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Misfit Waferton and Joey the Heir Apparent join Chris to discuss the manner in which the Pokemon franchise has evolved and where it might reasonably go from here.
The trio reunite as Joey, Steve, and Chris ponder the Microsoft acquisition of Activision-Blizzard and whether the company will be more evil, less evil, or just a different kind of evil.
Nintendo continues to evolve their genre-defining franchise in their own way, crafting a unique and remarkable experience in the process.
It came close. It came really, really close in terms of my favorite release in 2021. At first glance, Metroid Dread doesn’t seem to do nearly as much as Resident Evil Village in terms of honorary “favorite of a whole year” status. The latter has a far greater variety of set pieces and gameplay, higher production values, and the upgrades and unlockables make for a better incentive to replay the game than Dread’s selection of artwork.
This is also why it is understandable that others might choose Resident Evil Village themselves. What I’ve learned discussing the latest Metroid title with others is that it has very specific goals in mind, and those goals don’t appeal to all fans of the franchise. Village, on the other hand, more broadly caters to a variety of players, regardless of whether they’re a franchise fan or not. Even if the focus on action has increased from the previous entry, it is better balanced between different set pieces and locations. Horror fans can experience more harrowing or terrifying moments; some environments are linear and straight-forward or amusement park in style while others focus on that puzzle-box building of the original entries in the series; there are also plenty of treasures, collectibles, and optional bosses for fans of exploration to discover.
On paper, Metroid Dread is a really good game, but has less to offer in comparison. However, there’s a lot of stuff going on underneath the hood here that, for players of a particular nature, not only begs a return to its extraterrestrial world of ZDR, but to further master and improve on one’s abilities. It is for this reason that Metroid Dread inches its way past Resident Evil Village for me, earning the crown of my favorite game released in 2021.
Joey joins Steve and I to look back and reflect on our favorite collective games of 2021.
If it wasn't an indie or a game by Capcom, then these are the titles I had the most fun playing throughout 2021.
Keep in mind that these are all the games I played and enjoyed but have yet to discuss. In truth, Resident Evil Village was favored more than any title in this list, and Monster Hunter Rise now tempts me on PC for its superior framerate and performance. Nonetheless, these are certainly the remaining games that made the most impression on me throughout the year, save for my most favorite.
There are still plenty of titles I would have loved to add, however, had I the chance to play them. Tales of Arise, It Takes Two, Famicom Detective Club, Psychonauts 2, NEO: The World Ends With You, Caligula Effect 2, and so many more. As I had already stated, 2021 was a surprisingly incredible year of releases, and there was simply too much to keep up with. This is especially true after the already mentioned impact of Game Pass and the knowledge that I could wait for certain titles to potentially reach the platform.
All in all, however, the following are the games I played in 2021 that I had a blast with. My overall satisfaction may vary from title to title, but each provided something of value to me compared to other games I had played. Even the weakest of these is superior to many of the games played in prior years, and therefore all contributed to why 2021 was one of the best gaming years I’ve had in a long time.
The journey through 2021 continues with a look at the numerous indie games I had played throughout the year.
My relationship with indie games has been an odd one. For a while there I was not quite taken by them, finding their titles to be a bit janky or unpolished even compared to their inspirational forefathers on 16-bit hardware built with more primitive tools. Only on occasion would I be floored by the craftsmanship of a title like Hollow Knight or Iconoclasts, games whose polish and effort was as top notch as the best of the publisher-supported studios.
I find that I’ve been languishing behind the times, as there are plenty of indie games out there of superb quality and often more befitting my interests than what the larger publishers have on offer. Unfortunately, I also find myself struggling to pick out the diamonds in the rough, or to find the titles worthy of standing alongside my favorites.
As a result, 2021 has essentially been the first year where I fervently began to pursue the fruits of independent labors, learning what does or does not work for me, and what I ought to be careful of when making purchasing decisions. Most of all, it has also given me plenty of independent publishing labels or smaller developers to keep an eye on in the future.
A look back at the games I enjoyed most that I first played in 2021, but released in years prior.
Everyone has highly acclaimed titles that they never got around to playing at release, or prior purchases just sitting on their hard drives and bookshelves gathering dust. No one is able to play every game of interest that crosses their path, and they are often unaware of certain titles that may be up their alley until word of mouth hits them months or years later. Then come the recommendations of friends and compatriots both in person and on the Internet, demanding an interruption in one’s schedule to play this latest game that will surely blow their minds away.
