Technically played this one in December of 2020 but I don't care it's going on here anyway. Just one of the most powerful, affecting, funny stories I've experienced in a video game. Fucking banging OST too, Red Rock Riviera and its variations can legitimately bring tears to my eyes. I'm absolutely dying to go back and play Final Cut, although I am sad that they apparently changed Cuno's voice actor. Hearing "FUCK DOES CUNO CARE?!" in the most unbearable voice imaginable while the actor's microphone noticeably clips every time you talk to him wasn't a bug, it was a feature.

This is going to be the only Silent Hill game on the list (I played the first 3 back-to-back, gonna move on to The Room when I get the time) so this'll kind of just stand in for those games a whole, but goddamn the feel and texture of the series is just totally beyond most other horror games I've played. I would never want to visit the Otherworld in real life but I always felt this wonderful mixture of excitement and dread every time it transitioned into that putrid place, just because the art direction and warped geometry that's on display whenever things Get Scary is some of my favorite unsettling imagery in anything. Also how did this game run on the PS2? Fucking drop-dead gorgeous piece of work with a super likeable protagonist that I had way too much fun going through the story with.

I think this strikes at something deep in me that I imagine a lot of people can relate to- the nostalgic fantasy of being young and retreating into a world of fantasy with your friends after school, one filled with drama and conflict but that's also warm and comforting. Every one of the kids who venture into the Dark World are troubled and lonely in their own way, and there's something wonderfully bittersweet about seeing them finally be given an opportunity to find joy in a place where they have the power to better their lives and the lives of those around them. It made me laugh out loud multiple times through its (surprisingly lengthy) runtime- Berdly's golden statue of himself wearing crocs and undergarments with "IQ" written on them actually had me fucking dying, and it's punctuated by a lot of genuinely beautiful little heartfelt moments. I guess what I'm really getting at here is that my life peaked when me and and my friends would run around doing Guardians of Ga'Hoole roleplay (and not even the mainline books, specifically the spin-off books "Wolves of the Beyond") and Deltarune Ch. 2 served as a reminder of just how important those friendships and the memories made in them were to me. I am the only person alive who fondly reminisces on their childhood and I'm also the first person to make this observation about Deltarune. Hold your applause please.

A game my girlfriend (luv u Sam <3) thought I was pretending to like as a bit until she realized that no, no I just sincerely adore this game. Aside from its whole tone and visual aesthetic being a wonderful compliment to the sheer disgust that the game's world invokes, it's also just incredibly funny at times (so many good lines of dialogue, "When the beat drops I'm going to fucking kill myself" will always be a standout). But at the heart of it, I just absolutely cannot get over how perfectly it manages to nail a happy medium between being broken beyond all measure and being incredibly, deliberately mechanically tight. Every other implant or weapon breaks the game in some way if you know how to exploit it properly, but in a way that never feels like it was an accident; Cruelty Squad's levels function both as tight, interesting stealth challenges with plenty of alternate routes and pathways and as sandboxes in which to discover the most busted way to complete the objectives laid before you. I think this is perfectly demonstrated by a speedrun I saw recently (which I'll link below) where the player gets through Darkworld- a dense, sprawling level which needs to be thoroughly explored to even find the exit- by shooting a tranquilizer dart, grappling onto it, and being flung full-speed through the air directly into the room where the target is placed. Any game that gives you this many tools that you can use in this many ways in order to completely decimate the challenges it has in store once you have a deep enough understanding of its mechanics is a fucking achievement, and I love it very sincerely.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZYxvqgzpW8
(the part I'm talking about starts at 1:03, but honestly this whole video is a perfect showcase of what I talked about here)

A game that I mostly love for the style and sheer personality with which it executes everything it's going for. The writing is dense and rife with meaning to be picked apart and analyzed, and while that was some part of the appeal of the game to me a lot more of it laid in the moment-to-moment experience of feeling everything the game to offer; that perfect Masafumi Takada soundtrack, the sound a Heaven Smile makes when you shoot off one of its limbs, the way a character explodes into a cloud of red mist and then reforms as someone else whenever you switch personalities... everything here looks good, sounds good, and feels good to do. The incredibly simplistic combat and relatively bare-bones puzzle solving plays fantastically just by virtue of how well-tuned those elements are, even if they're stripped down and mechanically simple.

Jumping straight from a game that's a marvel to look out and listen to, here's a game with ASCII art visuals and no sound! I wouldn't say that's a knock against it in any way, though; frantically typing out commands to help a little @ symbol safely navigate a hellish gauntlet to save their lover is thrilling and lovely, and I'd recommend it wholeheartedly to literally anyone who is able to type decently fast.

I don't have a ton to say on this one, honestly, other than that it's genuinely kind of transporting to play; this is the game that sold me on the premise of the original SUPERHOT, which I had previously found kind of underwhelming, and on VR as a whole. Magical stuff.

Yours Forever legitimately got me choked up and sometimes after I'd beaten the game I'd replay that level to help me relax at night. Genuinely therapeutic shit right here.

I think it kind of fails to be especially compelling as a game, but what it does succeed at is being a fantastic interactive album visualizer for a series of songs that I actually enjoyed! I know not every was blown away by the actual music on display here, but I kind of adore this specific brand of heartfelt electropop, and if that's something that interests you then I'd thoroughly recommend giving it a try.

A fantastic pseudo-sports game where there's extremely asymmetrical power between you and the AI that I absolutely adored. The concept of merging tennis with a bullet hell game is one of those things that sounds like a novel idea you'd jot down into an "game ideas" document, but it works beautifully here; you can't lose by simply failing to rally, but you're nonetheless strongly encouraged to consistently hit the ball each time it passes to your end of the court by dramatically increasing the damage it deals with each successive hit it lands on an enemy. It just does a fantastic job of incentivizing playing it like one would actually play tennis without the unreasonable demand of constantly nailing your timing and placement with hitting the ball, which I think would have been too punishing. Also the last 30 minutes throws in a delightfully bizarre curve-ball that I enjoyed a lot.