Not felt, we have almost passed 365 days which is considered phenomenal for the gaming industry this year. It feels even more special than the previous years, 2020 deserves to be named as one of the best years the gaming industry has ever had, apart from the pandemic that is haunting and affecting the industry we love.
How come? During this 12 month period, gamers were not only presented with a myriad of new franchises that were just about to build popularity, but also the latest series from the giant franchise that had been so anticipated. Especially with some names that managed to appear so stunning, especially in terms of courage to take risks and attention to detail. Needless to say, this year is one of the most comprehensive and sweetest for gamers as a community. So, who deserves the title as the best? Here are our picks.
To make the judgments more objective and fair, we will divide them into various categories based on the genre and the basic elements that make up a game. We also included the reasons for the selection to provide a clearer picture of why these games won each category.
The selection of winners is of course based on the games we have tried directly, both those we reviewed and those that we did not have the chance to launch in the form of a review. One thing is for sure, all the games that are included in this list of winners have indeed managed to leave a strong impression and their own unique experience. For you, this can be a “must play” list, especially for those of you who have never even heard of the name before.
So what games are included in the Best Games of 2020 category? Here we go:
Best Console Exclusive: The Last of Us Part II
When this annual award article was released, the Playstation 4 was almost 7 years old for the basic version available since 2013. For a console that uses a “mobile” processor with offal performance that is almost irrelevant, Naughty Dog built a fantastic game on top of it. A game that not only looks charming in terms of presentation, both visual and audio, but also carries a fairly heavy story theme about hatred, which is unique – it also reflects the variety of spicy responses he has had to face since the content of the story that was carried leaked on the market. All of them are built on the sensation of action, especially the concept of survival and the sensation of using weapons that have become increasingly perfect in the first series. The Last of Us Part II is an exclusive series that not only looks fantastic as an action game, but also a technology demo of the Playstation 4 capabilities which, in fact, still has room for performance to squeeze in when it’s in the right hands.
Best Remake: Final Fantasy VII Remake
Square Enix and the fans who grew up with the series seem to understand one thing – that the ambition for an action remake of Final Fantasy VII is an almost impossible task. That despite the variety of modernization efforts they might want to encourage, it is impossible that this series will be able to attract veteran gamers and newcomers at the same time. But the result? It’s an achievement! This action remake manages to present all the things that made the original Final Fantasy VII series so loved, loyal but still goes through the modernization process that it should be – such as character design and gameplay, for example, while injecting some new things that enrich the experience that was not in the original series. The charm of the remake of Final Fantasy VII grows beyond visualization.
Best Multiplayer: Fall Guys – Ultimate Knockout
Imagine a multiplayer game that does not contain a lot of violent elements, without weapons or blood, without the opportunity to express cursing in the game, can grow into a successful product? This success was achieved by Mediatonic through Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout, which has succeeded in growing into a phenomenon in 2020. Appearing like the past “Takeshi Fortress”, competing to be the last survivor through a myriad of small games that are ready to test eye-hand coordination as well as brain, it leaves a unique excitement. For the game industry that is already filled with so many battle-royale games that actually carry a similar concept of survival, Fall Guys enriches the treasures of this genre. After a few server issues at the start of the release due to an unexpected burst of enthusiasm, Fall Guys now comes with fairly stable servers and a higher frequency of periodic content updates.
Worst Game of the Year: Fast & Furious Crossroads
Choosing a game that we haven’t tasted ourselves is indeed a rare case for matters of annual Best of the Best selection like this. But it seems clear, that there is no need to play Fast & Furious Crossroads directly to be able to judge the quality that can be anticipated. Who would have thought that all the hype that Vin Diesel had tried to bring in the previous year’s TGA event ended up being a disaster-filled action game, which not only comes with a visual quality that is left behind by several generations, but also a generic-looking action gameplay side. The biggest disappointment may come from the fact that this game was born from the hands of Slightly Mad Studios, a studio that should have developed enough experience to mix racing games with the sensation they should have.
Best VR Game: Star Wars – Squadrons
Apart from the various praises surrounding the release of Half-Life: Alyx, it would be unfair if we shared an award for the latest Valve concoction without ever trying it out ourselves to understand its appeal. While on the other hand, there are high-quality VR games that we tried out, although they didn’t get on the radar much. That’s right, we’re talking about the latest aircraft fighting game from EA and EA Motive – Star Wars: Squadrons. Although the VR feature is being promoted as just an additional feature that can be accessed by gamers, we actually feel that in essence, Star Wars: Squadrons is actually a VR game with non-VR features instead of the other way around. It feels comfortable, immersive, with a plane battle feel that is far more memorable than the conventional mode that he carries, the fact that the entire single-player mode of this game can be sampled in VR mode, complete with a cross-platform mode that allows VR and non-VR gamers to fight. in the same room, Star Wars: Squadron is a “hidden gem” for VR games in 2020. A gem which, unfortunately, rarely gets the praise and appreciation it should.
