Ragey's 2017: The rage quitter year end wrap up.

This years Ragey's will be a tad more bared boned this year because with the X+Y thing and a streaming schedule I didn't get as many written as I would have liked to. Still though, this year had its series of ups and downs and while all of the games I've played might not have gotten site reviews, I still played an awful lot of games. For the interest of parity and expanding my list, in no particular order here are the games I played/am playing that I didn't get around to reviewing just yet:

-Dead Cells (steam)
-Hollow Knight (steam)
-Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria simulator (steam)
-The Entire Shantae Franchise: (Risky's Revenge, Pirates Curse, 1/2 Genie Hero)  (PS4)
-Yakuza 0 (PS4)
-Yakuza Kiwami (PS4)
-Bravely Second (3DS)
-Metal Gear Solid 5: Phantom Pain (PS4)
-Gravity Rush 2 (PS4)
-Killing Floor 2 (PS4)
-Atelier Firis: The Alchemist and the Mysterious Journey (PS4)
-Everybody's Golf (PS4)
-South Park: Fractured But Whole (PS4)
-South Park: Phone Destroyer (Mobile)
-Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc (Vita)
-Senran Kagura: Bon Apatite (Vita)
-Guilty Gear Xrd: Rev 2 (PS4)
-Fornite (PS4)
-World of Final Fantasy (PS4)
-Nidhogg (PS4)
-Overcooked (PS4)
-Uncharted: Lost Legacy (PS4)

Fuck me, I need other hobbies. Hopefully I'll have a slew of games to review in January and those that don't I'll make a new omniderp video to cover, but until then please enjoy.....

The 2017 Ragey's
I really don't even care what the product is. I'll take any sponsorship at this point.

12: The "Crippling Introversion at a Social Gathering" award for "Game I wish I got to play" goes to....

Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Oh ho? Surprised? Yes you jackasses, despite what all of you think, I don't hate the Legend of Zelda series as a whole. I hate the path it has taken, and it's complete and utter bias devotion to it because of its lineage regardless of faults and flaws. Showering it with perfect 10s (and game of the year awards) after a lengthy review critically detailing everything they didn't like. All the while showering the praises of other games as if they were flawless and giving them 8's. 

Watching Egoraptor's Sequelits of Ocarina of Time pretty much perfectly summarizes everything I've grown to lament in this series. The constant stagnation to follow the same formula in every game. Same characters, same items, same story, same paths. The setting changes barely. In my head it's the fantasy equivalent as the yearly Madden update. A bit hypocritical since I play the Atelier series, but none the less dulled my interest in the franchise.

So when one that goes back to open world exploration of old that breaks those traditional conventions? That interests me because I love a good action-adventure game (as will be cited later this list). Unfortunately I never got a switch and haven't purchased any games for the WiiU that's come to my possession, so I never had the opportunity to give this game the chance it deserves. But I would like to, and I honestly mean that. 

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11: The "But what about her emails???" garbage award for "Biggest Disappointment" goes to.....

Mass Effect: Andromeda

Mass Effect has always been one of those games that felt out of place in my collection. I'm not a big sci-fi guy and I'm not a big western RPG guy. But something about this franchise always makes me come back to it. Despite EA business practices and the garbo ending of Mass Effect 3, I wasn't surprised to see them come back to milk this cow one more time. But like a lot of people, I went into it with pretty tempered expectations. 

And while they did an excellent job doing away with the Paragon/Renegade system and exchanged it for a lot more gray decisions, Mass Effect: Andromeda really did just feel like a cash grab on brand recognizably. Totally functional and playable, not even bad really outside of some glitchy animations and poor character models. But on the whole it doesn't really feel like it needed to exist. Apparently EA and Bioware think so too since after the incredibly tepid response to the game and its sales, this property looks like it's getting shelved for a while. Probably smart. 

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10. The "Know what's makin' a comeback? Vaudeville" award for "Biggest Surprise" goes to.....

