Video games are different things to different people. To some, they are an escape. A chance to explore a world that doesn't exist or live a life so different from your own. A chance to meet new characters and see them grow - to experience change and growth with them at your own pace. A chance to invest yourself into learning something new and perfecting it - a chance to be better than your friends. A chance to explore a medium of something beyond just buttons and lights on a screen. As 2020 puts the bookend on a long year, I would like to do something a little out of the ordinary and look back on some of the best games I had the privilege of experiencing this past decade. I played plenty of games, but these are the ones that left the most lasting impression on me, released between 2011 and 2019.
I will preface this by saying that I have finished all of these games - not 100%, but enough to the point that any main story or main activity is done, and to the point that I consider the game "complete" for me. This will be an unordered list of games of varying genre and target audience, and does not reflect what I believe to be the best games - just simply my favorite ones. I'll try to include release dates and links where appropriate.
Warning, I'm not a writer. This is a windy mess of opinions. Language. Spoilers.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
2017 (Played in 2017)
What better way to begin than with a game that single-handedly revolutionized the open-world genre broke the mold on so many expected conventions, both in the open-world genre and it's own game series. I could gush for a while about this game and how it changed the way I see value in video games, but I won't - as plenty of other sources on the Internet have already done so, years before. I could also complain for hours about the many various shortcomings of the game - but again - others have already done this better and faster than I could.
The reason I include this game on my list, is for the feeling of escapism provided by the in-game world. When first presented to you, Breath of the Wild's overworld is massive and daunting. With no concrete requirements, you are thrown paraglider first into a world that no longer cares what you decide to do in it. Beat the final boss in 5 hours or 100 days, it doesn't matter. Complete one dungeon or all dungeons or no dungeons, it makes little difference. Find every tower or find none, so what. This extreme sense of agency, though terrifyingly paralyzing at first, became my favorite thing about the game in my hundreds of hours played.
Before Breath of the Wild, I used to only play games which featured short bursts of constant action. I didn't care too much for
story or world building, since I was much more concerned with having the time to pick up a game and play for 20 or 30 minutes before returning back to those more important things in work and life. The games I
played were all about shooting, or fighting, or doing something,
and usually featured short matches or sessions that were self contained.
Breath of the Wild threw all of those preconceived notions about what I looked for in a game out the window. I learned to slow down. I learned to appreciate the empty moments in between roaming from landmark to landmark. I began to love the softer, spaced out sounds of the musical selection. The quiet, companion-less, lonely existence in a wide and wild world. The childlike whimsy of discovering something new, or noticing something for the first time. The autonomy of doing whatever I wanted without worrying about expectation or disappointment. Something clicked for me when I played this game, and it has forever changed the way I view the medium.
Persona 5
2016 (Played 2019)
This is certainly not a game that I expected would resonate with me so much.
To begin with, I hate turn based games. I hate JRPGs. Hate them. Click a button, watch some text. A guy does some animation that I've seen a hundred thousand times, only to miss - gah I wish I could just skip all of this useless timewasting bullcrap. Spend hours grinding in a zone I've already completed so that I have the slightest chance of defeating a boss who's name I can't pronounce to save a planet I don't care about to further a story that lost me the second cutscene in. Waste of my time.
Oh how wrong I was.
This game, this beautiful game.
I loved Persona 5. A Japanese, turn based, RPG game that gobbled up 150 hours of my time in 5 weeks and then when it was done spit me out the other end a broken man with a large anime shaped hole in my heart. I amount of enjoyment I got from that feeling of escapism as I lived out my school year as a high school boy in Tokyo cannot be understated. I loved walking around town and talking to people. I loved working at a stupid flower shop or at the convenience store. I loved sitting in my room building lockpicks with my annoying talking cat, and trying my damnedest to eat a comically large hamburger. This game blew me away.
Persona 5 is on this list because never before have I cared so much about the lives of a group of high school kids before. Never before have I been so invested in a group of characters - never before have I felt so welcomed by a video game. The characters mattered to me. They had hopes and dreams, struggles and conflicts, and they captured my attention like games before never did. I needed to play to help them with chores. I needed to play to help them through difficult times in their lives, times of self doubt or fears of not fitting in. I needed to play to help them find their place in the world. I needed to play until I knew that all of the conflicts in their lives would be resolved and done. I was so involved in this virtual life and my role in all of it. It consumed my real life for a solid chunk of time until I had finished the game.
