
said, every time I saw her I couldn’t help but go “D’awwwww! Look at her little
haaaaands! Oh, loook, her pupils got all tinyyyyy! Oooohooohhooohoooo!” That’s right,
folks: This game is freakin’ CUTE. Night
in the Woods managed the impossible and somehow got me to enjoy spending
time with a bunch of perverted criminal millennials. Everything from the
animations to the bean-shaped bodies is dripping
with puppylike charm. Even with this art style that just makes me want to pinch
its cheeks, the game can get visually
disturbing. The specific scene that comes to mind is the one where Mae first
encounters the well. I’m not going to spoil anything more, but those who have
played it know what I’m talking about.
Top 5 Best
Gameplay…s…!
Oh,
gameplay. If only more developers cared about you. Then there wouldn’t be piles
upon piles
of anime visual novels with no dialogue options that don’t even let you have sex
with any of the eager, willing, and questionably legal female characters…*ahem*,
so yeah, gameplay…
#5: Night in the Woods
Those who
know me know that I don’t think that gameplay is the be-all-end-all of a video
game…even though it technically should
be. Half Life 2 is technically a ridiculously well-made gameplay
experience, but it never struck a chord with me. That being said, at least it
wasn’t a sidescrolling platformer. We have WAY too many of those nowadays. Night of the Woods is, however, relatively
solid in its genre. The platforming does get in the way of my enjoyment at
certain points, but you can avoid it (at least, during the daytime) if you only
want to focus on the story and characters. For the type of game it is, the
platforming doesn’t take away too much from the experience. It was kind of nice
to get away from the dialogue for a little bit anyway.
#4: Night in the Woods
Night in the Woods is a pretty
technically sound game. To me, the technical aspect of a game’s gameplay is
just as important as the controls. Imagine playing The Elder Scrolls Online, having a total blast (and by that, I mean
begrudgingly accepting that it exists and that it’s the only way you’ll be able
to see Blackmarsh) fighting some bad guys, only to find that the lag has
destroyed any chance of you getting that precious XP. If anybody played the
game, then they would almost certainly stop! The same goes for Night in the Woods. If I was caught with
massive framerate dips, then the trek
into town every morning would’ve been a complete chore. Unfortunately, there
are noticeable framerate dips in the dream sequences (where platforming skills
are the most important), so I can’t put Night
in the Woods any higher than #4.
#3: Night in the Woods
See, Night in the Woods knows that it’s
mostly a story-based game. I mean, it’s a sidescroller on Steam and it’s not ripping off Dark Souls. Story is the only
string to its bow! What I like about Night
in the Woods is the fact that they try to give you as much dialogue as
possible. On Mae’s usual daily route, there are a plethora of available NPCs
that she can talk to. One specific character (whom I can’t remember the name
of…maybe Selmers?) writes poems, and every day you can walk up to her and
listen to a new poem. Sometimes they’re amusing and cute, other times they’re
cringey (but in a laughable way). My only gripe is that sometimes the dialogue
can get a bit too lengthy (especially during the intense moments with Bea), so Night
in the Woods gets a comfy seat in the middle of the list.
#2: Night in the Woods
I loved the band practice segments in Night in the Woods, no doubt about it.
It was a shiny glimmer of excellence in an otherwise decent sea of gameplay.
The only reason Night in the Woods
isn’t #1 on this list is because the difficulty was absolutely unfair at certain parts. At the same
time though, I think that this adds an interesting element of challenge. It
makes you want to pick up the bass guitar in Mae’s room and try to get used to
the awkward keyboard controls and enjoy the funky music!
And the best
gameplay award for 2017 goes tooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo………
#1: Night in the Woods
I have only
three words for you: Hand. Grab. Minigame. Holy moly, forget Hyper Light Drifter, forget Hollow Knight, forget Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor (like
everybody else did), THIS is the best indie gameplay I’ve
ever seen in my life.
“Well, Jombo,
if it’s so fantastic, then it must be
intricate and draw you into the experience, right?”
WRONG, YOU
WORTHLESS SACK OF GRAVEL AND SLIME. Night
in the Woods boasts a simultaneously adorable and hilarious reoccurring
minigame where you control Mae’s dorky little cartoon paws and grab onto
things. That’s it. And it single-handedly makes up for any of the dodgy
platforming or slow pacing. SCREW DOOM,
SCREW DARK SOULS, and SCREW RESONANCE OF FATE, this should be
implemented in EVERY. SINGLE. GAME. Not even as the main character’s hands. If
you’re playing as Master Chief and
you have to grab something, it should zoom in and let you control Mae’s dumpy
little stub hands to add it to your inventory. THE WORLD NEEDS MORE OF IT!
And now, we reach the finish line. What game will take home
the glory as I’m So Lonely Reviews’s Best
Game of 2017? LET’S. FIND. OUT!
Best Games
of 2017!
#5: Night in the Woods
While not incredible (or even memorable), Night in the Woods is a game that I
don’t regret playing. …that much, anyway. Its stellar soundtrack, decent
characters, and funky bass gameplay land this game in the #5 spot.
#4: Night in the Woods
This game
makes it on the list solely because of the mom character. Isn’t she just
pwecious?
#3: Night in the Woods
Now, chances
are, you’ve never heard of this game until this point. It’s kind of flown under
the radar. That being said, the focus on character development and dialogue
elevates this game above the usual story-based indie games on Steam. It’s
always been my dream to play a game where you essentially just talk to a cast
of characters and are able to choose what
you say. Kind of like a Bioware game without the combat obligations. Unfortunately,
while you do get to choose certain dialogue options, you aren’t able to steer
your character (Mae) into the realm of likability. There is also the issue of
using platforming rather than combat
as a nod towards actual gameplay. I just wish games like this would stick with
dialogue and NOT go the visual novel route (aka: not being able to choose
what you say).
#2: Night in the Woods
Long have I
pondered which game deserves to be either #1 or #2 on this list…even though I did have more fun with #1, I cannot deny
that Night in the Woods left an
impact on me. Specifically, I’m talking about the handgrab minigame. My
goodness. Forget everything else about the game, the handgrab minigame is worth
the price of admission and then some.
And the winner….of I’m So Lonely Reviews’s Best Game of 2017 award goes
tooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo……….
…
…
#1: Finding Paradise
A beautiful
game by Kan Gao (the same man who made To
the Moon). This game stuck with me for days
after completing it. Where on earth do I begin?
Its
soundtrack is just as powerful (if not more
powerful) than its predecessor, the story is more creative, and the characters
(while given less time to develop than Johnny and River) are extremely likable
even with their flaws. The message at the end is immensely heartwarming, and it
changed how I view the world and my own perceptions. Kan Gao took the already
creative premise of To the Moon and
expanded on it to such a degree that I have no idea how he’s going to
manage topping it in the next game in the series. It’s an absolutely terrific
experience that doesn’t feel like a repeat of To the Moon at all. Kan Gao is a developer that I sincerely wish
the best. Granted, there are bits of the gameplay that rub me the wrong way,
and Neil (while less offensively horrific than in To the Moon) is still the worst character. But who cares! You don’t
play these games for the gameplay, and even if you did, it’s not bad, it’s just lackluster. It’s
available now on Steam for about $10.00, and it’s 100% worth your money.
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Well, that's the end of my list for 2017! You creeps better appreciate it.
In the years to follow I'll be sure to expand my library and even add in new categories! Won't that be fun?
I wish you all a happy new year without lootboxes, microtransactions, or retro pixel platformers on Steam!
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