Cuphead

I saw the announcement trailers and pre-release trailers like everyone else did. I thought its visual style was clever enough, but ultimately since I assumed it was Xbox exclusive, I chalked it up to a game I wasn't going to get to try. But then it got release on Steam, and more than that it was only 20 bucks? Ok, I'll bite on that.

But what I wasn't expecting with how much fun I was going to have with the game. Basically a string of Megaman style boss fights with a couple run and gun style levels thrown in for funsies. Animated with the rubber animation style of old Disney and Warner Brothers cartoon of 30s and supplemented with a big band/jazz based soundtrack that compliment each other perfectly. Lump that in with an excruciatingly punishing level of difficulty and suddenly a 20 dollar weekend romp turned into 40 plus hours of pattern recognition and replayability. I didn't expect to like Cuphead as much as I did, but I'm very glad I took a chance on it.

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9. The "McDonald's Sezchuan Sauce" award for "Most Overhyped game" this year goes to.....

Nioh

Sometimes I just don't get the masses. I played this game in its alpha, and found it too frustrating. I played this game in its beta, and found it too frustrating. Enough that I decided I wouldn't buy it. Then every person and reviewer lauded how incredible this game was and it sold out everywhere on its first run. I buckled, bought it, and gave it one more try. And I still found it too frustrating and difficult, but this time I persisted through it against my better judgement.

Nioh is a game that is unmercifully hard for the sake of being unmercifully hard. The story is dense and confusing, and I never get that sense of satisfaction of completion like when I would finish a Dark Souls game. It is overloaded with a lot of little mechanics and numbers that make it feel like you need a textbook to fully make sense of all of it, and if you say you don't I think you are lying.

At its based core, it's a very solidly build game with tight controls and very impressive visuals (I seriously fucking love the boss monster design). But if when asked if I had "fun" I could never straight out say yes. People raved about this one, but I honestly don't know why. Easily one of the most overhyped games I played this year.

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8. The "Brussels Griffon" award for "Flash in the Pan" game of the year.

Resident Evil 7

I was not sold on Resident Evil 7 when I played the Beginning Hour demo the first time. It felt like it was trying to ape what made the PT demo so successful, but it ended up just feeling kinda boring. But when I got to the actual meat of the game I found myself surprisingly enjoying it way more than I thought it would. 

Every time Resident Evil starts to go on a really stale bent and make people think the series is over, they take a real drastic measures and shake things up. After the bad bent of RE6 this was certainly a shake up, and what I liked is that for the most part it was completely stand alone without any of the previous RE lineage before it. It made it feel new, fresh, and original. Ended up being lauded as a very good game. And then, like so many, was promptly forgotten about.  I know DLC packs came out for it, but honestly I haven't seen one article or review about them. For that it gets my "Flash in the Pan" award.

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7. The "Realizing Shopping at Giant Eagle is a fucking scam" award for "Worst Value" goes to....

Dead Cells

Let me start off by saying that Dead Cells will be a very good game. A fast paced self described Roguevania souls-like style game with tight controls, fun combat, challenging bosses and open exploration. I jumped on this as the buzz around it really started to grow. Streamed it a few times until I got stuck on second boss of the game. I liked Dead Cells a lot.

Unfortunately, it's early access. So that second boss of the game, also happens to be the last boss of the game. And this is why I don't like the bent that developers are going on with early access. Because now they have my 18 bucks. So who cares if they never finish the game. They don't have to. They've already sold thousands of copies. I essentially paid for a demo. The steam landing page says they will have the full game ready in about 8-12 months, but so far I haven't seen any news of updates since I purchased it. I don't like the idea of selling an unfinished product, and that's what this is. So it wins worst value.

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6. The "Realizing shopping at Aldi's is fucking sweet" award for "Best Value" goes to....

The Entire Shantae Series (almost)

I need to trust my gut more. I had been looking at this series on steam for months. Always thought it looked cool but never took the plunge to give it a try. Well last year just before Xmas a Sony flash sale put the 2nd and 3rd games of the Shantae series up for less than 5 bucks for the pair of them, that was a deal too good to pass up. And after mere minutes of playing Shantae: Risky's Revenge the only regret that I had is that I had waited so long to try it.

