Annual Summary 2020

Holy crap what a year.

Here’s what I played.



Adventure Bar Story
Adventure Labyrinth Story
AeternoBlade 2
Al-Qadim: The Genie’s Curse
The Banner Saga 3
Beautiful Desolation
Dark Half
Deus Ex 3
Deus Ex 4
Deus Ex: Breach
Etrian Odyssey 5
Grimm’s Hollow
Gurumin
I Am Setsuna
I Have Low Stats But My Class is Hero, So I Recruited Everyone I Know to Fight the Dark Lord
The Longest 5 Minutes
Okami
Rakuen
Romancing Saga 3
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona Q2
Unlucky Mage
Witch Hunt
Ys 1



Definitely a longer list than last year’s, in spite of a fair number of sizable games on it, but, well, that’s what happens when you’re furloughed for half a year, I suppose.

...Alright, look, I know this makes me sound like a complete asshole, but I can’t lie: purely in terms of the RPGs I played, 2020 was a good year for me.  All the rest of life around me might not have been particularly great, but I hit some nice RNG results with those RPGs.  Some great mainstream titles like Okami, Deus Ex 3, and Shin Megami Tensei: Persona Q2, a solid handful of high-quality indie titles like Rakuen and The Banner Saga, some great recent titles and some solid classics...alright, yes, there were some disappointments and some downright bad titles in there, too (as if 2020 weren’t bad enough already, I subjected myself to another Kemco game; goddamn their affordability and the severely diminishing number of 3DS RPGs I haven’t yet played!).  But overall, damn enjoyable year, strictly in terms of the games I played.

Of course, the world’s shutdown gave me plenty of time to do other stuff, too, and because I’ve somehow hypnotized myself into sincerely believing that anyone cares, I’m gonna tell you what else I was up to!

Anime: This year I watched Flip Flappers, a creative show which I quite enjoyed.  Flying Witch and My Roommate is a Cat were pleasant little shows, and Konosuba was dumb, but undeniably funny.  I also watched Re:Creators, which is a very cool analysis and treatise on the act of creation of fiction, on just about every level.  And lastly, I watched Puella Magi Madoka Magica and its third movie, which is without a doubt 1 of the greatest, most artful works of anime created, truly amazing as a whole--if you can emotionally handle it (spoiler: you can’t).  So yeah, very good year in terms of anime for me.
Books: It was actually a pretty disappointing crop this year, until right at the end.  After struggling on and off for the last 2 years to do so, I finally buckled down and finished reading Herman Melville’s Pierre or The Ambiguities, and dear Gozreh, it’s fucking TERRIBLE.  Look, if you loved Moby Dick, as I did, and are looking to see what else Melville penned, that’s great, but avoid the foolish mistake I made and steer the hell clear of Pierre or The Ambiguities.  It will not reward your persistence.  Aside from that, I read Colm Toibin’s Brooklyn because someone at some point had recommended it to me, and it was very meh, as well as Agatha Christie’s They Came to Baghdad, which was alright, but not up to her usual level of quality.  I also read Tortilla Flat, by John Steinbeck, and...I guess it’s probably good?  I didn’t personally like it, but that’s subjective; I am, by this point, just really tired of Steinbeck’s adoring preoccupation with extremely selfish hobos.
Luckily, my reading list for 2020 started to turn around with Thornton Burgess’s Blacky the Crow, which was a fairly decent kids’ book that got me nostalgic for back when I was a kid and an avid reader of his many works.  After that, I read the Dalai Lama's Ethics for the New Millennium, which is great.  I finished the year with 2 final books, the first of which was Jerry Spinelli’s Milkweed, which is just gut-wrenchingly powerful, a work so excellent that I think it manages to dwarf the likes of Maniac McGee and Stargirl.  The second and last novel that I had the absolute, rapturous pleasure of reading this year was Suzanne Collins’s The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, which is simply brilliant.  I fully believe that Collins is one of the most purely talented and significant authors within the last hundred years at least, and reading her latest work fully transformed 2020 into a great year for me in terms of what books I read.  I could have read a dozen Pierre or The Ambiguities, and The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes still would have managed to balance my year out as a net positive.
...Well, it could’ve balanced out at least 4 or 5 PIerre or The Ambiguities, at least.  Seriously, that thing is so awful.
Non-RPG Video Games: I actually played a few of these this year, besides just Super Smash Brothers.  I played a couple of visual novels, for starters: Heart of the Woods was pretty good, really like how well it does with setting its atmosphere, and VA-11 HALL-A, recommended to me by a former work friend, is really cool--I would never have thought that I’d be into a bartending simulator, but even if this one hadn’t been cyberpunk in a pleasingly 16-bit style, it’d definitely be a winner for its engrossing characters and understated story.  Strongly recommend it.  That same work friend also had me play Gris, which I recommend even more highly, because it’s just outright, lovely art, through and through.  Lastly, on a whim, having enjoyed that super old predecessor, I picked up the new XCOM: Chimera Squad, to see what the series has been up to in the past decade(s).  It’s not bad.
TV and the Like: Damn, I actually watched a ton of stuff this year.  My family all watched the old John Adams show together, and it’s pretty darned good, 1 of those little historical miniseries that tells a good story and informs at the same time.  I checked out the first season of the new Harley Quinn cartoon, and I liked it quite a bit...but then my interest immediately dwindled, because I next watched the new DC Super Hero Girls, and damn is it fun and clever.  Just bad luck for the Harley Quinn team to have to compete with Lauren Faust this year; better luck next time, guys.
Speaking of DC, I also watched the second season of The Flash with my sister, which is a fun show.  Of course, in terms of live-action superhero shows, nothing’s ever gonna beat Daredevil, which I finished watching this year, and goddamn am I gonna miss it--whoever’s responsible for canceling it, seriously, fuck you.  I also completed the new She-Ra, which has a lot of substantial ups and downs but is overall a solid show, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, whose final season is still fun but lacks a lot of the heart and charm of the first 3 and, at times, starts crossing the fine line it’s walked until now between an assertive mentality of empowerment, and certain unhealthy attitudes towards men.*  I also finally got around to watching Gravity Falls, which is good, and checked out the new Owl House, which is better--it’s kind of like if you put Futurama, the very few good parts of Harry Potter, and a couple Dali paintings into a mixing bowl and went nuts.  Also, I watched the eighth season of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.  And yes, I know there’s a ninth season and I’m behind, but goddammit, it’s so hard to say goodbye to this great show that I can’t help but draw it out a bit.
What else...oh, I also rewatched Scrubs and Star Trek: The Next Generation with my mother, who enjoyed both (the latter, admittedly, with a lot of selective curation on my part of which episodes she saw...look, STTNG is an elegant, thoughtful, amazing show and it will make you a better person for watching it, but let’s face it, grandma-banging alien ghosts in Space Scotland and that one where Picard became a kid for a little while prove that not every episode of that show is a winner).  I also rewatched The Good Place with my sister, because The Good Place is awesome.  Lastly, I watched the new Steven Universe Future, and I found that, unsurprisingly, it’s pretty excellent--it seems at first just to be a quirky little bit of tying up loose ends, but then it starts hitting you with that good old-fashioned Steven Universe mental-emotional turmoil and redefining how you look at other people yet again, and earns its place alongside the main show as a true work of excellence.  I tell you, we’re lucky to live in an age in which we get to enjoy a show of such substance as Steven Universe.
Other Crap: Well, it wasn’t in session for like half the year, but a lot of my time nonetheless was spent upon my job (and briefly on a second, and even more briefly on a third), and I still like spending time playing with my lizard (not a euphemism...well, okay, I guess I do spend some of my time doing that, too).  Also I spend time writing these rants, and often I am le tired, so, y’know, that all takes up time, too.

