Emily
January 12, 2019, 2:58pm
1
End of Year 2018: Waypoint Community's Favorites Hello everyone! It has been an exciting month and we’re happy to announce that we’ve finally reached the end of our End of Year event. Thank-you to everyone who took part, whether that was sending in your own nominations or sharing your favorites in the various category threads. We’ve loved the discussion that has taken place and we’re happy to highlight some of that below as we announce the winners for each category.
When approaching the planning phase for this event we decided to try some new ideas and experiment with our process. Some of those ideas we feel have been a great success, others not so much. We feel it’s important to get your feedback on the event so that we can review it when it comes time to do this again, so we’ll be putting up a feedback thread shortly to give everyone a chance to have their say.
Now, for the winners. In looking at the broad selection of games that featured in our voting polls we decided that we didn’t just want to celebrate a single winner in each category, so instead we’ve adopted a podium-style that allows us to feature the top 3 (top 5 for Favorite Game ) in each category. Included below is some of your own thoughts on why these games are special mixed in with our own. Enjoy!
If you have thoughts about games or media that were overlooked here, feel free to shout about them in the relevant category threads! You can find those from the master thread linked below:
End of Year 2018: Threads
End of Year 2018: The Results
Click the links below to hop straight to each category:
Not all of our categories this year featured a voting component but nevertheless we still wanted to highlight some of the thoughts the community shared across the various discussion threads:
Non-Game Categories:
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Emily
January 12, 2019, 3:08pm
2
5. Monster Hunter World
just_benj:
Gotta rep my boy Monster Hunter World . I still vividly remember seeing its announcement last year at Sony’s E3 press conference and absolutely losing it. I’ve been a fan of this franchise since Monster Hunter Freedom 2 back on PSP and have easily sunk more than a thousand hours into this series. I knew this newest entry wouldn’t disappoint, but I was legitimately taken aback by how widely acclaimed it was across gaming critics and press, and just how many new fans it brought on board.
4. Heaven Will Be Mine
the_stills:
Heaven Will Be Mine feels cold. It feels dense, tense and ambiguous. But at the same time that tension feels exciting, that density wraps itself around you and caresses you sensually, and in that ambiguity is a paradoxical sense of comfort - in the implicit, the inferred. Heaven Will Be Mine is an allegorical tale, one that speaks to an experience and feeling I know all too well, that of being queer online and being desperate for any kind of connection, the longing to feel safe in a space that feels lonely and you feel so vulnerable living in. And Heaven Will Be Mine knows that those connections are tenuous, fragile and fleeting but they’re also exhilarating, blissful and overwhelming. Those connections are core to Heaven Will Be Mine, its characters exploit the vulnerability they feel in their mechs to pierce through each others shell, to reach inside and find that connection, those fleeting moments of euphoria.
jaguar:
I can’t remember another game in recent memory that feels “Representative” nearly as much as Heaven Will Be Mine . The game encapsulates and expands not only on the queer interpersonal experience in a post-internet world, but how that intersects with a lack of stability and uncertainty about the future. In a world where our lives are completely atomized by colonialism and corporation alike, how does our empathy have to evolve and adapt such that it can survive, and bring us with it, intact?
3. Return of the Obra Dinn
AnxiousBob:
I played Papers, Please last year and thought it was pretty great, but it didn’t absorb me completely like Return of the Obra Dinn did this year. I somehow had no idea this game was coming and after this I think I’ll have to closely follow Lucas Pope’s stuff, as this is probably one of my favorites of all time, not just this year. It’s such an intricately crafted puzzle that I’m shocked it works so perfectly, as I am by how every crewman is recognizable in this beautiful monochrome style. On top of that, it’s onboard an 19th century sailing ship, which is 100% my aesthetic.
