Welcome to the yearly blog post where I rate the best games I played this year! Not to be confused with more professional and objective Game of the Year listings, in which only games from 2021 are eligible, this is the blog post where I look back on what I played this year and tell you what the best games were! And, for this year at least, it is mostly 2021 releases. Thank you, Game Pass.
Firstly, some honourable mentions. In list format, so we’re not here forever.
- Psychonauts 2 – Perhaps my biggest sin of the year. It’s a fantastic game, but I’ve really not played enough of it to properly judge it.
- Forza Horizon 3 – I started playing it this year, but let’s keep this list to one game per series.
- Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition – I haven’t played enough of this myself to put it on the list, but I bought it after watching a decent chunk of Chuggaaconroy’s Let’s Play. It’s good stuff! I’m a little full up on extremely lengthy epic stories for the moment, though.
- Runescape – I started an Ironman this year and it saved the game for me. When you can’t trade, you’re also free from microtransactional interference. It’s not a new entry though, so…
- Danganronpa – I haven’t played it, but I watched Game Grumps play it and loved every moment.
- Halo 3, ODST, and 4… and… 5…? – Played through all of these this year, loved (almost) every one. Single entry rule.
- Pokémon: Let’s Go Eevee Edition – This game was 8th in my 2018 GOTY listings, but I played the latter half of it this year and enjoyed it thoroughly.
- Dragon Quest Builders 2 – This game takes Minecraft, and injects it with objective gameplay, story, and all the Dragon Quest charm you can handle. Play it!
#10 – Outriders (Xbox Series S)
Outriders made it onto this list for two reasons. The first, more universally agreed upon reason is because it’s something new and different; to the best of my knowledge, Outriders is the first game to try adding classes and ability-based combat to a cover shooter. I mean, I guess there’s The Division, but something tells me that in a game that’s grounded somewhat in reality, you don’t go around teleporting behind groups of enemies and slicing them in half with an electric sword.
The other reason it’s on this list is because of the story. A story which I’ve only heard bad things about, yet one which sucked me in and fascinated me. Perhaps it’s because I read all of the lore pickups, but this game really sold me on the idea of exploring this brand new dangerous world, the first world we’ve ever made it to outside of Earth. The fact that the setting is grimdark is tragic, and the stakes which are at play are huge. Now, it’s worth mentioning that I haven’t finished the game. It’s also worth noting that yes, some of the dialogue is a little hammy and some of the voice delivery is subpar. Maybe that’s what people mean when they criticise the story. But it remains true the for me, the driving factor to continue through this game was its narrative.
#9 – Splitgate (Xbox Series S)
Of all the games to make it to my top ten list of 2021 games, I would not have expected a throwaway free-to-play arena shooter that I tried on PC years ago and expected to never think about again. But Splitgate returned in a major way, and I don’t know what they did to it but this time, it almost felt on par with a Halo game. The shooting feels tight and satisfying, the weapons and their pickup locations are familiar but new, and I’ll be damned if I’m not half decent at playing it, too.
What I don’t think gets discussed often enough is how innovative it is with its inclusion of portals. Never before have I played an arena shooter where I’ve been able to instantly portal myself across the map to back-smack the sniper that was firing on me. Not only can you travel through portals, but you can shoot through them too, and the incredible thing about it is that you get used to it fairly quickly. This game had me giggling with glee and recounting plays to my friends about the time I led the entire enemy team on a merry goose chase in oddball by closing portals behind me as I ran, or the time I closed an enemy’s portal the moment before a rocket came through it multiple times in one match. It’s a truly unique arena shooter experience, and I hope it’s not forgotten in the wake of Halo Infinite.
#8 – Mass Effect 1 (Legendary Edition) (Xbox Series S)
The one thing which kept me from diving into the Mass Effect universe all these years has been the gameplay of Mass Effect 1. It didn’t age well. That’s why I was super excited to hear that the Legendary Edition fixed a lot of the original’s issues, and as I’d hoped, it enabled me to finally immerse myself in Shepard’s story and universe. I love everything about what I’ve seen of it so far, from the lore to the planets to the atmospheric music. I’m familiar with the dialogue wheel from what I’ve played of the Dragon Age series and Star Wars: The Old Republic, but its implementation here feels second to none. I’m only halfway through Mass Effect 2, which I need to return to sometime, but I’m glad to finally have the Mass Effect universe added to my collection of known worlds.
