1. Dragon Quest XI S: for all the flaws i can point (generic fairy tale story, lack of variety in the music, world a bit too linear sometimes,...) it is still a masterpiece of a JRPG. The characters are all very charming, the artstyle is great, it has that right level of difficulty where it's easy for experienced player but if you avoid grinding it can become challenging, side activities are all well thought, good world building.

2. Obduction: The first half of the game in Hunrath is a 10/10. The graphics are incredible, the opening section is probably the best in Cyan's history where the game guides you to the first puzzles and what you should care but you're still able to explore and decide on your own. The animation it has to travel from one place to another is very artsy, there are some nice throwbacks to old Myst games like the use of real actors. In complete Myst's tradition some of the puzzles are hard and some knowledge of maths, physics can really help you. The latter half you can kinda tell, it is a lower budget experience or they ran out of time, some of the other places you get to explore aren't as interesting or detailed and the endings are a meh despite having some unexpected twists. Still considering it is an indie title this is absolutely incredible, and lives up to the expectations they set with the Myst games. I can't wait to play Firmament next year (hopefully)

3. Demon's Crest: played it from the Switch SNES Online catalogue. I had no experience with Gargoyle's quest, i didn't know what to expect from it. This game is AWESOME, highly recommended. The opening immediately sets the tone with lots of boss fights, visually a very nice looking SNES game, greatly presented, and then you finish the first level and you find out that this is metroidvania with upgrades, a 3D world map and backtracking for secrets and items. It's not very long and most of the game is available right from the start so you can straight up go to level 4. Backtracking if you want to 100% the game can feel a little tedious but you can infinitely hover in the air and pretty much skip all the enemies. Criticism: some of the mid-level bosses can feel a little samey, the headbutt minigames are insanely hard, the reward for some of the collectables is a bit lame ("just more money")
   I'd love if Capcom could bring these series back with a new title or a remake. Firebrand deserves more love.

4. Deadly Premonition Origins: It's an incredibly janky game, but the writing is superb, the game is a mix of comedy, horror, and detective. You laugh a lot playing it but there is still an actual mystery around the town you have to solve. Everything is janky and you have to constantly live with that: graphics are like from a 15 years old game, controls are terrible, there are basically 3 music tracks depending on the mood of the scene, sound design is terrible, there are days with not much to do in the town. Still if you can accept all of that, there is a special charm to it and it's worth playing the game just for that.

5. Tetris 99: It's Tetris (and i love Tetris) with the battle royale twist. The core concept is very fun and addicting, i just wish there were more incentives to keep playing besides the tickets for new skins (which are cool but not particularly memorable) and the events.

Big Super Mario Maker 2 free content update coming December 5th with new modes, new items and Link

Youtube Video

This year nominees seems way better than last year, though the amount of categories where Death Stranding is present makes me worry it will be a 3 hours commercial for Kojima.

I've no wishes on who should win, cause usually it's the same type of game that tends to win (you could create the TGA GOTY template) but i'd like if Smash wins it, and i'm not even a big Smash player, it's mainly to reward Sakurai's insane work.

The amount of tracks (especially the amount of new arrangements), stages, fighters,... it's something unprecedented for any video game, and it's not even a quantity vs quality situation because the care that was put on every little detail is noticeable.

DQ VIII and XI plots are kinda meh. I suspect DQ stories have never been a strenght of the series (can't say it for sure since i haven't played them all).

I can't believe for that many years fans kept saying that DQ VIII is great for the story when it's the typical JRPG story "save the world" full of clichès, and really nothing that feels new or surprising, and it doesn't evolve much. You should play any DQ more for the jolly vibes, the cool monster designs, the classic JRPG gameplay,... and never expecting a particularly interesting story.

That said in this period i'm reading War and Peace which has such a rich and detailed narrative, any game couldn't stand against it; it's making me question if stories in videogames are just incredibly overrated and they will never reach that level of depth.

@dmcmaster said in Your Surprise New Flops:

Were you seriously expecting that Terminator game to be good?

Fair enough, i'm removing it since the surprise would be if it is actually good.

Demo of Mario & Sonic at the Olympic games Tokyo 2020 is out on the Japanese eShop, it's very good (and has the retro mode)

https://nintendoeverything.com/mario-sonic-at-the-olympic-games-tokyo-2020-demo-out-now-on-the-japanese-switch-eshop/

My picks are:

• Dreams, the sort of early access release was super weird, i feel by the time the full game comes out people have already moved on.
• Project Resistance: i'm not interested on the concept, in general i don't think that's what people want from RE even as a spin-off.
• Panzer Dragoon: i mean great that they are remaking it but it didn't look super hot in its first demo at Gamescom, i hope they will delay it to 2020.

Crossing finger Medievil will be okay enough (since i have nostalgia for it) but the demo was rough.

Death Stranding and Shenmue 3 fall into the same category for me of: it's weird, their die hard fans will do anything to defend the games regardless of any flaw so why bother? I don't think either of those will be an Anthem anyway.

People should show up at Blizzcon cosplaying Winnie the Pooh with banners supporting HK freedom.

I wonder what the chinese Activision-Blizzard will say about it.

Super happy Sleeping Dogs made the top 10, it's one of my favourite games ever, and still today one of my favourite open worlds.

I love the vibes, they got Hong Kong right: the night market, driving while it rains at night with all the neon signs, listening to classic chinese music,... all the relevant characters are very charming.

I'm probably a minority but and i prefer it over any GTA or even any Yakuza: the world is smaller but with no empty unused zones unlike GTA, it has better melee combat but it's not a recycle of the same areas over and over like the Yakuza games. The Definitive Edition that came 2 years after (free update for those who purchased the game, it was very generous) included all the DLCs and vastly improved the graphics.

Shame it's basically dead now and Square Enix won't bring it back, they had a competent alternative to GTA and they ruined it. The ideas for the cancelled sequel (before Square turned it into an MMO) were also very promising.

PS2 lasted longer because Sony had to compensate the disappointment of PS3 launch, selling PS2 at a very cheap price and with more games geared towards kids like EyeToy Astro Zoo.

So how long PS4 will last? depends on how good is PS5.