2. Into the Breach
Dapp:
Mechs often come with a detachment to scale. Ultraman and Super Sentai battle in cardboard cities for a reason, as they crash through streets, with pieces of constructed styrofoam buildings and sparks flying, it’s easy to lose that sense of cost. Stepping into the cockpit of a mech means removing yourself from a small picture anymore, even more so if your task is so lofty as saving the entire world. Into The Breach confronts this reality in a way I feel few mech games have ever before. This game can be unflinchingly punishing and set you up in what seem like no-win scenarios at first, but the longer you look upon them the more room for compromised victory becomes clear. ITB sets up its rules very upfront, by clearly delineating what will do how much damage, to where and in what order, the game rarely blindsides you with something you couldn’t prepare for. As such when you make the decision to let a city fall because, you still have plenty of health it should be fine, it is your decision to make. Your mech surviving might just win the war, that cities won’t be here after 3 more turns. Into The Breach turns you into that cold disconnected mech pilot.
Niko:
I love Into the Breach for its capacity to make me feel smart. It’s a feeling that happens again and again because of how the game forces me to think outside the box and employ nontraditional strategy. In most games I’d want to focus my fire on a single enemy to take it out of the battle, whereas here it might actually be better to push a dangerous enemy one square for no damage, preventing it from destroying something valuable. Achievements and pods would entice me to play suboptimally for greater rewards. The additional mech squads got me out of my comfort zone and encouraged me to adapt. Yet the game never felt unfair; the challenges never felt insurmountable. I’ve spent my fair share of time staring blankly at the screen trying to see if there’s any way out of the hole I’ve dug for myself. That eureka feeling - when all of the pieces fall into place, and the solution materializes seemingly out of thin air - is sublime. This perfectly-balanced tactical puzzle design kept me coming back and is why Into the Breach was one of my favorite games of 2018.
1. Celeste
SecretSeashell:
Celeste has already been brought up several times in this thread, but it not only did it blow me away in January - I’ve been thinking about it the whole rest of the year. Masocore platformers are not a genre I normally go for (I bounced off Super Meat Boy pretty hard), but Celeste’s welcoming style (and assist options), gorgeous art & sound direction, and moving story all pulled me in. On a personal note, I have had to grapple with anxiety this year in a way I haven’t before and there are several moments in Celeste’s story and its gameplay that I have come back to repeatedly as a source of consolation and strength. I can’t think of higher praise than that.
foxtrot:
I’m not the first to say it and I won’t be the last but yeah Celeste is a masterpiece. Pure mechanical perfection and endlessly clever level design, all wrapped up in lush visuals and packing one of the best game soundtracks I’ve ever heard. 100+ hours later and I still love it just as much as ever.
Lassemomme:
Right there with you on Celeste , that game is incredible. Halfway through the year I wondered if it was just an in the moment kind of thing, so I decided to replay it and it was honestly just as good as I remembered. Just a masterclass in thoughtful game design and narrative, everything fits so well together and it is just brimming with charm.
diglett:
I picked up Celeste again a few days ago to see if it really was everything I remembered it being and it was just instant bliss. Everything about that game’s design and feel is fantastic, its soundtrack and art design are moving and perfect for the experience, and the writing incorporates this incredibly moving and powerful story about mental health and self-care and ahhhhh that game is sublime. And on top of all that, it’s just a brilliant platformer. Having stuck through the B and C sides, there are so many reasons to come back to it, whether you’re into the tough-as-nails gameplay or just want to the really moving story. I haven’t even mentioned Assist Mode yet for its pretty unparalleled take on modifying difficulty.
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Emily
January 15, 2019, 9:57am
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3. Celeste
jaguar:
It really surprised me how often this year I heard or read some variant on the line “Celeste ? Oh, it’s just another one of those pixel indie platformers, huh.” In the time I spent with the game, it seemed determined to not be limited by those aesthetic choices. I remember being taken in by the smooth spiral up the mountain that the level select winds as you climb upwards. As beautiful as the pixels are, the addition of minimal but effective portrait art adds a whole layer of expression and emotional range that I never expected to see from the game.