Okay, enough of me indulging myself as I ramble on about all the non-RPG stuff I have opinions on this year.  Let’s move on to the main event: an even more self-indulgent bunch of rambling about the yes-RPG stuff I have opinions on!



RPG Moments of Interest in 2020:

1. I love the fact that Nigerian Prince scam emails are not only still a worldwide phenomenon in Deus Ex 3’s vision of our future, but a thoroughly unstoppable one, able to make it into the accounts of even top-level Illuminati operations no matter how much they try to keep them out.

2. Few things in life are as pleasing as the sight and sound of that little lightbulb lighting up as your Romancing Saga character suddenly learns a new way to kick ass during the heat of battle.  Like, I’ll never do this because down that road leads madness, but I feel like any Top 5 list of the most gratifying sights and sounds of RPG gameplay would have to include this.

3. This year, I realized for the first time that developer Roseportal Games can be seen as having the acronym RPG.  Just in case you ever need ammunition for an argument that I am, in fact, incredibly obtuse, there you go.

4. I know it probably is just a coincidence, but the fact that the dinosaur boss in SMTPQ2 is weak to lightning gave me some great Chrono Trigger nostalgia.

5. Forget that Coronavirus nonsense--the real world-changing event of 2020 is that Final Fantasy 8’s Zell Dincht is no longer the sole connoisseur of low-quality hot dog obsession.  It’s kind of cruel, really--Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3’s Elizabeth already had other distinctive quirks of personality, and now, in Persona Q2, she has stolen 1 of Zell’s exact 2, and showed him up by making it cute and far more amusing.

6. The only way I can wrap my head around AeternoBlade 2’s voice acting is to sincerely believe that the recording took place no greater than 5 minutes after the actors had been introduced for the first time to the concepts of acting, English, speaking, communication as a whole, and possibly just the mere act of existing.

