HF Game of the Year 2019 - Nominate Games Now!

[SniperHF]

What is everyone's game of the year? Nominate your choice(s) in the thread here then I'll open a poll.

Nominate as many games as you want, there is no limit. Any console, mobile, or PC game.

Games with the most nominations will make the final poll so make sure to continue to nominate games even if they have already been posted.


We'll deal with issues of what should/shouldn't count as they arise.

2019 Video Game Release Schedule

Previous years:
2018 - Red Dead Redemption 2 - 32%
2017 - The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - 31%
2016 - Uncharted 4: A Thief's End - 20%
2015 - The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - 35%
2014 - South Park: The Stick of Truth - 15%
2013 - The Last of Us - 29%
2012 - The Walking Dead - 20%
2011 - The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - 48%

Retro Votes:
2010 - Red Dead Redemption - 31.6%
2009 - Assassin's Creed II - 20%
2008 - Fallout 3 - 43.5%
2007 - Mass Effect - 25%
2006 - The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - 22.8%
2005 - Civilization IV - 22.4%
2004 - Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas - 27.4%
2003 - Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic - 46.4%
2002 - Grand Theft Auto: Vice City - 34.2%
2001 - Grand Theft Auto III - 31.9%
2000 - Diablo II - 20.5%
1999 - Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings - 20%
1998 - The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of time - 34.5%
1997 - GoldenEye 007 - 29.1%
1995 - Super Mario 64 - 42.9%

Click to read more...

 

[Chaels Arms]

Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

 

[Rhaegar Targaryen]

Apex Legends
Pokémon Sword/Shield
Kingdom Hearts 3

 

[Frankie Blueberries]

I only played Apex Legends, Pokemon Sword, Luigi's Mansion 3, and Tetris 99. I would say Apex overall was the best, but Luigi's Mansion 3 was a different experience and will probably hold up better.

I'll probably pick up Slay the Spire soon though, it looks interesting.

 

[firewagonHOCKEY]

Magic the Gathering Arena. Was officially out of beta and released this year. It is a pure joy to play compared to any other Magic product.

 

[Fandlauer]

Days Gone.

 

[syz]

Sekiro
Resident Evil 2
Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Outer Wilds
Code Vein

 

[Ryuji Yamazaki]

Looking back, this was a pretty awful year for gaming.

 

[Jovavic]

I don't get new games that often but I got Fallen Order recently for my birthday and it's pretty dope through four hours so I'll go with that.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

Fire Emblem Three Houses.

 

[Commander Clueless]

Fire Emblem for me.

 

[Trap Jesus]

Disco Elysium

 

[H3ckt1k]

give me fire emblem

 

[Shareefruck]

Didn't really play anything from this year that was that worthwhile. If I were to guess what the best made game of the year was, it would be Sekiro, which I didn't get a chance to play (but sounds like it nailed everything and doesn't have any red flags that jump out at me). I hate Fire Emblem's bland and soulless design/aesthetic sensibilities and general thirsty gaze (I don't think any amount of gameplay can save those shortcomings, personally) and think Resident Evil 2 is cool (I like the basic looks, feel, and mechanics of it), but overrated (really bad/cheese-ball writing, intentional or not, and they botched the A/B run concept).

Edit: Oh wait, I forgot, I guess I'll go with Tetris 99 by default. Kind of feels like cheating because 99% of it is due to Tetris being inherently great, but it was a hilarious and inspired idea that nailed and enhanced an already perfect game while getting the spirit of it right (much more-so than Tetris Effect, IMO). Any other year, I'd try to pick something else.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

Didn't really play anything from this year that was that worthwhile. If I were to guess what the best made game of the year was, it would be Sekiro, which I didn't get a chance to play (but sounds like it nailed everything and doesn't have any red flags that jump out at me). I hate Fire Emblem's bland and soulless design/aesthetic sensibilities and general thirsty gaze (I don't think any amount of gameplay can save those shortcomings, personally) and think Resident Evil 2 is cool (I like the basic looks, feel, and mechanics of it), but overrated (really bad/cheese-ball writing, intentional or not, and they botched the A/B run concept).

Edit: Oh wait, I forgot, I guess I'll go with Tetris 99 by default. Kind of feels like cheating because 99% of it is due to Tetris being inherently great, but it was a hilarious and inspired idea that nailed and enhanced an already perfect game while getting the spirit of it right (much more-so than Tetris Effect, IMO). Any other year, I'd try to pick something else.

Just curious, what was the last FE game you played and what did you think of it?

