Here we are. At the end. I actually played a LOT of games from this year, so strap in for a long grand finale. Despite the long list (including some really good titles), the winner is just a hundred miles ahead of the competition, making this a very easy pick. Some of you might know where this is going already, but let’s do this properly anyways:
Didn’t Play:
- The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
- Yakuza 5
- Yoshi’s Wooly World
- Her Story
- Just Cause 3
- Cities: Skylines
- Pillars of Eternity
- Dying Light
- Halo 5
- Until Dawn
- Rise of the Tomb Raider
- Super Mario Maker
- Xenoblade Chronicles X
- Splatoon
I definitely intend to play through all the Witcher games at some point (I’ve played a bit of the first, but never gotten around to finishing it), especially given how much people gush about Witcher 3. A few others definitely have my interest here such as Pillars of Eternity, Her Story, and Rise of the Tomb Raider, and I may get to those some day.
Didn’t Finish/Didn’t Like:
Sunless Sea – This one is a bit of both. The reason I didn’t finish it was because I just didn’t much care for it. This Lovecraftian journey through an underground sea full of monsters and grimdark horror seems like a great premise at at first, but honestly it just ends up feeling like a slow slog and grind. Didn’t keep my attention long enough to get to the presumably good part.
Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate – This is officially the point at which I fell off the Assassin’s Creed series and marks the first main entry that I never finished. I played through some of it, but I just couldn’t bring myself to care much about it. Then again, this might be the last proper Assassin’s Creed game before it went full RPG, so I still might finish this one someday.
Rocket League – Didn’t play it much mainly because I never got online with my friends. Seemed cool though.
Bloodborne – It’s possible that I’m not the right kind of person for a true Soulslike game, but I’ve never REALLY sat down and tried to play one, so the jury is still out. Bloodborne is probably the one I’ve tried the most, and we’ll see if I can get back around to it one of these days.
Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker – Just a delightful little game that I never actually finished. Definitely plan to finish it up one of these day though, because it’s just a lot of fun. No complicated story, just fun puzzle action.
Downwell – Really neat spin on a Metroidvania by mixing it with an arcade style, and a really bizarre vertical level design. A lot of fun from what I played, I just never got very far in it before something else caught my attention.
The Good:
Overwatch – While overall my feelings towards this game are complicated, I can’t deny that I did have a good amount of fun playing this. Lots of varied heroes, decent maps, colorful visuals, fast gameplay, a really tight shooting design. I’m not much of a fan of multiplayer only games, but Overwatch definitely managed to take a few hours from me.
RONIN – I picked up this neat little indie title because the gameplay looked a lot like 2013’s Gunpoint, which I absolutely adored. And it does have some similarities, but it’s definitely an inferior game. It’s still a fun time with a very unique turn-based battle system that does make you feel like quite a badass in the end, so I guess it was a success.
Titan Souls – An isometric action adventure boss rush game clearly inspired by Shadow of the Colossus. It has an interesting twist on the formula, as you and the boss each die in one hit (provided you can hit their unique weak spot), and you only have a bow and a single arrow to take them down with. Really well executed, though it is very short and lacks much of a narrative, as well as still being pretty damn derivative of Shadow of the Colossus.
Fallout 4 – Yet another game I’m very conflicted by. I was all set for this to be my game of the year, but it fell quite short of that mark. Still a solid and fun game, but marred by tons of problems from issues with the aging engine to pacing issues, plot issues, sub-par writing, and just a lot of new systems that looked good on paper but just didn’t pan out so well in practice. At the end of the day though, it’s still Fallout and you’ll have a good time, but I’d recommend New Vegas or 3 over it any day of the week.
Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number – To be honest, this is really just more Hotline Miami. Which there’s really nothing wrong with. The original was great, and so was this one. It adds more guns, enemies, powers, and levels, which is all you can really ask for. Unfortunately, it does drop the ball in the story department, in that it probably tries just a little bit too hard. It’s just way too abstract to the point that you can’t even tell what the hell is going on anymore. But I guess the biggest problem is that it isn’t THAT much different from the original, so at that point what’s even the point of playing it over the original?
Batman: Arkham Knight – Man, I’m starting to sound like a broken record, but this is yet another one I’m very conflicted on. While I enjoyed this more than Fallout 4, Arkham Knight still let me down a bit with a much weaker plot and writing than Asylum or City. Additionally, the Batmobile segments, which sounded great on paper, were just a slog and not fun at all. The city is still fun to explore with lots of great characters, set pieces, and it can be really fun, but this is another instance where I can just recommend the earlier entries over it (except Origins. That game was a train wreck).