7. WHOEVER IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CREATION OF THE BLOCKHEADS IN OKAMI CAN GO RIGHT TO HELL.

8. There are some uses in Beautiful Desolation of certain basic vocal software programs.  This adds the authenticity of the whole robot-speech thing, but at the same time, it was hard to stay immersed when I felt like I was having a conversation with The Great Boot-Leg and Bootleg Jacques from Jontron.

9. This year was a sobering disappointment when it came to personal heroes of game development, with CD Projekt Red turning out to be as abusive to their employees as Bioware, as willing to fellate the CCP as Blizzard, as shamelessly dishonest as Bethesda, and as incompetent at releasing a functional product as all 3 of them.  And, much greater a blow to me personally, Chris Avellone turned out to be a predatory piece of shit.  Is there anyone in this accursed industry that can manage to be extremely talented AND not a douchebag?  Does Toby Fox host clandestine dogfights in his attic?  Is Laura Shigihara secretly running a human trafficking ring?  Will the Scooby Doo gang reveal in the coming months that underneath the mask, Yoko Taro was Old Man Randy Pitchford all along?

...Nah, that last one would require Pitchford to actually possess talent.  Might be safe on that one, at least.

EDIT FROM THE FUTURE: So apparently the allegations against Mr. Avellone were false.  Thank God for that.  I feel really bad about being tricked so easily into believing them.  I think that a desire to believe and support victims' claims is a good intention, and I really hate it when people take advantage of good intentions, so this frustrates me considerably.  Still, I'm certainly at fault for being gullible, and my feeling foolish and guilty is deserved.

10. Jesus Christ, Aldorlea Games!  28 different status effects in 1 game!?

11. What I like most about Unlucky Mage is the moment when the party uses their substantial endgame wealth to buy a horse to save it from an abusive life...and this transaction, and the little self-congratulatory back-patting session about how kind they are which follows, takes place in front of a large cage with 3 human slaves watching.  Yeah, the horse is absolutely the only individual whose situation you compassionate heroes should be focused on improving.

12. I finally filled out all the alphabet with Ys 1 this year!  By which I mean, I’ve now played at least 1 RPG for every single letter of the alphabet.  Took me over 30 years, but I got it done!


Quote of the Year
“What person on Earth has bowels filled with such charity?”
  --Sardonis, Unlucky Mage


Best Prequel/Sequel of 2020
Winner: Deus Ex 3
Deus Ex 3 is a great continuation of its franchise, a prequel to the first game that recaptures the compelling, conspiracy-driven story focus and the broader analysis of the nature of human society that made Deus Ex 1 such a powerful work.  Admittedly, DE3 is not quite as great at it as the founding work of the series, but it sure as hell comes close, and it makes up for this slight deficit by improving upon Deus Ex 1 in other important ways--DE3 adds an engaging focus on the question of what it is that makes us human, and whether part of what makes us human is the desire to surpass the restrictions that being human entails, for example.  The game also surpasses its predecessors by giving its protagonist, Adam, a defined personality, and relevant character depth that gives the entirety of the game’s events personal importance to him.  It’s a terrific upgrade--as engrossing a treatise as Deus Ex 1 is, DE3 manages to be a treatise of its own and a solid story with appeal to the emotional, human element.

Runners-Up: Deus Ex 4; Shin Megami Tensei: Persona Q2
As with last year, The Banner Saga 3 is not counted as a sequel for the fact that it’s basically a continuation of a single tale spanning the 3 games rather than a story in its own right.

Yeah, okay, Deus Ex 4 is, in terms of purpose and philosophical basis, the low point of the Deus Ex series.  No argument there.  It also has some major problems with its conclusion’s being a dissatisfying sequel-bait transition to the (theoretical as of this moment) next game.  The people writing DE4 don’t seem to have really gotten what the franchise is actually about, using the conspiracy stuff and major social commentary as the window dressing and building the house itself out of the surface-level events and issues of the setting, when it’s supposed to be the other way around.  Even so, DE4 is, at the very least, a pretty good story, that stays accurate to its heritage in body if not in spirit, and there are good ideas and messages to take from it on a basic level.  If Deus Ex 5 can manage to return to the higher level that DE1, 2, and 3 were at, and maintain the storytelling strength that DE3 and 4 possess, then I think that Deus Ex 4 will be retroactively vindicated as the title that led into it.  But I suppose we’ll see how it goes.

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona Q2 is great.  Q1, I admit, hit me harder and has a more powerful and important message, but the quality of Q2’s story and central character would do any series proud, make no mistake--and it’s paced a hell of a lot better than the first Persona Q, which only revealed its terrific quality in its last quarter.  SMTPQ2 also uses its cast to strong effect, juggling 3 different games’ worth of casts well enough to stay true to them all** and even managing to still find ways to explore some of the members of SEES and the Investigation Team in new ways.  And, as with Persona Q1, the game feels like a drawn-out, really well-conceived Social Link, which all the more connects it to its series overall.  It was honestly a pretty difficult choice between this and Deus Ex 3 for which is the best sequel/prequel this year.