Just as I’ve made it a point to replay games I’m familiar with, I also try to go back and play games that I once missed. Oftentimes this is a better choice than to play the latest releases; rather than get stuck with something that’s okay but brand new, I might find myself deeply enveloped in a game that’s fantastic though older. This was especially true the prior year when my favorite game turned out to be Bloodborne, a title five years old by the time I finally played it.
None of the previously released titles I played in 2021 made quite as strong of an impression, but several of them were notable nonetheless. As such, I wanted to spend some time discussing them before I detailed my remaining favorites of the past year. Of course, since I’ve already written about some of these games, this will also turn into a bit of a look back at my essays of 2021 as well.
Steve and I take some time to look back on the crazy amount of studio acquisitions that occurred in 2021, as well as detail which titles we're most looking forward to in 2022.
2021 is the year in which I truly began to expand my knowledge of and love of the Metroidvania genre.
It is no secret that my favorite Nintendo franchise is Metroid. I’ve even played some of the “worst” games in the property multiple times, finding something of value in each title. Despite the indie scene exploding with imitations in the “Metroidvania” genre, however, there are few games that properly sucked me in as much as their mother inspiration.
I think there are multiple reasons for this, one of which being a shift in creative direction on part of the developers themselves. Hollow Knight, for example, is a far more ponderous world. While the Metroid series is certainly an inspiration, it is only one of many, including several more platform-intensive games of old and the recent rise of the Souls-like. My first impression of Hollow Knight was initially positive, but eventually grew more exhausted as I had felt directionless and as if new abilities and power-ups were coming all too slowly. It was only after I had played through Bloodborne that I understood how much From Software’s atmosphere and world design had combined with the inspirations of Metroid to form Hollow Knight’s expansive world, one in which player choice of exploration was emphasized. Once I had that fresh new perspective, I was able to appreciate Team Cherry’s game as its own thing rather than comparing it to the Metroid franchise I knew and loved.
There has always been one other element of the equation missing, however, and that is the “-vania” portion of the genre title; I’ve never truly played through a Castlevania game, despite the franchise sharing a variety of traits in common with my beloved Metroid series. In 2021, I had begun to try and correct this.
As my look back at 2021 continues, I take a look at the amazing turnaround of Capcom and their ability to release multiple great hits in a single year.
The seventh generation of consoles was unkind to a lot of seminal Japanese game developers. Be it the advent of HD gaming and its more expensive demand on visual fidelity, the sudden emergence of Western game developers onto the console scene and taking over, or Nintendo’s new focus on a non-gaming crowd, it was a time when many of the most prominent publishers and studios of the 90’s were left scrambling to maintain relevance, appeal to a Western audience, and abandon much of what had made them a success in the first place.
Approximately one decade ago Keiji Inafune’s detailed his belief as to why Japan had lost its seat at the head of the console gaming industry. I do not currently wholly agree with his sentiments regarding Japan’s “failures” against the rise of Western games, and Keiji Inafune himself would ruin his reputation among gamers due to the mismanagement of Mega Man spiritual successor Mighty No. 9. Nevertheless, many studios tried following some of Keiji’s advice in working with foreign studios or trying to transform their properties into an imitation of the new Western gaming demographic: a primarily younger group that had hopped aboard the hobby via Halo, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and Xbox Live.
Capcom is one of the most prominent examples of such attempts to appeal to the young new Western gamer. The reinvention of old icons such as Bionic Commando into a gruff, mean looking soldier with an edgy attitude and unnecessarily dark past; handing off new successes like Dead Rising to Western studios for sequels that failed to capture self-aware wackiness that the first wave of fans fell in love with; chasing co-op trends by forcing them into their Resident Evil franchise, in addition to spending unreasonable amounts of time and money on a nonsensical campaign filled with so much explosive noise but meager substance. There were still occasional gems such as Dragon’s Dogma being released under the publisher, but most players that discovered the studio on the NES, Super Nintendo, PlayStation, or even in the arcades were becoming increasingly disappointed, disenfranchised, and seemingly abandoned.
Somewhere around the turn of generations, however, as the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 sailed into the sunset and the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 were leaving port, Capcom had changed course. While I think it’s a simplification to blame outsourcing to foreign studios as the cause of Capcom’s losses, I do believe the shift back to internal development has forced Capcom to tighten their belts, refocus, and simply do what they do best. The release of Resident Evil VII in 2017 was effectively the start of a brand new era for the company, and now, four years later, I feel as if we’re seeing them truly hit their stride. It is possible that Capcom has never been as good as they are now.
