Shield Sayer Society’s Game of The Year 2021
Hi.
It’s Joel, aka TheNesta, aka Nesta Jaxxon. Either way, welcome to the introduction to my annual Game of The Year list.
2021 was still a pretty rough year, but honestly it was probably better than the last couple years, all things considered. This year brought about a pretty significant change when it came to video games though.
Early on in the year, I managed to secure a PlayStation 5, as well as a brand new Gaming PC. Both of these things helped shape this year of games for me. But I also found myself in a situation where the types of games, as well as the amount of games I played were quite different from previous years.
In years past, I always tried to make sure to include games that were exclusively released within the given year, but I’ve decided to ditch that rule going forward. Mainly because I honestly didn’t spend too much time with “New” games this year, and also because I feel like it’s more important to talk about the games I played during the year, regardless of when they originally released.
Finally, as it just so happens, I happen to have a list of 10 games here with me today. 5 of them happen to be “New” games. The other half of the list includes 5 “Old” games that I really enjoyed this year. The old games below range from on-going games that were released in previous years that I’ve continued to keep up with, as well as a number of Remakes/Remasters that I enjoyed going back to with a fresh coat of paint.
I’ve decided to list the five old games first, followed by the five new games. These will both be in alphabetical order. And if you would like to see an actual ranked list, please refer to later on in the list where I will give some closing thoughts about why I ranked each game as such, in addition to some fun and silly “awards” I’ve granted each game.
With all of that out of the way, let’s jump into the list!
Old Games
Demon’s Souls (2020)
At the beginning of the year, I somehow pulled off the seemingly impossible feat of making my wife fall in love with From Software’s “SoulsBorne” series of games. We started with Dark Souls 1, went onto Bloodborne, followed by the Demon’s Souls Remake for PS5, and finally Dark Souls 3. With only a scant few hours spent on Dark Souls 2 (for now).
As someone who considers these games to be among my favorites of all time, this was a pretty huge deal for me. I was able to share these games with her, and she enjoyed them so thoroughly that we actually have collected quite a few pieces of merch, as well as the Dark Souls Board Game.
The Demon’s Souls Remake was also my introduction into the current gen of consoles, and it was one hell of a game to start with. Especially considering my long and storied history with the original release of the game.
I played Demon’s Souls on the PS3 shortly after it was released in the west. I absolutely hated it, and actually returned it to the store. Many years later I would eventually learn to appreciate the “Souls” formula, and it has become one of, if not in fact my favorite genre of video game.
Despite many ill fated attempts to extinguish Flame Lurker, successfully navigate The Tower of Latria, or even attempting to try The Valley of Defilement. That was until..
Demon’s Souls (2020) is a brilliant remake of that original game. It’s one of the best looking games I’ve played, and it was incredible to see just how lightning fast the PS5 loading times were.
Demon’s Souls was obviously the blueprint for what would come after, but the game has quite a few of its own quirks that differ from its successors. I can’t say I’m the biggest fan of all of them, but there is something very special about this game that makes it easy to see why longtime fans still swear by it as being their favorite.
I would say the most unfortunate thing about the remake is that they bothered to change the name of the previously hilarious and questionaly named “Stick White Stuff” instead opting to replace it with an even more descriptive(???) name of “Sticky White Slime”.
The other thing being that they ruined the game’s original soundtrack. What once was one of the best, and certainly the most unique soundtrack of any of the Soulsborne games, is now an exceedingly more generic sounding score that fails to capture the magic of the original.
However, that didn’t stop me from blasting through the game as a Royal, until I hit a brick wall around the time I was trying to clear 4–2. And 3–3. But then I learned Fire Storm and killed the first Maneater in one shot before the second one could even spawn.
And then I proceeded to nuke him too.
And it was glorious.
Fire Emblem Heroes
Fire Emblem Heroes originally came out in February 2017 for both Android and iOS, and it has been installed on all of my phones ever since. I even included the game as part of my 2017 Game of The Year list back then.
It’s been a long time since then though, and the game has seen many drastic changes over the years. Admittedly there was a year there, or at least a period of time between 2019–2020 where I barely touched the game at all.
The appeal of Fire Emblem Heroes started with my love for the Fire Emblem series, and it continued to be a source of enjoyment if only to try and pull for my favorite characters, and enjoy the basics of the game.
But sometime in the last year, I found my way back to the game in a big way, and it has easily become my favorite mobile/gacha game, so much so in fact that it’s really the only one I bother to play anymore.