Biggest Disappointment of 2020
Loser: Witch Hunt
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: going into a game hoping for something good and getting something bad is a let-down, but nothing is ever quite as disappointing as when the game leads you on, gives you the taste of decent quality...and then pulls the rug out from under you and turns into a complete crapfest.  It’s what absolutely kills me about the Xenosaga series, and La Pucelle Tactics.

Now, Witch Hunt ain’t Xenosaga, and it ain’t La Pucelle Tactics.  It didn’t start out seeming like some fresh, grand new epic, nor did its protagonist seem like a genuinely awesome, freshly unique and appealing person.  The most I would really call it, in general, is adequate, with a few decently fun moments.  It’s a decent RPG for the most part, but it didn’t have the great qualities that Xenosaga and La Pucelle Tactics decided to just carelessly throw away.  But even if Witch Hunt is otherwise just an averagely alright RPG, its ending is so shitty that the game still manages to leave you feeling extremely disappointed as it finishes, not to mention irate and empty.  This game’s conclusion is so terrible that my first reaction was to assume that I’d done something wrong--played on the wrong difficulty setting, missed a vital item or sidequest, something along those lines--and triggered a joke bad ending as a result.  I had to be told by the creator himself that this was the real, only ending to the game, a revelation which flabbergasted me because it is just so bad.  I’m not gonna go into details just yet, because Witch Hunt’s ending is the kind of thing that deserves a spot on my Worst Endings list AND a rant all in its own right, but it is absolutely the sort of thing that can turn even an unobjectionable, mildly positive, but generally unremarkable title into a tremendous disappointment.

Almost as Bad: AeternoBlade 2; Etrian Odyssey 5; Romancing Saga 3
As someone who liked AeternoBlade 1 a lot (way more, objectively speaking, than I should have), AeternoBlade 2 was kind of a bummer--the first game was an interesting tale of escaping the cycle of hatred that one creates for oneself, using the manipulation of time to make that premise more literal than most games could, and that plot’s central figure, Freyja, was necessarily compelling.  AeternoBlade 2, though...the plot overall is far more along the lines of the genre’s standards; there’s not much to separate it from any other given RPG wherein a guy starts doing villain stuff so he can attain some problematic power over the world to undo/prevent something he didn’t like from happening.  The new characters don’t have much going for them, and while I still like Freyja well enough, she lacks the nuance she possessed in the original.  Also, not for nothing, but the writing starts jumping choppily around with portions of the plot, it’s hard to tell all the guardian time spirit things apart and remember how any of them actually matters, and the voice acting delivering all the dialogue and plot and characterization is, put frankly, awful.  In spite of it all, I don’t think AeternoBlade 2 is actually a bad game, per say, but yeah, it’s definitely a disappointment after the admittedly crude but still perceptible elegance of the first game.

Etrian Odyssey 5 and Romancing Saga 3 are also examples of being unable to achieve the expectations set by predecessors.  While RS3 keeps up the series tradition of being very complex with what events lead to what and its open-endedness, the story itself, when you stop for a moment and just put it all together, is pretty meager and doesn’t really say or do all that much.  EO5 is even worse--the plots and characters of Etrian Odyssey 2 and 4 are pretty ho-hum and forgettable, but at least they’re there.  Etrian Odyssey 5 just gave up the pretense of having a story altogether, introducing its only narrative-significant character in its last dungeon, and then waiting until the last 2 floors of that dungeon before having her actually tell you what the goddamn plot and purpose of the game was.  I may not go into every RPG expecting great things, I may not even go in expecting particularly good things, but I do go in expecting things, at least, and that’s precisely what the narrative of Etrian Odyssey 5 thoroughly fails to deliver.


Best Finale of 2020
Winner: Rakuen
This might seem like an apt place to pull the “I’m not crying, YOU’RE crying!” joke, but let’s face it, I am crying and we both know it.

Runners-Up: The Banner Saga 3; Dark Half; Shin Megami Tensei: Persona Q2
The concluding events of Dark Half are when a lot of the creative nuances of its plot get their payoff, and we come to fully understand the dark and dichotomous story we’ve witnessed in full.  When combined with the endings, with their bittersweet sense of significance and at times resignation, Dark Half has a strong finish, to be sure.  SMTPQ2 likewise concludes well, with a final dungeon and confrontation that’s very on-brand for how personal they manage to feel even as they engage the cast in generalized heroism, and the ending hits you in the feels with how right it seems for all involved.  Lastly, even after an entire trilogy of ramping up the tension of a world’s people having to struggle harder and harder for survival in a world in the midst of its end of days, The Banner Saga 3 still manages somehow to deliver a finale of the greatest nail-biting anxiety yet as the trilogy’s survivors pour the last of civilization’s resources into a truly desperate last stand, and their final hope travels into the darkness to reveal and confront the human weakness that birthed an early cataclysm.  It’s every bit as dramatic and stirring an end as this epic demands, and had Rakuen’s conclusion not been the breathtakingly beautiful emotional tour-de-force that it is, The Banner Saga 3 would’ve had Best Finale in the bag this year.