I played through both Shantae: Risky's Revenge & Pirates Curse in practically a pair of sittings, and quickly added the new Half-Genie Hero (only $19.99) to my holiday list. The Shantae games despite their cutesy looking exterior provide me everything I love in a classic Castlevania style platformer: cool visuals, interesting characters, classic platformer controls, exploration, and fun boss fights. I never had the chance to give this series a proper review (which I still intend to do), but despite nothing but positive press this series gets it never seems to be at the forefront.

It should be. The Shantae series is loads of fun to play and if you enjoy classic NES or SNES style platformers you can get a great amount of entertainment at a remarkably cheap price. I even love the occasional DLC where I get to play the other characters. I want more Shantae, please.

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5. The "Get up and dance" Award for best Original Soundtrack goes to....

Persona 5

Ok, so I had to make an additional award this year so I can honor this game. As much as I was set to give it game of the year before it was even released, there were some incredible contenders this year. But I feel this is a category I should have created a while ago, because it's honestly one of my favorite aspects of some games and it deserves recognition.

Persona 5 was everything that I wanted it to be. The cast while not the same lovable bunch Persona 4 had, they had their own unique charms and quirks that made me learn to love them, and the game played exactly I expected it to. But what surprised me was the slow burn of the soundtrack. Shoji Meguro is one of my god tier of video game composers, so when I first started playing the game I was kinda disappointing that I didn't find the music as catchy as previous entries. But as I played through songs felt like they were well thought out before chosen, fitting for the scene or battle appropriately, and getting catchier as I played. But then near the end of the game, one song did something no other game did...

It made me get up and dance. Literally. During the boss fight I literally got out of my chair and did my little disco step while I played the fight. I was enjoying it that much. I can't say any other game has done that. The OST to this game has been one of the two cds I've listened to all year. So while I can't give Persona 5 the game of the year like I want to, I can certainly say it has the best, most entertaining, feel good soundtrack of 2017. 

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4. The "5-Way Skyline Chili" Good Consistency Award goes to....

Yakuza 0/Kiwami

You know what? Fuck it. If I am adding awards here, I would like to give some acknowledgement to the series that I feel has been consistently good. A series that literally was the first introduction to this blog. A series that is finally starting to get some recognition. From the holidays to last year and early this year, Sega produced a prequel game and remake of the original PS2 game in Yakuza 0 and Yakuza Kiwami. I have long been a proponent of this series for its intriguing storytelling and fun combat engine. 

After the long slugfest between the west and Sega, Yakuza 5 finally got brought over via PSN and it did surprisingly well even being just a PS3 digital release, and it must have done something Sega to give this series a second chance in the west. I never got around to giving them proper reviews but the Yakuza games don't change much from game to game. Slight tweaks to the combat mechanics, addition and removal of mini games to play. A lot of times reusing the same map in every game.

But it always, ALWAYS delivers a satisfying experience for me. It's easily one of the most consistently good game franchises I've ever played and with the announcement of Kiwami 2 and Yakuza 6, I finally will be able to play through its entire linage and see the story from the beginning. Now if we can just get that samurai spin off over here I'll be all set. 

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3. The "Game Awards Snubbed this game" Honorable mention goes to....

Horizon: Zero Dawn

A game I had in very strong "Game of the Year" contention when it came out. I saw this trailer at E3 and pretty much inside of seconds had this completely pegged as a winner and something I would love to play. It did not disappoint. Incredible visuals, compelling interesting story, fun open world mechanics, beautiful score, exciting combat and I can go on and on. There are very few faults I can find with this game. It's literally everything I can ask for in an action-adventure game, and for Guerrilla games first attempt with a new IP, it was completely knocked out of the park.

