The Impact Factor's Top 10 Games of 2019

The Impact Factor’s Top 10 Games of 2019

Perspectives

Another year, another list of my favorite games. I’ll keep the preamble brief this year. Of all GOTY lists that have been posted here, this one has the most different context. For 11/12 of the year, I was working in a new job. A job that was professionally satisfying. A job I don’t hate. That I actually *like*. It’s something that during the darkest days of my Ph.D., I didn’t think would ever happen for me. With this enjoyment came a different mindset. I was looking less for expansive escapes, and more for satisfying gameplay or some unique hook. Fewer games that would supplant my life, and more that bolstered it.

Alongside the new job came big changes to my gaming time. A much longer commute + longer  work hours = less time to do anything game related. So I sought powerful experiences that were either over quickly, or could easily be broken into discrete chunks. 

All this said, my tastes are still my tastes, so I’m sure you can anticipate many of the games that made my Top 10. But I sense things are *changing,* and I’m both excited and scared to see where that takes me.

A few categories before jumping into the main list:

Games I Did Not Get To But Seem Like List Contenders: Life is Strange 2, Death Stranding, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

Honorable Mentions: Super Mario Maker 2, Ape Out, Devil May Cry V

10. Remnant: From The Ashes

A roguelite Dark Souls with guns … that’s actually really good? Yep. I struggled a lot to lock in my #10, but felt that the relatively little chatter this game was garnering secured its spot. Terrible title aside (seriously, are these things computer generated at this point?), Remnant just works. The small-to-mid sized dungeons last long enough to provide a sense of adventure, but never slip into an onerous slog. The randomization provides ample incentive to explore the discrete biomes multiple times, despite the relative monotony of the actual locations themselves. But above all, the gameplay-gunplay is perfect. It’s challenging, fast-pasted, and strikes the same balance of risk and reward that are a hallmark of the Sekisoulsbourne genre. I am excited for what comes next.

9. Steamworld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech

The Steamworld games have garnered a lot of critical praise the past few years, but I’ve never been able to get into them. In fact, I disliked the first Steamworld Dig so much I deleted it after the first two hours. But Hand of Gilgamech is just fantastic. It’s a small-scope RPG inspired by JRPG classics, with a clever and sufficiently complex card-based battle system. The overarching plot is mundane, but the characters are well-written and memorable. Nothing in the game outstays its welcome, while constantly giving players the tools to innovate. Playing through was a joyful experience start to finish. More 15 hour turn-based RPGs, please.

8. Outer Wilds

No game was more hyped in the critical circles I follow than Outer Wilds. By the year’s end, it had gotten to the point that I felt like if I missed out on playing, I was failing. The world? Myself? Unclear, but what was clear was that I had to play it before making this list. I put off playing for a long time because it didn’t seem like a me game. A slow, exploration-based puzzle space-flight sim art house… thing? Especially given my drive towards compact or pure gameplay experiences, I was trepidatious about Outer Wilds. While some of my fears were well founded, I am happy to report that I had a great time with Outer Wilds. The game is a marvel, really. That the 22-minute game loop works. That the entire solar system does its own thing that you have no power over, that you can experience. That what starts as a chill exploration game turns into a frantic race against time to unravel interstellar mysteries. What I loved the most was how the only thing you gained in the game was player knowledge. There’s no other currency, or skill trees. It’s a game about learning. It’s also a game about accepting death. It’s pretty fricken cool. It’s still not a me game, but it is a fantastic little thing.

7. Borderlands 3

2012’s Borderlands 2 would shape almost a decade of co-op gaming between my wife and I. It is something I’ll never forget and can never be replicated. 2019’s Borderlands 3 did an admirable job trying. Terrible performance aside (laggy menus, huge framerate drops), I adored my time with Borderlands 3. In fact, we adored our time with it. It’s more Borderlands, but after seven years, that was enough for us. It didn’t do anything amazing, but it was a pretty darn good Borderlands game. We are 70+ hours in, and still excited to come back at some point in the future. Great.

6. Resident Evil 2: REmake

A late-comer to the list despite its early in the year release, Resident Evil 2 is just great. I had never played the original, despite being mildly traumatized by lickers after watching over my friend’s shoulder as a kid. So that means, even assessing this as a standalone puzzle-y survivor horror game released in 2019, it still easily makes the cut. The police station is an unbelievably well-designed game space. The plot is corny and fun. The combat creates an ideal balance of feeling just powerful enough to move forward, while never feeling confident that you can tackle the next challenge. And Mr. X. Yeah. He’s great. Justine and I played through both campaigns back-to-back and had an awesome time. Give me more Resident Evil, please. Capcom has been on a roll recently.

5. Pokémon Shield

There’s a chance that if you’ve heard anything about this year’s entry into the long running Pokémon franchise, it was negative. That negativity colored my initial trepidation about first jumping in — if so many people felt so strongly about it, maybe this would be a major stumble. Nope. Not at all. For the first time since Pokémon White, I got way into a Pokémon game. I was trying to catch everything I saw, played essentially non-stop until I saw the ending, and even spent a dozen hours or so making a semi-competitive online team. I loved the aesthetic, I loved making a perfect Justine replica player character, and I loved playing Pokémon again. The game has its faults and I’m dying to know what the franchise could be if it evolved (even just a bit!) But I really enjoyed what they delivered with Shield.