2. GRIS
1. Return of the Obra Dinn
toppform:
Return of the Obra Dinn sure looks gorgeous, with its art resembling what you can find in old adventure books and the dithered 1-bit look adding a unique take on how digital graphics can be presented.
Now, having a unique look is good by itself, but it was when I watched this video on how the big reference drawing of all actors was created that it finally clicked with me just why it works so well in this story. This snapshot of (reasonably) detailed characters is turned into the blurry mess that you spend so much time peering at in the game, trying to work out who is who.
But from my layman’s experience with history, is this not an unavoidable part of trying to work out past events? As stories are told and retold details are lost or added, leaving an incomplete document of the past that has to be restored by understanding and analyzing the context of events and who are telling them, not simply reading the surviving copy. For the Obra Dinn, the hard-to-parse art style effectively recreates this effect in a visual way, reminding us that we are looking at the past from a distance and how this limits our ways to understand it.
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Emily
January 15, 2019, 9:59am
10
3. Spyro Reignited Trilogy
2. Katamari Damacy: Reroll
CrimsonBehelit:
Katamari Damacy Reroll . Hey, remember that awesome, upbeat little game that had you grinning the entire time even though it wasn’t really that challenging? Remember how there hasn’t been a good one in like ten years?
1. Hollow Knight
SecretSeashell:
Didn’t get a chance to play this in 2017 but dang is it a perfect on-the-go game. What really stands out for me is the atmosphere and world-design. Hollow Nest felt like a real place rather than a videogame level, while at the same time just being a joy to explore and uncover all the secrets. This is the first time a Souls-like really called to me, but now I’m thinking of digging deeper in to the genre (Ashen next, maybe?).
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Emily
January 15, 2019, 10:00am
11
3. God of War
2. Tetris Effect
Dapp:
Tetris Effect takes the conductive nature of its spiritual predecessor Lumines where every button press, movement or block placement adds to sweeping soundscapes giving you that feeling of creation, contrasted to your general goal of bringing the block level down. What the game changes from that formula, that Tetris allows for, is room to breathe and a sense of tempo. As the cacophony increases in speed, so to does the block’s descent. Just as it can feel too much the bare, the music shifts the pace relaxes and you have a moment to collect and recover. This addition and incorporation of Tetris various speeds adds to Enhance’s already deft hand when it comes to sound design, and give you a better sense of orchestration.
1. Return of the Obra Dinn
jaguar:
it almost feels like the elephant in the room for this category but the way that Return of the Obra Dinn used those orchestral hits and musical stings to punctuate the clunky-but-physical feel of the UI absolutely blew me away. playing that game feels like becoming part of a stage play, the melodrama of the score buoying you through every step of your discovery and exploration.
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Emily
January 15, 2019, 10:00am
14
Gritty Presents: Favorite Fighting Game — [Discussion] — [Poll]
3. UNDER Night IN-BIRTH Exe: Late[st]
syz:
Bit of a weird one in terms of “releases” just because it’s, as the title might suggest, more of a Super Turbo update. Was out in Japanese arcades for a couple of years prior to finally, mercifully making it to PS4, and then taking another several months to make it to PS4 outside of Japan this year. The console version at least brought with it a new character or two, a world-class tutorial, and a VN-style story mode for its chuuni-as-hell characters to star in. I think that if I were to sit down and focus on any of the myriad of fighting games on the market these days, it would be this and Tekken 7.
2. Dragon Ball FighterZ
1. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
superhiero:
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate isn’t just a game to me. It’s a bridge allowing me to express myself to other fans of the game, through the freeform nature of the game’s mechanics combined with the huge cast of fighters. To see every character return is something special, and the newcomers are fresh (woomy!) and exciting. There’s something here for all Nintendo fans, and I can’t wait to see the heights of competitive play.
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