Sadly for Horizon, it went up against a new Zelda game at its release which unfortunately shot it in the foot from getting the respect it really deserved. I'm not a 100% completion guy, I like to play through games naturally being carried by the narrative. But with Horizon, the story was secondary to me even through it was very good. I just found myself getting lost in the wilderness, hunting, gathering, doing quests as I wandered along. I severely outpaced the level of the story and got to a point where I had nothing but collection missions to do, begrudgingly forcing me back to actually play the game. That is a real sign of a immersive experience, just getting lost in a game.

The only reason I don't make it game of the year of the 3 I was considering, is it was the one of the three that I put down satisfied. I didn't go back to it after I was done with it. I probably could go back and replay it, but I never felt the need to. I finished it satisfied. So not my game of the year, but it could be and it's an absolute must play if you haven't yet.

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2. The "Ham Handed Product Placment" award for "Worst of the Year" goes to.....

Microwave Cup Noodles (Nissin)

FUCK. YOU. I can deal with a little bit of product placement, Final Fantasy 15. BUT THIS SHIT??

While I don't consider Final Fantasy 15 to be one of the greatest entries of the series, I certainly more than enjoyed my time with it. And hell I bought and played the DLC and the multiplayer and have been enjoying those, but this fucking mission. Holy shit, I don't think I've ever seen such a ham handed plug in of a commercial in my life. It's so hokey, so bad, so forced that when I go to the store and see the Nissin Cup Noodles, I get actually angry because it reminded me of this quest, and buy any other available brand out of spite. FUCK you, Cup Noodles. You make me hate Gladiolus even more.

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2.5. The "Nissin Cup Noodles" award for "Actual Worst Game of the Year" goes to.....

Valkyria Revolution

Ugh... Sometimes my fandom gets the better of me. I constantly sung the praises of Valkyria Chronicles and so of course, when they announced a new one I completely jumped at the chance to get back into this universe. But then as I waited for the game to release, reviews started to come out, comments were being made, scores were being given. I should have taken it as a warning sign.

Upon release, the game was a torturous slog of bad voice acting, poor animation, excessive story and grind, and gameplay that doesn't even remotely resemble the game I love. If I am being generous, it was playable at the bare minimum. The story was just good enough to make push my way to the end, but myself and the rest of the Valkyria fan base got burned on this one. Sega seems to be trying to make amends with a new Valkyria game that looks just like the first one, but I'm afraid to hope.

If I have an actual worst game of the year, it's Valkyria Revolution.

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1. The "I really wanted to give this to Persona 5" Award for "Best game of the year" goes to...

Nier: Automata

Wow. I really wanted Persona 5 to be my game of the year. I had pretty much decided that before the game even came out. I took over a week off to play it and binge. It delivered on all the experiences I wanted, had an amazing soundtrack, and continued to prove to me that Persona is one of the best RPG franchises out there. But with apologies to Atlus and the Persona development team, there was a better game out this year.

When I first started this game, I constantly fell asleep it was so chill. That's usually a bad sign. But after that initial push, the game had me. Done by Platinum Games, it featured the fast paced frenetic Bayonetta style combat that I love, an absolutely peerless classical score in multiple languages that is my other favorite soundtrack of a year, a storyline with multiple endings that bend video game mechanics and tropes directly into the narrative, and some brilliant mindfuckery from the beautiful mind of Yoko Taro. I had listed a few complaints when I first wrote the review but upon further play and further reflection, all of these said complaints appear intentional to further supplement the story. This game is practically perfect. Hell, it got me to go back and play a game I thought I didn't like to make me realize I was wrong.

Nier: Automata is cursed by getting absolutely glowing reviews that get marred by getting scores that don't reflect what the writer said. That will not happen here. In a year that was just simply amazing for video games this year, out of the dozens of them that I played, Nier: Automata truly does stand atop them all for the experience it provided. Absolutely my Rage Quitter 2017 Game of the Year.

Glory To Mankind.  

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Might be starting to fizzle out on the writing, but we'll keep plugging away on this for as long as I have the energy for it. Thanks for reading. -- CannonMan ┌∩┐(◣_◢)┌∩┐