By Andrew Henderson

Around this time of year, we see all the major gaming publications and personalities coming out with their Game Of The Year (GOTY) lists. Usually, these all incorporate the same 60-70% of games in various order, with some indie darlings and/or dark horse candidates thrown in for personal taste.

Since I am not a journalist and do not play all the hit games as they come out, I decided to do my own list in a different way. Instead of looking at all of the games that came out in 2021, this GOTY top-ten list is of the games that I completed in 2021. So yeah, I’m comparing 1999’s Final Fantasy VIII against 2020’s Bugsnax. It’s my blog, so just play in this space with me.

10. NieR Replicant v.1.22474487139...

Originally Released: April 2021

Starting off strong, we have my absolute favorite game that completely sucked to play. I love the world and the characters and the soundtrack to NieR so much. I loved every one of Grimoire Weiss’s sassy retorts and comments to my gameplay. I loved Kaine’s penchant for daisy-chaining together obscenities with ease. I love the music so much that, next to FFXIV, this soundtrack is one of the most recurring contributors to my Spotify daily mixes.

I’m really happy that Square Enix released this remastered version, because otherwise we would only have 2010’s NieR as a means to play this game, and 2010’s NieR was nigh-unplayable. Much of the combat was overhauled, but certain aspects of the original are still here. Most notably, the game still has you spending way too much time with its arduous item-fetching sidequests.

Despite the time spent killing mobs for drops of mutton, I really enjoyed my time with NieR’s story specifically. And, while I can live on confident that I never need to play this game again, I can relive the highlights with what might be the single greatest game soundtrack ever made.

9. Forza Horizon 5

Originally Released: November 2021

I’ve never cared much about cars in real life, but something about racing games has always clicked with me. I remember having a great time with the original Gran Turismo games for PS1, even though the idea of owning fancy, expensive cars was virtually lost on me. I really enjoy the strategy that driving games like this often employ, like the risk and reward involved with taking a turn faster than your opponents in order to catch up. Playing Forza Horizon 5 rekindled that experience in a way I didn’t expect.

The way this game tries to teach you how and when to “correctly” brake or decelerate, and then doesn’t penalize you at all when you inevitably ignore its advice and blaze through an S curve at full speed while bashing into other cars like bowling balls in a bumper lane—it’s just beautiful.

The game is really smart in that it can be whatever game you want it to be. If you want that super crunchy driving simulator, it’s all yours. If you’d rather do drag racing or off-roading, you can do that as well. Or, if you just want to drive an expensive Porsche up and over a volcano, go for it! It’s kind of the perfect open world game. Which is weird to think of, considering it’s a car game.

There are a lot of games out there that ask you to meet them on their level, but Forza Horizon 5 is one of the few that is there to meet you on your level, wherever that is.

8. Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana

Originally Released: July 2016

I started Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana as research for the FLAVOR TEXT, but after about 4-5 hours in realized this game was one-hundred percent my jam. Like the others in the series, Ys VIII is a completely independent story set in the same sprawling universe. So, it doesn’t require you a lot of prior knowledge of the past games, which is why a lot of Ys fans recommend this as people’s introduction.

The whole premise is that you are a passenger aboard this elaborate cruise liner that gets attacked by this giant aquatic monster. The ship is destroyed, and the entire crew aboard are washed ashore on this deserted island filled with prehistoric monsters and other mysteries. The gameplay is pretty standard button-mashy Action RPG a lá Kingdom Hearts, but where this game truly shines is in exploration. You’re given a blank map of the island and are told to go fill it in. I acknowledge that it takes a special kind of person to be handed a checklist of treasure chests and landmarks to find along with a “percent completed” meter. That person is me.

Also, the story is actually really interesting and gets into some cool concepts around Creation myths and the very Sci-Fi thing of “civilization happens in series of cycles, and we are but one of the many cycles.”

If you like exploration and don’t mind a little repetitive button mashing, definitely check this out.