#7 – Pokémon Brilliant Diamond (Switch)
I’ve written about this recently and don’t have too much new to say about it, so if it’s okay with everyone I’m going to quote an excerpt from my original blog post for this one:
From my experience playing so far, what’s struck me the most is that no matter how I feel about the nature of these remakes, they’re still remakes of a game which is very near and dear to my heart. Due to the lack of additional save slots, it’s rare to replay a Pokémon adventure when you’re done, and so this is my first time playing through Diamond in over a decade. And yet, I’m surprised by just how much information I’ve retained, from important details such as the gym leader’s team lineup and moves, to smaller ones, like the fact that there’s a hidden item in the grass over there, or that one guy in Oreburgh City who calls you a noob. I may not have asked for a faithful recreation of Sinnoh, but I’ll be damned if I don’t appreciate it now that it’s here. ILCA have really nailed the fine details, from the menu buttons to the 2000s digital wristwatch design of the Pokétch, and the soundtrack does a fantastic job of transporting me back in time.
The remakes aren’t perfect, and they’re not necessarily what I asked for. But they’re good. They are – dare I say – maybe even brilliant. I only have one gym badge to my name [now three], and I’m so excited to continue my journey through Sinnoh, not simply reliving my past but playing through a genuinely solid Pokémon adventure. I suspect that it may end up being the best way to experience Diamond and Pearl, which is the ideal goal of a remake.
I’m so happy to have been wrong about this game.
#6 – The Elder Scrolls Online: Blackwood (Xbox Series S)
ESO’s yearly Chapter schedule makes it a regular haunt of my Game of the Year listings, but this one comes with a few caveats. First of all, it comes with one big criticism: I didn’t love the main storyline of Blackwood. It felt like a damn near repeat of the vanilla storyline, with a Daedric Prince wanting to merge Nirn into his realm of Oblivion, only this time, he’s red instead of blue. To be fair, I’ve not played the second story DLC of the Chapter that would wrap up the story, so there’s room for interesting narrative to emerge, there. All the same, the fact that the storyline of Blackwood alone does nothing new or unexpected is something to be criticised and made clear in this listing. That being said, I greatly enjoy the new Companion system, and the zone of Blackwood itself is no less beautiful and interesting to explore than you’d expect from an ESO Chapter.
You may also have noticed that this is an Xbox Series S entry, and not a PC one. That’s because I made the rather difficult decision to start over on Xbox this year, as it’s able to run the game much better than my PC can, especially since the X/S update. Whereas I play a Dark Elf Magicka Sorcerer on PC, on Xbox I decided to make an Orc Stamina Dragonknight named Brakosh, and I’ve been having the most wonderful time playing him. Not only did I play through Blackwood this year, but I also replayed the entirety of Greymoor, Orsinium, and the vanilla main storyline, as well as all the zone story quests for the Daggerfall Covenant. It’s due to my time playing through all of this content that ESO made it to the list this year; Blackwood alone wouldn’t have been quite enough.
#5 – Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age (Xbox Series S)
For the longest time, it’s felt like I’ve loved the idea of a Dragon Quest game more than I’ve had the actual experience of playing one. I have fond memories of the opening of Dragon Quest IX; I loved the Dragon Quest Your Story movie; I’ve enjoyed Dragon Quest Builders, and the charm that’s injected into those games. Dragon Quest XI S feels like the first mainline entry I’ve truly played, and I can’t be more than thirty hours into it so far. But the story is captivating, the characters are loveable, the gameplay is everything I want out of a JRPG and the Dragon Quest flavour is there in full force.
It’s worth noting that this game pulled me away from my #1 Game of the Year from further down this list. No peeking!
