Ep. 168 - Insert Credit GOTY 2020

esper

Ep. 168 - Insert Credit GOTY 2020

The only game of the year podcast willing to say, On Main, that VR isn’t video games, Sonic The Hedgehog The Movie is a game, and Dragon Quest XI came out in 2020. Original music by Kurt Feldman.

Alphabetical (Unranked) Nominees:

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim (09:39)
A Short Hike for Nintendo Switch (14:00)
Animal Crossing: New Horizons (18:18)
Blaseball (25:03)
Deadly Premonition 2 (28:45)
Demon’s Souls Remake (32:44)
Disc Room (37:02)
DooM 64 for Nintendo Switch (41:25)
DooM Eternal (46:10)
Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age - Definitive Edition (49:56)
Final Fantasy VII Remake (53:57)
GG Aleste 3 (01:01:01)
Hades (01:07:17)
Half-Life: Alyx (01:11:51)
Ikenfell (01:20:22)
Kentucky Route Zero: TV Edition (01:26:28)
The Last of Us Part II (01:30:14)
Spider-Man: Miles Morales (01:35:58)
Streets of Rage 4 (01:40:26)
Yakuza: Like a Dragon (01:45:27)

THE FINALIZED AND RANKED 2020 TWENTY:

Yakuza: Like a Dragon
A Short Hike for Nintendo Switch
Ghost of Tsushima
Demon’s Souls Remake
Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie
Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age - Definitive Edition
Final Fantasy VII Remake
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020
Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Hades
Kentucky Route Zero: TV Edition
Deadly Premonition 2
The Last of Us Part II
Spider-Man: Miles Morales
Disc Room
DooM 64 2020
DooM Eternal
Hyperspace Delivery Service for Nintendo Switch
GG Aleste 3
13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim

A SMALL SELECTION OF THINGS REFERENCED:

HEY, YOU!

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dylanfills

kory HD remaster were disqualified by default

Might I point you towards last year’s rankings?

esper DooM 64 2020

esper Demon’s Souls Remake

sleepynice

Haven’t been back here in a minute but had to return to say - great list! Brandon especially, I’d like to thank you for the heads up on Hyperspace, because that COMPLETELY flew under my radar and I’m a couple hours into it now, extremely my thing.

I wish I had a way of playing that Aleste collection :(

exodus

glad you’re enjoying hyperspace delivery service! it’s real cool!

Gaagaagiins

Hey, just wanted to ask a question, it seems that the survey is asking about interests other than videogames, is that correct? There are things other than videogames? Besides VR games, which aren’t videogames,

JoJoestar

Slight criticism over the last couple of episodes done using this format: I feel like they have been done in a way that the panel feels forced to give thoughts on stuff that either they haven’t played yet or they are not incredibly interested at. The result has shown I think in the guests zoning out and losing interest on the topic or just giving plain and bored (and honestly a bit boring) answers.

Examples of this would be Tim saying that doesn’t understand or appreciate horror during the Halloween podcast, Brandon saying that he doesn’t care about any of the games during the GOAT episode or Frank skipping over certain games in this one. This is in contrast with the PS2cular episode for example, which also used a similar listing format but was about a topic that had everyone on board and excited to comment.

So I guess my suggestion would be maaaaaybe tayloring these episodes to the tastes of the whole panel a bit more, or trying to select topics that get everyone invested in the future? My intention here is being constructive so please take no offense!

Syzygy

Nobody really cares [about brawlers] and then when people do it’s not super good

I have to point out again that Dungeon & Fighter, a brawler under ongoing development, is one of the highest-grossing video games of all time. With currently available sales data it’s narrowly edging out Mario and Pac-Man.

Frank is kind of wrong about technical details of the Kunio-kun collection and though it doesn’t matter to how it’s a great collection I’m a little curious where he heard that stuff from because they didn’t retranslate and the new translation of Downtown Special is done with emulator overlay hacks and cannot be extracted.

cubbienathan

I liked Streets of Rage 4 a lot! I have not really played that many brawlers in my life though so maybe that’s why I didn’t find it boring. But I thought the risk/reward of the i-frame moves combined with trying to get really big combos was pretty fun. Figuring out how the movesets work with all the different characters was good too, and I enjoyed the art. The enemies get kinda repetitive and I have mixed feelings about the bosses, but overall I really liked it and I was surprised you guys felt so negatively about it! It’s been one of my favorite “pick up and play” games this year

TracyDMcGrath

cubbienathan yeah I loved Streets of Rage 4. Thought the combat was real fun, the art and music are incredible, all the little extras were great. Can’t really think of anything I would want significantly changed.

exodus

cubbienathan I think the big issue for us was having played all the streets of rage games previously, many times throughout our lives, we all had a lot of ideas for what you could do to advance the series, and this game did very few new things, with a generic (sorry lizardcube) art style, and worse music, which made it just feel disappointing versus its potential.