7. Inscryption

Originally Released: October 2021

The indie game that everyone was talking about for like three weeks and then moved on. Inscryption is one of those game experiences where the less knowledge you go in with, the better. At its core, it’s a collectable trading card game with roguelike elements, which—I should emphasize—is so normally not my jam. The game starts you out playing a watered-down version of Hearthstone or Magic: The Gathering against a very creepy man who has trapped you in his death cabin. The game quickly becomes much more, starting with the point where you realize you can interact with the cabin environment around you to gain access to helpful items and new cards. Pretty soon, it becomes kind of an escape room where you are trying to unlock all the secrets of this puzzle-box cabin in the woods.

And then, the game turns. Without spoiling it too much, I’ll say that this game becomes what I think is probably the best depiction of playing a video game creepypasta. Much like a Kojima game or even NieR, Inscryption becomes a metatextual commentary on gaming as a medium, and does so in really interesting ways.

The only reason I would not recommend this to everyone is because story progression is still locked behind a fairly challenging card game, so if that’s not for you just watch a playthrough on YouTube.

6. Bugsnax

Originally Released: November 2020

Who would have thought that a game about muppets collecting sentient fast food would have broken me emotionally, but there’s no better summation of 2021 than that. On the surface, Bugsnax is an indie-man’s Pokémon Snap. A low-budget romp through a series of vaguely familiar bio-domes to trap French fries with googly eyes. But, past that outer coating of caramelized sugar there are painfully real themes about how we as a society tie our identities into our successes and failures, and the overwhelming depression and anxiety that can accompany the latter…with googly eyes.

The cast of characters in Bugsnax acts as a sort of “found family” of misfits—people who couldn’t cut it in “regular” society come to this island chasing dreams of fame and fortune. As you get to know each of the characters more, you start to unlock quest lines that reveal more about why they are there. For example, there’s the down-on-his-luck farmer who followed his estranged anthropologist wife to the island to rekindle their marriage, but whose insecurities ultimately drive a wedge further between them. Or, the lovable-if-not-naive hippie who wants to set up a ranch because you find out he was abandoned as a child and channels his energy into building relationships with these creatures because he believes people always let him down.

It’s a surprisingly deep dive into psychological trauma and general mental health. Also, there are hamburgers with googly eyes that yell their name like Pokémon and that’s fun.

5. Final Fantasy VIII Remastered

Originally Released: February 1999 (Original)/September 2019 (Remastered)

This is the only game on this list that is technically a replay, but it’s been long enough since I first played Final Fantasy VIII that it warranted some discussion. I first played through FFVIII in 2002 when I was 13. Back then, I had just recently discovered this series through FFVII and prior to that only had a few RPGs under my belt. So, I barely knew what I was doing and just followed a guide through the whole thing.

Because I was a 13-year-old kid following a guide, I missed a lot about what FFVIII is about. Sure, I got that there were monsters, and witches, and orphans, and time travel, but the deeper meaning went right over my head. Playing this again at 34, I no longer saw Squall as a spiky-headed grownup with a cool anime sword. I saw Squall as a kid. A kid struggling with his own sense of identity with the vague responsibility of “leader” unfairly thrust upon him in the face of a world-ending apocalypse. A kid with crippling abandonment issues who taught himself to avoid people out of fear of being rejected.

I know most people don’t think of FFVIII as fondly as FFVII or FFVI, but it’s always been one of my favorites and playing it again this year just solidified for me.

4. Metroid Dread

Originally Released: October 2021

There’s a reason why Metroid Dread is in the mix of 2021 GOTY discussions across all the major forums. It’s just a really good game. Probably the best Metroid game next to Super Metroid. One of the things that always bothered me in older Metroid games were how the bosses were just wars of attrition. There wasn’t really anything to dodge or deflect, you were just tanking hits and shooting in hopes that their health bar would go down faster than yours. Dread completely changes this formula by making every boss use telegraphed attacks that hit like a truck so that you have to learn their patterns. This required several attempts at just about every boss and I LOVED it, up through and including the this-isn’t-even-my-final-form final boss.