 

[Shareefruck]

Just curious, what was the last FE game you played and what did you think of it?

I haven't played enough of it to get a good grasp of the mechanics, if that's what you're trying to get to the bottom of. To clarify, I'm only saying that the look, feel, and general presentation/delivery of it is enough of a deal-breaker for me that even if the gameplay is hypothetically incredible (which it could be, I wouldn't know), I'm not going to be able to think too highly of it. I'm not saying that I have experience with the series or can be an authority on it by any stretch. I've only actually played through the beginnings of the three SNES ones a while back and the introductory section of Three Houses (shortly after picking the house). The visuals and character designs and presentation are just so garish, sterile, devoid of personality, and generally gross looking to me that it was just an immediate hard pass for me. Storytelling was very bland as well, but not comfortable commenting on gameplay with that little exposure to it.

RE2:Remake I did play through the entirety of, though.

 

[Dolemite]

Death Stranding. All other games released this year are lower tiered garbage.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

I haven't played enough of it to get a good grasp of the mechanics, if that's what you're trying to get to the bottom of. To clarify, I'm only saying that the look, feel, and general presentation/delivery of it is enough of a deal-breaker for me that even if the gameplay is hypothetically incredible (which it could be, I wouldn't know), I'm not going to be able to think too highly of it. I'm not saying that I have experience with the series or can be an authority on it by any stretch. I've only actually played through the beginnings of the three SNES ones a while back and the introductory section of Three Houses (shortly after picking the house). The visuals and character designs and presentation are just so garish, sterile, devoid of personality, and generally gross looking to me that it was just an immediate hard pass for me. Storytelling was very bland as well, but not comfortable commenting on gameplay with that little exposure to it.

RE2:Remake I did play through the entirety of, though.

Well if you've only played the introductory section then you're really not getting into the meat of the game. As far as gameplay goes FE:TH is fine, but the characters and story are what really sell it.

To put it into terms you might better understand, this is like playing Earthbound and never leaving Onett.

 

[Big McLargehuge]

I have a damn good feeling Disco Elysium would win if it was on a platform I want to play on, but I spend too much time working on my computer to want to spend my free time on it too. I can't wait until that game is on a platform I actually want to play on.

So for that extremely lame reason I think I'm going to vote for Fire Emblem: Three Houses. Turn-based strategy on the Switch is basically perfect for me and my expectations were so battered by the lousy way they originally showed the game off that the game easily surpassed expectations and took over my life for the better part of a month. Plenty of replayability here, too.

The Outer Worlds would have made this a coin-toss had the game nailed the final few hours better. The fact I actually could finish an open-world game was extremely nice, I'm too obsessive about clearing out maps to ever finish longer games (I spent 100+ hours with RDR 2 and didn't come close to finishing it, for example). Just one more interesting place to spend a few more hours in probably would have been enough for me. I wanted more, which is both a good thing and a bad thing. Frankly I wish more games left me wanting more than being these massive games that demand you play it exclusively for eons...but it also felt like the game was kinda rushing to the finale after spending a disproportionate amount of time on Monarch. That's not enough to stop me from loving the game and recommending it, but it is enough to pick Fire Emblem over it. Parvati was definitely my favorite character of the year, though.

 

[Shareefruck]

Well if you've only played the introductory section then you're really not getting into the meat of the game. As far as gameplay goes FE:TH is fine, but the characters and story are what really sell it.

To put it into terms you might better understand, this is like playing Earthbound and never leaving Onett.

If Earthbound looked and felt as bad and soulless as Thee Houses does, I wouldn't feel that strongly about it either, personally, regardless of whether the storytelling was just as strong (it's not like Earthbound's raw story on its own is that incredible anyways). It oozes personality, style, charm, and aesthetic from the very beginning. And it conveys its strength in writing right away as well (yes, as early as Onett). For me, there are zero games I can think of that have as bad of a first impression as Three Houses does that ended up winning me over on some other later game strength. YMMV.

As I mentioned, I am not at all judging the aspects of it that I haven't gotten to yet-- I'm not assuming that it has a bad story, character development, and gameplay. What I'm saying is that what it's bad at (and I'm pretty sure THOSE aspects don't change as you get deeper into the game) are a total deal-breaker for me, regardless of how good those aspects that I'm missing out on end up being. To me, it's bad enough to distract from any possible strengths that I can imagine.

On top of that, I generally find the importance of raw plot development and character development in video-games (while not negligible) overstated anyways. Art direction and moment to moment mood building/tone-setting/sensibilities are so much more important to me.

