Coint and Plick 2021, a casual/low-commitment discussion thread

liked:
unsighted - hyper light drifter with zelda dungeons & metroidvania-esque exploration. end result is a masterpiece, everything in this game is fantastic. also has a time mechanic that's nowhere near as intimidating as it seems and you can just turn it off if it bothers you.
death's door - basically just a 2D zelda game except actually good, excellent all-around
axiom verge 2 - some of the best exploration in any metroidvania i've ever played, excellent use of a two-worlds mechanic
inscryption - suffers a little because the initial section is the most compelling gameplay-wise, so all the twists & turns. looking forward to the update that's in the works focused on that first section
astalon tears of the earth - very solid metroidvania
super mario 3d world & bowser's fury - adding online + slightly speeding up the already-best mario game made it even better, bowser's fury was a fun bonus
metroid dread - finally they made a 2D metroid feel decent to control, generally solid
loop hero - this was entertaining for a while even if it's a little shallow & very easy to completely break before too long

didn't like:
chicory - a lot of the puzzles in this game revolve around 3D platforming & manipulating the positions and heights of platforms in 3D, but it's from a very flat 2D perspective without even the usual sort of shadows and colours that would help you to understand the perspective in 2D (because of the colouring-in gimmick) so the perspective was often very difficult to follow. those two aspects just did not fit together at all.
ender lilies - this got a ton of positive attention so i was shocked at how terrible it was to actually play. extremely tedious combat that completely fumbled its attempt at '2D dark souls'. levels were not fun or interesting to explore.
death's gambit: afterlife - solid dark souls-ripping metroidvania for a while but eventually resorts to bad gimmick levels where i got sick of it.
the good life - lacks the same charm as deadly premonition and leans so hard into its terrible tedious fetch quests. backed this on kickstarter or whatever ages ago and mildly regret it

oh also didn't like:
nier replicant - i was not expecting this to be anywhere as good as automata but people still talk up the character writing in this game as being incredible and it's just... ok? gameplay is dreadfully uninteresting and repetitive, made worse by the 'play the second half of the game three times to get the true ending' structure which does not do anything anywhere near interesting enough to justify itself, it's just tedious padding.

older stuff i liked:
star wars jedi fallen order - fun action-adventure drawing on dark souls/sekiro-esque combat (though nowhere as punishing) & some zelda-ish puzzles
ai: the somnium files - maybe the best uchikoshi vn actually, better than any of the zero escapes.

In 2021 I liked:
Demon's Souls remake - looks and performs beautifully, interesting to excavate a souls game where the levels are brutal, checkpoint-free slogs but the bosses are mostly cannon fodder to the average grizzled souls veteran. Guess I gotta psych myself up to get through the 4-4 bastard grim reapers and invisible assassins cave before Elden Ring drops

Crusader Kings 3: a bunch of my daughter's husbands kept tragically dying and it belatedly turned out she was murdering them for a laugh and doing loads of witchcraft type shit on the side. I made her become a nun and she seemed really grateful and positive about it, fingers crossed

Spider-Man Miles Morale: fun, breezy if slightly insubstantial jaunt, made me want more

Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous - enjoyed Kingmaker, this seemed like a scaled up version with satisfying, smooth implementation of the TTRPG system,yet to go back after an enforced break from playing it because of a kitten who eats wires and tapdances on keyboards, through no fault of the game really. My guy rides a horse everywhere, even into areas where that would be ridiculously impractical or extremely rude

Assassin's Creed Valhalla: looks beautiful, for people from the Midlands it's hilarious having people be giving it large like I AM THE TRUE KING OF TAMWORTH or whatever, "this game is made by a team of diverse backgrounds and beliefs...uh excuse me Eivor did NOT kill civilians while he was burning and desecrating the pathetic degenerate churches of the English", surely the core gameplay loop won't become dismally repetitive after five more hours

Guardians of the Galaxy: looks pretty, story stays engaging, fairly likable/organic depiction of constant banter between vaguely annoying people, a hard tightrope to walk