#4 – Hot Wheels Unleashed (Xbox Series S)
I’ll never stop looking for games that remind me of RC Revenge or Circuit Breakers, or any of the many other PS1/PS2 era racing games that are damn near lost to time. The moment I saw footage of Hot Wheels Unleashed, my hopes soared. Here was a toy car racing game with a big budget and a trusted development studio getting marketing from the console publishers themselves. And with every subsequent update they pushed out, the game looked better and better. Multiple environments? Check. Unique and challenging track pieces? Check. A level editor? Check!
And the best part is that the game lived up to each and every promise. Hot Wheels Unleashed is a legitimately thrilling toy car racing game which fulfils every kid’s – or, erm, grown adult’s – fantasy to race their Hot Wheels cars around their bedroom and fling them around corners. The drifting mechanic is tuned to perfection, and the risk-reward factor of it ensures that you’re never coasting through laps too sure of yourself, as one oversteer or greedy powerslide may ruin everything.
Another big green tick from me is that they leaned into the collectability aspect of it! There are tons of cars to unlock through all the fun of fairly-designed loot boxes with none of the monetisation. There’s DLC car packs, so you know exactly what you’re buying, but the base game comes with tons of unlockable cars anyway! Better – they all have their own stats! Better – they’re upgradeable! Better – they’re paintable, and there’s a browsable livery library from other players! Somebody pinch me, I thought they stopped making games like this.
#3 – Forza Horizon 5 (Xbox Series S)
Forza Horizon 5 is every bit as fantastic as I’d expected it to be. It continues the upward climb in quality that every Horizon game has followed so far, and makes a name for itself not just as one of the best racing games ever made, but as one of the best games ever made, period. The racing genre is fairly self-contained as far as gaming goes; people either play racing games, or they don’t. But Forza Horizon is the rare one to break out of that niche with its accessible handling, its generous reward system and its liberating overworld full of enough map markers to entice achievement hunters for weeks on end. It doesn’t compromise on the realism of its cars and racing physics, nor does it simplify itself to appeal to a wider audience. But on the surface, it’s easy to understand and get to grips with, with opportunity for finer tuning and tinkering when you have more time to learn about those things. I, personally, have not.
Mexico is beautiful, and a welcome change from the stunningly well-realised but all-too-real UK, where the fields are always green and the weather is… well, perhaps more often grey than Horizon 4 would have you believe. The cars are gorgeous, obviously, but also enticingly collectible thanks to the new sticker book which rewards you for completing car manufacturer’s pages. Speaking of collectability, the LEGO Brick Challenge system returns in the form of Accolades, rewarding players for all manner of things from collecting XP boards to winning races to taking photos of cars. Somehow, Playground Games managed to cram even more rewarding features to make the tingly parts of your brain light up like a Christmas tree, meaning that before you know it, that “one last thing” you set out to do was seven things ago and it’s gotten dark outside and you’ve nearly forgotten to put the bin out. Oh dear, you should probably go and do that.
#2 – Halo Infinite (Xbox Series S)
It’s wild to think that I began my journey to play through all the Halo games after Halo Infinite was announced. A year and some months later here I am, at the end of the current narrative content, agreeing wholeheartedly with every review hailing this entry as one of the best in the entire series. As far as the campaign goes, additions such as the grappling hook and throwable barrels transform combat whilst fitting in so effortlessly with the gameplay that you’d be forgiven for thinking they’d been there since Halo 1. The open world is a welcome addition, and whilst it’s not as expansive or varied as it perhaps could have been, it does a good job of adding to the Halo formula rather than replacing the old mission structure entirely. The story is refreshingly simple after prior entries, but isn’t afraid to develop Master Chief’s character just a little bit, primarily through strong focus on his relationships with The Weapon and the Pilot.
