The top 10 list for my personal favorite and most disappointing games of the year. To clarify, these are not the "best and worst" games of the year. They are titles I enjoyed or was letdown by based on my own preferences and expectations. Most of the titles on my disappointing list are not even what I would consider bad games, they just weren't for me or were not what I was expecting.
I have ordered the list based on my overall dissatisfaction (one being the most disappointing) with the games I played in 2020. Most of the games listed here will not be brand new 2020 releases. They are games I played in 2020 that were new to me.
See also, my Top 10 Favorite Games of 2020
The Atelier series of games are centered around the concept of running an alchemy based atelier with the core gameplay loop consisting of item collection and experimentation to create better recipes. Each new iteration in the franchise generally shakes the formula up enough to keep things fresh, but my experience with the Mysterious series has made me question future purchases. Both Sophie and Lydie & Suelle were somniferous. They felt like a checklist of tasks with no effort put in. Supposedly Gust needs to churn out new Atelier games to stay afloat financially, but I'm getting the impression its driven the development team to creative bankruptcy.
House Flipper is a simulation game about fixing and selling houses - tear down walls, repair walls, install new flooring, decorate, and sell the place at a profit. My disappointment stems mainly from how little there is to actually do in the game and how vacant the world felt, like the repairman is the last human left on earth, whiling away his time repairing houses to sell to the same set of imaginary buyers. I was also really looking forward to the moon base, only for it to be full of awkward hallways and tiny rooms. Unless you're really into the house decorating aspects of the Sims, you'll likley get your fill of House Flipper after just a few hours of play.
I was never a huge fan of tactical RPGs, but after falling in love with Three Houses last year I have been trying to get into them more. In Brigandine the player chooses from one of six nations with the goal of conquering the other five using powerful "Rune Knights" and their summoned monsters. The troop customization has a lot of depth between gear, class upgrades, and monster teams, but the battles are slow and repetitive. The first three or four turns are spent just moving units within striking range of each other. I finished one nation and had little reason to return.
Like with Brigandine I was interested in trying out more tactical RPGs. Thea is more of a tactical survival game than an RPG, with a focus on resource gathering and settlement building. NPCs are assigned tasks within the settlement or sent out to survey the world, neither of which are safe from attack or perma-death. There is a lot of equipment to manage and the battle system is an unusual card game-type system with a bit of a learning curve. It was tedious to manage and I had no reason to return after finishing the game once with a bad(?) outcome.
Plague Tale isn't a bad game at all, I just set my expectations way too high after seeing all the glowing review scores it received. The story follows mid-14th-century French nobles Amicia and Hugo as they struggle to survive a rat plague in a beautifully bleak world. Most of the time the player will be sneaking past soldiers or using objects in the environment to get past hordes of rats. It's silly, but I became rather annoyed with how much of a (realistically) fussy child Hugo was and developed an irrational dislike of the two orphans. It felt like the two them were the grim reaper bringing death to everyone around them:
- Lambert, along with the other servants, are killed getting the de Rune family to safety.
- The orphans watch Father Thomas get eaten by rats without ever trying to bring him the torch.
- Arthur dies saving the orphans from Nicholas.
- Rodric sacrifices himself getting the orphans to the gate.
I also wasn't too crazy about the weird twist near the end: mind controlled rats brought on by a disease? And rat-nados?
Set in early 20th century Britain amidst the deadly Spanish flu pandemic, the story follows Jonathan E. Reid, a military surgeon turned vampire. The game was marketed as having gameplay that would tear Reid between his Hippocratic Oath and his bloodthirsty nature while promising the player would be under no obligation to kill to finish the game. However, Vampyr's difficulty setting is tied directly into how many people the player kills, so some players might have to kill even if they don't want to. By draining humans the player gains skill points and new abilities that make the game easier, and in turn have an effect on the story through the friends and family members of the deceased person - or at least that was what was advertised.
I like the idea but I don't think it panned out in practice. During my playthrough I hadn't drained a single person and yet important NPCs, including ones I had yet to meet, died mysteriously. I was also under the impression (from the advertising) that Vampyr would be more of a narrative focused game. Its not that I didn't know there would be combat, I just wasn't expecting there to be so much of it. The game also suffers from ludonarrative dissonance in that only the handful of named NPCs matter when killed. You can bite and drain as many of the unnamed thugs wandering the streets as you like without consequence.
Loosely based off of the Metro books, 2033 is a linear shooter set in a post-apocalyptic Russia where most of the survivors of a nuclear war have retreated beneath the earth, settling in the Metro system. The Metro series is spoken of very highly, especially the combat and atmosphere, so I went in expecting something great. Instead I encountered wonky AI, an unreliable checkpoint system, and a world of browns and greys (typical of the 2000s). 2033 also has a retro feel to it, like the levels were created first and then vague story elements were constructed to tie them all together; very cut and dry, and not terribly deep. This one either hasn't aged well or I need to read the books to understand the game.
The player character is a hunter that has been reincarnated as a deer for the sin of eating meat. You move left or right and leap over platforms whilst avoiding other animals. There are also boss battles, quests, and a hunger meter to manage. I don't know what I expected from this or why I was so let down. I knew Deer God was part of a genre I didn't care for, but I picked it up anyway. Visually it looks like a standout indie title, but the gameplay is just so gosh darn dull.
A great remake for fans of the original rather than newcomers to the series (like me). It stays very faithful to the original and as a result lacks all of the innovations and sleekness of newer games in the farming sim genre. Mineral Town is a great time killer with a cute aesthetic, but it feels every bit like an older title with a new paint job. Too minimalist and dated for my liking.
Another popular game I just don't get the hype around. Trails of Cold Steel is basically a social essay about a fictional country - one that takes far too long to introduce Erebonia to the player. There are seven chapters in total, but it isn't until chapter 4 that all the major players have assembled and the story starts to move forward. At its core the plot is probably only 15 to 20 hours long, padded out into a 60 to 80 hour game. It's a slow burn. I have heard that the Trails in the Sky and Crossbell series set up the world better, but I really shouldn't have to invest 60+ hours into six different games from two series to understand the lore of Trails of Cold Steel, itself a four parter.
Next Year - Top 10 Games of 2021
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