Beyond the fanservice for a Fire Emblem fanatic like me, I feel that Fire Emblem Heroes does something very few gacha games actually bother to do. It has a solid foundation of mechanics, and gameplay that make it a unique experience in a sea of idle RPGs, auto battlers, and the “Mobile MMO Template” genre.
Fire Emblem Heroes retains the fundamentals of the main series, but it manages to put its own spin on it in a way that makes it much more than just a watered down spin-off. Oftentimes feeling more akin to an elaborate puzzle or even Chess rather than a Strategy RPG.
FEH’s storytelling is severely lacking, though some points in the game’s overarching story are better than others. But at the same time the actual gameplay of Heroes is actually entertaining, and engaging, so that’s probably why I’ve actually bothered putting time into investing in it so heavily.
Sometimes I will get stuck in a “FEH Hole” late at night when I should be sleeping, because I’ll get an idea for a character that I want to build up. So I’ll do a bunch of research on that, which leads me into thinking about what kind of team I want to incorporate them into.
Another thing I really appreciate is the number of references and community jokes that the dev team will put into the game. Sometimes going as far as developing character specific skills or effects that directly reference something from a past game.
The game just received its big 6.0 patch going into the game’s 6th year of service. It introduced an incredibly fun new PVP mode, introduced an immediately more interesting setting for the Book 6 story, and the game really feels like it’s still in its prime. I can’t wait to see what 2022 holds for it.
Genshin Impact
Genshin Impact actually made my Game of The Year list last year, but I was a little sour on it. I had mainly split my time last year between the PS4 version of the game, which was an abysmal experience as the original PS4 hardware was just *not* up to the task of running the game properly. And with a PC version of the game, which was working out quite well until I lost my account because the Twitter account it was linked to got banned.
I was pretty salty, but I knew deep down that Genshin Impact was a remarkable achievement for free to play games, especially as a natural evolution of the increasingly stale gacha genre.
Now at the end of 2021, I can tell you that I’ve spent a ton of time on Genshin Impact this year, returning to my original PlayStation account, but thankfully playing on the PS5 this time, which is like night and day compared to PS4. And it’s been a blast.
Genshin Impact has some similarities with Fire Emblem Heroes, in so far as that it’s another game where I love to dig into the nitty gritty of character and team customization. I spent hours upon hours this year not only researching good team composition, but also many, many hours farming for, and putting together those teams.
Few things have felt as satisfying in a game this year as when I recently put the finishing touches on a Beidou/Fischl/Childe/Bennet team that I had spent months creating. And to finally see just how awesome and devastating the team was. Which was not only gratifying, but it also allowed me to actually make use of my favorite character in the game, Beidou.
The strengths of Genshin Impact that contributed to its success are readily apparent. The game is breathtakingly gorgeous thanks largely to its stylistic choices, but even from a technical standpoint, I can tell you that nothing was more awe inspiring than spying The Jade Chamber in the night sky above Liyue Harbor at night immediately after playing the native PS5 app for the first time.
Not to mention the obviously *very appealing* character designs and personalities that players have fallen in love with, there’s no shortage of fan art, cosplay, and other fan created content in sight for the foreseeable future.
I also feel strongly about the fact that there’s not enough praise for the worldbuilding miHoYo has done here, where almost any conversation in the game can reveal bits and pieces about Teyvat’s history, and lore, going as far as to foreshadow future characters and events well ahead of time.
Unfortunately Genshin Impact does suffer from several tedious gacha mechanics that can make farming for materials and equipment for your characters feel terrible. It’s not always that it’s such a time sink, but the scarcity of resources can be maddening at times.
Still though, Genshin Impact, much like Fire Emblem Heroes is the rare f2p game that I keep coming back to time and again. And I’m excited to see what’s coming up for the game in 2022.
Mass Effect Legendary Edition
The Mass Effect trilogy is one of the finest examples of the trilogy format that I can think of, and is near the top of my list for the best games to come out in the entirety of the incredibly lengthy Xbox 360 / PS3 era of gaming.
While there is a bit of an identity shift between the first Mass Effect, and the games that came after it. Bioware successfully created one of the greatest Sci-Fi universes gaming has ever seen, and it did so by building a galaxy full of fascinating alien races, lore, and a cast of characters that are beloved by many of the series’ dedicated fans.
It’s a shame about the disappointing follow-up Mass Effect Andromeda, and who knows if the currently in development Mass Effect game will ever recapture the magic of the original three games, but even if it doesn’t, we’ll always have Commander Shepard to fall back on.
And I think that’s why I think Mass Effect Legendary Edition is perhaps one of the most important collections of games that we could have got, even if it did finally arrive at the beginning of the next generation of consoles.
