2017 was undeniably one of the craziest years of the decade.
We got so many revivals of dead franchises, amazing sequels, but also surprisingly and
unexpectedly great new indie games.
At first I wanted to make a basic, classic and clickbaity "top 10 2017 games", but
I soon realized that I had to talk about a lot of other stuff.
Way more than just 10 games.
This video will be divided into two parts : The first one being honorable mentions,
or simply game ideas I appreciate, or games that I don't necessarily feel like spending
hours explaining, or most of the time simply because some have already been analysed from
point A to Z already.
And as usual, my goal is to motivate you to play stuff you might have missed instead of
stuff everyone has heard about already.
And the second part will be about my ten most favorite games of the year.
You ready ? Then let's go.
Snake Pass is probably the only 2017 game i didn't really enjoy.
But that's on a personal level.
i don't think the game is awful, far from it.
Snake Pass is a game where you play as a cute ol lil snake alongside his useless bird friend,
and works like a classic collect-a-thon.
However, here, jumping is out of the question.
You're a damn snake.
You can't walk, can't jump, can't run…
But you can attach your own body to obstacles and surmount them with it.
The game requires you to make use of your character's flawed movements as convenient
ones : You need to think outside the box, and think about the best possible ways to
reach your objective.
I would have loved it if the game wasn't so unforgiving.
Most people found the game really frustrating, and, as much as I can enjoy some of its ideas,
Snake Pass is for the most part more obnoxious than fun.
And that's a real shame because if they would have simply implemented an easy mode
or more checkpoints i wouldn't be so unhappy with it.
But it's still a really interesting idea, and having the player thinking like a snake
is a good way to create a fresh design based on movement.
You've probably heard of The Werewolves of Millers Hollow.
It's a simple yet complex board and role playing game where you play as either a hunter,
or the hunted.
It's a sort of mind game where the werewolves can hunt for the innocent villagers at night,
and the villagers themselves need to survive by using a vote to kill a suspect.
But unfortunately, it's rarely easy, and finding the right culprit can be extremely
hard, stressful and tense.
Deceit is a game made with the same kind of rules, but in the form of a video game like
Left 4 Dead and Killing Floor.
You play as a character in an asylum, with four other players.
Right at the beginning of the game, you are assigned to one of two roles : Infected, or
survivor.
The infected will have to try and blend in with the survivors and act like they're
completely innocent while the survivors try to escape as soon as possible.
During daytime you can hunt for special items, healings, and most importantly for the infected
: Blood vials that let you transform into a dangerous monster at night.
But be careful : Nobody can see you drink, or they'll spot you directly.
And if they do, it's hard to come up with an actually good excuse.
But you could always pin the guilt on someone else, and…
There's a lot of mind games going on, and it really helps to build an extreme tension.
You have to be very careful with your one and only ally (that you can talk to in a private
chat), and choose your victims very carefully, while trying your best to not be suspected
of being infected.
You need to work in the shadows, so that your guilt isn't apparent to others.
It might sound really complicated but really, it's simple.
The hard part is having to either bluff flawlessly, or see through the lies of the infected when
you're a survivor.
It's an incredibly fun and stressful game to play with a bunch of friends.
Deceit has got me yelling and screaming for my life as an innocent, or laughing maniacally
after executing a flawless plan as an infected.
The game is free and in a sort of early access phase on steam right now and it's getting
better and better by the day, so get yourself a group of 5 friends and have fun.
While we're still talking about fun multiplayer games, Golf Games have been a huge thing this
year for some reason, especially on Steam.
Even the Switch got it's own.
But Golf it is, let's face it, a pretty stupid and simple game.
There are only two inputs required for you to play : Choose a direction in which you
wish to aim, and use your mouse's sensitivity to use the right power.
That's it.
That's golf it.
Some maps are batshit hard, but once you play with a lot of friends and with ball collision
on, this ends up being an epic game of betrayal and ruined friendships.
This game is bullshit.
You play this dude with a hammer in some cauldron, and you have to propel yourself to climb trash.
That's it.
Oh of course it's not that easy, considering it's made by the same sick kind of monster
that came up with QWOP.
I've spent more than seven hours on this and managed to finally reach the end.
Never have I felt so betrayed, so devastated, and so anxious.
This game gave me trust issues for multiple reasons that I'm not gonna say.
Don't ever play this game.
Trust me, you deserve better than to inflict that on yourself.
Or do it if you think you're ready.
But I doubt you are.
Berserk and the band of the hawk is a game adaptation of the Berserk manga, from its
beginning until the end of the Millenium Falcon arc.
It's a musou game, which means that the entire game is simple button mashing most
of the time.
