Media Journal: Best Games of 2020

It's become a yearly tradition for me to put together a Best Of The Year list for the media I enjoyed in that year. And goodness knows, this is a year when a lot of us needed media to get thru the year. Movies, shows, videogames, and comics helped me get thru a really difficult time, and some of them have become my new favorites.

This is the third of three best of the year lists to be posted this week. For all three lists, any media is eligible, regardless of what year it came out.

There's a lot of games on this list that I played and loved but didn't finish. There's also a lot of many-way-ties on this list. 2020 was a year in which escapism via video game was extremely important to me, so it only felt right to represent the games I played this year appropriately.

 

1) Sayonara Wild Hearts

This was a game I needed to play this year. I actually tried it on Apple Arcade in 2019, thought it was okay but that the controls were a little tricky, then put it down halfway thru. This year, I tried it on Switch, blazed thru it in a single sitting, loved it, played it again the next day. It hit different this time.

Sayonara Wild Hearts advertises itself as a pop album you can play. It is a lot of things, but gameplay-wise it is mostly in the style of an endless runner, with occasional segments that mix things up a bit. Sayonara Wild Hearts is also a superhero story, a magical tarot-infused dimension-hopping journey, a game about a protagonist who appears to be nonbinary or genderfluid in some way, and - most importantly - a story about loving yourself, even when it's hard.

Each group of levels has the player character go up against one or more of the protagonist's exes. But this game wasn't just important to me because I went thru some difficult breakups this year. In 2020, I struggled pretty hard with anxiety and depression, and this message of revolutionary self-love was something I needed to be reminded of. It is a magical musical experience. The songs are pretty damn good too.

 

2) Super Mario 3D World

I was up to my ears in Mario stuff this year (more later on in this list). But the game that delighted me the most, I played on a whim on Wii U at the beginning of the year. Super Mario 3D World easily supplants Super Mario Odyssey as my favorite Mario game of all time. The game is creative, colorful, fun, and deeply addictive. The bonus worlds were way too hard for me, but I've got another chance to take them on when the game comes to Switch in 2021, which I couldn't be more excited for.

 

3) Hades

Positions 3 and 4 on this list are two of the only games here that came out in 2020, and they're on everybody else's Game of the Year lists too. I just don't tend to play too many games in the year they're released, unless they're Nintendo games. The only 2020 triple-A game I tried this year was Marvel's Avengers, which left me super disappointed. I do have a hell of a backlog to dig into next year, tho.

So, Hades. I'm one of the many people who played this game despite not really liking roguelites. And yet I found myself obsessively playing this game for several weeks until I was able to beat the final boss. The game's Greek mythology definitely doesn't hurt; I'm a sucker for Greek mythology, and the gods' and heroes' depiction in this game are fun and vibrant.

Mostly, I want to highlight just how fun this game is to control. Each of the six weapons behaves slightly differently, especially once you start unlocking their alternate forms. But all of them are very responsive, flashy, and powerful. Even on runs when I didn't get very far into the game, I had a lot of fun playing as Zagreus.

I do think it's worth noting that I wouldn't have played the game nearly as much - or maybe at all - without the smart structure of unlocking more things as you continue thru the game. More dialogue choices with characters, more aesthetics for your home base, more powers to play with, and even more romance options to pursue. It hits the 100% completion urge I have with some games, and it also means that regardless of skill level, just by playing the game long enough you'll get better. There's a futility to roguelites that I always struggle with - it's why I've never made it past World 1 of Spelunky - but Hades, despite taking place in Hell, doesn't have that. There's always a new toy to play with.

 

4) Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Believe it or not, for a long time I wasn't sure if this would make my GOTY list. It just felt a little too basic. Like, of course Animal Crossing: New Horizons was a good game. Everybody played it, I was obsessed with it for about three months in the spring, but we all moved on eventually. Could I really call it Game of the Year material?

Every so often I kept coming back to the game to poke at it, but when the snow hit and the winter holidays came around, I got hooked back in again. Maybe it's just cause I really miss snow, or because I've been stuck in my house so long that I missed fashion and style and wanted to try out some new looks among some virtual friends. It definitely helped, too, that Animal Crossing let me hang out with my partner, who finally got a copy of the game.

There's a ton of people who've made extremely impressive islands, terraforming everything so that their town looks absolutely perfect. I'm a bit more rugged than that, kind of taking things as they come. But Animal Crossing: New Horizons has been a wonderful place to express myself. I've found it's nice to just hang out on the island doing chores cause I get to do it in a cute outfit and a pink haircut.

 

5) TIE: Hitman 2 / The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild /
Grand Theft Auto V / Batman: Arkham City / Calico

Yeah, position 5 is a five-way tie, and our first tie of the list. There's a lot of ties, so... strap in.

For a long time, I couldn't decide what would make the fifth position. Nothing stuck out at me as, like, "Yes, this is definitely the fifth-best game I played this year, for these reasons." I loved a lot of games, but there were plenty of games that I dipped into for hours, but never actually finished. Games to just lose myself in for a little while.

So that's what position 5 now is. The games that let me escape and let myself get totally immersed into another world.