Between certain platforms not even having access to the first Mass Effect game, and the abundance of inexplicably priced DLC that you would have to spend way more on than actually picking these games up for cheap on the PC — Legendary Edition has made it easier than ever to experience these games.
And if I’m being honest, it’s easily the most fun I had playing any game this year.
My wife and I are both huge fans of the series, but she unfortunately never had the chance to play Mass Effect 3, and I’ve been dying for her to see the game, it’s incredible DLC, and the highly controversial (though not actually that bad) ending for years. And I’m glad Legendary Edition finally gave me the chance to do that.
But even before we reached the third game, we had a blast revisiting the first two games. Legendary Edition dramatically improves the first Mass Effect game to such an extreme that I was almost sad to see some of its elements missing in the latter games.
We spent roughly 300 hours across the trilogy, completing as much of each game as we could reasonably manage. I was in control of playing the game most of the time, but she was always there to provide input, and make the decisions since this was her Shepard we were playing.
Thankfully there were other times where she would take the controller and go around the Normandy checking in with everyone, and I’m blessed that she actually enjoyed doing the mining sections in Mass Effect 2.
But more than anything it was just so much fun to play these games together. We took literally 100 GB of screenshots and video clips collectively. Everything from memorable moments, to hilarious dialogue, and ridiculous shit happening intentionally or otherwise.
We joked around about stuff, added to our already established list of “headcanons” for the characters, and genuinely just enjoyed being in that universe once more. Definitely one of my fondest memories for this past year.
NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139…
The original NieR took me by complete surprise back in 2010, and it quickly became one of my all time favorite games. And my appreciation for it has only grown over time. So you can imagine the announcement of this hybrid between a remake and a remaster was very exciting news indeed.
I’m happy to say that NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139… is a fantastic way to experience the first NieR, and probably the one you should play if you haven’t played it already. I will say that it’s still not the “definitive” version of the game because of the fact that you no longer get to play as Papa Nier. The older, “father” version of Nier who is a much superior protagonist than the Brother Nier we get in this game. If you never played the original you don’t know what you’re missing, so it’s probably fine, but maybe check that out sometime if you get the chance.
Setting my personal squabble aside, NieR Replicant is a better game in every other way. The revamped combat system is more in line with what we saw in NieR Automata. The game looks dramatically better than the original 2010 game, especially the new character models. And what’s even more incredible is that the newly arranged version of the game’s legendary soundtrack by the extremely talented Keichii Okabe is somehow even *better* than it was before. A seemingly impossible feat.
Another thing in favor of this new version of the game are the addition of entirely new story sections and an additional ending that fit seamlessly into the game’s original story. These were easily my favorite part of NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139…, and serve as a great incentive for people who have already played the original to come back for another playthrough.
New Games
Guilty Gear Strive
Last year, Granblue Fantasy Versus was my number one game of the year, and that largely has to do with the fact that it was the catalyst for my wife and I to become more seriously invested in fighting games. We spent hundreds of hours playing GBVS last year, as well as dozens of hours with many other fighting games. That was kind of our “thing” last year.
This year, fighting games kind of took a back seat, sadly. But we still made time for Guilty Gear Strive when it came out earlier this year.
Guilty Gear Strive is pretty damn fun, and its approach to the Guilty Gear formula makes the game more accessible to a point, but there are still enough systems and mechanics in the game to allow for a much higher skill ceiling, even if the floor has been lowered.
It’s also proven to be an incredibly successful game for ArcSys, and I think that’s thanks in no small part to the amazing rollback netcode that powers the online matches. Without getting too much into the weeds of fighting game netcode, Guilty Gear Strive was designed in such a way that the game can be played as intended, from much further away, geographically, in the world.
Many fighting games struggle to produce an authentic feeling online match when any sort of distance is introduced into the equation often causing “laggy” matches that can seriously ruin the experience of such a precision based game.
I can only hope that ArcSys will continue to embrace this as a critical design point going forward with games like DNF Duel, which I am very excited about, or retroactively fit it into games like GBVS.
Netcode aside, Strive is a fun game even to just pick up casually because of the visual spectacle of it all. And the cast of eccentric fighters bring a lot of personality to the arena. Never is this more evident than in Guilty Gear Strive’s soundtrack that features a different song for every character on the roster.
I’ll be honest with you, I think the soundtrack is the best part of the game. Each song is unique in its own way, and a lot of them have surprising ranges that touch different genres of music, or even easy to miss references to classic songs.
Guilty Gear has always had great music, but Strive takes it a step further since all of these songs feature vocal lyrics. Which is somehow a divisive point among the fans, I guess?
