SNK 40th Anniversary Collection is one of the coolest, most fascinating video game releases out in 2019.
I've done a lot of gushing here, but Resident Evil 2 is the perfect sort of game for gushing. Much like the legendary REmake, this new version of a storied classic was lovingly crafted by people who not only have a collectively sharp eye for what makes an excellent video game today, but also possess a deep understanding of why the original Resident Evil 2 is worth revisiting and what made it a game celebrated to this day. This isn't just an old Resident Evil molded into the new Resident Evil formula. It's a new take on Resident Evil 2 that doesn't feel like it's trying to “modernize” or “fix” the original. It's more of an expensive, ludicrously polished tribute than a remake in the semantic sense, a project that has been in demand for years and quietly pursued for just as long. I'm glad it worked out so well.
Persona 5 is special, even more so for people who have been paying attention to this series for the past few decades. Just, you know, clear your calendar for a while.
By the end of Wolfenstein II; The New Colossus, I felt overwhelmed. It was a lot to take in, so much so that 15 hours felt like so much less. It was like going to a rock concert, riding a roller coaster, and reading a thinkpiece condemning the alt-right all at once. When I jumped in, I wasn't sure what to expect, especially with so much of the marketing playing up the comedic elements. What I got was more of what I liked in The New Order, but on a much larger scale, with ambitions that cared little for AAA conventions and comforts. Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus is a project that wears its heart on its sleeve, and that sleeve is on a bright yellow motorcycle jacket with a red devil on the back that is being worn by a Texan Terminator who finds great joy in hacking away at Nazi soldiers with a hatchet.
This is a massive game in both scale and cultural weight, one that wears its far-reaching subtitles as badges of pride.
Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2 is a superb sequel. It has everything that made the first game a surprise hit, but expands and adds to it with a level of care that shines through the whole thing.
By itself, 3D World is a game absolutely crucial for any Super Mario fan, and having it on such an appealing platform as the Switch is hard evidence that the hardware does matter. With Bowser’s Fury and little updates like online play, it makes this the definitive way to play one of Nintendo’s biggest and best individual platformers.
As part of the collection we’ve seen several releases of now, there’s nothing surprising here in terms of bells and whistles. Code Mystics’ emulation wrapper is awesome as usual, with all the different frames, visual tweaking and multiplayer options you’ll find in all the other ones. Perhaps most importantly, Match of the Millennium appearing here means that we don’t have to worry about the Capcom licensing being a barrier.
It’s wild, nonsensical, hilarious, fast and sometimes a little annoying. But I’m gonna keep coming back to it every time I remember I have it.
Shredder’s Revenge feels like it was made by people just like me, for whom Turtles in Time was a formative experience. It’s like a tidal wave of nostalgia crashing into technological advancements, new ideas, evolved talent, reverence and a dash of ironic self-deprecation.
I don’t even really like the combat that much relative to some other games. But because of all the synergies, because of the loop-driven storytelling, and because of the overwhelming quality of the music, visuals, acting, and more I’m still working my way to the true ending. At the end of the day I just want to know everything all these characters have to say.
Metroid Prime’s iron-clad pedestal makes even more sense today in our post-Dread world, showing what it actually means for an outside party to treat a creative work with some serious reverence.
Super Mario Odyssey feels like a new glove that fits like an old glove, the new high point of a decades-long evolutionary process that is so smooth, so finely-tuned, that playing it nearly feels like an extension of yourself. It creeps up on you, the scale and design of it all, in a way that often doesn't dawn on you just how purely grand it is until you stop playing and reflect on your experience. In a year full to bursting of huge, great games, Super Mario Odyssey stands out by acknowledging what's cool and works about games today. It trims all the fat and doubles-down on not a gameplay loop, but a gameplay flow that feels effortless the whole way through. Even when you lose, when a challenging bit sends you sailing into the Nintendo-y abyss, you just keep going. Super Mario Odyssey is here to remind us how uniquely compelling jumping and flipping around a colorful video game space is and lets us indulge as long as we can stand it.
Since Persona 4 Arena, it has been obvious Arc System Works has been searching for ways to make its anime-style fighting games less obtuse on entry. Each try feels more successful than the last, with a few caveats here and there. Dragon Ball FighterZ feels like it hits a sweet spot, retaining the look and feel of a versus fighter while reining in the complexities that make fighting games still so hard to get into. The mechanical streamlining is supplemented with a story mode that is a silly love letter to the license, that takes its time to let the player learn how to play the game while still having fun and enjoying a new story. It's a full, hearty experience that fans of Dragon Ball will go nuts over, and fighting games on the outside won't be able to resist diving into either.
Aside from some minor performance issues and localization typos barely worth mentioning, Bloodstained is an incredible feat in independent video game development. I’ll be coming back to this one for years to come.
With so much to do, fun, engaging play and a cute, lighthearted story that takes its time to breathe, Dragon Quest Builders 2 is the best kind of sequel.
NEOGEO Pocket Color Selection Vol. 1’s timing has weird optics, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a quality compilation of underappreciated classics. The historical features are great, so is the emulation. And it helps that this is a pretty powerful set of games by themselves. The physical release is icing on the cake, and I hope this means the brand has been successful enough to keep things rolling.
This remixed approach could be confusing to a newcomer. Luckily, Vengeance accounts for that too, and the choice of which version to pursue is presented in-game in a way that’s practically seamless. It simply feels like yet another option in a game and series full of choices that impact where the narrative goes. There isn’t special attention drawn to it, nor does it feel like an awkward attempt to replace or undermine the original. It’s just more SMT V to dive into, which for an already jam-packed RPG full of narrative agency and monster-collecting action, is more food on the table for the feast. And it was a hell of a feast to begin with.
Robocop: Rogue City is an argument that not only can licensing IP work well in smaller-scale games, but given the right combination of creativity and focus a more dormant IP can be especially effective. A property like Robocop does not have a clear position in pop culture right now, beyond the obvious late-80’s movie nostalgia. But the team at Teyon, with a combination of awareness and sincerity, definitely found one. I had so much fun blasting through waves of jabronis and laughing at Robocop’s earnest policing antics. In a crowded year like 2023, Rogue City is an unexpected gem.
2024 has been a year so full of RPGs I can’t begin to imagine ever being able to finish all of them. Coming across Harold Halibut in the middle of so many massive, complicated adventures was a breath of fresh air. Just being able to slow down, soak in all the impressive minutia of a world built entirely by hand in an art studio, and wonder about what it was like to construct and digitize, felt like a release. I was able to let go a bit of having control over every piece of a game, and still have a story in front of me that was thoughtful and engaging enough to sit with me well after the credits rolled. Even the parts that felt rough around the edges were refreshing, as they enhanced the very human feelings that are so clearly front and center here. Harold Halibut is the kind of game I discovered by accident, but one I’m grateful to have come across in that way.