Worst RPG of 2020
Loser: Etrian Odyssey 5
You know what?  I’ll say it.  I’ll say it, here and now, because apparently I have to.  I’ll say it because I guess not everyone knows this, even though you would think they would.  I’ll say it, because it seems it’s not as obvious as it really should be.

The plot of your game shouldn’t make its first appearance 2 dungeon floors before the final boss.

And hey, as a freebie, because I’m just a generous kind of guy, I’ll throw in this extra tidbit of wisdom: that plot also should leave your player feeling something more than mild confusion about what the point even was of it.

Almost as Bad: Al-Qadim: The Genie’s Curse; Unlucky Mage; Witch Hunt
Oh, a Kemco game that’s bad.  What a surprise.  Actually, I guess I’d say Unlucky Mage is among the developer’s better offerings, but that’s really no more flattering an appraisal than saying that a splinter is a more pleasant thing to receive a puncture wound than a rusty nail--it’s not a fun prospect either way.  As for Witch Hunt, well, as I said above, it’s actually a relatively okay RPG for most of its course, but it’s got 1 of those endings that’s just so vigorously atrocious that the entire work is retroactively ruined by it.  You may absolutely depend upon a rant in the coming months about this catastrophe of a conclusion; merely a spot on my Worst Endings list is not going to cut it for Witch Hunt.

You know how I wanted more Arabian Nights styled RPGs a while back?  Well, after playing Al-Qadim: The Genie’s Curse, I can safely say that if it means ever having to again spend a third of the game running back and forth doing errands for a bunch of genies carefully crafted through scientific process to be as infuriatingly annoying to converse with as possible, then I take it back.


Most Creative of 2020
Winner: Dark Half
A reader suggested this SNES hidden gem a while back, stating that it had a very creative premise, and they were not kidding.  The act of telling a story from both the hero and the villain’s perspectives is a sadly under-utilized method, and Dark Half was 1 of the first to try it--Live-A-Live is the only RPG I can think of which did so earlier.  By itself, that wouldn’t be enough to propel it to the top of this year’s creativity category, but the purpose to which the game’s narrative is split, the truth behind the game’s lore and the villain’s journey, and the overall aesthetic and method to its story, make Dark Half in many ways a pillar from which later RPGs’ story concepts could draw, and in other ways a unique entity even now, 25 years later.  Innovation of a high quality, is Dark Half!

Runners-Up: Beautiful Desolation; Okami; Rakuen
Maybe the general plot concept of Beautiful Desolation is a bit generic, but as the game pulls together the classic, striking aesthetic of isometric RPG titans like Planescape: Torment and Fallout 1 and 2, an adoring devotion to Africa’s aesthetic and spirit, and a gaggle of future-tech concepts like what you’d find in a collection of science fiction short stories from the 50s and 60s, it’s strikingly creative on aesthetic merit alone.  Rakuen, meanwhile, is singular as an RPG that tells a very real, relatable story of love, loss, comfort, and coming to terms with oneself, grounded fully in a real-world tragedy of our recent past.

It was difficult to rate Dark Half higher than Okami when it comes to creativity, because Okami’s got bundles of it.  From its fresh take on a protagonist, to the ways it incorporates the full host of Japanese folklore into its narrative without ever feeling any less its own distinct entity, to the twists of its plot, to its unique incorporation of brush calligraphy, to the way it manages to translate the aesthetic of traditional Japanese art into a functionally animated, living world, all with an atmosphere of both straightforward adventure and lighthearted character...I give Dark Half the win for what a unique direction and intent it has with its many singular ideas and twists, but it’s a damn close margin with Okami, that’s for sure.  I sure had a great year in terms of creativity in the RPGs I played.


Best Romance of 2020
Winner: Gemma x Winston (Rakuen)
While I think that most of the other personal stories of Rakuen are more compelling, the story of Gemma and Winston’s love is a classic tale of romance and devotion in the face of cultural biases that effectively plays at your heart.  I won’t say that’s an amazing romance, but it’s a solid one, no doubt about it.