@JoJoestar it’s a tough one because while I agree that this creates some dead spots, sometimes we have something to say about something we forgot about, or something we played but wouldn’t have nominated or etc - but that stuff can get a bit negative. Also Frank doesn’t play quite as many new games (or genres in general, he’s not a fighting game person) as Tim or I which means there’ll be some blank spots in there anyway - it’s a tough one to reconcile!

If you’re curious, here’s my list of games I played for over 1 hour.

Games I liked:
Yakuza like a dragon
deadly premonition 2
Hyperspace Delivery Service
Doom Eternal
Doom 64
Shinsekai into the depths (switch version, iOS version came out earlier)
short hike (came out on switch in 2020, I’m counting it, but we don’t have to)
sakuna of rice and ruin
sonic 2 (Sega ages - it’s low because it barely counts)
animal crossing (I didn’t play it but I watched my girlfriend play it which is basically the same thing)

games I played and had mixed feelings about:
13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim
samurai shodown neo geo collection (lol)
gunsport (lol x 2)
desolate roads (lol also)
paprium (it’s better than streets of rage 4 but has some weird homophobia-adjacent stuff)
Streets of Rage 4
ikenfell
nioh 2
spiderman miles morales
hades
the pathless
Disaster Report 4 (played the demo only)
mario 35
herzog zwei (sega ages)

games I played and didn’t like:
FFVIIR
Persona 5 Royal
bloodroots
panzer dragoon (I do have a lot to say about it though)
star wars squadrons
Ghostrunner
Resident Evil 3 (played the demo only)
genshin impact
going under
spelunky 2

antillese

exodus I think the big issue for us was having played all the streets of rage games previously, many times throughout our lives, we all had a lot of ideas for what you could do to advance the series, and this game did very few new things, with a generic (sorry lizardcube) art style, and worse music, which made it just feel disappointing versus its potential.

Remember how a few podcasts ago you said not to take your opinions so seriously all the time because they were your opinions? I’m throwing this opinion on that pile and respectfully ignoring it! Did you guys even play the same game that Kez , TracyDMcGrath and I played?? One of my first threads I wrote on the forum is about sequels and remakes shortly after Streets of Rage 4 came out. I (try to) argue that it obsoleted the previous games!

The combo system is dynamic enough to be understood by people who don’t play brawlers or fighters, but complex enough to be enjoyed by someone like me who plays fighting games at an intermediate level. I love it!

I think that the art style is quite strong. As far as the music goes, I bought the album and have had it on a pretty steady rotation since it came out. Call the Cops is one of my favorites and Down the Beatch is also incredible.

Overall, I feel like the game is intentionally designed to be played by a contemporary game-toucher vs being a throwback “hey, this is retro, buy it” on marketing alone. But hey, this is just like, my opinion, man!

sabertoothalex Odin Sphere remake was fun but I felt really tired of doing the combat by the end. It was just so long.

Completely agree here. I like Leifthrasir quite a bit, but it is a total slog.

JoJoestar

exodus I was trying to be careful on how I presented that post because I do think negativity has its space and worth, but in my personal experience it’s usually more interesting when, as you said, is directed at something and articulated from that perspective. The problem surfaces when you guys don’t care enough to say why or how you don’t care, if that makes any sense, which I feel has happened a couple of times in the last episodes. On the other hand, this is something that really goes along with a podcast as improvisational and free-form as this one, it’s basically impossible to always have something interesting to say about every topic, and I actually wouldn’t want to put that pressure on anyone. So please don’t take it too seriously, it’s just something that I think could be alleviated maybe without too much effort?

About your list of games I was surprised that you nominated Doom Eternal, I thought you didn’t like it! But maybe you just didn’t like how difficulty was presented (that was the context in which I read you talking about the game I think).

Doom 64 and Shinsekai are both up there for me too. I have discovered this year that I’m really into slow and chore-y games if the movement, which is what you spend the most time doing in those games, is in itself interesting, and that game nails that. SnowRunner was another one from this year that hit that spot for me.

I actually did a list similar to this one on the thread I made about that very topic: https://forums.insertcredit.com/d/458-the-subtle-joy-of-making-lists/39 (in case anyone is interested)

Lesmocon

I really didn’t like Deadly Premonition 2 so I enjoyed it becoming a mid tier punching bag and then having Last of Us 2 put directly under it, good bants.