It was my first time playing one, and I didn't expect much, but I had a generally alright
time.
The game loses its substance after spamming square for the trillionth time, but I just
saw it as some brain dead button mash anime and I ended up playing it through the end.
You can play as Guts, Casca, Griffith, and others that I won't spoil.
But i didn't end up playing with a lot of different characters, well, first of all because
the game didn't let me before i finished it, but I just loved playing as Guts.
His sword really feels like a huge chunk of iron, and slashing through hundreds of soldiers
and monsters just feels gratuitous and stupidly fun.
The game is pretty awful in its environments most of the time but the character models
are pretty fine.
Honestly it's not the worst game out there if you're looking for something related
to Berserk.
the game is surprisingly faithful to the manga and they even included a lot of cutscenes
from the movies in the game.
Not the best tribute, but not a terrible one.
It just kinda plays itself.
Splasher is a french indie game made by Splashteam.
The game is really similar to a mix of Super Meat Boy and Dustforce but on bigger and more
ambitious level.
You can jump, wall jump, and most importantly, spread liquid on surfaces and enemies.
You can use multiple types of liquids to either push enemies, attach yourself onto the walls,
bounce off the walls, rinse off the annoying mud and other types of obstacles, and much
more.
This mechanic makes the game much more fresh and original than the usual 2D platformers
you usually see, and there's tons of ways to go through the level as you're free to
experiment with the controls and level design.
You can take your time and take it step by step, or just blast full speed ahead switching
between your liquid types to feel like a pro player.
The game is fairly difficult but never unfair.
I'm not the biggest fan of the artistic direction but it's pretty cute and everything
is readable, and the music is funky.
It's a pretty fun little game if you're looking for a recent 2D platformer.
As you might know by now, I've never been a playstation kid.
So when they announced a Wipeout HD Collection you know I was ready to get this thing.
Wipeout Omega Collection is a compilation on PS4 containing Wipeout 2048 from the vita
and Wipeout HD.
But the game doesn't really work like a classic "pick your game" menu.
Omega is pretty much its own game : Instead, you can directly pick your stages from totally
different games with no loading time.
The game engine is fairly similar for both games but they have their own in-game UI.
I've never really played any futuristic racers, and I've even missed out on F-Zero
GX and X, and I had a blast.
At the same time really classic and simple to control, yet extremely complex at its core.
The sensation of speed is real and though drifting and dealing with curves can be annoying,
it's adrenaline pumping and some tracks are really good.
Once I got the hang of it I played it for hours, and that is just by playing solo.
I haven't tried the online yet, but it's probably either dead or only played by pros,
which is a shame for me.
But it's a nice game to pick out from the shelf when you're looking for something
different with a friend.
WonderBoy : The Dragon's Trap is a magnificent remake.
Every pixel, every sprite feels like it's been fleshed out and created by passionate,
talented people who poured their blood and soul into their paintings.
You can feel their adoration of the original game, and their will to make something that
REALLY gets as close as possible to what has been already created.
...Perhaps…
A bit too much, sometimes.
And that's my biggest issue with Dragon's Trap.
The game is almost absolutely identical to the original game and level design.
A pretty okay and solid level design, yes, but to a copy and paste level of likeness.
It's not exempt from faults, and the game sometimes clearly needs some shortcuts.
For example there's a castle that you need to reach at one point, and to get to this
already pretty lengthy and difficult level, you need to pass through an underground tunnel
that takes more than 5 minutes to go through.
And the fun part is that if you die during this, you go back ALL THE WAY to the start
of the village and go through it all AGAIN.
Note that you can't change your difficulty once you've started the game too.
This part almost made me lose my mind and quit the game, but I endured it.
It's clearly something that i don't really get considering the rest of the game is really
not so challenging, and adding checkpoints, at least optional, couldn't have been a
bad idea.
But Dragon's Trap really insists on trying to look exactly like the original game, and
doesn't really give you much new content aside from fresh and wonderful graphics and
soundtracks and a new female playable character.
But other than that, Dragon's Trap really is a cute game to be played just for the sake
of seeing how far games have come.
I really hope Lizardcube are gonna make something that they entirely crafted from scratch.
I'm sure they're able to apply the same level of quality onto something that is truly
unique.
Necrodancer Amplified was the first game I tried out in 2017.
It is an expansion pack for Crypt of the Necrodancer , adding a ridiculous amount of new content,
including a brand new zone with its own mechanics as well as a new character, tons of new items,
familiars…
If you're wondering if it's worthwhile to buy, it definitely is.
And heck, I'm only talking about the early access version, as I haven't tried the finished
build.
