Best Video Game 2021
Nov. 19th, 2021 10:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
factitiousGlad to see Best Video Game on the ballot. The finalists are an odd set of games, but that's probably for the best. Would have been disappointing if this had just been a bunch of triple-A games.
So, I love Hades as a game. According to Steam, I've played for 428 hours. Got all the achievements, still working on getting Skelly's third challenge statue. This is mostly because of the gameplay: it's an extremely replayable roguelike, with plenty of ways to ramp up the difficulty so it keeps challenging you. At this point I'm well past unlocking new story, and still happy to keep playing. The storyline isn't the high point for me, but there's nothing wrong with it: very solidly fantasy, with neat takes on Greek mythology characters. Good depiction of Chaos.
Spiritfarer is about end-of-life hospice care, death, and letting go. Unsurprisingly, it made me cry. I thought it did a good job of using the gameplay to support its themes: the player character's acceptance of her death comes at the same time that the player has basically finished all the exploring and upgrade acquisition, so that you feel ready to move on. (It's not a perfect analogy, because moving on for the player means moving on to do something else, rather than stopping existing, but any gameplay/theme integration is noteworthy.)
I enjoyed the sandbox exploration and life-sim stuff, found the game emotionally moving, and it's solidly fantasy. It wasn't as big a hit for me as Hades, but I'd be happy to see it win.
I have fond memories of playing the original FFVII when it came out. I tried replaying it last spring, but it didn't live up to my nostalgia. Unfortunately, nobody in my bash' has a console that can play the remake, so I wasn't able to check it out directly. I watched enough of the beginning of a Let's Play to determine that it's a boring game to watch in Let's Play form, then skipped ahead to the Honeybee Inn section, because, unsurprisingly, that's the main thing I care about.
In case you're not familiar, this is the part of the game where for contrived plot reasons, Aerith tells Cloud "Cloud, why don't you dress up like a girl? It's the only way." He reluctantly agrees, and it's a whole long thing with multiple outfit pieces you need to collect, and when he does dress up Aerith teases him. This is an important part of videogame history.
The remake does a pretty good job of updating the sequence. There's a lot less sense of the other crossdressers being shameful, while still preserving Cloud's embarrassment at the whole thing. And it's obviously more visually impressive, with a big dance sequence leading up to the on-stage makeover. Also, the remake has Aerith react like an absurdly enthusiastic fujoshi while the makeover takes place, which is an inspired choice. My only reservation is that the way it selects which outfit Cloud gets is weirdly opaque, depending on which line of sidequests you did earlier rather than the original's more integrated method of giving you separate sidequests to get the best dress, the best tiara, and so on. But having the outfits actually display differently is a huge improvement, and Cloud's embarrassed dialogue benefits greatly from the move to full voice acting. So, I'd consider this remake to be worthwhile.
Blaseball is tricky to evaluate because the way it works has changed a few times over the last year, and it's currently not playable at all. I've checked in on it periodically, and my impression is that it's a pretty light browser toy that's going for a Welcome to Nightvale kind of aesthetic with its minimal lore. When I say minimal, I mean in the game itself; there's a lot of content out there on fan wikis and such, but the game itself is surprisingly sparing. I'm not really into the overall tone; it seems to be made for people who love that the text field for the weather can sometimes read "peanuts." I'm old and jaded, and have long since learned that a text field can hold arbitrarily wacky words.
I've chosen not to engage with The Last of Us: Part II due to the unfair labor conditions under which it was produced.
I don't think the new Animal Crossing game is really genre. Was this put on here just because it has talking animals? I haven't played it myself, but I've watched a bit. So to doublecheck, I asked a close friend who's very into Animal Crossing, and she confirmed that it isn't really a science fiction or fantasy game. Putting this in last place because I want Best Video Game to catch on as a Hugo category, and that seems more likely to happen if we work to make it actually feel like a Hugo category.
Hades > Spiritfarer > Final Fantasy VII Remake > No Award > Blaseball > The Last of Us: Part II > Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Incidentally, if this category continues next year, I hope Clockwork Calamity in Mushroom World: What Would You Do If the Time Stopped Ticking? wins. It has a silly name, but it's genuinely impressive.
