A Year in Review - 2021

[kashell]

2021 is coming to a close soon. It was better than last year, but there were still moments when it felt like it was 2020 Part II. Let's reflect on the gaming journey throughout the year. I've always enjoyed this topic and I'm looking forward to all the responses. I'll fill in my choices later.

Categories:

Favorite 2021 Release: What's your favorite game that you played this year that was released in 2021?

Least Favorite 2021 Release: On the opposite end, what's your least favorite game released in 2021?

Favorite Game Played in 2021: What game this year earns your spot for best game ever? It could be released in 2021 if you like.

Least Favorite Game Played in 2021: What's your least favorite game that you played this year?

Sleeper Hit of 2021: What's your personal sleeper hit for 2021?

Favorite Gaming Moment in 2021: What moment in a game you played this sticks in your head the strongest? Was it something awesome? Something tragic? Something completely over the top? Keep spoilers to a minimum or mark them if you can.

Proudest Collection Accomplishment of 2021: Share a story about a cool find from this year!

[ignition365]

Oh boy, this thread!

Gonna have to take some time to ponder things and start building my end of years stats stuff.

Favorite 2021 Release: Currently... Yakuza: Like a Dragon, 2021 feels like a really weak year for gaming so far, don't get me wrong, this game was great and I loved it, but it's definitely a bottom tier Yakuza game for me as I prefer the beat em up entries.  I didn't actually play a ton of 2021 release games this year and with a month left I've still got time to change this.

Least Favorite 2021 Release: Cruis'n Blast.  It's not a bad game, but they could've done so much more to give the game more oomph.  Like honestly, the game felt more Rush 2 than Cruis'n, which isn't bad, I love Rush 2, but it just wasn't enough Rush 2.  It made me yearn for more content and the game just couldn't provide.

Favorite Game Played in 2021: I'm going to go with Dark Souls Remastered as it's the only game I've got on my list sort of 3 times this year.  I beat it myself earlier this year, started a new playthrough/ng+ to play with my wife, and started another new playthrough on X1.  And it's definitely not the first time I've beat it either.  So I've basically got three runs of the game going right now, 1 NG+ to assist my wife, 1 new game running squishy sorcerer because why not, and 1 new game on xbox that will be a slightly less squishy sorcerer.

Least Favorite Game Played in 2021: I'm gonna specifically look at this as games I didn't beat.  My answer is going to be Sonic Colors for Wii, not because it was a bad game, but because my game was just barely damaged enough that playing the game was impossible.  I got maybe 50% through the game and just the disc just couldn't get through a level anymore.  It killed my progress on my Sonic franchise run because I just couldn't bother playing Sonic anymore.  Luckily Colors Ultimate was announced shortly after and I knew the situation would get rectified.

Sleeper Hit of 2021: Unpacking.  This game came out and I watched the trailer and both my wife and I knew we needed to play this immediately.  It's just a little zen like home organization game.  My wife played through and earned all of the achievements just because she wanted to do everything.

Favorite Gaming Moment in 2021: Honestly, just watching my wife go from reluctantly playing Dark Souls, to hating the game and complaining and not wanting to play, to wanting to play daily, to playing on her own.  I don't know if we'll get her to play the other Souls games just because I don't own multiple copies.  Bloodborne could be done, but that's about it.

Proudest Collection Accomplishment of 2021: I can't think of a collection accomplishment I'm proud of, but I'm explicitly ashamed of how many games I bought and how much I spent in November.  Maybe that I finally inventoried all of my strategy guides?


And as always I'm going to add some of my own categories

Proudest Gaming Accomplishment in 2021: 156 games beat is a record that I don't think I'm ever going to beat, that number will be higher by the end of the year, but I don't see topping this.

Favorite Game Revisited in 2021: Dark Souls Remastered.  I love Souls games and Dark Souls 1 has a special place in my heart.  This year was extra special because my wife decided to play the game and this is totally out of her wheelhouse.  She's pretty close to the end too, all but one lord soul and then we can head for the final boss.

Least Favorite Game beat in 2021: Yike, I played a lot of bad games this year.  Xena on GBC.  I streamed my playthrough and that game is just absolutely terrible.  Same devs as Superman 64.