Multiplayer is exactly what I wanted it to be: My go-to shooter. The gunplay feels snappy, familiar, and yet just different enough to set it apart from older Halo games. The use of equipment as pickups throughout the map feels like a perfection of the concept first introduced in Reach, fitting nicely into the scavenger-hunt style race from spawn that sets Halo apart from other games, where you might begin with a loadout or collect every weapon you can find. There’s some uniquely Halo about discarding a long range weapon to snap up that shotgun and use it as the enemy is charging you down, only to discard that for the energy sword that they never got a chance to use.
Halo Infinite may well end up being my favourite Halo game. It could use more maps, sure, and the challenge system still feels clunky, but they’ve already fixed the playlist and made XP far less of a pain to obtain. Infinite will never replace the older Halo games for me, but booting up the Master Chief Collection feels more like a novelty than a preference from where I’m sitting, and given the troubled development history of the game, that’s one hell of an accomplishment.
#1 – Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn / Heavensward / Stormblood / Shadowbringers (PC)
I’m sorry, you were expecting someone… taller?
I played this game in two stints this year. Firstly in April, after hearing all about the much vaunted free trial (in which you can play through the entirety of A Realm Reborn and the award winning Heavensward expansion up to level 60 for free with no restrictions on playtime, no less), I decided to abandon my first ill-fated venture from years past and take advantage of said trial on a brand new character. I enjoyed my time in A Realm Reborn but balked at the amount of patch content between it and the hyped-up Heavensward, nearly giving up until I realised that the patch content had some very important and interesting story beats. Even then, it wasn’t until Heavensward that I truly fell in love with the game, not even realising at the time just how strongly the story and its beautiful soundtrack had me in its grip.
After finishing up Heavensward, however, the change in story direction and tone that came with Stormblood did result in me taking a break from the game until this very December. Little did I know I’d stopped playing moments before the story “got good”, and I’ve pretty much tunnel-visioned the game since then to the point that I’m very nearly at the start point for Endwalker, the expansion which released a few weeks ago. The idea of being caught up with this monolithic story seems impossible to me, and I’m not sure how I’ll cope when I finally get there. The setting and story of Shadowbringers was so fascinating to me that I’m honestly not sure how they could top it, but by all spoiler-free accounts I’ve seen, they’ve done just that.
Let me assure you of something before we go on: This is not recency bias. When drafting my top ten list for this blog post, I placed Final Fantasy XIV in the number one spot based on the strength of the game up to the start of Stormblood alone, for I’d yet to really dive into the game again. In fact, here; to give you some idea of how the story escalates from a high starting point over time, I’ve been comparing it to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. A Realm Reborn is Captain America: The First Avenger. It’s an enjoyable movie that you’re going to have a good time with, but it doesn’t really do anything new. You’d watch the sequel, but you’re not raving about it. Following this trajectory, Heavensward is The Avengers. At the time, it’s the culmination of many previous storylines and some of the most exciting superhero cinema you’ve ever seen. And following on from that, Shadowbringers is Infinity War – and I’m assuming that makes Endwalker the equal to Endgame. The stakes are so much higher, the roster of characters that you’re invested in is vast, and your knowledge of the universe and its lore is so much richer than before. Narrative payoffs are compounded by the amount of story it took to get there, and before you know it you’re calling A Realm Reborn “something you have to get through”, completely discounting the fact that Captain America is a solid, enjoyable movie.
But enough about story. This is an MMORPG, so you’ll want to know how it plays outside of cutscenes and dialogue boxes. Here is where the inevitable comparison to World of Warcraft surfaces – and I’d been doing so well. To be clear, I enjoy both games – lingering feelings of disgust regarding the misconduct of members of the original WoW team notwithstanding – and feel that they do different things better. For instance, WoW has more robust classes due to specialisations. FFXIV, though, has more of them, and embraces class fantasy on a scale that WoW only briefly touched during its Legion expansion. Every class – well, job – has its own associated storyline throughout the course of the game. Plus, at higher levels, jobs have multiple rotations feeding off of each other, making the nigh-ancient tab-targeting gameplay feel fresh, busy, and exciting, especially when combined with hectic boss fights. Not only that, but the fact that you can be any and every job on a single character is essentially crack to completionists like me. There’s literally a page on the character interface that shows what level all your jobs are, and I won’t rest until I can swap between every max level job at the simple click of a button.