But the new zone is crazy and has by far my favorite tracks from the game.
So go get it and spend even more hours on this kickass game.
Nex Machina is a run'n gun slash shoot'em up by Housemarque, the creators of Resogun.
The Cyberpunk aesthetic and synthwave was enough for me to be interested in it, but
i ended up staying for more than just that.
The game is meant to be played like a one hour arcade game with a huge emphasis on scoring.
You can dash, use your special, and have plenty of different types of abilities which makes
the game really fun once you get to know how it all works.
The difficulty choice is really good : On easy mode you've got unlimited lives, on
normal;99, hard;10, and on very hard;only 5.
The enemies change their shooting patterns as well, which gives a real difficulty change
that doesn't feel artificial.
And since it's a game meant to be played multiple times, it's a really important
step.
The challenge is fairly balanced and fun, until…
You lose one of your power ups, then two, and end up with nothing.
In the later stages, this is absolutely deadly : You barely do any damage and you have next
to no protection.
You end up in situations that are sometimes even mathematically, uh, way too hard to get
out of...
Until you get powerups again, and can actually play the game, which is unfortunate.
Other than that, it's an extremely fun and adrenaline charged twin stick shooter, and
it's a shame we don't get to see many like those anymore.
The first Nidhogg game was as simple as can be : Classic Atari graphics, funky music,
simple controls.
From those very basic and simple controls, you learn how to experiment with them to kick
the butt of your opponent in a saber duel.
You can throw your blade, punch your opponents, kick them off a cliff, you have plenty of
opportunity.
The game was fast paced, psychedelic, and extremely tense.
So when Nidhogg 2 was announced last year, most people were skeptical.
The game jumped from this, to this.
The game dropped it's minimalistic art direction for an almost over the top one : Your character's
now customizable, your limbs move in a goofy way and there's an overwhelming amount of
color on the screen.
But once you actually play the game, you understand what the creators where aiming for.
Everything is meant to be so weird looking and disturbing.
The amount of detail in the environment is absolutely insane, and the cartoonesque look
of the title ends up being completely understandable.
You end up growing fond of those awkward animations and flashy colors.
The game appears way less intimidating, but at the same time much more creepy, which weirdly
fits with the tone of this sequel.
My biggest complaint from the first game has been answered too : There's actually more
than 5 stages ! They almost multiplied the number by three, and this makes for a way
more varied and fun experience.
The new weapons have their own positive and negative qualities, and this adds more tension
to the battles, because there's way more room for even more strategies than before.
The soundtrack just enhances this constant feel of insanity.
If you haven't bought the first game yet and are looking for a fresh and intense one
on one versus fighting game, look no further.
Nidhogg 2 will take gladly take this place.
Nioh was one of the games I've spent the most time on in 2017.
It's a mix between Dark Souls mechanics and combat, but more fast paced with a touch
of Team Ninja in a dark Edo era setting.
I really really enjoy the combat system and how fast it can actually be while keeping
a good balance between keeping a steady defense and a fierceful attack and speed.
Nioh is extremely demanding and time consuming, which i found really exhausting but also pretty
immersive.
The game is really pretty, some bosses were pretty memorable and the story lore can go
really deep if you make an effort to investigate it even deeper.
Unfortunately, the game drags on for extremely long, and some parts of the game were really
frustrating.
The overwhelming amount of armor and weapon drop gets really messy after some time, and
you end up spending hours simply sorting your inventory out.
Maybe this just isn't the kind of game for me, but I still managed to enjoy my time and
finish a soulsborne for the second time of my life, which is good enough.
It's like i can't manage to feel proud whenever I achieve something, and in a game
like this, it's an important asset.
Don't blame the game, blame the player.
Specter of Torment was crazy from beginning to end, and is by far my favorite campaign
in the Shovel Knight series.
Yacht Club understood what they needed to do, and that was to revisit and completely
modify the original level design to fit with your character.
Which means that the environments are similar to Shovel and Plague, but with more emphasis
on Specter's exclusive moves.
That makes this DLC not a simple replay with a different character, but an entirely different
game experience, and that was a bold and daring move that I love.
Specter appears kinda slow at first, but is extremely powerful and has his own skillset.
I won't spoil the new skills but they're by far the most fun to play around with, and
I found myself actually enjoying varying the way I play just because it's fun to experiment
with all that.
Even the soundtrack is different, and you can choose your stages at your leisure just
like a Megaman game, which is a change from the imposed linearity of the first two games.
Learning about what happened before Shovel of Justice also really helps to craft and
build the characters, and Specter is downright charismatic with the most interesting backstory.
Do I really have to present Cuphead ? Nah.
Cuphead was fun.
