It's the only game in the list that I haven't beaten. The rogue-lite gameplay here isn't as fun as I'd liked and with a nearly non-existent story, there's little motivation to make me continue.

Compared to 999, the story went in a direction that's too crazy for me. The story explanations just makes me roll my eyes. The switch to 3D character models is pretty bad especially having to see the same animations over and over. The puzzles are noticeably harder, but that's not a complaint.

Graphics and animations have improved over Virtue's Last Reward, but still feels lacking. The story lacks the same ambition as VLR, but it's a lot more easily digested and understandable. The puzzles are more interesting here compared to VLR.

There's no story, characters or much gameplay variety. It gets bonus points for having an addicting sim gameplay loop.

Lots of legitimate scares and horror stuff here. Story is interesting. Gameplay lacks variety though.

The platforming is fun and the horror elements are good. It's just too short of a game and the story is poorly presented to me.

The hotel setting and atmosphere are amazing. The story isn't very interesting and the gunplay needs a lot of polish.

Decent horror elements, but the hide-seek/chase gameplay can be frustrating at times. The story is interesting though.

The story is interesting for much of the game as are the characters. I can't say I enjoy the story's revelation though. The puzzles are fun and provide a decent challenge.

The game is generic in many ways, but the combat was entertaining.

The sidescrolling combat feels lacking here, but the game's characters and Disgaea-like humor carried much of the game.

Short game overall, but it was surprisingly fun. Story is basic Neptunia, but ninja themed.

Musou gameplay here is great and the new art direction is nice to look at. While I like seeing a detailed story mode, I didn't care much for the focus on Nobunaga or Akechi. The loss of key SW characters like Date Masamune is a huge bummer.

Many great ideas here, but the gameplay isn't very fun. Dungeons are too long and lack visual variety. Too many enemies roaming around and battles can drag out too long if you want to "strategize" instead of just spamming the auto attack button. The character exploration and development are quite interesting here even more than modern day Persona.

General gameplay has been improved and it's no longer the frustrating game. That said, the story and the semi-open world aspect to it aren't very good in my opinion.

Lots of frustration here when it comes to gameplay, but the horror elements are solid. Story is a bunch of WTF moments, but intriguing nonetheless.

I love a good murder mystery and I get many of them here. Figuring out who did it and how they did it was interesting. Although, I wasn't very satisfied how they ended up tying everything together and the gameplay itself was a slog.

Only 4 party characters, but the chemistry and dynamics are pretty good. The graphics particularly the character models are great. Unfortunately, that's pretty much all of my positives. The story is slow and doesn't go anywhere interesting for me. The combat is ok, but I prefer SMT's Press Turn and even Persona's One More system. Dungeon designs and variety are terrible.

Having only played it for the Story Campaign, it was entertaining like watching a blockbuster action flick. Characters and voice acting are good. Gunplay itself is pretty satisfying.

Exploration and alchemy are the game's highlights which it does very well. Everything else from story to characters are unremarkable for the most part.

Entertaining B-horror story and somewhat interesting characters. Endings are disappointing. I prefer Until Dawn, but The Quarry isn't too bad overall.

The story touches on a lot of interesting areas, but doesn't spend nearly enough time to leave an impact. Lots of characters, but barely any character development. Combat is interesting, but it's easy and gets old quick. The game needed more time in development. It does have one of the biggest surprise endings this year though.

Never did played any of the post launch updates or DLC so got to it this time. My impression is better from when I first played, but probably not by much. Pacing is all over the place with the two extreme halves. I didn't enjoy the story that much either. Overall, I liked the movie prequel better.

Lots of potential here for a great life-sim game. Beautiful sprites, good art direction, charming characters and a cozy town. I would've rated the game higher if not for the numerous bugs and relatively short game time.

Great graphics, fast and intense gameplay, but a pretty weak story overall. Pre-patch, the auto combos are pretty annoying to deal with.

Improved game over Ryza 1 pretty much across the board. Combat embraced the "action" side to it making it easier to chain many special attacks. It's flashy, but also unfortunately easy.

Story is still on the weak side and while seeing how the returning characters had grown during the timeskip, I'm still not particularly attached to them. Exploration and alchemy are still great.