 

[Frankie Blueberries]

I haven't played enough of it to get a good grasp of the mechanics, if that's what you're trying to get to the bottom of. To clarify, I'm only saying that the look, feel, and general presentation/delivery of it is enough of a deal-breaker for me that even if the gameplay is hypothetically incredible (which it could be, I wouldn't know), I'm not going to be able to think too highly of it. I'm not saying that I have experience with the series or can be an authority on it by any stretch. I've only actually played through the beginnings of the three SNES ones a while back and the introductory section of Three Houses (shortly after picking the house). The visuals and character designs and presentation are just so garish, sterile, devoid of personality, and generally gross looking to me that it was just an immediate hard pass for me. Storytelling was very bland as well, but not comfortable commenting on gameplay with that little exposure to it.

RE2:Remake I did play through the entirety of, though.

Funny because this was my experience with Fire Emblem Awakening on the 3DS. After reading countless reviews calling it a masterpiece, 9.5-10/10, etc. I needed to see what the hype was about. I gave it a fair shot, plugging in about 5-10 hours, and just did not get the appeal. My issues were the same as yours, but I also found the gameplay boring as well (the strategy side didn't seem too important as I pretty much never lost any battles, but maybe playing on the default difficulty was where I went wrong). Everything about it was so unappealing, I don't get it.

 

[Shareefruck]

Funny because this was my experience with Fire Emblem Awakening on the 3DS. After reading countless reviews calling it a masterpiece, 9.5-10/10, etc. I needed to see what the hype was about. I gave it a fair shot, plugging in about 5-10 hours, and just did not get the appeal. My issues were the same as yours, but I also found the gameplay boring as well (the strategy side didn't seem too important as I pretty much never lost any battles, but maybe playing on the default difficulty was where I went wrong). Everything about it was so unappealing, I don't get it.

Don't get me wrong, normally I wouldn't be this dismissive of things simply on the uncertain feeling of "Gee, I don't know if I like this or not-- It's pretty weird, questionable, and alienating-- I just don't get it and I'm not sure what to make of it yet."-- There are tons of things that I don't get the appeal of at all that I can possibly chalk up to ignorance/lack of comfort and acknowledge that I might warm up to it over time.

In this case, I have a genuine, active, aggressive, and overruling distaste for what I don't like about it.

 

[Big McLargehuge]

My tolerance for anime and waifu stuff is extremely low. The positives of Fire Emblem dwarf the cutesy stuff in my book. The characters are generally developed very well so as to not be the paper cutouts they may appear to be and there's much less of the annoying cutesy crap than certain other FE games (which greatly weighed Fates down IMO).

I'll never get over how much I love JRPGs/turn-based strategy games considering how little I can tolerate the extreme majority of anime that influence them. I'll just say I'm happy that my absolute disdain for Dragon Ball and Toriyama's art style didn't stop me from playing Chrono Trigger.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

If Earthbound looked and felt as bad and soulless as Thee Houses does, I wouldn't feel that strongly about it either, personally, regardless of whether the storytelling was just as strong (it's not like Earthbound's raw story on its own is that incredible anyways). It oozes personality, style, charm, and aesthetic from the very beginning. And it conveys its strength in writing right away as well (yes, as early as Onett). For me, there are zero games I can think of that have as bad of a first impression as Three Houses does that ended up winning me over on some other later game strength. YMMV.

As I mentioned, I am not at all judging the aspects of it that I haven't gotten to yet-- I'm not assuming that it has a bad story, character development, and gameplay. What I'm saying is that what it's bad at (and I'm pretty sure THOSE aspects don't change as you get deeper into the game) are a total deal-breaker for me, regardless of how good those aspects that I'm missing out on end up being. To me, it's bad enough to distract from any possible strengths that I can imagine.

On top of that, I generally find the importance of raw plot development and character development in video-games (while not negligible) overstated anyways. Art direction and moment to moment mood building/tone-setting/sensibilities are so much more important to me.

I feel like soulless is such a meme buzzword, and even if I didn't think that way, I would still apply it to the yearly franchises (most shooters and sports games for instance).

And to your last point, I feel that's one of Three Houses' biggest strengths. The Lords you're introduced to all clearly have more going on than what the surface tells you.

And speaking from someone who holds Earthbound in the highest regard, I don't feel like the introduction is all that great, and the game really doesn't pick up until Fourside.

 

[Jasper]

Metro Exodus