Top 10 Games played in 2021:

• Yakuza: Like a Dragon (PS5)
• Dark Souls Remastered (NS)
• Dark Souls III (X1)
• Pokemon Sword (NS)
• Nioh (PS4)
• Bowser's Fury (NS)
• Metroid Dread (NS)
• Forza Horizon 5 (XS)
• Hades (XS)
• Unpacking (X1)

Ten worst games played in 2021

• Xena (GBC)
• Mega Man X7 (PS4)
• Sonic The Hedgehog (360)
• Shadow the Hedgehog (GCN)
• Mega Man X8 (PS4)
• Mega Man Xtreme (GBC)
• Mega Man Xtreme 2 (GBC)
• Kotodama (NS)
• Xena (PS1)
• The World Ends with You (NS)

[Cartagia]

Favorite 2021 Release: Resident Evil Village

Least Favorite 2021 Release: Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance

Favorite Game Played in 2021: Divinity: Original Sin 2

Least Favorite Game Played in 2021: Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance

Sleeper Hit of 2021: I only played two 2021 releases, can't really do a sleeper at this point.

Favorite Gaming Moment in 2021: The heavy metal corridor in 2019's Control.  It freaking rules.  One of the gnarliest sequences I've ever played.

Proudest Collection Accomplishment of 2021: Not really gaming related, but I got super into the NECA TMNT action figure line this year and I've got pretty much all of them.  They're so damned cool.

[shfan]

The worst year of my life, not a lot of time for gaming.. but still found a little so here goes:

Favorite 2021 Release: Metroid Dread, from what little I've played of it - a masterpiece.

Least Favorite 2021 Release: Haven't played many games from this year at all and can't remember if any of them got chucked on the trade-in pile.

Favorite Game Played in 2021: What game this year earns your spot for best game ever? It could be released in 2021 if you like.

Least Favorite Game Played in 2021: Disaster Report 4 - completely abandons everything good about previous entries in the series.

Sleeper Hit of 2021: Metroid Dread

Favorite Gaming Moment in 2021: Really discovering Steam and ogling massive lists of tower defence, metroidvania and RTS games.

Proudest Collection Accomplishment of 2021: Got a lovely condition Toe Jam and Earl 2 (Panic on Funkotron) for the Megadrive in a charity shop for £8

[telekill]

Favorite 2021 Release: Mass Effect Legendary Edition

Least Favorite 2021 Release: Resident Evil 8

Favorite Game Played in 2021: Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

Least Favorite Game Played in 2021: Knockout City

Sleeper Hit of 2021: First Class Trouble (*when played with friends)

Favorite Gaming Moment in 2021: Replaying the Mass Effect trilogy with all the DLC I missed.

Proudest Collection Accomplishment of 2021: Not a find per se but something I've wanted for a long while.... the Everdrive X7 for my Sega Game Gear. It completes my collection for my favorite handheld of all time. Works great as well. Happy I waited for the X7 over the previous version as the X7 loads as I would expect a Game Gear game to load (near instant) whereas the original Everdrive took upwards of a minute or two to load a single game. Very happy with the purchase.

[kamikazekeeg]

Favorite 2021 Release: While I don't think it's an amazing game, there was a lot of nostalgia for Pokemon Snap and finally getting a new release after over 20 years is real great.  Resident Evil Village would be more of the proper "GOTY" release if I was thinking more along those lines.

Least Favorite 2021 Release: I'm gonna say "Returnal", because that's more specifically due to how much the story disappointed me, even if it was still a really great game as I can't think of anything else I played that particularly bummed me out enough.

Favorite Game Played in 2021: Death Stranding: Director's Cut is technically just an update, it isn't a new game, but this is my second playthrough of the game and I still just love the shit out of this weird ass game lol

Least Favorite Game Played in 2021: It might be sacrilegious to some to say this, but Super Metroid lol I was taking my time playing the Metroid games leading up to Dread, but I did Zero Mission and then went to play Super Metroid and I don't think it holds up the best.  I ended up dropping it around when you enter the water area because the movement is damn awful and killed my interest.  Good visuals, great music, but I wasn't enjoying myself with the gameplay and exploration/progression.

Sleeper Hit of 2021: Don't think I have one this year.

Favorite Gaming Moment in 2021: Cosplay contest in Final Fantasy XIV lol I haven't been a part of a real good gaming community in a long, but I joined up with a small streamer who moved into FFXIV and I decided to give FFXIV a proper shot again after struggling in the past, and started to have fun.  I found that I loved doing cool costume stuff, it's hard with high level items you want, but it made for a real fun time.