4. Control

Now this one was a surprise. I’d never played a Remedy game before. Leading up to, and even slightly after, the release of Control I was whelmed. It looked like a standard action-filled 3rd person shooter. Boy was I wrong. Control is a gem. I liked just about everything: the Lynchian world, the lore about objects of power and altered worlds events, the brutalist architecture of the oldest house, the dream-like characters and story, and of course the ultimate superhero-sim combat. Seriously, floating around a room, telekinetically dislodging a huge chunk of concrete wall and throwing across a room at an enemy never gets old. Control has such a strong sense of place, such a strong identity, it couldn’t not stick with me long after I finished playing. Plus the live action bits! Dr. Caspar Darling! The boss fights! Yeah, Control rocked. I don’t often come back for DLC, but I’m kind of chomping at the bit to play more.

3. Card of Darkness

This game needs way more attention. Card of Darkness is a wonder of game design. It is the only game I put significant time into from my one month of free Apple Arcade. What is there to say about Card of Darkness? The odd-even card-based dungeon crawling is on one hand exceedingly simple, and the other, a complex and challenging dance of balancing risk and trying to mitigate losses. Card of Darkness captures the thrilling feeling of clearing out an intense RPG dungeon while just looking at a grid of cards. The design borrows a lot of from classic rogue likes, in which you learn by experience and how every steep deeper feels like it is one step closer to death. But the game’s aesthetic is colorful and joyous, assuaging difficulty fatigue. I was enraptured, pushing further than I ever thought I could — even to the very end of the game. That’s right. I beat Card of Darkness. I don’t have access to the numbers ( total wins / total played) but I can imagine it’s pretty freakin low. But I felt so rewarded for every single second I invested into playing. Plus, the short discrete dungeon level structure made this a perfect commute game, and a perfect “when I have a couple minutes” game. More people need to play this one. It’s a travesty more lists don’t feature it.

2. Fire Emblem: Three Houses

My first Fire Emblem game. My first real tactics game in… half a decade? Maybe more? The genre scares me. I suck at tactics and strategy. Like many other games on this list, I was hesitant to get this one. And like other games on this list, yeah, I’m glad I fought myself on this one. While I mostly enjoyed the tactical battles in Three Houses and the satisfying feeling of crushing my foes with an overpowered battle mage (Lysithea) or griffin-riding lancer (Leonie), my true enjoyment came from school-life. Three Houses features a Persona-lite school life sim, complete with social links, romances, stat boosting, etc. I fell deep, deep into this rabbit hole. My passion was driven by how unbelievably charming the majority of the cast of characters were. Sure, most started out (& even ended up) super anime-tropey, but they wormed they way into my heart and refused to be ousted. It was a thrill getting to know them, understand their motivations, and recruiting them to my unbeatable squad of heroes. I enjoyed meticulously planning their growth, their proficiencies, their class specializations. I’ve heard a lot of critics complain how easy Three Houses was, but for me, that was part of the charm. A reward for my excellent tutelage. Plus, the story goes places and that was fun to see unfurl. If you were ever on the fence about Fire Emblem or a tactics RPG, Three Houses is unquestionably a good place to start. Golden Deer forever. 

1. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

Sorry. Not sorry. Sekiro was easily the best game of the year. Holy moly. HOLY MOLY. I’m over the moon for this good game about a very sad ninja man. At this point, I’m convinced From Software made some deal with a nether god that prevents them from making anything other than mind-bogglingly good games. Sekiro is a masterpiece. Sekiro has the best sword combat that there has even been in a game. Unlike previous Souls entries that gave the player many tools and asked them to be pretty good with a few of them, Sekiro demands that players become masters of a very small toolset. The journey to that point is tough, but once it clicks, there is nothing more satisfying in games. And I feel like it clicked for me pretty fast. As a big fighting game fan, reading opponent behavior, timing parries, studying attack animations, and footsies (placing yourself at the exact distance that most benefits your offense and least benefits your opponents’) all felt natural to me. In past games I felt like I could get away with cheesing the game to steal unearned victories (which, to be fair, fit with the theming and world of past entries), but not here. Speaking of worlds, I was initially put off by the more rote feudal Japan setting, but From Software put their own spin that elevated it for me. Sekiro also experiments with having more direct storytelling, which worked! Character progression was light, but great. Exploration was light, but great. The emphasis on stealth was great, and when stealth went wrong it was great. From Software has now proven they understand the true core to what makes Souls games work, and I cannot wait for them to apply it to more, and different, contexts. Oh yeah. It also has some genre-best boss fights and moments. There’s just too much to say. Sekiro is my second favorite Souls game ever, only losing out to the original Dark Souls. (PS: Yep, I got the Platinum Trophy). Congrats Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, you’re The Impact Factor’s 2019 Game of the Year!