The addition of vocals help give even more personality to each song, and in turn to each character. To the point that my wife and I spent a few months just listening to the soundtrack over and over again, and actually getting emotional about some of the characters.
I bet you didn’t expect to hear so much about a fighting game’s soundtrack, but there you go.
Halo Infinite (Multiplayer)
I didn’t realize until shortly before Halo Infinite was set to release how much I actually missed Halo. For many people, myself included, Halo was *the* reason to own an Xbox. And so it was that I played the first game back in the day, and fell in love with it mainly through the ability to cooperatively play through the campaign with a friend. Which is exactly what I did with Halo 2 as well.
That didn’t really happen with Halo 3, however that was the game where I played a fuck ton of Halo Online Multiplayer, and it was the best. Despite my affection for Halo ODST which came afterward, my love for Halo never reached the same highs again. And I wouldn’t have really thought too much about Halo Infinite if it weren’t for things like… Game Pass, or the fact that 343 decided to pull the galaxy brain move of releasing the multiplayer portion of Halo Infinite for free.
To be clear, I have yet to play a second of Halo Infinite’s campaign, even though that’s probably what I’m going to do right after writing this list. But I can tell you one thing for sure: Halo Infinite’s multiplayer rules.
I’ve already, somehow, casually played close to 100 matches of Halo Infinite multiplayer. And this is despite the fact that I have very little time in which I’m able to actually play it. But for a couple weeks there I jumped at every opportunity to get in a match or two.
It could just be that I really love the combat flow of Halo, or the fact that I can get literal killing sprees just by spawning with the MK50 Sidekick. Or maybe it’s just because I’m old enough to laugh about kids thinking people are “twerking” on them when they die. Or that kids get mad that they can’t twitch their way to victory through an adderall fueled rampage.
It could be any of those things and more, but at the end of the day, I just really had some fun with some god damn Halo.
Monster Hunter Rise
After earning a spot on my 2018 Game of The Year list with Monster Hunter World, and again in 2019 with Iceborne, Monster Hunter took a small hiatus in the hell year that was 2020. However 2021 gave us not only one, but two Monster Hunter games, and amazingly they were both awesome.
But this one is more so than the other one.
Monster Hunter Rise is Capcom scraping their grindstone across the MonHun formula once more to further hone it into an even more accessible and streamlined experience that even more people can jump in and have a good time with.
Not only does Rise clean up some of the residual dust left over in World from “Old Monster Hunter”, but Capcom built upon that award winning foundation in Rise with new features like the Wirebug and Silkbind Attacks.
Before playing the game, I was hesitant how much I would actually use, or enjoy the Wirebug. Only to later find out that it’s an absolutely game changer, and it just straight up makes Rise way more fun to play as a result.
Another thing I really loved was the reworking of the Hunting Horn, infamously one of the more complex, and lesser played weapons in the series. The Hunting Horn in Rise has actually made the weapon fairly forgiving and one of the easier weapons to use with the proper configuration. It’s also bad ass, and I fucking love beating monsters senseless with my doot stick.
I should also say that for a Nintendo Switch game, Monster Hunter Rise runs and looks exceptionally well for the underpowered system. Even with the superior PC version looming on the horizon, I don’t feel *too* bad about having invested a bunch of time into the Switch as my platform of choice, simply because how well Capcom was able to optimize the tremendous RE Engine that has been powering some of their best games in recent years.
And last, but not least, is that not only did I get my wife into Dark Souls this year, but I also got her into Monster Hunter, which definitely played a role in my overall enjoyment of the game.
Omori
Omori is a game that I first became aware of many, many years ago when I saw an article about it online. I thought to myself “Oh, damn. That looks pretty interesting.” and then promptly filed that away into the old memory archives.
When Omori finally resurfaced in my periphery late last year, leading up to the game’s launch. I remembered that original article and thought “Oh, that game. Cool, I’ll buy that.”
I did in fact buy that game, and it ultimately proved to be one of my favorite games of the year, albeit with some… mixed feelings.
As far as RPG Maker games go, I’ve played a few of the higher profile ones over the years, it’s a genre I can really appreciate despite the obvious restrictions that come with those types of games. Omori does an admirable job of going above and beyond what I would have expected from these sorts of games.
OMOCAT’s range of art in this game goes from whimsical and pleasant, to down right creepy. Sometimes switching back and forth rather quickly. And it’s that tug of war between the wholesome and the unsettling that make Omori such a memorable experience.