Runners-Up: Flash x Haru (The Last 5 Minutes); Oddleif x Rook (The Banner Saga 3)
There wasn’t a lot in the way of the lovey-dovey in this year’s batch of RPGs, and truth be told, I can’t pretend I feel too strongly about either of these couplings.  Still, even if it doesn’t truly move me, Flash and Haru’s story has a simplicity and sincerity that’s appealing.  And Oddleif and Rook do make a rather good couple, complimenting one another as people and bonding believably over the events of the world’s end--I just can’t get too strongly behind this pairing because I think that Alette is a much better and more narratively meaningful protagonist than Rook (and I even think that Oddleif’s relationship as a mentor/advisor/maternal figure to Alette is at least as strongly written as her love story with Rook).  Still, it is good stuff.

Adjustment to 2019: Dorothea x Manuela (Fire Emblem 16) = Best; Runners-Up = Catherine x Shamir (Fire Emblem 16), Dorothea x Ferdinand (Fire Emblem 16); Octavia x Protagonist x Regongar (Pathfinder: Kingmaker)
Remember how last year I mentioned that I hadn’t accounted for the Fire Emblem 16 romances in this category, as I hadn’t seen them all?  Well, now I have, and here’s the adjustment.  Displacing Pathfinder: Kingmaker’s awesome polyamorous trio, Dorothea and Manuela were the best love story of 2019.  It’s a hard decision to make, because I really like the romance between Octavia, Regongar, and the Queen/King of Pathfinder: Kingmaker, and I respect the hell out of Owlcat Games for putting that level of effort into writing a serious 3-person love story as something real and worthwhile rather than just a throwaway harem situation...but all the same, Dorothea and Manuela together really, honestly moves me; I find their connection a truly touching one, as I mentioned recently.  Additionally, the romances between Dorothea and Ferdinand, and Catherine and Shamir, are substantially superior to the Stella Glow couples I initially credited as runners-up last year.  So, as promised, those are the updated rankings for last year.  Nice work, Nintendo.


Best Voice Acting of 2020
The Absolute Antithesis to the Very Concept of Winning at Voice Acting: AeternoBlade 2
I can’t believe I was actually ragging on Tales of Eternia’s voice acting a couple years back.  I’m sorry, ToE.  I didn’t understand how good I had it.

Anyway, Getting Back on Track...Winner: Deus Ex 4
Simply put, everyone’s on point in their voice work, and Elias Toufexis puts in a great performance as the protagonist.  He may not quite be Commander Shepard or Geralt of Rivia, but Adam Jensen nonetheless has a very signature style and tone, and it’s a major factor in making this game stand out for its acting.

Runners-Up: The Banner Saga 3; Deus Ex 3; Rakuen
It’s kind of a toss-up as to whether DE3 or 4 is the better in terms of acting, really; each has almost the exact consistent high level of performances and a few characters that stand out.  I think Adam’s voice as a character comes together much better in DE4, so that’s why it won over DE3, but they’re both great.  There’s not much to say about The Banner Saga 3 and Rakuen--their voice acting is sparse, saved for special occasions, but when it’s there, it gets the job done very well, and the singing in Rakuen is, as far as I can tell (I have very little knowledge of such matters), solid work.


Funniest of 2020
Winner: Okami
Look, I could talk about the pleasantly lighthearted tone of most of the game’s NPCs and plot events.  I could praise the fun dynamic between Amaterasu and the self-important flea riding around on her, and the enjoyment one gets out of her overall canine demeanor.  There is, in fact, just a lot about Okami that’s tongue-in-cheek funny.

But none of that crap matters.  Because even if Okami had not a single other joke or jape in its entire course, it would still win for being a game in which you can literally kill demons by making divine doggy tinkles on them.  That’s just not something you can compete with.

Runners-Up: Gurumin; I Have Low Stats But My Class is Leader, So I Recruited Everyone I Know to Fight the Dark Lord
I didn’t know what to expect from Gurumin, getting it solely because it was a 3DS RPG on sale, so it was a pleasing surprise to find it a largely lighthearted kiddie adventure with the occasional chuckle-worthy line or shenanigan.  As for IHLSBMCiLSIREIKtFtDL, it’s pretty obvious from the title that it’s silly by design, but I give it credit for the fact that it keeps up a humorous levity for more or less its entire run (which turns out to be longer than one might expect), and doesn’t rely solely on its premise alone to provide the giggles.  I’m still waiting for the day (which may never come) that You Are Not the Hero is finished, but in the meantime, IHLSBMCiLSIREIKtFtDL makes for a good tongue-in-cheek Kickstarter RPG with the same foundations of poking fun at RPG narrative conventions.