Proudest Collection Accomplishment of 2021:  Can't think of anything in particular.

[kashell]

As always, I'm enjoying the responses so far.

Favorite 2021 Release: SaGa Frontier Remastered, no contest. When your favorite game of all time gets remastered with some handy QoL features and additional content, then it's a no brainer. I finished the game multiple times.

Least Favorite 2021 Release: Surprisingly, none of the new games I played this year were stinkers. I did play a demo for Fallen Legion: Revenants and promptly canceled my pre-order so I guess I'll go with that.

Favorite Game Played in 2021: This was a solid year for gaming. It's hard to think of just one favorite. I guess I'll go with Dragon Quest IV to even out my SaGa Frontier love. DQIV is still my favorite game in the series even after going through VI, VII and and VIII after it. I still need to play V and XI.

Least Favorite Game Played in 2021: On the flipside, I played some real turds this year. I'm going to give this dishonorable mention to The Banner Saga. Just...ugh.

Sleeper Hit of 2021: For a while I thought it would be Poison Control. But, at the buzzer, my vote goes to Undernauts: Labyrinth of Yomi. I was not expecting the game to be this fun. Experience Inc. knows how to create atmospheric games.

Favorite Gaming Moment in 2021: FINALLY beating Unlimited Saga. I finished the game with Kurt, Laura and Judy. The game is infamous (for good reason) but as a SaGa fan I felt somewhat obligated to try yet again to finish it at least once. Once turned into three times.

Proudest Collection Accomplishment of 2021: Unfortunately, nothing really stands out. In fact, I continued to prune the collection this year. With the funds I was able to pick up more Experience Inc. dungeon crawlers (both Demon Gazes and both Operations) so, yeah, we'll go with that.

[bikingjahuty]

Favorite 2021 Release: I didn't actually play a lot of new releases in 2021, not we had a ton this year. But my favorite was New Pokemon Snap on the Switch. I was skeptical about whether it would live up to the original which is a very nostalgic game for me, but it mostly did. I still prefer the original, but I really enjoyed the new one too.

Least Favorite 2021 Release: Again, I didn't play a lot of 2021 new releases, but my least favorite was Cruisn' Blast on the Switch. Yes, I know this game has been out for several years in the arcades, but I literally only played and beat two new releases this year so it's either this port or nothing lol. Being the only other 2021 game I played, it wasn't bad, I just didn't like it as much as New Pokemon Snap. It's a fairly average arcade racer, but I still enjoyed it.

Favorite Game Played in 2021: Red Dead Redemption 2 hands down! I actually loved it so much it broke into my Top 10 Games of All Time. I was genuinely sad when I beat the game.

Least Favorite Game Played in 2021: This one was pretty easy, albeit surprising since it's from a series I generally love. King of Fighters Maximum Impact holds the dishonor of being the worst game I've played this year, and honestly one of the worst fighting games i've ever played. This game does not deserve to be part of the KOF series.

Sleeper Hit of 2021: My sleeper hit might seem like anything but to some, but my vote definitely goes to The Last of Us: Part II. I feel like this is a criminally misunderstood game, and I will be the first to admit I was one of those people misunderstood it when I first tried playing it in 2020. I went back into TLoU2 with an open mind and an acceptance of the big surprise halfway through the game. I actually loved the second half of the game more than the first which I thought I'd never say. I still enjoy the first game more, but I still loved Part 2 quite a bit and I'm very happy I decided to give this game another chance.

Favorite Gaming Moment in 2021: Pretty much experiencing Red Dead Redemption 2 for the first time. The story was incredible, especially before the epilogue. it genuinely stirred up emotion in me which is definitely the sign of a great game in my book.

Proudest Collection Accomplishment of 2021: Finally completing my North American Namco Guncon big box collection. I've been working on that almost since I began collecting over 10-years ago and fianlly grabbed Point Blank 3 which was the last game I needed to complete the set.

[telekill]

Proudest Collection Accomplishment of 2021: Not really gaming related, but I got super into the NECA TMNT action figure line this year and I've got pretty much all of them.  They're so damned cool.

Oh man. I absolutely love mine. When they released the large ones, I was blown away by the detail but couldn't justify having 2ft tall Ninja Turtles. Then they announced the 7" tall ones with the same level of detail. My wife gave the ok for me to grab the San Diego ComicCon versions the year they released for my birthday. I also picked up the second wave of Splinter, Shredder and the two Foot Ninjas. They proudly sit on my shelf getting ready to battle each other. The last Ninja Turtles figures I'll ever need... but I'm also 40 years old now so...