Let's start with Hitman 2. I've actually been playing levels from Hitman 1, which are available in the (slightly updated) Hitman 2 engine. Hitman levels are a combination of playground, puzzle box, and just a neat place to hang out in and get to know all the nooks and crannies of. I've spent most of my time in Hitman this year getting to know a Parisian mansion hosting a fashion show, and an Italian mansion and the surrounding town that hide a secret laboratory. They've been fun and vibrant locations to master.

I never finished The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild when it first released in 2017. It's an intimidatingly large game. This year, I restarted my save, and came armed with maps and a strategy guide for when I got stuck. They've been a big help to me as I've slowly paved my way thru the game's wilderness. Hyrule is a beautiful world, but I've been glad to be slightly less literally lost in it this time around.

I don't have a ton of amazing things to say about the game design of Grand Theft Auto V. The writing is frequently racist and misogynistic, unfortunately. But I don't really play GTA V to interact with its story. I turn the game on to find a car and drive around a city for a little while - indeed, a fictional version of a city I've lived in. In 2020, that's a type of escapism I needed.

Batman: Arkham City is a game I've played more than once before, but this year I decided to buckle down and complete all of the secret Riddler challenges hidden within the game, and I just about managed it. I didn't get 100%, but I got pretty close, just enough to finish the mission that allows you to capture the Riddler. It was a nice way to get to know one of my favorite games just a little bit better. I tried the sequels for the first time this year too, Arkham Origins and Arkham Knight. They were alright, but I didn't like them enough to get very far. I'll probably try them another year.

Finally, Calico was a surprise release on Switch at the end of the year that I absolutely adored. It's a very simple little management sim about running a cat cafe. You do little missions for the nearby town, collect animals and furniture to put in your house, and even collect magic spells and potions. It's just the right blend of queer and magical that made me feel extremely at home.

 

6) Coffee Talk

There's been a few games in recent years that have taken very basic jobs and built an entire game around them. 2013's Papers Please was the first notable recent game to do so, in which you played a border crossing guard and checked people's paperwork. In 2016, VA-11 Hall-A followed, a game in which you play a bartender in a cyberpunk future. Now we have Coffee Talk, in which you play a barista in an alternate universe populated by fantastical creatures such as orcs, elves, and succubi. 

Having worked as a barista, this was the game of the three that made me feel the most at home, since I've basically done this job. Of course the game mechanics are much simpler than the drink recipes at Starbucks, but I appreciated the low-key atmosphere that pervaded this independently run coffee shop. I liked getting to know everybody, and help along their relationships and goals. I guess this was similar to Animal Crossing as a nice way to experience some semblance of regularity and kindness in a year so devoid of it.

 

7) TIE: The Pirate's Fate / Return of the Obra Dinn

What can I say? This was a good year for pirates, apparently. I also rewatched the entire Pirates of the Caribbean series. I guess I was just kind of in a mood.

The Pirate's Fate is a visual novel in which you play a lioness who gets adopted into a small pirate crew. As you explore the world for cursed treasure, you and your crewmates undergo various transformations, which change depending on your choices. I liked the characters a lot, I liked the transformations, and I appreciated that this game celebrated many different body types.

Return of the Obra Dinn is a landmark puzzle game (by the same designer as Papers Please, actually) in which you explore an abandoned ship to find out what happened to its missing crew of several dozen. Similar to Breath of the Wild, this intimidated me when it first came out, but I had a lot of fun working out the game's puzzles this year, which were more approachable than I'd expected. Still haven't finished the game, but maybe when I try it for the third time, I'll finally finish it.

 

8) TIE: Super Mario 64 / New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe /
Super Mario Bros. 35 / Lego Super Mario

This was also a really good year for Mario. After finishing Super Mario 3D World very early in the year, I decided I wanted to try some other Mario games, and this is what I came up with.

Super Mario 64 was released as part of a compilation on Switch halfway thru the year, and I've been slowly plugging away at its collectibles. It is a lot more awkward to control than I expected it to be, after all of the praise I've heard from this game over the last couple of decades. But even in its simple design, it's a strangely charming game. I've enjoyed slowly exploring to find all the secrets this game is hiding.

New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe (whew) is a Switch port of a Wii U game, and it is yet another release of classic style 2D Mario platforming. I barreled thru this game to play as much as I could, but ended up getting tired of it about halfway thru. It's generally fun, but the game can be very difficult and frustrating to control.

Super Mario Bros. 35 was a special anniversary game released for Mario's 35th Anniversary Celebration this year. It takes one of my favorite games, Super Mario Bros. 1, and makes a party game out of it by turning it into a battle royale in which you and 34 other players send enemies to each other to try to eliminate each other and be the last person standing. This was a very fun remix, and way better than Nintendo's last attempt at this format, Tetris 99.

Finally, a word about Lego Mario. Thanks to the next item on this list, I realized that Lego was something I was missing from my life. I picked up a couple of small sets to create a little interactive diorama of a very Super Mario Bros. 1-esque level, complete with nearly every major enemy from that game, plus a couple extras. Building, playing, and re-designing this level was a lot of fun; Nintendo really did a clever thing by making not just Lego sculptures, but little building kits that let you re-design levels as much as you like.