At one point during my play through I debated restarting entirely after romancing the wrong character. I only had one save slot and did not realize I had passed a point of no return until it was too late. It didn't concern me as the thought passed through my head that I had invested a hundred hours into the game by that point, because when my romance opportunity came for the actual character I wanted, I couldn't bear the thought of letting her down. Ultimately, I did not restart the game, so we would never know what it was like to be together. It was a difficult decision, but I think it was the right one to make. I still wonder though if one day I will revisit the game in New Game+ so that we may see each other again, my dear Makoto.
Oh and the music. Oh my god the music in this game.
Celeste
2018 (Played 2018)
One of the hardest games I've played, with a deep and thoughtful story hidden behind its brutal platforming. I think the character of Madeline is extremely well done. The game starts easy and ends hard. It is extremely satisfying in its execution and has tight controls and a great fluid pacing to it. The music is a master class in conveying emotions and really puts the bow on this complete package. What a game.
Hidden between the lines of this difficult pixel art platformer though, is the journey of a person attempting to find self acceptance and an ultimate feeling of belonging. You the player are there with her as she struggles with depression and anxiety. You are there as she tries and fails and tries again to climb Celeste mountain, even though everyone is telling her she should just go home. You are there as she battles the literal manifestation of her demons, as she wrestles with her gender identity. You are there as she grows to accept herself for who she is.
If you have ever heard anyone play Celeste, you would think it was the worst game in the world. You would see a player constantly die, over and over again at the exact same spot. You would hear swearing and complaining and the angry mashing of the A button because that has to be the problem. You would wonder why anyone even wants to play this game, let alone why, after so many failures, they would continue to insist on trying.
Celeste is on my list because I believe it is the game this decade that best exemplifies the idea that through struggles there is growth and through growth there is self-actualization. Looking back at my time with this game always makes me feel so good about myself. I think the most important thing about this game is that there are almost no in-game upgrades that change how Madeline plays at the beginning versus the end of the game. Madeline is, even at the end, just Madeline. It is my own accomplishments and achievements as the player that allowed me to complete the game. I did it. I faced the challenge, I got better, I succeeded. Though this mindset begins in the game, it is infectious and quickly pushed its way into the various other facets of my life. It is a mindset I continue to try to adhere to.
The game didn't give me invincibility, or the ability to fly, or faster running, or farther jumping, it only gave me some strawberries and a couple dashes. I pushed those buttons. Nobody was going to hand me that victory. I beat chapter one. I beat chapter seven.
I got out of bed to beat depression, and the monotony of a life wasted by work. I looked inside myself to think about what mattered to me above all else, and I decided to make a change for the better.
I grew and achieved as a player. I got to the summit. I beat the Core B side. I beat the hotel C side. I struggled for those golden strawberries. I beat the final room of Farewell. I never gave up, even if I needed to take breaks - even if I never achieved everything (looking at you Moonberry).
I looked inside myself. I prioritized my life, I made time for the people that mattered to make the memories that will last. Even when the days were sad, even when the days were tough I never gave up. It's not perfect, it's never going to be perfect, but it's progress. With progress you only move up.
Madeline made it to the summit, but I climbed the mountain.
NieR: Automata
2017 (Played 2019)
The first game to make me emotional about a video game.
I'm not a crier when it comes to games and movies. Some are, that's fine. I'm not.
But this damn game, what a masterpiece. The most beautiful game that I will never. Play. Again. The closing section of the game is burned into my memories. Somewhere between 9S and A2 lying in a pool of each other's blood, 9S maniacally stabbing 2B over and over again since he has fallen in love with her, and 2B sexually straddling 9S's infected body as she chokes him to death. Somewhere in there. Maybe it's next to the part where you fight the CEO of Platinum Games in the coliseum, or stuffed in the back with Weight of the World looping on repeat. Hmmm.
This was the first game that got me to think beyond the game. Beyond just the feeling of entertainment slicing robots. Beyond the characters and how invested I was into desperately trying to have their stories end happily. Beyond the crushing difficulty which stopped me in my progression time and time again. Beyond the game itself as a disc in a box that starts when I turn the console on and ends when I power it off.