Lost Judgment - too grim and incoherent for me, finally sick of the janky combat system but I also don't really like the rote Like a Dragon JRPG combat so what now :/

Maybe just give me a breezy Sugiura-kun spinoff where he confounds a succession of burly assailants with free-flowing parkour and a cheeky smile

Also played a fair bit of Age of Sigmar on Tabletop Simulator over the summer, but then they said some outrageously offensive shit about trans ppl so fuck them, I'll paint real high elves

Valheim: 10 hours during a week off in Feb. Lovely but had to get the fuck out of dodge before it fully took hold and ruined my life

NPC of the year: Hitman 3 Berghain barman trying to blow the whistle on unsafe working conditions but too eckied to speak a coherent sentence

Oh I also played Cyberpunk for like five hours but barely remember anything about it. Deathloop is also sitting unplayed on my steam account, I guess my brain just knows first person games are shit and refused to be fooled now?

top of my head maybe Persona 5 Strikers is the only 2021 game i've had a go at, and i don't like it cos it's not really Persona, but on the other hand i'll end up persevering because at least it's a little bit Persona

according to my spreadsheet I only played 3 games from 2021 --

Down in Bermuda: Hidden Folks meets beginner-level escape room puzzles. Short. I liked it.

Bonfire Peaks: Block-pushing puzzle game with PS1-era graphics and something like Resident Evil tank controls. Looks good but I haven't gotten far.

Metroid Dread: Not the most original Metroid game (that's Super Metroid) but maybe the best? MercurySteam listened to criticisms of their past games and they leveled up. Samus Returns had a counter system that was too powerful. This one makes the counter powerful at the beginning but then gives you better weapons that largely replace it. Samus Returns didn't have many quiet or creepy sections. This one has a ton of them.

Great mix of exploration and light horror. I played Super Metroid for a bit at the same time and I was shocked at how quickly that game progresses. You get like 10 suit upgrades in the first hour.

selected older games --
La-Mulana Remake and La-Mulana 2: i love how indie developers can make crazy games like these. my favorite discovery of last year.

A Short Hike: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ one that I will definitely replay.

Kyrandia trilogy: interesting how requiring the player to make their own map is a fun exercise that's included in many low-difficulty games, but harder games assume the player has done that already and bypasses it. Games 1 has too many trial and error puzzles to recommend. Game 2 is a classic point and click. Game 3 does some interesting things with non-linearity, having you stuck on an island and giving you around 5 different ways to leave it, which you have to do twice. But #3 is also butt ugly and returns to the trial and error headaches.

Octodad and Overcooked: great couch coop games that anybody can play.

I think 2021 was pretty strong for me, with three titles that I felt were all worth evangelizing for (and which was why I was keen on doing C+P this year). All three are indies, which may be an inflection point for me -- perhaps I'm finally coming around to the idea that AAA offerings are variations on the same theme (i.e. ergo kinda boring), and that I can't really use critical consensus as a guide to finding games I might like? (I dunno, there've been plenty of indie critical hits that didn't connect with me to the same, breathless degree as other people.)

Anyway:

1. Chicory: A Colorful Tale
Wins for its adorable aesthetics (it's super-twee but I guess I was extremely receptive to its wholesomeness last year) and its forgiving puzzling. The cherry on top is its story about self-care, though the endgame dives into the psychology of burnout in a way that actually felt exhausting to endure. (Maybe TLOU2 drained my stores of empathy?)

TLDR: Game made of hugs

2. Wildermyth
Tactical strategy married with generative storytelling -- which is a very engrossing combo. The combat might actually be a little too easy on the default difficulty (though one of the group I play with is REALLY into tactical strategy games and loves Wildermyth for its combat), but it definitely scratches that strategy itch, and some of the story lines have some real heft to them -- though only within a specific event. Its generative storytelling is IMO very limited, because long through-lines over the course of a whole campaign aren't really handled with much (if any) complexity. Still, combining these two things is really intoxicating in a novel way: having your decisions influence character as they grow in both storyline and stats.