Kicking off my look back at 2021 with playing habits, a game's replayability, and the value of Microsoft's Game Pass.
I don’t know the last time I spent so many hours playing games in a single year as I had this one, but it still wasn’t enough to get to all the titles I yearned to play. Admittedly, 2021 was overall a more positive experience for me than 2020 had been despite continued struggles to better balance mental health and all that other lame junk. Whether I’ve steadily been doing better on that front or the greater quantity of top notch releases are the primary reason it was a better year remains a mystery. All I know is I’ve even had a good time with some of the year’s greater let downs or disappointments.
That I became more invested in streaming games may have also contributed to my enjoyment. I was able to exercise some creativity in overlays, broadcasting myself creating the sort of cartoonish artwork that I hadn’t been drawing in a long time, and even figuring out a method of transitioning the Eh! Steve! Podcast to video. It has allowed me to connect with others via the platform, and has now given me a way to collaborate with Shamus Young. While a good chunk of my gaming time is still done as a solitary experience, streaming has helped me remain social, which has been especially useful as the old Destiny 2 fireteam has all but disbanded.
What I wish to discuss, however, are the games that really helped shape this year for me. Before I discuss specific releases or studios, I’d like to go over some of the broad strokes of games discovery, gaming habits, and my approach to purchases and games completion. This is the year that I’ve put my money where my mouth is in terms of declarations of what is and isn’t a better manner to spend one’s time, and it has ultimately contributed to why I’ve felt all the more positive towards the hobby in 2021. It will be interesting to look back at the end of next year and see if many of these habits will have only grown or will continue to ring true.
Merry Christmas to all who celebrate! I've wrangled up some content to serve as our final Eh! Steve! podcast of 2021. Thanks for listening!
A reflection on Power On: The Story of Xbox and twenty years with a brand I think I love, despite my best judgment.
I vaguely remember one school morning when I, a pimple-faced freshman in high school, met up with one of my closest friends for our usual round of pre-homeroom chatter. With a mocking grin on his face, he informed me that Microsoft was making a “Direct X Box”, a brand new console to compete with Sony and Nintendo. His laughter and dismissal were understandable at the time, for conventional wisdom held that, much like political parties, no third system could possibly survive. We had watched as the Atari Jaguar went extinct, were barely familiar with the existence of the 3DO before it crashed and burned, had witnessed the SEGA Saturn barely make a name for itself next to the N64 and Sony PlayStation, and were mourning the inevitable demise of SEGA as a console manufacturer. The Dreamcast was failing to make a dent in the market while all eyes were on the PlayStation 2 and upcoming Nintendo Dolphin. Your best bet was to dethrone one of the top dogs just as Sony had done against SEGA, and there was no foreseeable way that Microsoft could kick either Sony or Nintendo to the curb.
This was nothing to say of Microsoft’s reputation at the time. We were in the middle of the disastrous Windows ME, perhaps the most buggy and crash-happy operating system I’ve still ever used in my life. You were more fortunate to be running Windows 2000 instead, though it, too, fell victim to the dreaded Blue Screen of Death on a fairly regular basis. For a bunch of young punk teens that were witness to the birth of the Internet age, however, we were also becoming increasingly aware of the limitations and inconvenience of Microsoft’s proprietary measures. MS Paint was vastly inferior to any other image editing program, be they free like GIMP or more costly like Adobe Photoshop and its affordable Elements line. Windows Media Player was an unnecessarily large application both in screen real estate and resources, swiftly replaced by the likes of Winamp for music by most. This was not long after Microsoft was taken to trial for an attempted monopoly by bundling their Office software, and were effectively seen as an evil, world consuming empire of gluttonous greed.
Nonetheless, I shrugged my shoulders and told my friend I’d wait and see what they did. We still did not have enough information on what the system would look like, how it would differentiate itself, and what games would be on it, and until Sony came along with the PlayStation no one expected SEGA to be conquered by a new challenger so easily.
Four years later, this time a taller, hairier, and somewhat less pimple-faced freshman in College, I had packed both my Xbox and GameCube to occupy my dorm room for gaming. The PlayStation 2 was left at home to gather dust, for all I had cared.
Chris and Steve discuss the likes of Scarlet Nexus, Back 4 Blood, Kena: Bridge of Spirits, and Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy. Three out of four recommended!
Joey the Heir Apparent returns to discuss the Video Game Award nominees for 2021 with Chris and Steve. Debates over the merit of nominees and the whole VGA nomination process ensue.