Tales from the Borderlands – One of Telltales better games in my opinion. Not only was this a really fun adventure with great characters and high stakes, but it actually had a pretty significant impact on the Borderlands lore. It’s canonical, and they even kill off a fairly major character within it. Props for the sand to go through with such a plan, and it definitely panned out. Otherwise, just one of Telltale’s more solid adventure games.
Life is Strange – Yet another episodic point-and-click style adventure game, huh? Well, this one’s from Square Enix of all producers, and tells a really gripping story about a girl who gains the power to rewind time in short bursts and how the power affects the world around her. Despite a few stumbles here and there, it remains an expertly told story and one of the most noteworthy recent games in the genre. Now I just have to get around to playing the second season and Before the Storm…
Grow Home – Maybe a slightly controversial pick to be this high up, but this was just a game that came out of nowhere for me and was a lot of fun. And from Ubisoft! I have no idea how this game came from that company, but it was a really fun game about a robot growing a big plan to try and return to his mothership. Really, there’s not much else to say. The story is bare bones, but makes way for just some really fun exploration based gameplay with physics based climbing. It’s not revolutionary or anything, but a game as simple as this that’s this good definitely deserves applause.
Sorcery! 3: The Seven Serpents – Of course I have to mention the only part of the Sorcery! series I have yet to cover. The Seven Serpent was a unique game in the series because it’s probably the most open-ended one in the series, which does mean that its story is a little less connected, but the hook is still great, as is the writing, world, and characters, which really drives this one all the way to the end. The premise is that as you journey across this area, the evil king that you’re attempting to take down has sent a group of assassins; The Seven Serpents, to be precise. Seven literal snakes with various powers and weaknesses. You need to hunt them down and kill them all while making it across the country either in a timely manner, or by taking your sweet time and gathering as many items and stamina boosts as you can along the way. It makes for quite a fun game of cat-and-mouse, and makes hunting all the secrets and unique interactions even more fun. Highly recommend this and the entire series. Probably my favorite mobile games on the market.
The Best:
The Beginner’s Guide – Whoo this game. A walking simulator made by Davey Wrenden (creator of another great walking simulator: The Stanley Parable), and an absolute mindfuck of an experience. This is really a game you should play through blind to get the most out of it (not the last time I’ll be saying that on this list), but here’s the elevator pitch. Davey talks the player through a series of games made by a former friend of his: Coda. As the game progresses Davey will tell the player what was happening at that point with both of them in real life, how the game reflects what Coda was going through, and how Davey interprets Coda’s work. To say more than that would be entering spoiler territory, but trust me when I say that it’s worth going to the bitter end of this one. It ends on a ridiculously high note. Just an expertly told story that manages to make your hair stand on end by the conclusion.
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain – This is actually the only MGS game I’ve ever played start to finish (though I’ve dabbled in 2 and 3 and plan to play them more in the future), and damn is it good. It looks great, it has huge sandboxes to play around in, fun missions, tight controls, and freedom to approach the game how you like. The addition of a bunch of 80s music that you can find throughout the world and arrange into playlists (and blast from your helicopter as you enter and exit areas) was a really great idea and is one of my favorite kinds of collectables that makes you desperate to hunt more down. The story is a complete train wreck, but fortunately it’s easy enough to ignore it for the most part. It definitely has the Kojima weirdness all over it, but this was a pretty great way for the series to go out (since Kojima was fired by Konami and I seriously doubt Konami will ever put out another good MGS game on their own).
Ori and the Blind Forest – Possibly my favorite Metroidvania game. This charming adventure about a forest spirit trying to save its home is chock full of content. The world is fun to explorer, there are tons of abilities to unlock, great characters, and some just incredible visuals. The watercolor style it has going for it is gorgeous, and I never get tired of looking at it. Add to that a really excellent soundtrack, and you have all the ingredients for a game that just begs you to play it start to finish. It does have some frustrating moments, and the additional content from the Definitive Edition is a little questionable (adding an ability that kind of breaks a bunch of otherwise challenging areas in the game), and the ending definitely pusses out a bit, but otherwise this is an excellent game that I’d highly recommend. And in another year it might just take the top spot. But this is not another year, and there’s only one way this list can end.