TLDR: Spreadsheet: The Story

3. Death's Door
I think similar to Chicory, this game won me over with its bright art style, since I've become allergic to the grim grittiness of From games -- but apparently not necessarily because of the challenge! Because Death's Door is hard, and it knows it is, so the developers added pretty good QOL touches to let you immediately dive back into a difficult section/boss fight.

TLDR: Dark Crows

Also played a bit of Into the Breach which is HARD but addicting.

by conventional coint & plick rules, only 2 eligible games this year.
other than those, the only standout was 13 Sentinels which would easily have been my 2020 goty: it's a hybrid visual novel / tower defense rts, the gimmick being an intentionally convoluted plot intended to keep the player guessing at all times. there are multiple interlocking characters/storylines to pick from, with some gating to prevent spoiling the whole thing by maxing out a single story. the 2d art in the VN parts is gorgeous

actual 2021 games:

Virtua Fighter eSports: a barebones PS4 port of VF5FS with identical gameplay and a graphical overhaul (for the worse imo) but it's VF. being free on PS+ meant that for a few weeks finding a steady stream of online matches was trivial. the random (?) match replay playback in the main menu is godlike, easily the best new feature from this version. would easily have been my goty except...

Shin Megami Tensei V: ...this finally came out, music and sound in general is excellent, i was dreading of the open world design but it was actually enjoyable for the most part (it's thankfully not that open and not that big a world), and has several quality of life improvements over nocturne as has been the trend with recent megaten games.
it's too early for me to tell if i prefer it to nocturne overall but it more than lived up to expectations, goty 2021

I forgot, other games which I played the hell out of:

- Wordle (probably needs no explanation)
- New York Times Spelling Bee (see Tomtit in the tilth -- the NY TIMES SPELLING BEE thread)

Just wanna throw my rec in for The Forgotten City, unfairly dissed by polyphonic upthread. Calling it "a Skyrim mod" obscures the fact that the game was built from the ground up in Unreal with different assets/setting/characters/story from the original mod, which is more like a proof-of-concept now. The game is really fucking good and the only complaints I have with it it are the goofy facial animations and the not-great combat segments, and both of these are minor. This game is seriously worth your time if you're interested in narrative-focused games with a strong sense of place.

just looked that up and i'm v interested

disco elysium was the only big newish game i played last year. i think it's a 2020 game technically but new on switch and some other platforms in 2021. i loved it.

i also want to shout-out tux and fanny, which i mentioned on one thread but don't remember which one. not very long but lots of weird fun with kind of a frog fractions vibe

i played a lot of dragon quest xi until i got stuck in the gold dungeon

zchyrs, does Forgotten City have an option to go into 3rd person POV?

No, it's strictly 1st person. The movement speed is also pretty quick. Might not be great if you're prone to motion sickness.

Just wanna throw my rec in for The Forgotten City, unfairly dissed by polyphonic upthread.

haha it does seem cool I just do not enjoy that kind of game. The acting in the early game was solid.

No, it's strictly 1st person. The movement speed is also pretty quick. Might not be great if you're prone to motion sickness.

I was interested in this, but first person is a dealbreaker bc yeah motion sickness sets in within 20-30 min. Same with Sea of Thieves, which I tried but just couldn't physically play. Which is weird bc I def didn't have this problem when I was younger

Maybe not such a bad thing if it helps whittle down game choices though

love the title of this thread

My Playstation Wrapup finally compiled and my most played games of 2021 were:

Subnautica, 87 hours
Very engrossing survival crafting game, also pants-wettingly scary at times. I sort of stumbled into 100%ing this.

Disco Elysium, 40
I ended up liking it eventually, but I'm kind of done with the game for a good long while.

Civ 6, 31
I think I only played this for couple weeks before I realized I had a problem.

Chicory, 19

Frostpunk, 17
Resource management x survival, strangely more forgiving than Civ.

Spider-Man Miles Morale: fun, breezy if slightly insubstantial jaunt, made me want more

Oops, I forgot we played this. Definitely enjoyed it. Thought it was interesting that there are next to no boss fights throughout, but didn't really find myself missing them. Super minor thing, but I liked how Miles' bedroom becomes a bit more personalised as the game goes on, just as he gains more confidence and recognition as his own Spider-Man through the story, a nice little touch. Generally felt Miles' personal life/day-to-day existence was a lot more filled out than Peter Parker's in the first game.