Best Villain of 2020
Winner: Rugga (The Banner Saga 3)
It’s strange.  The Runners-Up below may have more depth as well-intentioned villains or be far more compelling and elegant forces of fate and divinity...but there’s just something about Rugga that makes him stand out above them all to me.  Something about the petty, unreasoning ambitions and schemes of a self-important asshole who’s clever but not smart speaks to me in terms of villainy.  The world falls apart around him, all of civilization being undone as all races are swallowed by calamity and ever-approaching doom, the time remaining to him and all other living creatures is measured in mere hours...and Rugga’s determination to be the guy in charge never wavers, only grows.  Rugga’s villainy is the sort of single-minded pride and ambition that’s unreasoning, destructive to everyone it touches, and utterly, wholly, irredeemably pathetic.  He doesn’t care how tiny, twisted, and ruined the throne is, he wants to sit in it, and he’ll do anything to do so, even if it means worsening the very heap of refuse he wants to rule over!

It’s the kind of worthless, small-minded evil that I wish were confined to the world of fiction...sadly, Rugga’s is the mindset of countless cutthroat little ladder-climbers in innumerable companies and corporations, not to mention quite a number of politicians.  It’s the reality within Rugga, the man who’d rather rule scraps and shreds than let them be pieced back together by anyone else, that makes him the greatest villain of this year for me.

Runners-Up: Enlil (Shin Megami Tensei: Persona Q2); Hugh Darrow (Deus Ex 3); Ryukyu (Dark Half)
Much like Orsted in Live-A-Live and Fou-Lu in Breath of Fire 4, Ryukyu benefits greatly from the fact that the game’s structure gives him an amount of screentime comparable to the hero of the game (in fact, Ryukyu and the hero share the role of protagonist), and I would actually say that he embodies the game as a whole far better than his heroic counterpart, with Dark Half’s themes of inevitability, and despair over mankind’s shortcomings, and the tragedy of humanity being so awful as to require a Jesus-like savior to give their existence in exchange for a chance for humanity to be redeemed.  Ryukyu doesn’t measure up to Orsted or Fou-Lu, of course, because while theirs are journeys whose stories we can see actively shaping them (or verifying what they suspected already), the core of Ryukyu remains a mystery to us until the game’s end, and much of his metric for judging that which he sees in the world is difficult to pin down in several regards.  He’s just a bit less dynamic and fleshed-out than Orsted and Fou-Lu, I think.  Still, Ryukyu’s a great villain who embodies the spirit and atmosphere of his game, a shining example of innovative writing and design which I would have no trouble believing was a huge inspiration for Fou-Lu several years later.

Enlil and Hugh Darrow are both solid villains of the “doing evil with the intention of good” type that RPGs and anime are both so very fond of.  As is usually the case, their actions are absurdly exaggerated as a solution to their problems, and the logic that led them to their solutions of inescapable pocket dimension prisons and world-wide cyborg murder rampages can generously be described as poorly-reasoned, but each is still a pretty decent, compelling villain raising questions of humanity’s obstacles, and frankly, anything better than an outright badly-written villain is part of a minority in this genre, so kudos to the creators of Mr. Darrow and Ms. Enlil.


Best Character of 2020
Winner: Hikari (Shin Megami Tensei: Persona Q2)
She’s no Rei from SMTPQ1, and it’s much easier to see where the game’s going with her (unlike Rei, whose personality plot twist was far more cleverly subtle), but Hikari’s a well-explored, engaging person whose depth and development are more than up for the responsibility of being the centerpiece of the game’s narrative.  And just because you can probably see the reveals coming for most of the game, that doesn’t make the journey of her self-actualization any less engaging, touching, and inspiring as it’s told.  Hikari’s a damned good character, and she’s easily 1 of the best in the SMT Persona series.

Runners-Up: Alette (The Banner Saga 3); Boy (Rakuen); Sue (Rakuen)
Alette’s growth into a leader, and her doubts along the way, as well as her dealing with the loss of her father, make for a protagonist whose personal journey holds a natural appeal and even feels gratifying to witness.  The stories of Sue and the Boy are some of the most moving in Rakuen, and the Boy in particular is a character of emotional simplicity and complexity both, whose tale is tear-inducingly inspiring.  They also both feel very authentically like the children they are, which seems to be a tricky prospect for quite a few RPGs to manage to pull off, so Sue and the Boy are all the more a feather in Rakuen’s cap.


Best RPG of 2020
Winner: Rakuen
With its use of significant real-world events as a backdrop, a smooth back-and-forth between reality and a colorful fantasy world that’s nonetheless at least a little bit real, and focus upon the sorts of difficulties in life that anyone could and may experience, Rakuen’s already a unique experience unto itself.  And then, with a wonderful understanding of the fragile beauty of existence, and of the weaknesses and stalwart warmths of the human heart, Rakuen leverages its signature components to tell a thoroughly moving tale of courage, both one’s own and the ability to inspire it in others, and the process of loss, and the power of love and heroism to give us the ability to carry on.  And it’s beautiful, and simple, and dammit I’m starting to tear up again as I remember some of the more amazing of Rakuen’s scenes...look, the game is just wonderful, okay?  Go play it.

