As you can probably tell (especially from the sub-lists), I played a lot of games this year. This is partly owed to the long-overdue computer upgrade I got last Christmas, which meant I could actually consider some higher-end stuff i'd usually viewed from afar; that said, I also went hard on my backlog in general, getting to some games I'd been putting off for ages.

While there isn't too much I can think to say about these ones besides "they're good," it's worth noting that in particular, Ring Racers, Lorelei, and Nine Sols were all games that I was extremely into, and basically devoured until I was done with them. (Well, to a certain level of done in the case of Ring Racers.) Also, like... there sure was a GOTY-candidate indie game released basically every week in May, huh??

And incidentally, while it's not on this year's list anywhere (since I made an exception for it way back in 2020 based on watching others play Part One), I also played Teardown for myself this year. Yeah that game rules.

It might seem like kind of an unusual inclusion, but I just thoroughly enjoyed this recreation of a DS game that was a fun novelty at the time and a Wii game I never played that seems to have been kind of mediocre in its original form. The presentation of everything is just wildly good; it feels like an incredible blessing that these games not only got any attention again, but could be rebuilt from the ground up, and even rewritten, to be the best version of themselves. If they someday do Hotel Dusk too, I'm on board.

I basically played this exclusively for two months, getting cherries on around 38 games (with a focus on the bigger ones) until Beastieball distracted me. And then I went back this month to finish the job. It's one of the only games I've played that doesn't make me feel too self-conscious about having an hour count well over 100 (and around 200, in fact) because, well, it's fifty. You could say it's pretty good, yeah.

As much as it might invite doing a sub-ranking of games, I'm not sure if I care to name favorites, really - the quality bar is just incredibly high. I love basically all of the Epic Play games in their own ways (even Combatants is goofy enough for me to only sort of qualify that statement), as well as many other save-less games like Barbuta, Mooncat, and Elfazar's Hat, and the rest range from great to at least okay (usually just brought down by being a little too punishing, even for regular completion).

I usually wait for Early Access games to hit 1.0 (sorry, Fields of Mistria), knowing that it's often hard for me to want to go back to games after a long break (sorry, Stardew Valley updates). However, I made an exception for Beastieball, since I love Wandersong and Chicory, and had the assurance that the story was complete already. I could see why some people would want to wait - every Beastie having the same quality of animations as the currently complete ones is an exciting prospect (though the placeholder art generally does its job), and there are still missing side events - but the important core is extremely already there, and I had a lot of fun recruiting 'em all (Not That Anyone Cares).

I'll put it this way: as someone who generally enjoys and still plays Pokemon games (as a single-player endeavor), yet can't fully get behind major parts of the specifics, now I never have to think about how I'd approach making a Pokemon-like of my own again. Because Beastieball basically found a smart spin on everything I found crusty or iffy about Pokemon. Like, of course you'd be a coach, recruiting Beasties for your sports team. Of course Beasties would offer to join you if you do something that impresses them. Of course losing should still give some experience, and just let you try again as long as you have the stamina... and so on. The creature designs are also generally really strong, and the story gets surprisingly more close to the vein of Wandersong/Chicory than I had expected from the format.

As part of my ability to consider more kinds of games as mentioned at the top, you might notice a certain genre creeping into this year's list. It's finally happened, everybody. She's finally obtained a taste for souls. (Of course, it's not like I haven't played games that clearly take elements from Souls, but, y'know. I played some 3D ones now.)

Sekiro: I was heavily considering this as a top "hey, I could actually play this now" game in the first half of the year, though didn't actually get to it until July. I'd watched people play quite a bit of Sekiro, and it looked fun as hell. Yet I had considerable trepidation about how well I'd be able to handle it myself, as I felt like I hadn't been great at parry mechanics in some other games (though I can't recall now which I was thinking of exactly, and I have played some stuff like Bayonetta). Though I planned to give it a shot by then anyway, playing Nine Sols and finding that I could handle the parries there helped a bit... and once I actually started, my worries came to feel foolish in a matter of hours. Phenomenal game that I had a surprisingly smooth time with, never getting stuck on one boss for egregiously long.

Lies of P: After playing Sekiro, this felt like a really good introduction to something closer to Dark Souls proper, that also features lots of smart systems and quality of life features of its own. And the story's more fun and well-done than I think anyone expected out of the premise back when it was first announced.

Stranger of Paradise: Calling this a "Soulslike" as some do feels like a stretch (says girl who's only seen Boss Baby), but I figure I should include it here at least. It's good fun, even if loot systems like this feel a bit silly - granted, since it also results in everyone wearing different random crap every cutscene, who can say if it's good or bad. And the story is surprisingly great in both a comedic and earnest way. This is the real FF16 to me.

Another Crab's Treasure: Not the deepest or most challenging game (it's awfully easy to get overpowered later on), but still a fun time. The parry felt pretty significant to making the combat more fun considering it's something you have to buy, though - good thing I honed in on it immediately.

In the future, I do want to play the actual Dark Souls trilogy (probably across next year), Bloodborne (If One Can Find A Way), and Elden Ring (probably not until my backlog's clear enough that I feel okay sticking to one game for that many hours). ...But you probably don't need me to tell you those are good, right?

I'd passed up this game before, dismissing it as a fairly plain farming game tacked on to an average RPG, but I was gifted it for Christmas last year, so I gave it a shot. And... it kind of both aligned with and significantly exceeded my expectations?

For a while, I thought I knew the scope of the game, and figured it was the kind of budget title that aimed to get as much as possible out of a limited number of areas. And that isn't really an inaccurate statement, except... the game keeps going with new areas way past where I thought it would end? And the story goes to a bunch of wild and fun places I hadn't expected? Sure, neither the farming nor the combat are especially worth writing home about, and the numerous sidequests are generally very basic trips from place to place, and yet I enjoyed the game so much as to keep playing to a level of completion beyond what I should have reasonably bothered with.

The TTYD remake is a very good recreation of a classic with some good additions of its own, but gets disqualified from the main list for being a remake. (Some crimes can never be forgiven. And yes Another Code sufficiently escapes that condition.) Sylvie's two big games this year (a bump-combat secret-finder and an inventive exploration platformer with an abstract story), Anthology of the Killer (very funny art about art), Master Key (a Zelda-style secrets game), and Another Crab's Treasure (crab Souls, you know this) are all great, but didn't quite make the main list for me given the high level of competition.

The rest are all perfectly good games that just felt a little lacking in some way. Pepper Grinder's neat, but it simply feels too short, with not a lot to it. Animal Well is interesting enough, but didn't impress me too much with its secrets or world. Bo has cool airborne combat mechanics, but is a pretty plain Hollow-Knight-alike in most other respects. And Kitsune Tails's gameplay didn't super compel me, though the few bonus Kaizo stages (while indeed few) were a highlight.