11 Video Games that Halfcoordinated Sure Did Enjoy in 2020 Wow
2020 was a wild year and I’m quite certain that you’re very tired of being told something analogous to that, but here we are at the end of it and video games somehow still happened throughout the whole dang thing. Despite essentially playing the vibbogorms to survive I also largely depended on getting game keys from developers and publishers due to financial limitations so I missed out on a lot of titles you might expect to see on a year-end list, but it also led me into some interesting and unique experiences that are worth celebrating. So this is that celebration! Yay!
A small disclaimer since I am known for game accessibility advocacy, some games on this list generally have fairly poor accessibility. The only guarantee I can give for all titles listed is that I was able to play them with a gamepad one-handed at a level that I found enjoyable.
11. Streets of Rage 4
If you told me shortly after Streets of Rage 4 came out that it wouldn’t even make my top 10 for the year I would have been quite surprised because well, it’s very good. The action is generally tight and plays strongly off of the series’ past. While it references the general favorite SoR 2 the most, it manages to advance and individualize itself enough to be something new instead of just SoR 2.5. The hand drawn art is beautiful, the hits are satisfying, and the dynamic soundtrack is incredible. This is easily one of the best classic beat ‘em ups of the decade.
So with all that why is SoR 4 at 11th? The short answer is I’m bitter and this is a very personal list. A comprehensive balancing patch was added months after the game’s initial release, and overall it is almost definitely a better game for it. Generally it is more fair to the player, Axel is a viable character without you being a master of the genre, and Barney no longer practically teleports to you without warning any time he has a taser. Unfortunately for me this same patch removed multiple exploits that I found very fun and would have harmed no one’s casual play if it wasn’t for the additional V.S. mode. The solution taken to remove some of those exploits also made some general play less fluid and weakened certain options. Do I still heartily recommend SoR 4? Absolutely! I just have a hard time going back to it myself.
10. RITE
RITE is a stunning little precision platformer and the first release by Pond Games; although you likely wouldn’t guess it’s their first game by looking at it. The animations are incredibly fluid with the character stretching and bouncing just right as your movements kick up nice lil’ dust clouds. The movement itself is responsive, simple, and natural to pull off. There are also very nice level design choices at play for a precision platformer: all of the many levels are a single screen with the start point being completely safe so that you can analyze your surroundings, and there is always a grid in the background referencing the same height as your character — which helps with spacing jumps. Overall the difficulty is nicely tuned with a notable ramp up at the end, but generally considerably easier than most games in the genre; making it a nice entry point for newcomers while still being satisfying for experienced players.
9. Jet Lancer
Jet Lancer is a free-roaming 2D airplane shoot ’em up that absolutely pulls no punches. Think of a more colorful LUFTRAUSERS turned up to 11 and discrete individual challenges inside of a surprisingly good ongoing story instead of a roguelike and you’d be pretty close(although a roguelike mode has been added). Your mechanic is also a sassy talking cat that naps in your garage and oh gosh the soundtrack is absolutely phenomenal.
Jet Lancer features multiple upgrade choices that can really tune your plane either to a specific situation, or just your favorite setup. It also has elements typically associated with character action games, with offensive and score rewards for well-timed dodges as an example, which feels great. Honestly I’m pretty sure this game would be higher on my list if I was better at it —Jet Lancer can be pretty physically demanding — but there are several welcome settings and assists to tune the game to your playstyle and needs.
8. Maneater
Maneater is a fairly large open world game where you focus on getting as big and powerful as you can to get revenge on a vile man that killed your mother and gave you a scar; your typical revenge plot with the minor note of you being a shark. Just a regular lil’ shark pup… at first.