NieR: Automata needs at least 3 full play throughs before one can reach "the end", and each of those runs made me step more and more outside of my comfort zone. The first time through as 2B, I just hack and slash and kill enemies, because I'm a sexy robot girl and games are fun and I just want to progress to see what the ending is so I can move on to the next game. Some stuff happens in the story - it doesn't quite add up but eh, it's a sequel so maybe I missed something from the first game, whatever. I beat up some baddies, the game throws a plot twist on me about aliens but I don't really care because I had forgotten about the aliens anyway - I'm killing robots, not aliens remember? Then the game finishes - but not really - and I'm pretty satisfied with it. It lets me know I can play it again, but this time as 9S. Okay, cool.
But instead of the game starting with me in the flight suit shooting down baddies, I'm playing as a little robot. The game gives me this weak, defenseless character and makes me suffer for 5 minutes as I clumsily carry a bucket to my dying brother - not like it matters - he's dead. Here I start to notice that the game isn't quite as shallow as I once thought. Now that I'm here killing these robots again as 9S, and knowing what I know about the end of the game, I begin to disagree with 9S's methods and how he constantly dismisses the growing number of red-flags suggesting that my mission to save the world is not what it seems. The game doesn't care through, because it didn't make me play this second time. I chose to play like this. I killed these robots. They had brothers. They are defenseless and weak. I did this. I am the monster. The game says killing innocent robots didn't matter because it's just a game right? The game calls me out for sexualizing 2B and I feel bad because I think it's right. I'm still having fun, I guess?
Then I play a third time, because after I finished the second run the game plays a game preview trailer-like-thing for NieR: Automata enticing me to play once more. Yeah, the game plays an in game trailer for itself. What. Now it's a run through route C as A2 and things start to really get wacky.
The game changes my active character back and forth. 2B. 9S. A2. 9S. The game slowly unravels. The paint peels off the walls, the curtain is pulled back. This story has happened before. It will always happen again. 9S will discover terrible secrets about his organization and his role in furthering a twisted agenda. 9S will know too much, 2B will kill him, as she is ordered to. 2B will stifle her emotions to prevent herself from grieving over the loss of the only person she has ever emotionally opened up to. A2 will fight, but A2 has been fighting for nothing. The game makes a madman out of 9S. The game kills 2B. I kill innocent defenseless robots. Robots kill robots. I think I'm still having fun, but I want to go back to route A.
There's a fanatical religious robot cult that believes they all will become gods by dying. There's a group of robot children committing mass suicide because they have learned about the concept of fear and, now that they understand it, are not strong enough to confront it. I'm beginning to feel concerned, I'll even accept going back to route B at this point. I frantically begin searching for Wikipedia articles about various philosophers. I read Nietzsche.
The game asks me to kill my robot friend or wipe his memory so that he does not have to go on living knowing that he caused a group of robot children to commit suicide. I kill my friends and my previous comrades because the game tells me I need to in order to get to the end. My character breaks down and cries. His friends are dead. His existence is meaningless. I'm not having fun anymore. I regret everything. I am a broken shell of a person.
The game asks me to basically kill myself as its final boss, defeat 9S as A2, and defeat A2 as 9S - and ultimately the game asks me to kill the game itself by shooting the credits. I am killed by Square Enix and the credits at least 15 times before help arrives. Players who finished the game before me, come to assist me with messages of encouragement. It's not all for nothing. I can do anything I set my mind to. Games are not just meaningless time wasters. Finally I beat the credits. Finally I finish the game. Finally the game asks me to conclude the journey by voluntarily sacrificing my save data to help other players, just as they have helped me.
I sat and debated this for a long time. I wondered out loud about what I had done to get to this point. I recounted the steps on my journey and tried to dissect if there was anything I could have done different - or done better.
I have something like 100 hours in the game.
I click yes.
It asks me to confirm that I want to do this, to sacrifice my own hard work to help a stranger whom I've never met. A person who may never do the same for me. Or a person whom I may meet one day and dislike. Knowing all this, would I still be willing to sacrifice the things I've worked so hard to gain, for the benefit of one person who may never even know I did anything for them? Am I going to go through with this?
I do, of course, because at this point, I'm fully on board with NieR: Automata. I get it, or at least I get what I believe the game is trying to tell me. There is a sweet sense of serenity and completeness as I delete my save file forever. I sit on a special title screen and brood over the concept of humanity and existentialism.
If there's one game you needed to play this decade, I would say this was it.
Honorable Mentions
To the Moon (2011)
Mario Kart 8 (2014)
Counter Strike: Global Offensive (2012)
Uncharted 4: A Thief's End (2016)
At this point I've spent way too much time writing, so I'm going to end it here for now. Software stuff soon, maybe next week.
Stay tuned!
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