I haven't finished it yet and did 50% of the game since I'm waiting to replay it
with someone else to see how good the 2 Player mode is.
It's an excellent and solid boss rush that plays like a run'n gun with an interesting
and optional pary system.
The game looks and feels absolutely stunning.
I want to pause the game just to admire every frame of everything displayed on screen because
it's so gorgeous.
Ironically enough I found the actual run'n gun stages absolutely awful.
I found them long, tedious, and absolutely not necessary and way too challenging considering
there's no checkpoints at all.
The gameplay is simply not fit to work in such a way, and that's a shame because the
actual bosses are all unique and interesting in their own way.
Good thing there aren't that many and some are even skippable.
Can't wait to replay it.
I'm one of those guys that despise Fire Emblem Awakening and Fates.
I mean sure I'm glad they're actually playable for once and even more fast paced,
and with an even more amazing soundtrack but i always hated the characters, the stories,
the atmosphere…
But not only does Fire Emblem Echoes finally have a more charming character design, the
story could also be on par with that of Radiant Dawn.
It takes every innovation of the more recent entries and mixes them up with the classic
Fire Emblem games we already know to make something even better than both of them.
Full dub, better crafted dialogues, more options, more linearity, a more engaging story, all
of these elements cumulate to not only make a great remake but an excellent standalone
entry, and one of the best things to ever happen to the series : The turnwheel system.
I've always thought the casual/phoenix mode was irrelevant and a bad way to approach a
more accessible game difficulty.
The turnwheel system is something that should have been in every FE game from the beginning
: You can go back in time.
Which means that if a unit dies, you don't have to reset and redo 20 minutes of gameplay.
Just a few minutes.
You can't abuse it, of course, it's limited.
Which means that you've still gotta be careful.
I like the permadeath system : It forces you to be very careful, but it also implies that
you shouldn't take risks, because you might die at any moment.
So the main strategy in every game just involves being defensive and wasting 50 turns doing
nothing but advancing slowly and steadily.
But with this system, the challenge is kept alive, and you're able to take risks and
feel rewarded when you do it right.
Fire Emblem was always either too hard or too easy, and Echoes is the only Fire Emblem
game I've played where it felt actually balanced.
Radiant Dawn had a system where you could save and load a save at any point on the map,
and I also enjoyed this one much more than the others, though it's still hardcore as
shit.
Forgiving, but challenging.
This is how every game should be in my book, and this game finally raised my hopes up for
another good and ambitious console entry in the series.
Just give me a fire emblem switch without Kozaki, an involving story and moving characters
and a real feel of war, and we'll have the best game ever.
The only reason Puyo Puyo Tetris is not in the next video is simply because I don't
have much to say about it.
Never have I been this addicted to such a simple game.
Puyo Puyo Tetris is the ultimate compilation of my two favorite puzzle games : Puyo Puyo
and Tetris.
There are many different modes : You can play simple survival or one on one versus modes
of Tetris and Puyo respectively, or play the perfect swap mode : Which means that every
30 seconds or so, the table shifts and swaps around to jump from Puyo to tetris or tetris
to puyo.
This can sound very complicated or overwhelming but it's actually really simple.
You can simply try to do as many lines or chains as you would in a normal mode, but
you could also make use of the other mode running in the background to make even bigger
combos.
There's a lot of ways to approach the game and surely, there's at least one mode that
you would be able to love.
At the same time really accessible and competitive, this is not a game to be missed if you own
a switch or ps4.
And that is the end of the honorable mentions section of this two part series ! I really
hope you've enjoyed it and discovered a lot of interesting stuff.
It's pretty crazy how I almost found next to no bad games during the year.
Other games I played but did not mention were Fire Emblem Heroes and Doki Doki Literature
Club but i simply didn't find them of any interest to discuss here.
I did play Xenoblade 2, but since it released really recently and I did not want to talk
about it without finishing it beforehand, I'm gonna do a complete review in the next
few months.
Obviously, I did miss out on a lot of games simply because i did not have the time or
money for it.
A lot of them being : Gravity Rush 2, Resident Evil 7, Tales of Berseria, Night in the Woods,
Horizon, What Remains of Edith Finch, Prey, Dead Cells, Tekken 7, Arms, Crash Trilogy,
End is Nigh, Splatoon 2, Hellblade, Ys 8, Ruiner, Golf Story, A Hat in Time, Superstar
Saga, Etrian Odyssey V, and .hack GU.
That's a lot, actually, but I really hope i can play most of these soon.
A huge thank you to Aimée for proofreading my titanic nonsense.
I'll see you in new year's video for my ten most favorites !
If i ever finish it before my deadline...
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