Best Graphic Quality: Ghost of Tsushima
The quality of visualization of a game, of course, can not only be judged by how capable the engine is to reflect the real world. Sometimes you will run into a few titles that may not be too dazzling in terms of detail, but come with visual presentation designs that are so great that it’s hard not to be amazed. This is what happened with Ghost of Tsushima. Although the character details he offers are not on the same level as The Last of Us Part II, which comes with a super expressive and cinematic character model, Sucker Punch has managed to allocate that charm to another visual field, namely world design. That the fight against the invasion of the Mongols was brought to a super beautiful island that presents a visual that is ready to spoil the eye in various angles. Fields of flowers, bamboo forests, sunsets that break the silence, shrines on the mountain, fallen leaves, the majestic pagoda that stands to protect the survivors, to the costume designs that the main character can wear, Ghost of Tsushima is an experience visuals you don’t want to miss out on.
Best Story: 13 Sentinels – Aegis Rim
When was the last time you enjoyed a game that was built for at least 7 years because the developer had the ambition to make sure the story was formulated to come in perfect form? Not because of visuals, not because of bugs, not because of features, but because of the focus on the side of the story. The end result? Shocking and awesome at the same time. Comes with a super thick sci-fi story that adopts a variety of concepts to be merged into the same coherent story, Vanillaware presents this through the perspective of 13 characters that are amazingly related to one another. Enjoying the story slowly through a variety of different perspectives and unpredictable stories that blend perfectly at the end is an achievement that deserves to be appreciated. 13 Sentinels – Aegis Rim will grab your attention from the very first minute, engulfing you in its crazy plot twists, and letting you search for the common threads around each corner while making sure you have fun with it. A fantastic narrative!
Best RPG: Final Fantasy VII Remake
When Square Enix officially confirmed that the RPG Final Fantasy VII Remake style would move from turn-based to action, there were so many worries and fears that it wouldn’t carry the concept as deeply as desired. But the end result is charming. The implementation of the new ATB system which is now affiliated with skill attack access for maximum damage is just one of the few charms that Square Enix has successfully injected. The main persona comes in every boss battle which ends satisfactorily. It doesn’t come with only thick HP, but demands a strategy to be subdued effectively. Almost all Final Fantasy VII Remake gamers understand their surprise when they find that the fighting strategy in the previous session did not work as efficiently as when dealing with Hell House. Not just attacking and active demands to keep changing characters, being aware of enemy movements, and thinking carefully about the strategy to be taken, VII Remake won this one category.
Best Hardware of the Year: NVIDIA RTX 30 Series
The leap to the next generation of gaming doesn’t always center around the performance of more powerful hardware. That in fact the essence of a generation leap will occur if similar technology can be adopted at a more affordable price, with wider availability. For the PC market, this leap has been successfully offered by the RTX 30 Series line, which now makes ray-tracing gaming an attractive option to be pursued and tested. With a significant jump in performance from the RTX 20 Series, a more rational price level, and a leap in performance that now makes PC games with ray-tracing can be played at a more comfortable framerate, making it a product to be pursued. All of them are enhanced with the DLSS feature, which is now starting to be divided into different categories, and so far it does provide the extra performance PC gamers need, especially at high resolutions or when enjoying ray-tracing.
Best Fighting: Granblue Fantasy Versus
Leave the task of working on fighting games to Arc System Works, even for third-party franchises, to enjoy a beautiful and unique competitive sensation at the same time. They have also succeeded in presenting this sweet execution in Granblue Fantasy Versus which not only comes with an eye-pleasing character design, but also an RPG mechanic that makes access to cooldown-based skills a part of the mechanic. As a gamer who has never been familiar with the Granblue Fantasy franchise so far, the presence of the Versus series is an effective door to at least begin to appreciate the story and the characters he carries. The presence of Granblue Fantasy Versus is also on the other hand, reinforcing Arc System Works’s status as a seasoned fighting game developer, which seems to be able to handle whatever franchise is left to them.
Best Sports: Captain Tsubasa – Rise of the New Champions
What does the gaming industry need today? Beyond the annual sports game franchises that are released each year, all of which seek to sell realism and simulation concepts as mainstay of jargon, we need sports games that are more focused on fantasy elements for just having fun. Anticipation was so high when Bandai Namco finally confirmed the return of Captain Tsubasa for the console and PC markets, with a football gameplay full of moves that are now also wrapped in beautiful visuals. The result? Sweet. It is executed just like the Captain Tsubasa game you have hoped for, where not only the various moves look beautiful with extra dramatization, but also require precise positioning and execution. It won’t be able to be enjoyed competitively, but finding a game like this in 2020 feels like a treasure we’ve been dreaming of for a long time.
Best Indie Game: HADES
Almost all indie gamers who have tasted Supergiant Games games in the past understand how this one developer always comes up with fantastic games. We’re talking about Bastion, Transistor, to Pyre. But different from the previous game release strategy where it was immediately present as the final product, they released HADES as an early access game before it was finally available in 2020. The results were amazing. Not only managed to execute almost perfectly the rogue-like concept with an action side with a variety of satisfying weapons and skills, Supergiant also wrapped it in the power of high-quality visual and audio presentations that have been their mainstay. But the greatest praise has to be paid to their ability to construct a solid narrative and the variety of characters who have room to properly shine through maintaining a system of revival that will continue as you play. Every time you die, a new portion of the story that is served reinforces the sense of admiration for what Supergiant has to offer here.
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