This is a very late post, but it’s been a very weird year. I played a lot of games since the pandemic started, but it’s been primarily older titles. Titles that I probably would not have revisited if it were a normal year. They were not great though, I ended up not liking many of the games I played and, upon reflection, wondered if that was the best course of action.
On the other hand, I played some fantastic games that released in 2020 — one of them was even a PlayStation 5 exclusive.
Best Old Game
Winner: The Last of Us Remastered
I played over half a dozen older titles from Final Fantasy VI on the Super NES Classic to Call of Duty: World at War on the PlayStation 3. I even decided to play Call of Duty: WW2 and Super Mario 64. I ended up not liking or loving many of those old titles. In fact, the only old game I found myself enjoying was my replay of The Last of Us by way the Remastered edition.
I chose to replay it as a refresher before The Last of Us Part II and found it largely held up. I’m ready to embark on the sequel, but I own a PlayStation 5 now and there may be a chance that PS5 upgrade/update will be released so now I’m just sitting on my copy.
Runner-up: Hitman (2016)
Top 5 Games of 2020
Winner: Hades
2. Ori and the Will of the Wisps
3. Final Fantasy VII Remake
4. Astro’s Playroom
5. Animal Crossing New Horizons
Hades is so good! I would love to play some more Hades, but my PC died and instead of repairing for just myself, I salvaged some old parts and built my fiancée a brand new PC.
Ori and the Will of the Wisps would have been my outright favorite game of 2020 if Hades didn’t enter the fray. A wonderful sequel to Ori and the Blind Forest that may not seem like a huge step up, but when you look back, the changes are substantial.
I don’t love Final Fantasy VII, but I do enjoy the peripheral additions like Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII and even that Final Fantasy VII CG movie, Advent Children. Final Fantasy VII super fans may find Remake unfaithful, but I loved what Square Enix did with it. A faithful remake wouldn’t have been interesting, but weaving in and out of established events made for a more interesting game.
I’m at the point where I will play anything Team Asobi touches. They’re so good at that novel yet simple fun that is very reminiscent of Nintendo. Astro’s Playroom was the perfect inclusion for the PlayStation 5. A celebration of everything PlayStation — old and new.
We played a lot of Animal Crossing New Horizons during the pandemic, but we then dropped it like a stone like my last Animal Crossing game. It drew my fiancee in so much that she flirted with the idea of picking up her own Switch before realizing that she was outpacing the game’s drip feed of content. We had our goals and achieved 75% of it before eventually losing interest. I extracted a solid 3 or 4 months of Animal Crossing fun during a very locked down period of the pandemic.