This title occupies a very special space that bustled in the ps2 era but has been largely vacant since — the bold and creative AA game that isn’t afraid to carve out its own niche and be a wild ride of a video game. The games that aren’t quite indie where a bit of jank and rough edges only make them shine brighter. This could have gone a more simulation route and been fine, but no; Maneater fully embraces that it is a video game and lets you give your shark bone armor to ram boats better, or electric teeth to shock your prey. You get to absolutely soar through the sky and move fast enough on land to chase pedestrians and it heckin’ rules. You get a projectile attack which makes no sense but who cares? Play Maneater, become the bull shark of your dreams.
7. Super Crush K.O.
Anyone that has played Super Crush K.O. just asked themselves “Wait, that was this year?” and yes friends, it was. Take a deep breath, it’ll be okay.
Super Crush K.O. is a single-player platform brawler with a pastel aesthetic that feels like a fresh piece of bubblegum. The intuitive controls will lead you to racking up big rewarding combos on the alien robots standing between you and your kidnapped cat. I’ve gone back to this game multiple times and it’s always such a joy to play through; the story is simple but charming (and gay) and the visuals always clear and snappy. I don’t know if punching robots has ever felt more warm and inviting than it does in Super Crush K.O. and I’ll certainly be revisiting it more in years to come.
6. Inertial Drift
Inertial Drift’s title similarity to Initial D is no coincidence, this is a neo-90’s themed 1-v-1 arcade drift racer that realizes the drifting is why you’re here in the first place.
The controls embrace this drifting-first ideal by having twin-stick controls(that can be rebound), with the left stick controlling steering and the right stick swinging your car’s backside to drift. The steering itself is more of the suggestion of steering — like a boat that just woke up and hasn’t had the sentient boat equivalent of coffee yet— The drifting is what’s really going to get you around any curve that isn’t as gentle as a newborn kitten. That’s exactly how it should be; it just works.
Selecting your car in Inertial Drift is more like choosing a character in a fighting game than it is like choosing a car in other racers. The general goal stays the same: drift fast, but how that is achieved can vary wildly. The first suggested car is fine with you just accelerating and drifting no problem, but others for example will require you to tap the breaks first or let off the accelerator just right. This leads to the cars feeling very individualized and fun to master on their own; which is genuinely what the game encourages through it’s 4 separate but concurrent story modes featuring good tutorialization of how the cars handle and (mostly) light hearted fun interactions between the racers.
The twin-stick control system feels like a lot at first but quickly becomes second-nature as you try to bring down your times on the tracks, which feature a lot of variety even on easier stages. I’m almost upset that this game has pretty much ruined the controls of all other racing games for me. Almost.
5. Fight Crab
Fight Crab is the most video game video game to video game in this year of video games.
Fight Crab knows that it is a video game and it owns that fact as hard as it possibly can. The controls are probably best described as horrendous, each control stick and the shoulder buttons control the claws, the dpad your general movement, and face buttons for various actions. It is nearly impossible to move well and that makes it fantastic. You aren’t meant to excel in this true crustacean battle, you are meant to be at the whims of physics as you flail about to flip the other crabs over without getting flipped over yourself. You fight, you struggle, and sometimes your crab swings a hammer just right to send the opponent flying. Not into hammers? how about knives, swords, tonfa, flails, and scooter mounts? Your crab destiny has arrived and it is Fight Crab.
4. Sheepo
Sheepo is a charming and lighthearted little explore ’em up (metroidvania) starring the titular Sheepo, who looks like a furless hedgehog with no front limbs. It is Sheepo’s first day on the job of saving the universe by cataloguing all known life, but we’ll just start by collecting 6 eggs on planet Cebron if that’s okay.
Sheepo features clever writing that is genuinely funny and memorable characters without distracting from the simple yet satisfying movement and exploration within. That movement is a major focus too as Sheepo is a pacifist experience: you have no attacks of your own and there are few enemies outside of the boss fights which are purely dodging encounters while you bop along to the music. As you collect the eggs you do gain the ability to temporarily transform into that species, and while Sheepo’s own movement is a joy this helps ensure that your journey doesn’t get old.
It’s also a dang fun speedrun with an essential trick named after me.