Best of 2015:
And here we are at the end. It was a long road, and I almost didn’t even finish this series before 2020 ended, which would have been pretty embarrassing. But only one remains. Like I said, some of you might know where this is going, but regardless, it was a pretty easy choice for me on the top spot of the decade. Even against games that I thought were top class in their genres like God of War and Mario Odyssey, this one stands head and shoulders above the others for be a revolutionary title in gaming. A breath of fresh air that shows us the true potential of gaming as an art form. I’m talking of course about…
![Undertale](https://image.api.playstation.com/cdn/UP3893/CUSA08801_00/pDm46Nye9OTyuH210Se9cWyCVx7OuXWb.png)
Undertale – Off the bat, let me just say that this is a game that’s best experienced completely blind. So if you haven’t yet, go play through it. It’s available on Switch, PS4, Vita, PC, Mac, and Linux, so you definitely have something to play it on. And its simple graphics mean that any potato of a computer should be able to run it no problem. I’ll avoid spoilers as I talk about it, but seriously, go play it as soon as possible. It’s short, it’s cheap, and it’s on a ton of consoles so you just have no excuse.
Anyways, Undertale was a game that kind of came out of nowhere. After a modest kickstarter success by creator Toby Fox, the game released in 2015 and immediately exploded in popularity. I heard about it from a friend and decided to give it a go. And I immediately spent 15+ hours to play through the game three times straight and see everything the game had to offer. And since then I’ve probably played it through at least two other times.
So what is Undertale? It’s hard to explain it without spoilers, but just a quick rundown: it’s an RPG that centers around a world of humans and monsters. Years ago a war broke out between the two races, but the more powerful humans prevailed and sealed the monsters away underground. Years later, a young child stumbles into the underground and must find a way home, along the way meeting a varied cast of characters battling/striking a friendly conversation with monsters, and performing actions that will ultimately decide the fate of everyone in the underground.
The game’s weakest point is arguably its graphics, but I find them appealing. They’re simple, but effective. Very reminiscent of old RPGs on the NES and SNES. And despite its simplicity, the game manages some really great visual humor at times.
The music is incredible. Toby Fox is clearly a skilled musician, and the OST to Undertale is just filled to the gills with bangers. What’s especially impressive is how the songs start very simplistic like something you’d hear on the NES, but by the end can turn into incredible orchestral numbers that can make it feel like the weight of the entire world rests on your shoulders.
The combat is also unique, combining turn based combat and bull-hell mechanics for one of the most fascinating combat systems I’ve ever played through. Not only does each monster have a unique attack pattern, but if you encounter multiple different monsters, they’ll combine their attacks for even more unique fights.
But where the game shines the brightest is its story, writing, and characters. This game is a rollercoaster of a ride. Again, I won’t spoil anything, but Undertale’s greatest strength is its ability to make you care about each character and their fate. And not only that, but its understanding of a typical player’s mindset of how they play through a game, approach things, and their attitude towards playing it for completion. The game doesn’t just interact with your character, but you as a player. Few games are able to pull this off without it feeling offputting, but Undertale just nails it. And it all culminates in several endings, each of which are incredible for wildly different reasons. The game will have you in tears, but more importantly, the game will shock you and even shame you. I’ve felt more emotion playing Undertale that just about any other game, or even most movies or TV shows I’ve seen. The game will make you laugh, it will make you cry, and have you coming back for more.
And of course, as I mentioned the characters and writing are top notch. The writing is capable of making you laugh and cry all within the span of ten minutes, and all of the characters within the game will stick with you for a long time. From Sans’ bone jokes to the chatterbox himself, Mettaton, Undertale’s cast is the glue that brings everything together beautifully.
I wish I could go into more detail, but you’ll just have to take my word for it that all of these elements add up to one of the most incredible gaming experiences I’ve ever had. If you haven’t yet, do yourself a favor and check out Undertale, my favorite game of the 2010s.
So for a quick recap, my final list is:
10. 2014 – Shovel Knight
9. 2019 – Slay the Spire
8. 2013 – Papers, Please
7. 2012 – FTL: Faster Than Light
6. 2016 – XCOM 2
5. 2010 – Mass Effect 2
4. 2011 – To the Moon
3. 2018 – God of War
2. 2017 – Super Mario Odyssey
1. 2015 – Undertale
Well, that’s it. Thanks for sticking with me throughout this project and I hope you enjoyed! I’m glad I got to finish it before the end of 2020, and now I can get working on two other lists I had planned: Best Anime of the Decade, and the Best Games of 2020. The former won’t be a series like this one, just a single article. And the latter will be natural continuation of this series, but perhaps with a formatting change. Keep your eyes peeled for those, and I’ll see you in the next one!