Hi! I’m Lena. You’ve probably heard my music in Celeste, or from this year: Minecraft, or Chicory, or Moonglow Bay. Maybe you saw my list from 2020 and just had to know what I thought for 2021. Whatever your reasons for browsing over to this list, hi! I write music & make games. I also have lots of opinions about them.
2021 in games was honestly good to me. People have led a lot of round-up articles talking about how there was no “big standout game” for people to rally around, and honestly I think that’s a wonderful thing. We didn’t, because the gaming space continues to grow more diverse every single year. Instead, we got a lot of really amazing and unexpected gems, some really sick remakes & ports of older games, and the kinda unbridled glee I get from seeing the dominant AAA games being 3D platformers (Ratchet & Psychonauts), a racing game (More Forza Horizon), and a shmup-like 3rd person shooter (Returnal).
None of those games are in my top 10 though, so let’s dig into some specifics on where my gaming tendencies led me in 2021. I played a ton of games. Here’s some of them!
Neat Games I Didn’t Play Enough Of (Yet)
I am an easily distracted person, and sometimes games become a little too strenuous on either my brain or my hands to complete. But I still wanted to give some words of recommendation to these few games that really left a good impression on me.
Metroid Dread
I really need more fingers for this one. On the surface I absolutely love Metroid Dread. The atmosphere is back. Samus is incredible. The world feels oppressive and beautiful. The tools are familiar and yet reshuffled. It’s so cool!! I love playing Metroid again. I also got really overwhelmed by just how many shoulder button holding and stick clicking and all this stuff required of you to be optimal on a system that is maybe not built for such complex finger-wrangling. I play on a pair of Hori joycons so it’s otherwise way more comfy than the standard set, but ultimately I got to a point playing through where I needed to cool down because all the muscle memory and controller manipulation got to be a bit much for me. I absolutely want to get back to it, however, because it’s just such a cool vibe.
Shin Megami Tensei V
I’ve been a casual dabbler in the SMT series over the years. I love a good, challenging JRPG. SMTV is, a lot. It’s also got one of the coolest, weirdest soundtracks I’ve heard in ages. However, two things really pulled me out of the experience: the performance on Switch, and the difficulty swings of its bosses. SMT games should be tough. I love trying to optimize my party and overcome a difficulty curve. But something about how steep a roadblock each major boss is felt really unfortunately obtuse to me. I’ll probably come back with an easier difficulty at some point if only to see the game through, but I also really hope that the game sees a release on either improved Switch hardware, or another platform that can handle its Unreal Engine performance better.
Tales of Arise
I really love this game. I really love Rinwell, one of your party members, and her owl, and all the owls in the game. It’s such a wonderful cast, an interesting story that doesn’t pull punches on a lot of heavy subject matter (even if I have some quibbles with how it handles it, especially compared to other games this year). The soundtrack is Motoi Sakuraba back in full form with a BUDGET, finally able to get some orchestration under his belt. Awesome stuff!! Unfortunately, the game was so good and so intense to play...that I ended up injuring myself playing it. Literally, I was so engrossed that at some point I realized that I had inflicted very bad repetitive stress on my wrists, to the point that I had to stop working for several weeks. This is entirely on me not taking sufficient breaks, or stretching enough, or sitting like a weirdo, but regardless... I hurt myself, and had to stop mere chapters before the end of the game. I’m too busy now to get back to it, but I sure hope I can see it through eventually.
The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles
These games are so good. I love the Ace Attorney series with a fiery passion (if you’ve played Chicory and done all the side content, you’ve probably picked up on some of that), and these two games included in the set were a bit of a white whale for me ever since they released and showed no signs of coming to the West. Now that they’re here, I’m almost too anxious to speed through them. I’m taking my time, and had to put them on the back burner. I want to relish my time with them, because I have no certainty that the Ace Attorney series will continue in the same way. This may be my last outing, and that’s sad, but my fondness for them outshines that.
Tres-Bashers
I’m gonna need everyone to take a note about ondydev, because he’s been single-handedly creating some of the most fun and inventive bite-sized games for a hot minute, and doesn’t look like he’s stopping any time soon. This year saw the release of Tres-Bashers, a game where you’re a little mouse tasked with taking down cryptids in a big open school ground. It’s like the platonic ideal of what a Castlevania-like game should feel like, complete with a huge chiptune soundtrack and very tough bosses. Out this coming year is his next game, Wonky Works, so check out Tres-Bashers soon before you’ll have even more to play from ondy!