So, I love Hades as a game. According to Steam, I've played for 428 hours. Got all the achievements, still working on getting Skelly's third challenge statue. This is mostly because of the gameplay: it's an extremely replayable roguelike, with plenty of ways to ramp up the difficulty so it keeps challenging you. At this point I'm well past unlocking new story, and still happy to keep playing. The storyline isn't the high point for me, but there's nothing wrong with it: very solidly fantasy, with neat takes on Greek mythology characters. Good depiction of Chaos.
Spiritfarer is about end-of-life hospice care, death, and letting go. Unsurprisingly, it made me cry. I thought it did a good job of using the gameplay to support its themes: the player character's acceptance of her death comes at the same time that the player has basically finished all the exploring and upgrade acquisition, so that you feel ready to move on. (It's not a perfect analogy, because moving on for the player means moving on to do something else, rather than stopping existing, but any gameplay/theme integration is noteworthy.)
I enjoyed the sandbox exploration and life-sim stuff, found the game emotionally moving, and it's solidly fantasy. It wasn't as big a hit for me as Hades, but I'd be happy to see it win.
I have fond memories of playing the original FFVII when it came out. I tried replaying it last spring, but it didn't live up to my nostalgia. Unfortunately, nobody in my bash' has a console that can play the remake, so I wasn't able to check it out directly. I watched enough of the beginning of a Let's Play to determine that it's a boring game to watch in Let's Play form, then skipped ahead to the Honeybee Inn section, because, unsurprisingly, that's the main thing I care about.
In case you're not familiar, this is the part of the game where for contrived plot reasons, Aerith tells Cloud "Cloud, why don't you dress up like a girl? It's the only way." He reluctantly agrees, and it's a whole long thing with multiple outfit pieces you need to collect, and when he does dress up Aerith teases him. This is an important part of videogame history.
The remake does a pretty good job of updating the sequence. There's a lot less sense of the other crossdressers being shameful, while still preserving Cloud's embarrassment at the whole thing. And it's obviously more visually impressive, with a big dance sequence leading up to the on-stage makeover. Also, the remake has Aerith react like an absurdly enthusiastic fujoshi while the makeover takes place, which is an inspired choice. My only reservation is that the way it selects which outfit Cloud gets is weirdly opaque, depending on which line of sidequests you did earlier rather than the original's more integrated method of giving you separate sidequests to get the best dress, the best tiara, and so on. But having the outfits actually display differently is a huge improvement, and Cloud's embarrassed dialogue benefits greatly from the move to full voice acting. So, I'd consider this remake to be worthwhile.
Blaseball is tricky to evaluate because the way it works has changed a few times over the last year, and it's currently not playable at all. I've checked in on it periodically, and my impression is that it's a pretty light browser toy that's going for a Welcome to Nightvale kind of aesthetic with its minimal lore. When I say minimal, I mean in the game itself; there's a lot of content out there on fan wikis and such, but the game itself is surprisingly sparing. I'm not really into the overall tone; it seems to be made for people who love that the text field for the weather can sometimes read "peanuts." I'm old and jaded, and have long since learned that a text field can hold arbitrarily wacky words.
I've chosen not to engage with The Last of Us: Part II due to the unfair labor conditions under which it was produced.
I don't think the new Animal Crossing game is really genre. Was this put on here just because it has talking animals? I haven't played it myself, but I've watched a bit. So to doublecheck, I asked a close friend who's very into Animal Crossing, and she confirmed that it isn't really a science fiction or fantasy game. Putting this in last place because I want Best Video Game to catch on as a Hugo category, and that seems more likely to happen if we work to make it actually feel like a Hugo category.
Hades > Spiritfarer > Final Fantasy VII Remake > No Award > Blaseball > The Last of Us: Part II > Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Incidentally, if this category continues next year, I hope Clockwork Calamity in Mushroom World: What Would You Do If the Time Stopped Ticking? wins. It has a silly name, but it's genuinely impressive.