Guardians of the Galaxy: looks pretty, story stays engaging, fairly likable/organic depiction of constant banter between vaguely annoying people, a hard tightrope to walk

Pretty much this. Drax's lines do most of the the heavy lifting on the banter/humour; I'm actually surprised that his literal interpretations of everything have stayed amusing throughout the game. I really appreciate that the game doesn't divert with side quests and unnecessary item collection. Voice acting is pretty good on the whole, Mantis stands out in particular here. Big arena-type fights can drag on for too long, but the team coordination aspect seems to work okay.

I've also been playing Death's Door, which I really like - love the music, monster variation, level design, Zelda callbacks/ripoffs, the Spirited Away-ness of the urn witch, and just whole overall vibe - but I'm anticipating a point where it becomes too difficult for me (probably sooner rather than later). I've made it through the bosses/minibosses after 3-5 tries in most cases but it doesn't seem like level-ups will be offered at a fast enough rate to make up for my lack of skills/patience and propensity to panic when facing bucketloads of monsters at once

Some more things that start with G:

Ghost of Tsushima Iki Island DLC: okay C&P purists might balk at putting DLC on the list but this is half-assed/casual C&P so idc, and also this DLC is substantial. The new island is fairly large with some really incredible landscapes/vistas. Was a bit disappointed that it doesn't have the same level of bond-building with allies as the original/full game, but the dynamics/tensions between Jin and the new characters are compelling enough.

Genesis Noir: a couple weeks ago I wrote this:

The graphics are unlike anything I've seen in a game, really stunning imo. Gameplay is I guess what is called 'gentle', but mixed with a lot of disorienting or trippy dream-like movement: camera zooms in or out, things get bigger or smaller, scenes or objects morph from one thing to another. I don't know if the story will amount to much but it's so nice to look at that I can give it a pass on that, probably.

The 'story' is basically tracing the big bang through to the end of the universe, sort of, I guess? It kind of works up until the last 'level', which is too disjointed from the rest of the game's style and story and drags on way too long. Enjoyed it on the whole though, and still recommend it (or at least watching a couple video walkthroughs) purely for the style/art direction

every time C+P comes around i wish ILG would do rolling (year) threads for new releases instead of sequestering all new game talk to the whatchu thread or the console threads.. idk if people would use that but. it would be cool imo

yeah i considered making one in '18/'19 when i was keeping up with new releases but now i'm back to being 2 years behind again. i could post about stuff that looks cool but i haven't played yet..

everyone likes all yr posts cider, you should just do it!

Having a baby left me a lot of time to play games. Have a toddler has left me... probably more time to read ILG than to actually play games.

My fave new(ish) game this year was A Short Hike, which seems to the only game learned from BOTW and done **something different** with it. It's lovely. I want to recognise how wonderful the tone is, too, and how difficult it is achieve to the "right tone": it's cute but never twee, funny but never arch, elegant without being pretentious, and there's a clear story, but it never gets in the way of the gameplay. It's an impressive balancing act.

My main gaming realisation this year was: I will never enjoy games with too much dialogue, even if the inbetween-dialogue bits are good. (Thimbleweed Park might be a recent exception.)

My main disappointment was: still no Wind Waker on the Switch. But I wouldn't have had time to play it anyway!

I've also been playing Death's Door, which I really like - love the music, monster variation, level design, Zelda callbacks/ripoffs, the Spirited Away-ness of the urn witch, and just whole overall vibe - but I'm anticipating a point where it becomes too difficult for me (probably sooner rather than later). I've made it through the bosses/minibosses after 3-5 tries in most cases but it doesn't seem like level-ups will be offered at a fast enough rate to make up for my lack of skills/patience and propensity to panic when facing bucketloads of monsters at once

The endgame does get frustrating at times but generally is doable. Note: I haven't reached the true endgame yet.