At this point, I just want the 1990 movie to be released in 4K and I'll be happy.

[ignition365]

Sleeper Hit of 2021: My sleeper hit might seem like anything but to some, but my vote definitely goes to The Last of Us: Part II. I feel like this is a criminally misunderstood game, and I will be the first to admit I was one of those people misunderstood it when I first tried playing it in 2020. I went back into TLoU2 with an open mind and an acceptance of the big surprise halfway through the game. I actually loved the second half of the game more than the first which I thought I'd never say. I still enjoy the first game more, but I still loved Part 2 quite a bit and I'm very happy I decided to give this game another chance.

I remember us having that conversation about the game.  Glad to hear you gave it another chance and that you enjoyed it.

[kypherion]

Favorite 2021 Release: Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne HD Remaster. I played the crap out of this, fused most of the high level demons, got the True Ending and beat it a few more times. A solid JRPG for sure.

Least Favorite 2021 Release: Probably Ninja Gaiden master collection, while nice, I was dumb enough to buy them even though I already own all of them and their better versions (minus Razor's edge)

Favorite Game Played in 2021: SMT 3 HD by far, I sunk the most amount of hours this year (so far) into that game and it paid off.

Least Favorite Game Played in 2021: Spy fox: Cheese chase

Sleeper Hit of 2021: Dont know if this counts because it wasn't released then but Persona 5 Royal. I had played through a bit of the original and wasn't super interested, but came back to Royal and am having a blast!

Favorite Gaming Moment in 2021: Played through Serious Sam 4 because I love those games, and hearing Damjan's new mix of the Grand Cathedral them from Serious Sam 2: The second encounter was a godsend. I'd highly recommend listening to it.

Either that or beating Wolfenstein: New Order and Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus on their hardest difficulties (Über and I am Death Incarnate!). Quite the challenge.

Proudest Collection Accomplishment of 2021: Probably the coolest thing I bought this year was my japanese limited edition copy of Asura's Wrath with all of the goodies inside. That, or probably hitting 500+ games and almost being at 600!

[kashell]

SMT Nocturne getting an HD release was another surprise. The game was great already. The HD version make it even more epic.

[alligo]

Favorite 2021 Release: Persona 5 Strikers

Least Favorite 2021 Release:  Warioware Get It Together

Favorite Game Played in 2021: FH4 and PSO2.
so yes, I know it's an old game but I discovered it at the beginning of the year and this game was a real favorite.
(which is not really the case anymore with the release of NGS...)

Least Favorite Game Played in 2021: LittbleBigPlanet 3 which was a real disappointment for me.

Sleeper Hit of 2021: no idea

Favorite Gaming Moment in 2021:  the bugs on PSO2 NGS lol

Proudest Collection Accomplishment of 2021: I don't collect

[wartoy]

Favorite game of 2021: Halo Infinite

Worst game played in 2021: Dayz and Insurgency Sandstorm they both sucked imo.

Favorite older game played in 2021: Dead Space 2

Favorite remaster: Alan Wake glad everyone can enjoy this game now it's been released cross platform.

Favorite accomplishment of 2021: completed my first collection (N64)

[justin8301]

Favorite 2021 Release: Metroid Dread, hands fucking down

Least Favorite 2021 Release: hard pass lol. I didnt really play enough games that released in 2021 for me to pick a least favorite

Favorite Game Played in 2021:  I'm inclined to say Metroid Dread again, but for the sake of not being redundant I'll go with Ratchet & Clank Rift Apart

Least Favorite Game Played in 2021: Resident Evil HD Remaster... I really hate to say it, but out of all the games I played this year, this is the only one I felt like I was forcing my self to play. I really just did not enjoy it.

Sleeper Hit of 2021: Forza Horizon 5. Ok so this is 100% a PERSONAL sleeper hit, I'm sure most people expected it to be good, but I had no idea just how much I would enjoy it.

Favorite Gaming Moment in 2021: Walking into a gamestop and snagging an OLED Switch on release day without a preorder!

Proudest Collection Accomplishment of 2021: Collecting really took a backseat for me this year, but I would say my Analogue Pocket that I just got is probably my most exciting thing i got this year.