3. Immortals Fenyx Rising
This was for me probably the biggest video game surprise of the year. When I first heard about Immortals Fenyx Rising —Ubisoft Quebec’s take on the Breath of the Wild Formula with a Greek myth setting — I thought I’d likely enjoy it overall but I wasn’t fully sold on it.
I love this video game.
There’s just so much that it gets right. The combat is satisfying with valuable depth without getting overly complex, taking cues from character action games on how to flow but without turning fingers into a pretzel to do the cool stuff. The environment is densely packed with things to do that all feel worthwhile, and the lay of the land guides you to all these puzzles incredibly well. While a few physics based puzzles miss the mark, a vast majority of them are brilliantly designed and rely on startlingly few action verbs without getting old. They tossed aside the traditional 3 branch skill tree design of western AAA development and went with more direct progression. Want that ability in particular? Just get it. Even the small things like yeeting all enemies across the sky when you defeat them is a precious joy. The writing is also overall quite good, although at points the appropriately awful Zeus toes the line a bit harder than I’d like and Fenyx enables gods too unquestionably.
This is a game that knows it is a video game, and if you’ve gotten this far you probably realize that I like that in my video games. it doesn’t weigh itself down too much because it knows that pressing buttons should feel good and gosh does it ever. I worry that this gem is getting overlooked compared to other releases this season and that’s a huge shame, because I want to see more games like this from big western developers. The talent and creativity is there and Immortals Fenyx Rising proves it.
2. Monster Hunter World: Iceborne
“But didn’t that come out in 2019?Also isn’t that an expansion?” You cry, to which I respond with “The PC version came out on January 9th, which is the one I played, and Iceborne added more content than most games have in total.” It’s also my list, dagnabbit.
After reaching 440 hours of Monster Hunter: World in 2019 I thought I was done with it. I had hunned the mons of monhun and my experience felt complete. “Would Iceborne be worth it?” I asked myself, but I gave in.
With Iceborne added I now have 1,345.9 hours played
In the end this expansion increased the total large monster count from 36 to 71, multiple entirely new areas, new moves for all 14 weapons that increased the dynamic nature of the action (especially for my main, the Lance) and streamlined multiple systems to make play more efficient and easier to get to what you were after. Iceborne likely won’t change your mind if you didn’t like base World, but if you did like it there’s plenty to go back for. It scratches multiple itches for me at once that many don’t scratch at all, and does so well enough that I played over 900 extra hours. Hunting monsters with pointy stick and board is fun, as is optimizing that pointy stick and board.
1. Hades
This one feels more like cheating to me than Iceborne did, considering that I got Hades on day one of early access and have played it off and on for the 2+ years since then. It just kept getting better and better, and now everyone has caught up and hot dang I’m glad you did.
You don’t really need me to tell you why Hades is so good, do you? Right, but I guess I will anyway.
Hades is a roguelite where the meta-progression is not only in how powerful you become, but also how your relationships with several key characters progresses both in-between and during runs. with over 4 novels worth of fully-voiced dialogue covering a mind-numbing amount of situations. Unlike most games in the genre you’re not just asking yourself how far you’ll get this time, you’re also asking yourself what multiple characters will say, how they’ll react to your latest developments, and will your surrogate gay dads finally be together. This does so much for player motivation that it’s almost impossible to overstate it. You probably didn’t know that the best roguelite would also be a visual novel, but it is and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
The action itself is also masterful, responsive, and exhilarating; with the player having significantly more say in the final build of a run (if they want to) than the average roguelite. You get to choose from a wide array of weapons, influence what bonuses you’re likely to get, and a variety of other perks that a playstyle truly becomes your own even with the randomness tossed in.
Hades also has representation of a healthy bisexual polyamorous relationship and I know for a fact that’s enough to sell the game to at least a few of you.
Supergiant Games didn’t just make a great game, they’ve revolutionized a whole genre; and the competition needs to stand up and take notice of this fact.