...But make sure you do so with the Sprinting Patch installed, because honestly who the hell has time to dither around with slow character walking speed?

Runners-Up: Deus Ex 3; Okami; Shin Megami Tensei: Persona Q2
Shin Megami Tensei rarely fails to please, and Persona Q2 is a fine installment in the series, an entertaining adventure with a lot of heart that feels like a great Social Link skillfully expanded to the size and scope of a game in its own right.  Its main character, Hikari, is well-constructed and likable, and it adeptly utilizes the casts of the modern Persona games towards its purpose and as foils for Hikari to help her growth--and it gives a bit of spotlight to Aigis and Yosuke along the way, which is pleasing, since each is arguably the best character in their respective game’s party, and a nice surprise, since I would have thought the developers would favor the more recently popular Persona 5 party in the story than the older casts.  Solid stuff.

Deus Ex 3 is a great game for all the reasons that Deus Ex 1 was, using the foundation of conspiracy theories to both warn its audience of certain unpleasant potentials before us, and to draft compelling observations and analyses of humanity, both on the level of the individual and, much more, as a social animal overall.  Absolutely a worthy successor to the first title, and I could easily see the argument being made that DE3 even surpasses it.

You know how Bravely Default is pretty much the most true embodiment of the classic, core of the Final Fantasy series?  I think it’s safe to say that Okami is much the same to The Legend of Zelda.  Beating Nintendo at its own game, and beating it within an inch of its life at that, Okami is a grand, marvelously fun adventure that perfects every gameplay signature and even the atmosphere and personality of TLoZ, while maintaining a strongly defined, highly unique character of its own as a collection of and joyous glorification of Japanese folklore and traditional culture.  And it does so with such a good-natured, frequently tongue-in-cheek approach that it never seems stuffy or overly self-indulgent, as, I find, games and anime tend to feel when they attempt to do the past Japanese culture thing.  And on top of all that, it’s a pretty neat adventure with characters you get invested in, and the best Silent Protagonist that I’ve seen to date.  Damn good stuff, Okami is, and major thanks to Ecclesiastes for gifting it to me!


List Changes
Greatest Deaths and Worst Endings: So, here’s an interesting thing: there’s gonna be a few General List changes in the upcoming future to account for games I’ve played this year, but, interestingly, there’s enough changes within each rant that it makes more sense to update the rant with an expansion  The Greatest Deaths rant is 1 such case--I really have to put a couple characters in Rakuen onto the list, but it kills me to think of pushing certain others off, so, with it being a few years since I made the list, it seems reasonable to expand it out a little (even considering that it is, admittedly, a pretty long list already).  The other case is the Worst Endings rant, because I can’t possibly let Deus Ex 4 and Witch Hunt escape that list, but fuck me if I’m gonna let Neverwinter Nights 2 get a break and be shuffled off.  So expect to see an update in 2021 to each.
Weirdest Characters: Actually, this one isn’t changing, either.  But I thought it was worth emphasizing, once again, what an incredibly bizarre genre RPGs tends to be in terms of its casting, because this year I played RPGs including party members who were anthropomorphic lobsters, boyfriends who had been cursed to transform into chickens, whatever the hell the Dredge are from The Banner Saga, and an honest-to-Iomedae living snowman.  And none of them are weirder than that list’s gatekeeper Skelly.



Well, that’s it for this year.  I know it’s been a hell of a year, but I hope that you’ve all managed to find some good and enjoyment in these past 365 days.  I’m grateful to have had a lot to feel fortunate for, myself, not the least of which being my sister, Ecclesiastes, and Angel Adonis, all of whom have contributed in many, many ways both great and small, but always significant, to making these rants as good as they can be.

I’m also very fortunate, not to mention pleased and proud, to have gotten my first regular, sustained Patron (at least, the first who didn’t rethink the matter after a couple months) this year - a tremendous and heartfelt thanks to you, Dan Brandt; your support is so generous and SO cool to have!

And lastly, of course, even if many might look at it and think it small by internet standards, I think that the fact that I have a readership, that there are people out there, whether in the billions or just a handful, who are interested enough in what I have to say, is something fortunate and flattering indeed--so thank you all, as always, for hanging out with me here and reading my rants.  Here’s hoping for a 2021 as prosperous and enjoyable as 2020 was difficult.  Adios until the new year!











* Which may not mean much coming from a guy, admittedly, but I actually only really noticed some of Kimmy Schmidt’s final season’s unhealthy messages when my sister got uncomfortable with them and pointed them out to me.


** At least, I think.  I can verify how well it does with the Persona 3 and 4 gangs, but Q2 is actually my first time encountering the Persona 5 bunch.  Still, from what my limited knowledge can tell, they did right by the Phantom Thieves and Caroline and Justine, too.