The story, characters and combat are all unremarkable. However, the atmosphere, exploration and setting are all quite nice.

For a Pokemon clone, it's pretty solid. Having only played up to the 2nd Gen of Pokemon games, many of the mechanics here are familiar. The story is somewhat typical save the world type story, but quite entertaining. The characters are memorable and there's lots of humor here with 4th wall breaking moments.

There isn't much that this game excels at in my opinion, but what it does well is being a great complete package. Large areas to explore, many sidequests, decent cutscene direction and quick entertaining combat. Story ended up unremarkable for me and while I enjoyed the characters, there weren't any that had amazing development.

The game has its horror moments which are done well during those times, but other times, it felt too much like an action game for me. Albeit a fun action game. The story wasn't bad, but I thought it was less interesting compared to RE VII.

TTGH is unique in many ways. It's a story about ghosts and the supernatural. Combat is tactical grid-based, but has a big emphasis on luck and predicting enemy movements to actually land hits. The episodic stories aren't anything amazing, but are entertaining nonetheless.

The first game was mostly an action game, but Dusk Diver 2 added a ton of RPG mechanics including party formations which made things interesting. The new story isn't that much better than before, but still good enough to keep me interested.

For a remaster of a Wii U game, it looks pretty great. While it's the least scariest of the FF games, it still had a good atmosphere. The combat feels sluggish at times, but I think I enjoy it more than the fixed camera style of the old ones. The story was interesting too.

Monochrome Order has a lot of interesting ideas, but a lack of budget really hindered such potential. The game has multiple story branches throughout the game and the Judgment quest system is interesting. Even though there's only 3 story relevant party characters, you can recruit about 15+ optional ones.

Marenian is a cozy game throughout with a slice of life story all about running a tavern and getting your home back from the bank. There's a lot of charm here and the gameplay loop is surprisingly addicting.

Compared to its prequel, Midnight Shadows, Lost in the Dark wasn't as good. The bond between the main characters aren't as strong as I'd liked and the story itself doesn't quite have the same emotional impact. With that said, the story is still good on an emotional level and the mystery buildup is done well.

Plenty of Digimon nostalgia here. The story is largely reminiscent of Digimon Adventure, but does venture into surprisingly dark territory at times.

For a game that's heavily a Visual Novel, the presentation is among the best I've seen. The multiple story paths feature is a nice touch, but there's a ton of overlap disappointedly.

If I was going to name the best video game song this year, the title theme might be it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OO6IiGD6PtI

Relayer is unremarkable in many ways. The story is just decent for much of it and the characters are standard anime tropes. The gameplay could've used more variety especially with map designs, but combat is fast and snappy for a grid-based SRPG. The mech animations are slick and great to see. The ending also left me wanting more.

CE1 already had a lot of interesting ideas, but were ultimately poorly executed. CE2 fixes a lot of it so it resulted in a pretty fun game. The story rehashes a lot of ideas from the first game disappointedly and while the characters were generally more likable here, the character issues here aren't as interesting as the first game.

It's only my 2nd R&C game, but so far, these games haven't disappoint. Rift Apart shows what a big budget modern 3D platformer can be. The game is a technical marvel with thrilling cinematic sequences and high octane action.

The first Yomawari game I've completed and despite the simple story, it gets more emotionally gripping once I got further in. It's one of the few games this year that left me reflecting about the story and ending for days afterwards and one of the few games to make me go WTF just 5 minutes in the game.

I've actually played the PSP version years ago, but since I've only played one story route and don't remember anything about the story, I'll include it.

This is the game that I've put the most hours into at ~151 hours. There's a ton of content to find and unlock. Many characters to use. The mostly grounded political story is interesting and the use of multiple story paths is a highlight. The "Remaster" simplifies a lot of things, but also streamlines many others to make it a blast to play.

The runner-up of my GOTY. The rogue-lite gameplay is fun, but the story and characters had really left me emotionally hooked by the end. A remarkable feat considering the story doesn't get "exciting" until the very end and there's basically only 3 characters in the whole game. And only 1 of the 3 actually talks.

My personal GOTY. The combat and exploration were its main weaknesses, but the surprisingly great soundtrack, artstyle, characters and story made it a great complete package. It also gave me diabetes.