One of the most surprising things about the game though is that it actually has an amazing battle system? Like, way, way, way better than it has any right to be. The mechanics were smartly constructed and implemented, and even though it never gets all that complex (I’ll usually take simplicity anyway) the combat has some depth to it that allows you to really go wild with character setups.
Omori also has an endearing cast of characters that you only grow more fond of as the game goes on. For instance, I really hated Kel in the beginning. But by the end of the game he was easily my favorite character. There’s even a lot of charm in the side characters, which sometimes exceed even those expectations with optional quests like the retrieval of the infuriatingly mysterious “Pessi’s Thing”.
In fact the only real fault I can level at Omori is a more subjective opinion about where its narrative ends up. The game never shies away from its dark side, but the last little bit of the game, and the startling revelation within left me feeling uneasy about the time I spent with it.
Ultimately though, Omori is definitely a new gold standard for RPG Maker games, and I would say it even manages to reach some of the same heights as adjacent games such as Undertale.
Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars
Yoko Taro, Yosuke Saito, and Keiichi Okabe. The modern day dream team. These three were very busy this year. Not only did we get a NieR Replicant remake, but we also got the new NieR Reincarnation mobile game, as well as a completely new game in the form of Voice of Cards.
I remember reading about an interview a while back with Yoko Taro and Yosuke Saito where Taro mentioned they were working on a game that he “Has no idea how to explain, or sell”. And if I’m not mistaken, the game in question was Voice of Cards.
When Voice of Cards was eventually revealed, I knew that I would play it, because, as you might have read above: I will play anything he makes, no questions asked. But I have to admit I wasn’t too thrilled with the idea of yet another “Deck Builder” style of game.
Thankfully, Yoko Taro is well versed in the act of subversion, and it wasn’t until an openly available demo for the game was released that people really understood what Voice of Cards is.
It is not a “Deck Builder”, basically.
Voice of Cards is the perfect example of Yoko Taro’s signature brand of style. It is a game that by all accounts looks like it would fit right in with Slay The Spire or Monster Train, but in reality it’s more akin to a classic JRPG, complete with turn based combat, and leveling up. It just so happens that the entire game’s world, from the characters to the environment are all represented by cards.
In retrospect, it’s not *that* hard to explain. But I feel like it’s enough of a swerve out the gate to let you know, yes, this is in fact another weird Yoko Taro project.
Voice of Cards is a rather short game, and furthermore it’s a very easy game. The combat never asks much of you, and if you poke around in your party setup even just a little bit you can find ways to break the game rendering whatever meager challenge it could muster against you completely inert.
But I’m more than fine with that.
I spent no more than two weeks completely 100%’ing the combat, and getting the Platinum trophy in the process. During that time my wife and I enjoyed peaceful evenings of me going on an adventure in this world made entirely of cards. The game’s gorgeous character and monster designs from Kimihiko Fujisawa perfectly complement yet another fantastic Keiichi Okabe soundtrack.
Even though your adventure is a short one, there’s more than enough time to get attached to your merry band of idiots. And the game’s story goes to some interesting places, though not up to the same standard as Yoko Taro’s more prominent work. There are still enough… oddities in the game to make a lasting impression.
The glue that holds everything together though has to be the Game Master, the game’s narrator who is essentially your “Dungeon Master” in the Dungeons & Dragons sense. The Game Master is brought to life by the stellar voice talent of Todd Habberkorn in the English language track. And he’s the only voice you hear for the entire game.
Initially I thought this would bother me, but Todd does an amazing job of being the “one man show” for the entire duration of the game, and you would honestly be surprised how effective it is.
Voice of Cards technically isn’t my favorite game of the year, or the best one for that matter. But it kind of is in my heart. It was refreshing to see Yoko Taro take a crack at something new and fresh again, and even as a NieR fanatic, it was just nice to see something different, despite how the game’s DLC and marketing want to cram more NieR Automata down your throat.
Check out Voice of Cards, it doesn’t take too long to finish, it’s not full price, and I really, really liked it.
The List
1. Mass Effect Legendary Edition — (Game Of The Year 2021)
2. Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars — (Best Voice: Todd Habberkorn as ‘The Game Master’)
3. Fire Emblem Heroes — (Best Gacha Game)
4. NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139...— (Best Story)
5. Guilty Gear Strive— (Best Soundtrack)
6. Monster Hunter Rise — (Best Monster: Nargacuga)
7. Genshin Impact — (Best Looking Game)
8. Demon’s Souls (2020)— (Best Shield: Phalanx)
9. Omori — (Best New Character: Kel)
10. Halo Infinite (Multiplayer)— (Best Multiplayer)