As someone who very much enjoys exploration though, I struggled a bit. A lot of the fun of Metroidvanias is unlocking a new power and then backtracking to see what all you now have access to. Except Dread very much wants you to stay on the rails. This is a ride at Disneyland, and you have to keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle until the ride comes to a complete stop. And that stop doesn’t happen until the last quarter of the game where it finally opens up. To its credit, the game does this not by way of locked doors or invisible walls. Rather, the extensive maps weave you in and out of rooms in an elaborate way that is almost disorienting. Once I learned to just accept that I was following a path and conceded that I would come back later, I had a lot more fun with it.

If you don’t mind the higher-than-average difficulty, Metroid Dread is a must-play, even if you’ve never played another Metroid game.

3. Monster Hunter Rise

Originally Released: March 2021

Like a lot of people, Monster Hunter was a series that I always was interested in but never truly got until Monster Hunter: World. Through World, I was able to figure out the mechanics, and eventually got fairly good with the insect glaive enough to beat the game. But, where World was the game where I learned how to play Monster Hunter, Monster Hunter: Rise was the game where I learned how to master it.

Rise took all of the quality-of-life improvements from World and remixed them into a more compact, portable-friendly version. That alone would have made this game excellent, but then Capcom went ahead and completely revitalized the idea of movement itself. Sure, it takes a bit to figure out the wirebug, but once you do—holy crap is it a game changer. Zipping in and out of danger zones, using vertical space to your advantage, risking precious resources to execute a flashy move to exploit an opening…these are all now critical to the way I play and I honestly don’t know if I could go back to even playing World.

I felt like I got this game so much in a way that I never did with World. I was able to learn and master three new weapons and was able to take on all of the cool, new endgame super-monsters—something I couldn’t even dream of doing in World’s post-credits content.

Monster Hunter: Rise is still bogged down with clunky tutorials and brings along the series notoriously high skill floor, but it is definitely the closest the Monster Hunter series has been to being accessible.

2. Persona 4 Golden

Originally Released: July 2008 (Original)/November 2021 (Golden)

I kicked off 2021 by jumping into Persona 4 Golden completely blind. I absolutely loved Persona 5 and so I knew that this wouldn’t be that big of a risk. But, much like the more recent entry, the first couple hours or so of Persona 4 are sloooow. If you can push through the revolving door of character introductions and tutorials, then you are in for a truly special experience. The main cast of characters in Persona 4 are all broken in their own unique, yet immediately identifiable way that it’s impossible not to connect with at least one of your party members.

The game does such a good job of fleshing out these people that all seem like one-note anime tropes at first. For example, there’s an archetypical waifu pop singer girl who follows you around while addressing you only as “Senpai” with a level of sexual promiscuity that can only be described as “icky.” But, build up your relationship with her and you realize that act is purely a defense mechanism because as a public figure she has virtually lost her teen years and she never learned how to actually be vulnerable with another human being.

This game is very long. To boot, the definitive Golden version adds about 5-7 hours’ worth of content onto a narrative that already clocks in at roughly 40 hours. That said, after that initial push I never once felt like anything I did was filler. The story is engaging until the end, having you piece together all the loose threads from your adventure to solve the mystery and unmask the Big Bad at the end of the plot.

That isn’t to say anything about the soundtrack, which is simply banger after freaking banger. It’s crazy to think that the incredible soundtrack of Persona 5 could be outdone, but I truly think the series hit a high point with Persona 4 Golden.

Absolutely play this game if you enjoyed Persona 5, or if you just like JRPGs in general.