This is getting lengthy, so let me just list off some of my favourite features rapid-fire. I love that you level up entirely through the main story quest and not a bunch of random sidequests. I love that all prior expansions are required reading, so the story doesn’t need to reset each expansion. I love that dungeons are a required part of the main story, and that the game rewards other players for putting up with a new player’s first time experience in a dungeon. I love the way cutscenes are handled in dungeons. I love how welcoming the community is even at the height of its popularity. I love the aetheryte system which allows you to teleport to any town or city you’ve been to before for a handful of gil. I love how authentically Final Fantasy the world is, and how it encourages me to check out other games in the series by being so. I love how it handles flying. I love Triple Triad. I love that while queuing for a duty as one job I can go and level another. I love that I have a chocobo companion, whom I have named Flutflut. I love Moogles. I love all the good catboys and bungirls that populate the realm. I love that the realm was reborn when a dragon shot a moon at the planet because the 1.0 version of the game was received so terribly. And did I mention the soundtrack?
The game’s not perfect, though. I dislike the glamour system; coming from WoW’s transmog system, ESO’s costume system and Runescape’s cosmetic override system, FFXIV’s glamour dresser feels restrictive, and turns inventory management into a nightmare. The armoury chest is great, but when it fills up and you need to make room, you need to try on every item to make sure you don’t delete something you want, or need as part of a set. And 15 glamour plates is not enough for a game with 20 combat jobs, each with multiple sets of their own. That’s to say nothing of crafting jobs, which – at an early glance – seem like an outright chore without some sort of limitless crafting material bag to fill up over the course of your adventures. And for my final criticism, as amazing as the multi-job system is, I’ve yet to find an alternate job levelling guide which doesn’t stress the importance of juggling five different activities so that XP gain doesn’t come to a grinding halt at higher levels.
Negative paragraph aside – mostly included to counterweigh the stellar praise above – Final Fantasy XIV absolutely deserves its place as my favourite game of 2021. I never thought I’d experience anything like my first time playing World of Warcraft in terms of world discovery, but Final Fantasy XIV has all that and more besides. Given the fantastic length of its main story I’ve yet to reach endgame and start gearing up, joining a free company and delving full-on into the community side of things, but I’ve no doubt that all that wonderful stuff will keep me invested in the game during the long wait for more story. I’m not even finished with the game yet, and I’m convinced that FFXIV will land among my favourite games of all time.
2022
I’ve seen a lot of people lauding next year as a brilliant year for games, citing entries such as Breath of the Wild 2, Elden Ring, Horizon: Forbidden West and more. The simple truth of it is that these games either aren’t on my radar or aren’t on my console. I never finished BOTW1, good as it is, I’ve never been into Soulslike games, and I don’t own a PS5! I ate pretty darned well this year with Halo and Forza, but here’s what’s coming out next year that I’ve got my eye on:
- LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga (This time for sure!!)
- Saints Row, I guess? If it’s good?
- Starfield, providing it doesn’t get delayed.
- Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake hasn’t been given a release date yet, but… that?
- Dragon Quest X Offline if by some miracle they decide to localise it.
So there’s some stuff, but it all comes with a lot of caveats. I almost included Pokémon Legends: Arceus, but I’m not entirely sure that game is for me from what I’ve seen so far. Who knows, maybe I’ll pick it up sometime and find myself pleasantly surprised.
I expect the bulk of my gaming in 2022 will come from smaller titles I don’t yet know about that’ll launch onto Game Pass, or older titles on the service I’m yet to get into. Maybe next year I’ll finally finish a playthrough of Dragon Age: Origins, for example, or continue my Mass Effect 2 playthrough. I’ll be playing through Endwalker for sure, but perhaps I’ll give ESO: Deadlands a spin, or fall in love with its next Chapter. Anything’s on the table, and I hope you’ll join me as I discuss my experiences throughout my final year of My Xbox All Access Adventure – and whatever comes after…
32 Bit Brain 