GigaSlime

I started playing Yakuza: Like a Dragon a few weeks ago and loved it, but around 18 hours in I was really starting to get sick of the frequent piss-easy battles. I wish it either let you pick Hard Mode on your first playthrough (apparently it’s only available as a New Game+ deal like with FFVII Remake) or had something like Earthbound where you just automatically win battles with low-level enemies. I want to get back into it! I think when the PS5 version comes out I’ll give it another shot and uh, just use the auto-battle for most of the game, lol.

xhekros

GigaSlime Yeah, the low-level enemies get really annoying at the point that sometimes I couldn’t evade them and it kinda ruins the experience to me. There are so many great things about Yakuza: Like a Dragon that made the overall experience incredibly enjoyable, but this is a mistake I’ve seen in Kiwami (and probably is in other Yakuza games) and I think this is fixable and the only really bad thing about the game, but damn, this can get really frustrating sometimes.

yeso

GigaSlime seems obvious to me that they confine battles to the dungeon-like base-assaults they always do (like storming a clan office or millenium tower), story-connected street fights, and those ultra-intense boss fights. Are all the rote encounters meant to be padding? They cutscenes are long enough, noone’s getting shortchanged on game length.

crumble

glad to see you guys criticize animal crossing so severely… it was immensely disappointing to me, probably the second worst of the primary series (not counting the mobile game or spin-offs), ahead of the Wii one that virtually nobody played.

I am curious to play a lot of these games. aside from Animal Crossing, the only large-scale game I played this year was Death Stranding, and decent amount of random Switch stuff, like the various Doom games, etc. kind of strange to see Ghosts of Tsushima so high, but I know Tim is the only one that played it. I will probably grab it when it gets down to $20 or whatever.

everything i have heard and seen about Hades makes me very sure that I will not like it very much at all. I also don’t like the art style at all, and everything i’ve seen about the way people are talking about the characters does kind of gross me out a bit. idk.

edit: also amusing that Cyberpunk 2077 was not mentioned in this, even once. makes me all the more curious what Tim is going to say about it in his video.

yeso

yeah it’s difficult for me to distinguish between animal crossing as good game vs animal crossing the emotional comfort software arriving on the market at crucial time. Don’t mean to be unkind in that description. Just think there’s a trend of sort of videogame self-help app and perseverative affirmation of good values/politics via art/media. Not sure what to think of it good bad or otherwise but find it suspect.

yeso

could be that I’m just getting old (56)

Cheddahz

this episode solidified my decision to pick up doom 64 on my switch (i’ve never played it)

exodus

Re: Doom Eternal, here’s what happened - I previously got the name confused with doom 2016, which I did not like. OOPS.

I do feel like in our discussion of animal crossing we missed out on talking about how it wasn’t the best game, but it was the right game for the time, etc, and that was the overwhelming value it had. oops again!

OH, for you yakuza like a dragon-havers, I’m like 14 hours in and just got the ability to change jobs. I went and did it and my stats went down by about 25% because I was so leveled up, while giving me worse clothes, and apparently you need to buy new weapons per job?? And the benefit of each job is…!?!?!? It really extremely massively killed my motivation to continue, and in fact I haven’t touched it since.

So: should I change jobs at all, other than to get the demolition stat? is it worth it, knowing the end game is just me running around getting into annoying auto battles, etc? what would y’all advise here?

Lesmocon

exodus you don’t have to change jobs at all! Other than the demolition thing the fun of the job system is just balancing out your parties skills to complement each other. I didn’t start experimenting with jobs at all until I got to about two thirds into the game and you’re given an optional dungeon with a wink wink nudge nudge to do a bit of grinding cos a hard boss is coming up in the next part of the story, by that point it’s relatively easy to rank a job up to the point where it’s usable. A lot of the decent gear/weapons for the extra jobs is also given away as loot in this dungeon (otherwise you get a lot of money/high value items that respawn which you can sell), and most weapons can be applied to more than one job.

Also at the end of the game there’s an easy way to grind really fast for people who want to try out more jobs. Honestly Ichiban is such a decent all rounder I think you could leave him in Hero form with a mess of a party and still have most of your bases covered, but for me even in the late game as long as I had him and someone as an Idol for consistent healing I felt like I could have whoever/whatever I wanted in the other two slots.

Don’t feel pressure to do it early though, everyone’s generic job is fine! With the new characters added to the party past the original four I feel you’re encouraged to not change their job because they have unique skills by default that are very useful.

No help on the costumes though! Most of them are awful

Cheddahz

exodus i think yakuza: like a dragon is one of my favorite games of the year, but if you’re not into it at the point when you get the ability to change jobs…it’s probably best to hop off (and it doesn’t help that the later chapters don’t do a good job when it comes to leveling)

xhekros

exodus I think you can do that either way. I did and in the long term it didn’t affect me and I got some nice permanent abilities in my character for an exchange, but yes, you can either keep the jobs you are given or you can tweak some things and experiment. I did that early and for me it was fun to experiment.