My Top 10 Video Games of 2021, Only Three Years Late
2 December 2024 ☼ video games
I have a confession: I’m on a podcast. Granted, it’s less a podcast and more an excuse to drink and shoot the shit once a week with my friends who are increasingly spread out across Western North America, but nonetheless, I am on a podcast, and I feel the requisite amount of shame for this tragic turn of events. Teenage me would be chagrined, and then would ask what a podcast is and if it’s something that you can play on a Discman.
One of the things the podcast does every year, however, that still retains a warm place in my heart is cobble together a “definitive” Game of the Year list using a series of individual top ten lists and a collaborative process that could only be described as “spiteful”. My intention way back when was to always document my personal top ten GOTY lists here, but then, you know, a pandemic and what might be considered some semblance of a life afterward happened, and now we’re here in 2024 doing catch up. Someday I’ll post often enough to this damn website that I can stop apologizing, but we’re not there yet, you and me.
Checking my notes, I played 31 2021 releases in 2021 proper, but as you may have gathered from the title of this post, only ten of them could be in my top 10 games of 2021.
10) Loop Hero
An interesting side effect about doing this summary years later is trying to remember what I loved about these games with some distance on them. Viewing a masterpiece through a lens coated in petroleum jelly, if you will. The thing that really strikes me about Loop Hero is how unique a concept it still is for a roguelite, even 4 years deeper into the Dark Age of the Roguelite that was arguably unleashed upon us by Spelunky 15 years ago.
The notion of trying to push your luck during a run by building as difficult a path for your hero as you dare remains novel and fascinating, and the basebuilding and deckbuilding elements are just as deep as they need to be. Like most of the games on this list, you can snag Loop Hero for a song, so I definitely recommend it, even for eyes as weary of the genre as mine are.
9) Unpacking
Unpacking! A tight 2 or so-ish hour “puzzle” game with some of the most affecting environmental storytelling I’ve ever run into. A great choice to play with a friend or two, especially if they aren’t really the video game sort.
8) Get In The Car, Loser!
Christine Love’s love letter to the interesting combat systems of the otherwise resoundly uninteresting Final Fantasy 13 series, GITCL is both mechanically fascinating and an incredibly gay road trip and bonding story in the way Final Fantasy 15 wishes it could have been. There are also a couple pieces of fun DLC set after the main storyline, though a promised third one is no longer on the cards because you fuckers never bought this game until I mentioned it three years later in this summary. Sigh.
Hey, if this one looks good to you, be sure to check out Ladykiller in a Bind, also by Christine Love, also putting her own spin on mechanics from other genres (conversation trees), also pretty gay, and, well, very NSFW. I called it “smut” to her face once, so if you’re reading this, Christine, I’m sorry, it’s clearly erotic fiction, I hope you can forgive me.
7) Resident Evil: Village
I never played Resident Evil 6 or 7, so this was a pleasant return for me to the more-action-than-survival style of game that the Resident Evil series has been since 4. Hey, remember when everyone got really weird online about Lady Dimitrescu? Oh, online, never change.
6) Returnal
Bafflingly, my 6th favorite game of 2021 ended up being the podcast’s #1 game, which I’d consider a complete miscarriage of justice if I didn’t otherwise manage to get 7 out of my top 10 games onto the podcast’s collective GOTY list. Returnal is a unique blend of bullet hell and third-person shooter roguelite with an impenetrable storyline and, refreshingly, a protagonist that’s an older woman. It’s not for everyone, but I managed to beat the damn thing and it’s here on my list, so take that as you will.
5) Griftlands
Griftlands started life as an open-world RPG made by Klei, the folks that brought you Don’t Starve and Oxygen Not Included. In what almost certainly was a case of oh-christ-we-overscoped-this-we-need-to-ship-something-no-one-panic, what we eventually got was a hybrid RPG/deckbuilder consisting of three short story-driven campaigns and their take on a “negotiation” minigame. It also has an “infinite” mode that sees you swap between the combat and negotiation games in an attempt to survive as long as possible, but honestly, Griftlands exited my brain at record speed as soon as I was finished the main game. Still, I enjoyed my time with it, and you very well might too at the incredibly low price the game can be had for these days.
4) Slipways
Fuck yeah, now we’re talking. Slipways is a puzzle/strategy game that is essentially a 4X/Anno title that you can complete a full run of in an hour. You already know if that’s something you’d be into based on that description, but I can also say that it’s exquisitely balanced, has a lot of replayability in “regular” mode, and has a fantastic campaign consisting of 13 scenarios that really twist the base game in clever ways. Highly recommend.
3) Hitman 3
Hitman 3 was on my list this year as my The Return of the King: ostensibly a nod for the last title of a trilogy that was really intended to give credit to all three games collectively. In retrospect, given that you can’t even buy Hitman 3 anymore and must get the whole shebang repackaged “Hitman: World of Assassination”, I think I was justified in my decision. If you haven’t played the modern Hitman trilogy yet, go right now and at least grab the demo. It has changed the way I think about level and encounter design. I’ve played it on streams before. Go treat yourself to some dumb murder hijinks.
2) NEO: The World Ends With You
I was a huge fan of the original The World Ends With You, having beaten both the original DS version with brain-bending dual screen combat and the eventual mobile/Switch remake with more practical combat mechanics. NEO retains a lot of the original’s charm and tells a great story that builds on that of the first title while also being deeper and more confident in its gameplay. My only real criticism is that the first game really benefitted from capturing Japan’s unique vibe at the time of its release (2008), something the sequel tries to do again but it ends up hitting different now that we live in a world where, you know, everyone owns a smartphone and using it to text is pretty mundane. Still, this is one of the better RPGs I’ve played for quite a long time, and it’s an easy recommendation, even for folks who never played the first TWEWY.
1) Inscryption
Boy, Inscryption sure was something, wasn’t it? I don’t want to spoil too much here for folks who still haven’t played it, but even if, like me, the words “roguelite deckbuilder” bring bile to your throat, you owe it to yourself to go back and play through Inscryption and see what the fuss was about. Even if you’re having some trouble with the mechanics, I still definitely recommend trying to get past the first “part” before setting the game aside as something that’s not necessarily for you. Poke at everything!