Honorable Mentions and Others Considered

Before unveiling the likely super-obvious winner, I want to quickly list off the other games considered, in no particular order:

Astro’s Playroom (Originally Released: November 2020)
- While it’s essentially a PS5 tech demo, it’s honestly a tight platformer and channels earlier Playstation legends like Jak and Daxter or Ratchet and Clank
Demon’s Souls (PS5 Remake) (Originally Released: November 2020)
- As this was pretty much the reason I bought a PS5, I’m surprised this didn’t even land on the top 10 list. I thought the remake was very well done, I just didn’t click much with the game itself enough to want to play through again like I have with all the other Souls games
Returnal (Originally Released: April 2021)
- I really enjoyed Returnal’s combat once I finally got it, but the game’s draconian saving structure and unforgiving roguelike systems made me never want to play it again after beating it
Final Fantasy VII: Remake Intergrade (Originally Released: June 2021)
- Technically, this is just DLC to a game I completed last year, but it’s on the list because Intergrade adds a completely new and separate story featuring Yuffie. I really liked what they did with this character who was fairly one-note in the original game. It’s still only 4-5 hours of content which really just left me wanting more
Death’s Door (Originally Released: July 2021)
- Probably a contender for the 11th spot on this list. Death’s Door is a unique and aesthetically pleasing Action RPG in the Souls-like style of gameplay. It does some cool narrative things but ultimately is another entry in an already saturated category
Boyfriend Dungeon (Originally Released: August 2021)
- I’d been following this game for months up to its release, and while there were some really interesting concepts here, I felt like it kind of fell flat. There wasn’t nearly enough dungeons or enemy variety or even fighting styles to warrant more than a couple hours of gameplay. Fun, but not worth the price tag.
Sonic Forces (Originally Released: November 2017)
- This game is not good. Even as Sonic games go, it’s somehow boring despite its blinding speed and beautiful artwork. Somehow Sega made a Sonic game last 4 hours and tricked people into paying $50 for it. If it hadn’t have been a Playstation Plus freebie, I would never have bought it.
Ys I & II Chronicles (Originally Released: February 2013)
- Along with my playthrough of Vs VIII, I tried out the first two Ys games which are technically bundled together in one package. I had a ton more fun with these than I anticipated. The “bump system” mechanic is so weird and unlike anything else I’ve played, but once I got it actually started to vibe with it. These are short, so definitely worth spending an afternoon.
Pokémon Shield (Originally Released: November 2017)
- My relationship with Pokémon is so strange. I think I’m generally over the series, as I haven’t really enjoyed any of the games since I played Pokemon Y back in 2013. While I liked some of the things Sword and Shield added, like the Wild Area, I felt like I was pushing through the game most of the time. As soon as I rolled credits, I turned the game off and haven’t gone back into it, even though I know there is a ton more to do.

1. Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker

Originally Released: December 2021

Baby, it was always you.

God, what can I say about Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker that fits within the parameters I’ve established for this article? It’s the greatest game I’ve ever played, hands down. Hell, it might be the greatest work of fiction I’ve ever experienced…which seems like a wild statement, but the ending literally has you riding a dragon into the ends of the universe to punch the avatar of Nihilism in the face, so here we are.

Writing an ending is hard. Think about it: How many third movies in a trilogy are your favorite? Name five bad series finales. Now name five that left you satisfied. What I’m saying is that it’s really freaking hard to effectively answer all the questions that have been posed, tie up all the loose ends, and give all your characters satisfying conclusions that all collectively make sense and pay off the growth they’ve experienced throughout your story. And, the longer the story has gone on, the harder this is to do.

With essentially four full expansions and almost nine years of content behind it, Endwalker had a lot of content to wrap up. And they absolutely nailed it. Not only did they successfully pay off all the relationships we’ve built, adventures we’ve had, and crazy bosses we’ve fought, they did so while also low-key forcing us to ponder our own meaning for existence.

In a game that already works overtime to celebrate the legacy that is Final Fantasy, Endwalker somehow dialed that up even further by being the most Final Fantasy to have ever Final Fantasy’d. Honestly, the only bad thing I can say about Endwalker is that I wish it wasn’t locked behind 200 hours of (albeit excellent) MMORPG content so that more people could experience this absolute work of art.

I do not understand how that, in a series where we have dethroned God with the Power of Friendship at least 15 times, this game somehow did it more eloquently but also more blatantly than any other entry in the franchise. And, to me, it is perfect.