 

9) Nintendo Labo

"Okay," I said to myself just a month or two before the pandemic began and lockdowns started happening. "I think it's about time for me to finally try this Labo thing." I already made a huge long Christmas post about every toy that's been released for the line so far. But regarding the kits themselves, I'll just say that I usually got more fun out of building these things than playing with them. It reminded me of growing up with Lego kits, and getting really excited about the instructions and how the kits were put together.

I guess the biggest downside is, now I have to find a place to store all this cardboard. But hey, for all the hours of fun I've gotten out of these things, super worth it.

 

10) TIE: Tetris Effect / Just Shapes & Beats

Here's two games that involved a lot of muscle memory and getting into the flow of things. They're also both beautifully designed.

Tetris Effect is surprisingly difficult as a Tetris game. By the time you're just a few levels in, the Tetris blocks are coming in fast. But I don't really play this game to beat it. I play it to become enraptured once again by the insane audiovisual experience this game has to offer. I'm reminded of Thumper as a similar example of, like... just an insane amount of work that's been put into the music and visuals, not to alter the gameplay at all, but just to make the experience that much more powerful. No wonder both games work so well as VR experiences.

Just Shapes & Beats is the kind of game that I play a few levels of, go away for a while, then come back and replay all the old levels and get just a little bit farther with a few new levels. It really functions as a playlist of old favorite tunes that I can come back to whenever I want. Still haven't finished it, but I really appreciated it this year, especially the level that manages to feel like a James Bond-esque heist despite being made of 2D geometric shapes.

 

11) TIE: Splatoon 2 / Super Smash Bros. Ultimate /
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe / Arms

These are the old favorite multiplayer-focused Nintendo games on Switch that I enjoyed returning to this year.

Once Nintendo announced that they were returning with the special monthly Splatfest events in Splatoon 2, I figured it was about time to get to work on the singleplayer campaign and DLC so that I could unlock the game's second playable character, the Octoling. I actually still haven't done so, but I'm over halfway there, and I have just a few more weeks until what could be the final Splatfest in January. This game just had a nice aesthetic to return to after a little bit of time away from it.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate continued to release new characters all throughout the year: Byleth from Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Min-Min from Arms, Steve and others from Minecraft, and Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII all joined the game. I'm extremely impressed by Sakurai and his team at Nintendo, who are continuing to actively support the game over two years into its release. Super Smash Bros. continues to be an event, and I enjoyed returning to this game and its single-player content all year.

I don't have much insightful to say about Mario Kart 8 Deluxe or Arms. I started working on getting every gold star in the 150cc races in Mario Kart, and completing each Arms character's campaign on a level 4 difficulty to unlock their special art. I just really enjoyed spending time with these games this year, and thought they deserved to make the list.

 

12) TIE: Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity / Lego Marvel Superheroes / Minecraft

These are all games I played with my partner this year; it was a nice way to spend time together.

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity is the only new game we played together this year. At only a few hours in, we're pretty impressed at the different movesets they've given the various playable characters. Some characters feel underpowered and some feel a bit overpowered, but we've both found favorites we keep returning to.

Lego Marvel Superheroes was a nice way to explore the Marvel universe together, in a year when I was digging deep into it for the Marvel Project (the results of which are also being published on this blog). Despite being released before the push for diversity that really started in earnest around 2014, the cast of characters available in the game is pretty impressive.

Finally, I had a good time in Minecraft this year, building a little house and farm together with my partner, who taught me how to play the game for the first time. And I was absolutely devastated when I accidentally erased the entire thing.

 

13) TIE: Picross S 1-3 / Ring Fit Adventure

Position 13 is a shout-out to the games that got me thru 2020 with some semblance of physical and mental health. These games helped me at a time when I really needed them.

I suffered from chronic anxiety and insomnia this year, and needed to find a game that I could play without having to really think about it, so I could take my mind off things. Picross was exactly the game I needed for that. It's a game that smartly teaches you how to play it, and slowly ramps up the difficulty curve to an impressive degree. I tore thru the first two games in the Switch series this year, and am already nearly halfway thru the third.

I was extremely lucky that my roommate acquired Ring Fit Adventure before they became very rare in the spring for obvious reasons. This is how my roommates and I attempted to stay somewhat physically healthy in a year where the three of us stayed mostly inside. It's a flawed game, but there's a good degree of customization that lets you personalize workouts however you want.

 

14) Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics

This was a nice little collection of games that Nintendo released partway thru the year. I had a lot of fun playing silly card games and board games with my roommates, with people across the country, and with myself. Easily the best minigame collection I've ever played.

 

15) TIE: Overwatch / Borderlands / Alien: Isolation / Civilization VI

Finally, a shoutout to ports of recent games that I played with on Switch this year. Multiplayer shooter Overwatch, single-player or co-op shooter Borderlands, sci-fi horror stealth Alien Isolation, and 4X strategy Civilization VI all were comforting and familiar games to play with this year, and it was nice to be able to play those wherever I wanted, even in bed or under blankets. This was a year where I really valued games that gave me comfort.